Postclassical

by Horizon Runner

Prelude: Can't Find My Way Home

It was as Octavia nursed her fifth glass of beer that she realized—fully—that her life was effectively over.

The painkillers were finally wearing off and the freshly unbroken leg was throbbing through the alcohol buzz. She stared at her reflection in the amber elixir, contemplating everything. Yes, her life was probably as good as over. Her career, certainly, wouldn't survive today. Her cello… was still back at the concert hall.

That fact bothered her the most. It had been her mother's cello, and her mother's father's before that, and so on. It was probably sitting there in its case, no doubt being held onto most courteously by the conductor or whoever had found it first. There was little chance that it would be taken by accident—it was a blatantly antique instrument, and Octavia's name was on the side, carved at the bottom of an ancestral list eight deep. She'd have to go back to get it, eventually. Leaving it behind was simply unthinkable.

It was only after her sixth glass that she finally looked up at the place she'd stumbled into. It was one of those newer music bars, the sort of location which one might appropriately call a “club”. The lights were dim, except for the places where they were excruciatingly bright and colored like a sickly neon rainbow. The bar itself was styled as a large disc, with grooves laid in that Octavia dimly recognized as being intended to mimic those on a vinyl record. The “dance floor” was wrapped around the bar, continuing the theme. A few ponies were out bobbing heads and shuffling feet, but it really was largely empty. It was a Tuesday night, after all.

The bartender was a stallion in his mid-thirties, his eyes hidden behind a ludicrous pair of sunglasses, which were spiked out at the edges, matching with his mane—an equally ludicrous construction of red and gold, divided down the middle and gelled out into a sort of clam-shape. Octavia wasn't sure what style to call it, exactly. Combined with the piercings through his nose and ears and the metal circlets wrapped around the front edges of his wings, he looked positively alien. It was… comforting; a reminder that she was far, far away from the prim and the proper paradigm from which she'd fled earlier.

Whatever was coming out of the speakers sounded nothing like any music Octavia had ever heard, but at the moment it suited her just fine. There was a strange constance to its beat, a progression as alien to her as the bartender's appearance. For the life of her, Octavia couldn't pin down a single instrument in the composition. After a moment, she realized that this was probably because the entire composition was synthesized. Odd, yes, but, like the bartender, strangely comforting in its oddness.

It was, however, much louder than she'd have liked. The bouncing bass seemed to resonate in her chest, and Octavia suddenly had to hold back another rush of nausea. The bartender saw this and moved quickly, whipping a paper bag out from somewhere and offering it to her urgently, but Octavia waved him off wordlessly, choking back the flood. “Thank you,” she said, raising her voice to a near-shout to be heard over the music. “But I'm alright. Just… the pain medicines. Still wearing off. Plenty of fun.”

The bartender eyed her skeptically. “Hon, it's not my place to tell you your business, but you don't look like the type to hang out around here.” His frown deepened. “Also… you sure you should be mixing painkillers with booze?”

“They're wearing off,” Octavia repeated like it was the most obvious thing in the world. She downed her seventh glass.

The bartender's eyebrows rose. “Okay, whoa, hold up. You got my attention. I don't care why you're on the meds, but seven is too many.”

Octavia groaned and waved a hoof dismissively. “Please, spare me. I'm an earth pony, to start with—very high tolerances—and I've been drinking wine—in moderation—since I was eight—so…” She stifled a most unladylike belch. “Very high tolerances. Yes.”

The bartender shrugged, ruffling his wings a bit. The bracelets jingled. “Wouldn't know. Still not giving you another.”

Octavia was about to start muttering some very nasty words, when all of a sudden a hoof was wrapped around her shoulder. The experience didn't register for a moment, during which Octavia sat stone-still, letting the hoof work its way well into place.

Her head turned slowly. Sitting next to her, with her hoof around Octavia's shoulder and her face blazing with the cockiest grin in history, was a white-coated unicorn with a lightning-blue mane and a huge pair of black-rimmed, iridescent sunglasses. Inside. At night. Huh.

She was also… a mare. For some reason, that fact registered to Octavia as particularly important. Inside her head, a freshly marinated little pony clumsily struck steel to flint. Why did it matter that this pony was a mare? Something about the bar?

“Well hi,” said the unicorn.

Steel scraped flint, and a spark flickered in Octavia's head. Yes… something about the bar, something exceedingly important. Alas, the spark fizzled out as the alcohol in her veins surged over it. “Hi,” she responded dimly.

“Haven't seen you around here before.”

“Well, I haven't been around here before.”

“Cool accent. Upper Canterlot?”

“Mhmm. Yours is… Bittsburgh?”

“Yup. Vinyl Scratch. My name, but I go by Vinyl mostly. Yours?”

“Octavia. Octavia Melody, to be precise, but I prefer to just go by Octavia.”

“That's a cool name.”

“Why thank you. Yours is also, ah, cool.”

“So…”

“So…?”

“You wanna bang?”

It was at this point, finally, that the spark caught.

The sign above the bar: “The Rainbow Record.”

Above that, a neon disc done up in seven colors.

Octavia's little flame of understanding flickered a bit. “Oh.”

Vinyl cocked her head. “Oh?”

Crackle. “No.”

Vinyl blinked. “No?”

The flame blazed to life, catching off the alcohol in a conflagration of realization and emotion which made itself apparent through Octavia's cheeks. “Um… Oh, I'm so so… so so sorry about this. I… ah… seem to have wandered into the wrong sort of bar, if you… catch my… meaning.”

The bartender let out a low groan, and lowered his head—bizarre mane and all—onto the counter. “Called it.”

Vinyl Scratch blinked twice, and her mouth formed a silent “O” as she slowly lifted her hoof away. “Okay, wow, awkward. Uh… sorry?”

“No, no, it's c-completely my fault,” Octavia said, though it came out as more of a nervous giggle. “It's just that I… well I didn't really read the sign, seeing as how I was looking to get hopelessly drunk as fast as possible… well, no… well, yes, I suppose that I was what I was doing.” She raised her hooves to cup her face, and let out a tiny scream as her injured member complained.

Vinyl's voice carried a note of incredulity. “Okay, wow, seriously awkward. Are you… okay?”

“Oh, Tartarus no!” Octavia let out a bitter laugh. “Okay? Okay? I don't believe I can see how today can be considered even remotely okay!”

“Uh…” Vinyl shot a glance at the bartender. “Wanna talk about it?” she asked, giving Octavia a cautious smile.

“Not at all," Octavia lied, her voice far beyond the control of her judgment. "Just… why in Tartarus did that particular cab driver happen to swerve onto the sidewalk today? Today, the date of the biggest show of my life. And then my normal doctor—the good one—is out on a house call and they have some… bloody apprentice fix the fracture… and my entire family was at that performance, and I, the first-chair cellist, arrived twenty minutes late and stuffed full of painkillers, playing with a leg that was still partly numb! And then, to top it off, the thrice-damned concertmaster asks to see me after it's all over, and I… release my lunch onto her very fine suit before running like a schoolfilly caught with her hoof in a damned cookie jar! And then, to top it all off, the bar I chose to drown in happens to be a… um… well, a gay bar.”

Vinyl whistled. “Hell of a day.”

The bartender nodded. “Hell of a day.”

Octavia's body sagged like a balloon without air, and she ended up lying part-way across the counter. “Yes, well, seeing as how my life is over anyhow, can I have another drink, please? Like I said: very high tolerances. I'm not nearly drunk enough yet.”

Vinyl and the bartender shared a glance. They leaned in, and a whispered conversation occurred outside of Octavia's hearing.

Eventually, it stopped being whispered as the exchange grew heated. “...damn it, Rocksteady,” Vinyl said. “Just look at her.”

The bartender—Rocksteady, apparently—wiped a wing across his forehead. “I'm lookin', Scratchy, and I can tell you that the last thing she needs is another drink.”

Octavia just let her head rest on the counter, her eyes drifting across the grooves. She could feel the dull pain as the pattern embedded itself into her cheek, but she didn't really care.

So this was what she'd become? A drunkard wandering into bars, hoping for nothing more than to obliviate her woes beneath a torrent of booze? Had she really sunk that low?

Vinyl pounded a hoof on the table, causing Octavia's head a great deal of pain. “I'll cover her damn tab," Vinyl said.

“It's not about the tab, hon," Rocksteady said, his voice firm. Steady. Like a rock. The absurd little thought almost made her laugh, until his next words stole the mirth away. "I can't in good conscience let her take a dive like this, not seeing the state she's in.”

Ah. So he pitied her. Of course he did. Vinyl did, too, didn't she? Everything good that was happening to her was because of how pitiful she'd become. Octavia bit her lip and tried not to cry. She failed.

The tears flowed like rivers. She tried to hide it by raising her hoof to her face, but she picked the left one again and let out another yelp as it connected with her nose. Vinyl and Rocksteady glanced at her and saw her state.

“Damn it,” Vinyl muttered. “I came here to find a bang-buddy. This was not how I planned to spend my night.”

Rocksteady rolled his eyes. “It's not technically your mess, hon.”

“C'mon, you know me, dude. I'm the whitest of all white knights. I have a code, for Luna's sake.”

He shrugged. “Just speaking the truth. Not my fault you gotta play life the hard way, hon.”

“Okay.” Vinyl hooked a hoof around Octavia once more, and the latter flinched at the touch. “Come on,” Vinyl said. “You're crashing at my apartment tonight.”

Octavia blinked furiously and rubbed her nose with the hoof that wasn't busy healing. She resisted the urge to mumble something bitter about "not needing Vinyl's charity." The mare had been perfectly lovely to her. She didn't deserve that kind of bitterness. “Thank you,” she mumbled instead, “but I have a place I'm staying.”

Vinyl blinked as if the concept eluded her. “You do realize… where you are, right? The part of the city?”

Octavia frowned as her soggy brain did its best to figure out the answer. “Somewhere… eastward? I don't see how that's a problem.”

Vinyl's voice went deadpan. “Try south. Southern Manehattan. After midnight. Seeing the problem?”

Octavia frowned. “I'm staying at a hotel near Manehattan Grand Park. It's a bit of a walk I suppose.”

Vinyl just sighed. “You haven't been here long, have you?”

Octavia shook her head, ushering forth a new wave of nausea that she suppressed only through some deeply entrenched force of will.

Vinyl put a hoof on Octavia's shoulder, gently. “South side is the part with all the crazy ponies, the muggers and the cultists and the generally nasty types. You're in the manticore's mouth if you walk out that door.”

Rocksteady raised a wing. “I gotta agree with Vinyl. We're still pretty close to the city center, but even around here's not safe if you're alone. You're lucky you didn't get jumped on your way in.”

Octavia sunk into a slump as the full reality of her situation sunk in. “So in other words: I'm trapped in a gay bar in the bad part of town, the director will probably be waiting to fire me, my hotel room may already have been revoked, and the entire orchestra is going to want my head, plus—”

Vinyl cut her off with a tug on her shoulder. “Listen to yourself for a second. Hear that? That is not healthy thinking. Are any of those things true? Who knows. Can you change them if they are? Not so much.” Vinyl pushed her sunglasses down her nose, and Octavia was struck dumb by her eyes—deeper red than any ruby.

“So let's try a different tactic, eh?” Vinyl continued. “You're pretty drunk, probably still a little drugged, and I'm betting you're exhausted on top of that. All of those things can be alleviated by a good night's sleep, and there is a perfectly good room right upstairs.”

“So… I'd sleep with you?” Octavia realized too late how her words had sounded, but Vinyl had already lost her grin.

“Look, I may be a lesbian, but I'm not gonna… ugh. Just. No.” Vinyl rolled her eyes and let out a long sigh. “I'd be seriously offended if you weren't drunk off your ass. No. I've got a couch, I'll crash there if you're really that spooked. Sucks to be my spine, but I'll live.”

Octavia opened her mouth to protest, but Vinyl put a hoof to her lips. “Just… shut up and take my charity, okay?” She removed her glasses completely, setting them on the counter. Her eyes flickered in the ever-changing light, like a pair of compassionate little flames. “You've had a shit run? That sucks, but it happens to everypony once in a while. Just take a day or six and ride the fucker out. Then you can start dealing with the problem, instead of worrying over stuff you can't change.”

Octavia almost didn't accept. Despite everything, every great piece of advice Vinyl had just given her, to accept the offer felt like admitting that her career was finished—relinquishing her place in that high-class hotel, and with it, her place in that orchestra chair.

But… she already believed that, didn't she?

“All right,” she said. The words sent a shiver through her. Why did it feel like the point of no return? She'd live. She was still young, and she had more than a few marketable talents. Even if the orchestra was closed to her, there were plenty of other options. It wasn't as if her life had truly ended—just, perhaps, a long chapter of it, and even then, that still wasn't certain.

Wherever there's life, there's change, after all... and I'm not dead quite yet.

She nodded again, certain this time. “All right. Thank you, Vinyl Scratch.” You're a better pony than I deserved to meet, but I won't forget your kindness.

Vinyl shot her a cocky smile. “Good. Glad you've seen reason. One more thing? Unless you're seriously gonna be too creeped out to handle it, can we still share the bed? I wasn't kidding about my spine; that couch is like a slab of granite.”

Octavia sighed, and let her head fall back to look up at the ceiling, at all the spinning lights and faint wisps of smoke. Her ears drooped, and her eyelids slid closed.

Perhaps… this was to be her lowest point. Tomorrow morning, she'd look out upon the world anew and find a path to forge.

Tomorrow, she'd make sure that her world changed. For the better, preferably.

Octavia didn't remember anything after that, but she did know that she slept.

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