Second First Impressions

by Turai

Chapter 1

The soft yet slightly coarse sound of a cello playing gently woke Vinyl Scratch from her slumber. Yawning, she looked out the window; it was already well past noon. No surprise there, seeing as her internal clock was whacked after so many years working as a DJ.
It sure felt weird being back to Ponyville after living in Canterlot for so many years. She got out of bed and put on her trademark glasses before she went down the stairs towards the living room.

She saw her wife standing on her hind legs in the living room surrounded by unopened cardboard boxes, playing her cello.
The sight made the DJ smile; there weren’t many things in life she enjoyed more than watching her beloved play her music. Octavia noticed the warm smile and responded in kind, her eyes kind and inviting.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a series of loud knocks on the door, and still smiling she went to open it. As she opened the door she came face to face with a pair of huge blue eyes inches from her face and a loud voice yelling,

“Hey, you’re new! I’m Pinkie Pie! Welcome to Ponyville! What’s your name!?”

The large blue eyes took a step backwards revealing a pony who’s physical description most certainly gave her name justice. The rather large bouncing pony had a bright pink coat and a large curly cotton candy mane complete with what could best be described as a “hat basket” on her head filled with what looked like postcards.

In all honesty, Vinyl was rather shocked at the pink pony’s antics but she wasn’t about to be upstaged by some newcomer in being loud and obnoxious.

“Hey I’m Vinyl Scratch! Yup, THAT Vinyl Scratch! And behind me-“

“Hey Vinyl!” The bright pink pony interrupted, bouncing in place before lowering her head and poking the DJ with the basket hat.

“Take one!” She said happily, still bouncing in place.

A white aura enveloped one of the cards and brought it close enough for Vinyl to read it. It was a party invitation of some sort. Vinyl raised an eyebrow behind her massive glasses and looked at the jumping, hyperactive pony.

“A party? What are we celebrating?”

“Why, you of course! I throw a party for everypony that moves to Ponyville! A Pinkie Pie Welc-Ohhhh! There’s more of you!”

Vinyl realized that the music had stopped playing and that Octavia was standing next to her.

“Like I was trying to say earlier, this is Octavia, she’s my-“

Vinyl was once again interrupted by Pinkie Pie who waved happily at Octavia.

“Hey Octavia! Welcome to Ponyville! See you at the party!”

And with that the hyperactive pony turned and bounced away, humming a tune to herself.

“What was that all about?” asked Octavia, the mild confusion evident in her voice.

“Looks like we got invited to some sort of party; might be fun,” Vinyl answered with a shrug.

What happened next surprised Vinyl so much that she jumped far enough into the air to be mistaken for a Pegasus.

“A PARTY WITH THAT CRAZY PONY!? ARE YOU INSANE!?” Octavia’s purple eyes were filled with a mix of disgust, surprise, and pure hatred.

Vinyl took a few steps back, not quite sure what had caused her beloved’s mood to turn so sour.

“Wait, you know that pony!?”

“Do I know her!? She’s one of those foolish fools who foolishly turned the Gala into a disaster!”

“You mean that that pony was-“

“Yes! She’s the one that convinced us to play Pony Pokey of all songs, how she did it I have no idea, and then she proceeded to more or less trash the whole reception along with her featherbrained friends!”

Vinyl nervously swallowed, She hadn’t seen Octavia this upset since the Gala in question.

“Well, we’ll just decline then, nothing to it.” Vinyl couldn’t hide the slight disappointment in her voice. No crazy party was worth risking Octavia’s wrath over.

The grey pony’s sudden fury vanished almost as quickly as it had appeared, leaving cold and indifferent eyes in its wake. To Vinyl it was in many ways worse than the earlier anger.

“I’m not saying that you can’t go Vinyl, I know how you just LOVE crazy parties with crazy ponies.”

Vinyl said nothing; she knew her wife well enough to just stay quiet when she got like this. It would blow over soon and everything would return back to normal. Trying to argue with her right now wasn’t an option as anything she said would just be held against her, even an agreement would be seen as an insult. Vinyl had learned that the hard way over the years.
The DJ felt that the best course of action was to change the subject followed by a hasty exit from the house.

“Yeah well I think I’ll go out and see if I can find someplace that might need a mad DJ or something- you know, a job.”

With that and a quick wave of the hoof, Vinyl left the house as quickly as she could without running off.

Octavia sighed. She knew she shouldn’t have snapped at the DJ: it wasn’t her fault.
It was just that the pink pony dragged with her so many bad memories from the gala, not to mention how furious Prince Blueblood had been afterwards. He had yelled at her and her ensemble for what felt like an eternity, and if it wasn't for Princess Luna, it might as well had lasted an eternity. Not that Luna had saved their jobs; she had just saved them from further harassment from the prince. They were all fired right there on the spot. Octavia shook her head to try and get rid of the painful memories.

Oh well, she might as well go for a walk as well:it might help her clear her head and familiarize her with her new town.

It was a warm day with very few clouds in the sky along with a slight breeze, close to the perfect weather for a market day.

Octavia found herself walking towards the Ponyville marketplace, taking in her new surroundings.

The town was much smaller than Canterlot and seemed to lack the class she was used to but on the other hoof it did have its own rustic charm. Deep in her own thoughts she failed to hear the loud buzzing noise that was rapidly coming towards her until a yell voice rang out:

“Hey, watch out!”

Octavia looked towards the source of the noise and saw a small orange filly on a scooter rushing towards her in midair. Having no time to react, she just closed her eyes and braced for impact.

Along with the impact came the pain and Octavia collapsed.

She could hear the sound of hooves and shouting, but she couldn’t focus on what they were shouting, the only things that she could think of was the immense pain and the stream of blood that she felt trickling down her face. Soon the welcoming dark embrace of unconsciousness enveloped the mare as she felt herself being picked up on a stretcher.

Comments

[SuperPinkBrony12]

How the heck did Octavia get knocked unconscious simply by being hit by Scootaloo's scooter, obviously either Scootaloo's scooter is tougher than it looks or Octavia isn't as strong as she might think.

Oh and Octavia don't you realize that you just insulted a friend of the student of Princess Celestia, I think a certain somepony needs a lesson in friendship.

[errant]

This looks quite promising. I spied a few punctuation errors but nothing glaring, so have a .

[GAPDashie]

Good first chapter, other than some minor grammatical errors, mainly in commas, semicolons, and periods.

She yawned and looked outside the window, it was already well past noon, no surprise there seeing as her internal clock was whacked after many years working as a DJ.

Example: this sentence should be punctuated differently with semicolons, or preferably broken up into two.

Possible revision:

Yawning, she looked out the window; it was already well past noon. No surprise there, seeing as her internal clock was whacked after so many years working as a DJ.

Several different ways to go about this, but the idea is to make each sentence as clear as possible and not try to throw too much into a single one.
Plotline looks interesting, looking forward to more!

[Shefira]

That image alone was enough to drag me here

it was a good start. 9/10, would read again

[KartalTheWriter]

Yes, I like this and I believe it should be continued. Very good. Very good indeed.

[Turai]

697208
Octavia isn't as tough as she thinks
I always imagined that little scooter traveling rather fast though and that kind of speed straight into ones face should leave a dent, or maybe I'm just dead wrong and is simply looking for an exuse to send Octavia to the hospital?

And yeah, at least the way I always imagined Octavia she does need a lesson in friendship bad, not that she's a bad pony.

697450
Hey man, thanks alot for pointing that out, English isn't my first language so those kind of things tend to slip by, I'll try improving that ASAP. (I blatantly stole you're revision of that line, was to good to pass up )

698002
Wish I could take the credit for the picture but sadly I can't, found it randomly on the net. I don't even know who the artist is.
I wish I did know who it was so I could credit him/her becuse frankly it's awesome. EDIT: found the source, slagmalsklubben on DeviantArt made the picture, sent a message asking him for permission.

And of course a big thank you to everyone that took their time to comment, I didn't expect a comment on the story when I woke up today, much less five comments. You guys just made my morning!

Damn I'm editing this one post like a friggin mad man, made a quick change at the start (thanks to DashieFan) and also added a short bit just before Octavia goes outside in an attempt to better convey why she's so frustrated.

[winglucario]

looks interesting and will keep reading but some things did kinda throw me off.

[Turai]

699656

Any chance you could tell me what it was that threw you off?
This fic is a learning experience for me to say the least.

[DaMagiks]

I'll track this and see where the plot goes

[Penultimate Dream]

Ahh, someone who pays attention to nuances of ancient languages... *inhales deeply* well done! As a Classics student, it does my poor heart good to see you paying attention to things like case, especially with the second person pronoun "se". Case is usually one of the first things people mess up, seeing as English doesn't really stress case (except in the genitive, when we use the apostrophe). Isn't it curious, though, how in Greek "se" is second accusative, while in Latin it's 3rd reflexive accusative/ablative? But now I rabble... Excellent story, enjoyed it immensely! Now have a Spike

[Cold Spike]

Ouch