Chapter 13 - Glasses & Scarves
Asking somepony out on a date was supposed to be easy. Well, not an actual date. More of a private dinner at her home, but the way you asked them was still the same. Go up to them, get their attention, and ask the questions. Job done.
For Vinyl, however, it proved to be quite a bit more difficult than that. Partially because she still felt nervous whenever she thought about it, but also because she had partially forgotten where Octavia lived. She still remembered that it was an apartment complex, and that it was number 192, but much to her chagrin she had forgotten the street name. Lyra had mentioned some kind of shop last time, but which was it? It felt like one of those times when you misplaced your hair brush for the third time in a day, and so had to go looking for it. Again.
Of course, such a thing had never happened to Vinyl. Never. And it was most definitely not the reason for her often unkempt mane.
It was for that reason that she found herself heading towards Lyra’s house, hoping that she would be willing to tell her where she could find Octavia. It was, after all, infinitely easier to ask someone out to dinner if she knew where to find them.
It wasn’t long before she stood knocking on her friend’s door in short order, standing in front of the mint-coloured building. Vinyl would bet her left legs that it was deliberate. A raspberry door, framed on either side by shuttered windows the colour of sunflowers. It truly was a sight to behold, standing out from the rest of the neighbourhood through colour alone, even if the building itself was much the same. Most other buildings were more subdued in their colours, staying closer to the more common oranges, reds and browns.
The wonders of modern magic.
Vinyl finally tore her eyes away from the surrounding buildings, prompted by the sound of the door in front of her opening. Behind it stood Lyra, mane in a braid and a pair of glasses on her snout, looking out at Vinyl with a slightly puzzled look on her face.
“Hi Vinny!” she greeted, her initially confused expression quickly enthusiastic and welcoming. “What brings you to my sugary abode?”
Vinyl raised an eyebrow behind her spectacles, willfully ignoring the nickname, “I didn’t know you needed glasses,” she said.
At first Lyra’s face scrunched up in puzzlement once more, before a look of realisation dawned on her. “Oh, these?” She asked, pulling off the glasses with her magic, holding them in front of her for Vinyl to see. “Not surprising. I got them a couple weeks ago. They’re just for reading.” She put them back on her muzzle, taking a moment to adjust them. “But you’re not here to ask about my newly acquired glasses—” She took a moment to push them farther up the bridge of her nose with a hoof, shooting Vinyl a self-satisfied smirk “—Awesome as they are. So what’s up?”
Vinyl chuckled and rubbed the back of her head, not quite able to meet Lyra’s eyes. Vinyl couldn’t remember a time when Lyra had lied to her, or been deceitful. Had there ever even been a time when anything but respect had been shown by her? No… There hadn’t. Vinyl took another moment to gather her thoughts, then said, “Promise you won’t laugh?” Vinyl pleaded, finally meeting her friend’s gaze.
“I’m not sure what this is about,” Lyra said, taking a few steps back to allow her friend inside, closing the door after her, “but I can promise that I won’t laugh.” She gave her an encouraging pat on the back, guiding them towards the kitchen. “Besides, when have I ever laughed at you for doing or saying something?”
At this, Vinyl looked up from scanning the cover of the closed book on the kitchen table—it showed a dark unicorn wielding a giant, silvery blade—and looked at Lyra in a way, that could only be described as giving her the stink-eye. “Remember when I came to you, wanting to show you how good I had become at playing the harp?”
Lyra froze momentarily, full kettle hovering in the air before her. Her muzzle scrunched up and her pupils shrank rapidly. “I didn’t laugh,” she said slowly, putting the kettle down. Vinyl did not look convinced. “I wasn’t!” She insisted. “At least not to start with.”
“No, you started by cringing,” the DJ pointed out, chuckling shortly. “Then you began giggling, comparing my playing the harp to some foal banging a stick against a fence.”
First she let out a barely strained snort, which quickly became full on laughter as Lyra struggled to light the gas stove. “And you looked so offended! Almost like someone had ‘besmirched’ your entire lineage.”
“At which point you, Lyra Heartstrings, started laughing your tail off, endlessly amused by your own wit.”
The matches finally became cooperative, and Lyra finally got the stove turned on. “And charm, don’t forget charm!”
Vinyl found herself sharing Lyra’s mirth, walking up beside her. She wrapped one of her front legs around the mint unicorn’s neck, pulling her close in a half-hug. With the other hoof she started messing up what bits of her hair was not braided. “I’ll let your fillyfriend be the judge of that.”
Lyra blew a raspberry and pulled away from Vinyl, doing her best to repair the damage done to her braid. “I’ll have you know that Bonbon thinks I am plenty charming, thank you very much!” She retorted, sending a blast of magic at Vinyl’s mane. It turned even more chaotic as a result. “Hah!” Lyra exclaimed triumphantly.
“Very funny,” Vinyl said dryly, and patted down her mane in an effort to not make it look like a bird’s nest. “How’s it going with her, anyhow? She as strict as ever?”
“She was never really strict,” Lyra said while pouring water from the kettle. “She’s more like… very persuasive, with good arguments. I have camomile or tropical. Which do you prefer?”
“Camomile,” Vinyl replied, watching Lyra finding the appropriate tea bags. “So if she’s so persuasive, how come she still hasn’t convinced you to learn how to dance?”
“What makes you think she hasn’t?” She replied, winking, then handed one cup of tea to Vinyl, and took the other for herself. She sat down at the table, pushing aside the book. “I just pretend not to want to. Saving it for the wedding.”
Vinyl raised one eyebrow and sipped at her tea. “You two are getting married?”
Lyra chuckled. “Nah. Not yet. Still haven’t proposed, or been proposed to. I just enjoy whining about how I can’t dance, then being stubborn when she starts bullying me into signing up for classes.”
“But things are good, I hope?”
“Yeah, they are. Work’s been getting a little busy with a sudden influx of requests from small-time theaters wanting background music, but other than that, it’s good, I think. Though Bon Bon’s still...”
Their conversation continued for well over an hour, and Vinyl couldn’t help but think, that it was a shame she didn’t have more time like this with her friends. Just talking over tea and coffee, reminiscing about times past, or discussing recent events and news. Of course, among mares and fillies, a far more popular topic often came up; stallions.
Only, for the two of them it was a matter of the opposite sex. She much rather preferred talking about how some mare she’d seen somewhere, had looked particularly attractive.
This train of thought also brought her mind back to the reason she had come here in the first place, before Lyra’s antics and friendly nature had drawn her in and distracted her.
She set down her third cup of tea, glancing up at where Lyra had opened her book and was in the middle of turning a page, having started reading when their conversations stalled and Vinyl fell into a contemplative silence.
“Hey, Lyra?” She asked, causing the mare in question to look up suddenly, having to push her glasses farther up her muzzle.
“Yes?”
Vinyl gave her a small, apologetic smile. “I appreciate the company, but I was just reminded why I came here again. I was gonna ask you about something. You know… The thing I asked you not to laugh at me for?”
Lyra responded with a good-natured roll of her eyes. “Come on, Vinyl. You don’t have to apologise to me. The last couple hours have been worth it.” She lifted her glasses off of her muzzle, placing them gently on the book and pushing it aside. “So, what did you wanna ask me? I give great dating advice, by the way.”
Snorting, Vinyl returned the eye-roll, unseen behind her glasses. “So you say. But it is kind of up that alley. I came by to ask you where exactly Octavia lives?” She rubbed the side of her head, grimacing and trying not to meet Lyra’s gaze. “I sort of forgot. I mean, I remember which number it was, and that it was in an apartment complex, but other than that I’m…” she moved her hooves away from her head, mimicking a mushroom cloud, “poof. So I was hoping you could tell me… Again.”
Mirth danced in the harpist’s eyes, spreading to the rest of her face faster than Vinyl liked. It was an expression that, whenever it appeared on Lyra’s face, whoever had elicited it knew they were in for relentless teasing for at least a week. It wasn’t something Vinyl was especially looking forward to, but if it was the price for a date…
“Oh, I can tell you,” Lyra said at length, pursing her lips and placing one hoof over the other, leaning ever so slightly forward over the table. “But it’ll come at a price, you know. Information isn’t free, after all. So… Come on, old friend, gimme an offer I can’t refuse.” She finished the statement by adopting a businesslike expression, and even held Vinyl’s deadpan stare for all of five seconds before she burst into giggles. Waving off the annoyed groan from the mare opposite her.
“I hope,” Vinyl began several moments later, when Lyra had yet to stifle her fit, “that you were only making an attempt at humour. Because if you were not, I may just have to sue you on behalf of every single corn in existence, for stealing their corniness.”
In response Lyra blew a raspberry, finally able to control her giggles. She held a hoof in front of her mouth, eyes still glittering with mischievousness, but did as Vinyl wanted, and finally went back on topic. “Well, I’m half serious. I do want to hear what your date ends up being like, buuut… I can tell you.” She lit her horn and pulled a small piece of paper and a pen from a drawer, before scribbling down a few quick words and handing it to Vinyl.
“All you have to do is look at that note, and bam, you know her address… More or less. I asked some old friends since last time, and got some more info. She’s two blocks down from Jumping Records, on the right side of the road. Look for the huge building with a giant swan painted on its side. It’s on Saint’s Street.”
“Thanks.” Vinyl took the note in her own magic, trading the golden telekinetic field with her own light blue. She nodded at the address, hazy images of the building in question coming back to her. She stood up and walked around to where Lyra sat, and pulled her into a quick hug. “You’ve been a huge help, bad humour notwithstanding, but how did you get it?” She asked pulling away.
“You’re welcome, Vinyl,” Lyra replied returning the embrace. “And I asked a friend, Holly, who works in the mail delivery service, explained that I wanted to visit an old friend. I remembered that he was in her grade in uni, so I tried my luck, and boom.” She shot Vinyl a lopsided smile. “Though I am serious, I want a report on how your date went.”
The DJ just laughed and started for the door, calling over her shoulder, “I’ll be sure to give you a five page report if you give a thank you to that friend of yours!”
Lyra, never one to miss a beat, shouted, “I will, and I’ll hold you to it!” And waved back at her.
Vinyl found herself walking in a rather modest area, two blocks past Jumping Records as Lyra had said. It wasn’t so much a street, as it was a small community of apartments, made up mostly of row houses, though dominated by a large apartment complex four floors tall that faced the street, a giant painting of a swan covering its entire left side. The building was large enough that it had three different entrances, each marked by a number in the triple digits.
Vinyl looked down on the note in her magic again, muttering the street name written there, supplying house number herself. Looking up at the nearest door, she saw a large “188” emblazoned above the dark-red door with black metal. Two more to go, then, until she reached 192.
She continued walking, stuffing the note into her mane where it should hopefully remain secure. It was a small thing, but she didn’t want to just drop it, lest someone get a hold of it and… I dunno. Creep on her? It only says the address, not who lives there.
Not that they couldn’t find out. One look at the mailboxes just past the front door, would tell anyone who lived in the complex itself. But that was besides the point! She told herself that she didn’t want to litter, though the truth was probably more along the lines of, not wanting to let someone else get a paper with Octavia’s Address.
A warmth spread through her cheeks and she fought to not slam her forehead against her hoof. That thought was beyond sappy, Vinyl. Come on. She pushed her glasses farther up the bridge of her muzzle and continued on, counting the houses until she finally came to the one with the proper number.
It was a simple, maroon door with a single, frosted window taking up much of the top half of it. She pushed the door open and looked up at the concrete stairs. Looking to her right she found several rows of mailboxes, each labeled with a name and a floor. Glancing over them, Vinyl quickly found the one she was looking for. “Octavia Philharmonica, second floor to the left,” she whispered to herself.
Up the stairs she went, glancing briefly at each door before moving on, going from ground floor, to first, to second floor. There she found what she was looking for; a dark oak door, the name Octavia Philharmonica written in white on the very wood. She walked up to the door, lifted her hoof as if to knock, but then hesitated. Was Octavia home? Would she mind her coming by unannounced? Would it be creepy of her to just show up out of the blue? What if she didn’t want to go on a date, or if—She stopped herself. Such thoughts didn’t get her anywhere. So she drew in a breath, and knocked.
A moment passed.
Then another.
Vinyl felt her heart beat harder, faster. Her hooves suddenly felt cold, and she had to fight to keep her ears from pressing down against her head. She felt like a school filly again. Caught somewhere between the mix of dread when waiting to be called in for an exam, and the anxiety that came with waiting for the grade afterwards. Only the stakes here felt so much higher.
I swear, if my brain continues to treat me like I’m some kid again then— The door opened, revealing Octavia, a pink scarf around her neck.
A small smile appeared on her lips, pleasant surprise in her eyes. “Vinyl,” she said, “what brings you here?”
Damn she’s cute, was about the only thing Vinyl managed to register before she promptly tied knots on her own tongue, half a dozen greetings dying on her tongue. Before long even Octavia looked confused, one ear rigid while the other flopped to the side. Albeit short, this mental stumble did allow Vinyl to realise her own silly behavior and forced her composure to return, ending her half-finished words with a short, and simple, “Hi.”
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8699034 *insert unamused Princess Luna emote here*
And I finished and now have to wait. The comments speak of terrible things.
8700067
And I'm glad you liked that bit. I hope to do it some justice later on.
Thanks for catching the typos and such
8699056
I have a friend who would say the same. And to you, I say, bring it. The puns will last forever!
And I think next month, I think. No promises, but I should be able to have a chapter finished by then.
No obvious typos in this one? Well darn. I wanted to keep doing my self-given job that nobody asked me to do.
8700389
As it turns out, Taranasaurus and I do learn :P
8700396
Coulda fooled me my dude~