• Published 11th Jun 2012
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Accidental Harmony - errant



A desperate cellist is in over her head when she takes a job at a nightclub.

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Chapter 13

The apartment door flew open with sudden force, crashing against the unsuspecting wall. Octavia stumbled through the doorway, weighed down with bulging saddlebags that threatened to drag her to the floor. She quickly made her way through the small living room into the connected kitchen, gratefully slinging the heavy bags from her back to thump onto the floor. “Vinyl! I’m back from the grocery store. Come give me a hoof putting this away,” she called.

Rummaging through the bags she pulled out various culinary odds and ends, efficiently finding their proper place in cupboards and refrigerator. A bundle of carrots and a gallon of milk were ultimately taken from the first sack, leaving it empty. “Honestly, is it too much to ask for some help with this?” she yelled irritably. Hearing no answer, she snorted and opened the second bag.

Boxes of cereal and toaster pastries filled the cupboard, neatly arranged and organized until the first time Vinyl got into it. A loaf of bread found its way into a drawer along with some entirely unnecessary but extremely delicious cookies. Octavia had already eaten half the package, for scientific purposes, of course. Delicately holding them in her mouth, a dozen tomatoes were gently placed in the fridge. Returning to her final bag of goodies, she found it too empty. She folded it neatly and laid it on the kitchen table with its fellow.

A single unfolded piece of paper caught her eye, lying next to a hastily torn envelope. It was printed on official-looking letterhead she had never seen before. Curious, she leaned closer to read.

Dear Vinyl Scratch,

Thank you for submitting your track for consideration in the contest sponsored by Equine Espressivo Records. Though our judges were impressed by your efforts, regrettably it was not selected as the winner. It is our solemn hope that this will not discourage you but rather inspire you to improve and refine your skills. We wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors.

Sincerely,

The staff of Equine Espressivo Records

P.S. Look for the debut album of the contest winner, Lyra Heartstrings, this spring.

Lifting her gaze from the letter, she was struck by Vinyl’s conspicuous absence. It was fairly normal for her to try and duck chores like putting away groceries, but not to remain completely silent. Neither was it normal for her to ignore a direct request for help. Grouch and complain, yes, but not simply refuse to help her roommate and marefriend.

A hurried search of the apartment took almost no time and revealed less; Vinyl was obviously not in the living room or kitchen, nor was she in the bathroom, Octavia’s bedroom or her own.

No note had been left to indicate her whereabouts and she hadn’t said anything about planning to go anywhere before Octavia left.

Concern hastening her actions, Octavia prepared to venture out again. This time, likely to be no mere jaunt down the street, she went prepared. A warmly insulated coat and thick boots hid the majority of her grey body from the biting winds that howled down the granite ravines of Canterlot’s streets.

As she emerged from her comfortable apartment building into the wintry afternoon, she began to walk, listing places in her mind where Vinyl might go if she were upset. A brief trot down the snow-coated paving stones brought her to the first of many small restaurants that Vinyl enjoyed. She peered through the windows, searching for any trace of her conspicuously white-coated friend. Finding nothing, she crossed the street to one of several local music stores. Ducking inside, she ignored the shopkeeper and quickly stalked between the aisles of albums and audio equipment. Finding it empty of her quarry, she left without a word.

She continued walking, the cold pressing in against her despite her insulating clothing. She made brief excursions into restaurants she knew Vinyl liked, record stores she frequented and places they had gone together while the midday sun progressively lowered itself in the sky like some great celestial timepiece. Her hooves were sore, her legs ached and her lungs burned from the frigid air. She had searched everywhere she could think of within a dozen blocks of home. On a whim she ducked into a phone booth and, taking some bits from her coat pocket, called home. She held her breath as it rang through, praying that Vinyl would pick up. The ringtone filled her ears, repeating nearly thirty times before she admitted defeat and returned the phone to its hook.

She stepped out of the phone booth and stood there, shivering, and trying to ignore it as she thought.

Oh, where is that filly? It’s going to be dark soon and I’m worried. I’ve looked everywhere.

. . .

No, not everywhere. If real life were like a book or a movie, I know exactly where she would be.

With a determined stride, she once more ignored the biting cold and her aching limbs as she made for the one last place she could imagine Vinyl being driven to by the disappointment of failing to win the contest she had invested such hope in.
She rounded a familiar corner and found exactly what she had hoped, and yet feared, to see. Vinyl sat unmoving on the sidewalk, staring forlornly at an empty lot of space between two other industrial sized buildings. The wind played through her electric blue mane, sending strands of it lightly dancing around her face. Opaque purple glasses obscured her eyes, hiding her true feelings. A few pedestrians gave her odd looks but said nothing as they went about their way.

Octavia swallowed a sudden lump of uncertainty and walked the last few steps to come up beside Vinyl. Up close, she was a picture of exquisite misery; faded tear tracks marred her face and she shivered almost imperceptibly but constantly. Her shoulders and head drooped in such a fashion that it almost seemed the only reason she was still upright was that she had been frozen in place.

Vinyl made no reaction as Octavia carefully sat herself on her haunches beside the distraught mare. Tentatively, she placed one foreleg across Vinyl’s white shoulders; she sucked in a breath as she felt the bone-deep cold radiating from the still unresponsive mare. “Vinyl, are you ok? How long have you been out here?” she asked fearfully. “Come on, talk to me,” she begged. Her ears perked up, thinking that she heard a faint reply from Vinyl so quietly whispered as to be inaudible. “Vinyl, I couldn’t quite hear that,” she said as gently as she could, leaning in closer to the DJ.

“I said I’m sorry,” Vinyl repeated, still quiet but audible this time.

“You’re sorry? Whatever for? Vinyl, you have no reason to apologize to me,” Octavia replied.

Vinyl’s head fell to gaze at the ground at her hooves, ears drooping. “I bucked everything up. I ruined everything,” she said morosely.

“What in Equestria are you talking about? You haven’t ruined anything!” Octavia said emphatically.

Vinyl laughed, a short and bitter sound that held no mirth. “Are you kidding me? I was so proud of myself, giving you a job and helping you keep your apartment. You ended up becoming my friend; you were impossibly generous and let me stay with you even though you hardly knew me. Somehow you even managed to find a way to love me and made me the happiest I’ve ever been. And then overnight I go and lose everything I’ve worked my whole life for, putting you right back in the same about-to-lose-your-apartment boat you were in originally. But, to make it worse, now you’re saddled with a good-for-nothing deadbeat marefriend and roommate.”

“Vinyl, you’re not good-for-nothing at all, I lo—,” Octavia tried to interrupt, but Vinyl kept going regardless.

“If I were worth anything, I’d have been able to find a job by now to help support us both. Instead, all I did was make you give up your chance to turn your own career around to stay with me, Celestia alone knows why. The only idea I had was that stupid contest; you’ve been busting your flank for two months now trying to get paying jobs. At least you’ve made some money, all I’ve done is get reminded of how useless I am every time somepony tells me I’m not qualified to work at a bucking grocery store.” Octavia listened in growing horror, Vinyl’s every bitter word a fresh sting that brought tears to her eyes in an echo of her closest friend’s pain. “I’m nothing but a pony-shaped pile of uselessness,” Vinyl spat venomously, fresh tears coursing down her own face.

Octavia threw her other foreleg around Vinyl, pulling her into a crushing hug and practically burying her face in the other mare’s shoulder and mane. “Don’t you dare say that, Vinyl Scratch,” Octavia choked out as she desperately tried to find a way to hold every single inch of her broken-hearted lover. “You’re not useless and you’re not worthless; I love you too much for that to be true.”

“But Octavia, I—“

“No! No buts, not even one! I love you and you’re special to me and you shouldn’t be holding yourself responsible like this! It isn’t your fault, Vinyl; you shouldn’t bear this burden of guilt. You can’t hate yourself for an act of chance. Yes, things are a bit uncertain for us, but I don’t want you to think for a second that you don’t contribute anything. Just having you, just knowing that somepony will be waiting for me at the end of the day to welcome me home and to make me feel wanted is more precious to me than any amount of money.”

“Thanks, Tavi,” Vinyl replied shakily, wrapping her own forelegs around Octavia. “But it still seems like I should do more for us.”

“Stop it, Vinyl; just stop. We’re a team; we’ll get through this together, one way or another.”

“I don’t know what I ever did to deserve a mare like you. Are you really so sure that you want me?” Vinyl asked in a pained whisper.

Octavia broke their hug to place her hooves softly alongside Vinyl’s head, raising it so that she would be gazing into her eyes if her signature glasses weren’t in the way. She planted a solid kiss directly on Vinyl’s muzzle, lingering long enough to make her point. When she finally pulled away she ran a hoof along the white mare’s face, tracing the paths of her fallen tears. “Shush, Vinyl; you won’t get rid of me that easily. I’ll be here to dry your tears for the rest of my life, if you need me to,” she whispered back in response, her soul practically resonating with the certainty of her words. Vinyl’s only reply was to stare at Octavia for a long moment, lips trembling as she struggled against herself. Finally something inside her broke and she flung herself into an embrace with her marefriend, who wordlessly returned the gesture. Her body heaved with her sobs and she buried her face in Octavia’s coat, warm and salty tears falling unheeded by either mare. Finally, with Vinyl’s backlog of sorrow spent, they reluctantly released each other. Octavia, greatly daring, quickly leaned forward to plant another kiss. “There now, do you feel a little better?” she asked as she helped Vinyl to her hooves.

Wiping a hoof along her eyes, Vinyl sniffled slightly. “Ya know, I think I do,” she said as she planted her own lips briefly over Octavia’s. “Thanks, Tavi. If anypony ever asks why I love you, well, this right here is why; you’re the sweetest pony I’ve ever known. I’m just grateful you’re willing to put up with me.”

“Vinyl, ‘putting up with you’ is one of the greatest joys of my life,” Octavia said. Heartened by Vinyl’s tentative smile, she continued, “I don’t want you to ever feel like this again. I don’t want you to let these feelings build up until something like this happens again. Trust me, talk to me and let me help you. That’s what we’re supposed to do, right? I’ll be there for you, just like you’ve been for me, if you’ll only let me. Please promise me you won’t hide these sorts of feelings from me again, Vinyl.”

“Heh, well, I didn’t really try to hide them. I just tried to ignore them, but when I got that rejection letter it all kind of came down on me at once,” Vinyl sheepishly answered.

“You know what I mean; don’t let things come to this point again, ok?”

“I promise, Tavi.”

“Good. Now what do you say we go home? I’m positive it’s much warmer there and you, my wayward filly, have been out here entirely too long.”


Octavia lay on the couch, a comatose Vinyl pressed against her, a comfortably warm blanket covering them both. Vinyl had seemed to cheer up after they got home and were able to have a warm dinner and hot cocoa in their stomachs. She said little as she shared the couch and blanket with Octavia, slowly drifting off to sleep. For her part, Octavia was merely content to feel Vinyl’s presence beside her. Occasionally she ran a hoof through her partner’s deceptively soft mane as she kept remembering Vinyl’s bitter words of self-recrimination.

Vinyl was right about one thing.

She glanced down at the sleeping mare, a small smile automatically growing on her face.

And only this one thing: it’s becoming impossibly difficult for either of us to find work in Canterlot.

She turned that thought around in her mind, trying to find another way of looking at it. Finding none, she finally gave up and closed her eyes, letting her awareness be filled with a soft, warm coat and rhythmic breathing that lulled her at last into her own slumber.


Morning found Octavia and Vinyl breakfasting on a repast of hot oatmeal, neither companion seemingly inclined to mention the previous day’s misadventure. The offending letter had found its way, without further ado, into the trash. All throughout their shared meal, Vinyl was conscious of Octavia being unusually distracted. She seemed to play with her food more than eat it and she spent a lot of time staring into space.

Remembering only too well yesterday’s lesson in the futility of hiding emotions, Vinyl decided to mare up and be the responsible one and proactively seek to allow her partner to share what was troubling her. “Hey Tavi, what’cha thinkin’ about?” she asked with utmost subtlety and grace.

Shocked from her meditations, Octavia dropped her spoon into the bowl with a splort. After shooting it a wilting glare, she turned her attention back to Vinyl. “Oh, well, it’s nothing much. I was just thinking that since, you know, neither one of us can get any sort of meaningful employment here in Canterlot, maybe we should consider moving somewhere else,” she said cautiously. Silence reigned for several much-too-long seconds. “Um, Vinyl? Hello?” Vinyl herself sat in wide-eyed shock, magically-gripped spoon paused in mid-transit.

“You wanna . . . what?” she stammered in disbelief.