Second Reel
Vinyl made her hot chocolate with extra marshmallows. Not just the powder-and-warm-milk kind either, real chocolate melted on a stovetop in cream, with just a splash of vanilla in it. The kind you always needed the most when you were least capable of making it for yourself.
It took way longer to make, and Vinyl didn’t even like hot chocolate. She didn’t even pour herself a mug, cracking a can of beer as Octavia went to sit down in her comfy chair. It was just one of those gestures.
Photo Finish had sent them invitations to the launch party, expensive and glossy black invitations with gold ink. They’d both made for excellent coasters.
Octavia gestured at their apartment. It wasn’t nearly as big as Photo Finish’s was. It was quite cozy, to accommodate for being in one of the nicer areas of the city. the size never bothered her; they had so few things to fill it with anyway.
This was all she could have wanted, which was why she was so, so scared of losing it.
“You know, this might be the last day of our free lives. Here, at least.”
Vinyl sipped her beer and thought about that.
“Let’s say all goes perfectly, though. You get your worldwide debut, as it were, and no trail leads back to us. What then?”
Vinyl shrugged, staring into her beer can. She upended it, and cracked another.
Octavia sipped at her hot chocolate. “It’s easy to avoid thinking about it, while you’re doing the work.” She overtipped the mug, giving her a big sticky ring of chocolate all around her mouth. “But then you’re between projects, and it all catches up to you.”
There was a pause, and a guilty look.
“Of course not.” Octavia sighed, “You’re already thinking about your next one, aren’t you?”
Vinyl grinned nervously.
“Well. You know I support you, and I love you.” Octavia said it in that way that made it sound like she was reminding herself, more than her wife. “Let’s just see how the release party goes tomorrow?”
They could have afforded a bigger apartment, if Octavia hadn’t spent so much on fake passports and papers, didn’t keep spending so much on the secret construction in the club’s basement, didn’t hide caches of money and fur dyes and coloured contact lenses. Just in case.
But they didn’t live a life where they could afford a bigger apartment, or the stuff to fill it with. They lived a life where fake passports and coloured contact lenses were just another kind of insurance bill to be paid each month.
They lived a life that meant Octavia was always at work, and Vinyl was always working.
Let someone else have the bigger apartment. Octavia had married an artist.
A tired and grumpy Octavia glared back at her from her bedroom vanity. “Do you think I could get away with just the collar and bow tie?”
Vinyl did her tie up in a full windsor, and left her shades on the table. She was putting in an effort to dress up. It was a lovely gesture. She gave Octavia a Look and shrugged.
Octavia bit the inside of her cheek, trying not to frown. “Well.” She checked the wardrobe, hoping her evening dress didn’t need ironing. It didn’t, small mercies. She took that off the hanger, while Vinyl beat her to the bathroom to put makeup on. “Now I can’t, lest people think you’re out of my league.”
Vinyl’s laughter was beautiful, even through the bathroom door.
She came out just as Octavia was struggling with her zip, and pulled it up the rest of the way. Octavia curtsied, getting a good snicker out of Vinyl for it, and went to putting her own makeup on.
Octavia paused and looked back. Vinyl was wearing eyeliner, not glasses. “I like the new look,” Octavia said, holding Vinyl’s eye contact long enough to make her blush and look away - she couldn’t do that most of the time. “It’ll be lovely to see your eyes out in public. You’re a scandal.”
Vinyl grinned and kissed her on the cheek, pausing too long to look over Octavia’s shoulder as she was confused by her own reflection. She wasn’t used to her own look yet.
Octavia looked again at the bags under her eyes. She had barely slept. She had packed and repacked the bug-out bags she’d made in their apartment, knowing they’d never make it back here again if they were turned in at Photo Finish’s party.
But she couldn’t tell Vinyl that when she was so excited.
Vinyl had to fight the urge to skip to the party, Octavia noticed. It was a fifteen minute walk through Downtown, and Vinyl had been buzzing for the first ten minutes of it. She kept shifting self-consciously in her nice jacket. She also caught her reflection in every shiny surface she could, to adjust to how she looked out in public with the glasses off.
“You look wonderful,” Octavia whispered to her, and Vinyl flinched. She glared at Octavia. “Yes,” Octavia kissed Vinyl’s cheek, “I’ve been watching you watch yourself for a while now. It’s rather cute.”
Vinyl winced. Octavia wondered how long it would take for her to get used to other ponies knowing where she was looking. It was a vulnerability she wasn’t used to. She was also making a big point of not looking at other ponies, in case she got caught staring. Octavia gave her a big kiss right under her ear.
“Do you think you can handle going to a whole party like this?”
Vinyl nodded, but her expression was terrified. She went back to staring at her reflection in the building again. Octavia watched her watching
Octavia saw something else in the reflection, a stallion watching them. As soon as she turned to look at them, though, they were looking at something else.
When she looked back at the reflection in the building’s surface, the stallion was watching them again.
Was this the first time, or just the first time she’d caught them?
Octavia nudged her wife. “Vinyl, you can set the pace, if you want to. I’ll keep up.”
That was all the encouragement she needed. Vinyl doubled her speed, sticking to the main road rather than ducking down alleys. Trying to stay visible, sticking to the well-lit areas. While Octavia wanted to hide, Vinyl always felt safer when she was seen. She had more trust that someone would help her, that way.
The stallion that had been watching them started following them.
Vinyl stopped, staring up at the sky for a second. Octavia walked past her for a second, but Vinyl tugger her collar and pointed up.
Overhead, a huge searchlight flashed in the sky, right onto the clouds directly above. In it was written a letter, like an overhead projector for a classroom scaled up to city-size, fit into the round searchlight:
Hello.
I am being arrested
and taken into custody
~Photo Finish
Octavia hadn’t expected it to happen so soon. Had the films been intercepted? Or had they already made it to cinemas and the response was faster than they anticipated? “I think the party’s cancelled.”
Vinyl nodded, spun on the spot, and headed back toward their apartment. Octavia matched her pace again.
This was sudden—too sudden, which probably meant it was deliberate. Maybe Photo Finish had betrayed them, in the end, and this was her way of preventing herself from getting ‘disappeared’. Either that, or it was a big show for her party guests to stop them from suspecting she was the traitor all along. The timing made it hard to tell.
Of course Photo Finish would have been alone—Octavia and Vinyl were the only two ponies in her friend group who’d ever show up early, let alone on time.
The stallion behind them cleared his throat.
Octavia hadn’t heard him catch up to them.
“Excuse me, ma’ams?” He was right behind them, close enough to grab them. “I’m with the police.” He sounded like somebody’s annoyed Dad, as he pulled a detective’s badge from his jacket pocket and held it up long enough for them to be sure it wasn’t fake. “We’re going to be wanting to be asking you some questions.”
Vinyl was fast, rushing to slam the guy between his eyes, but Octavia was faster, stopping Vinyl before she could take a single step. Neither of them could run in these shoes, and... well. This was just the one that they got to see, wasn’t it?
Octavia had watched a flash of sharp metal in the detective’s coat return to its hiding place when he had cleared his throat, and wondered if the message in the sky hadn’t saved them both from getting ‘disappeared’ as well. “We’d like to speak to our lawyer, please.”
The detective snorted. “I’m sure you would.”
“We intend to co-operate.” Octavia assured him, tapping Vinyl’s chest before she could growl. “I’m sure you, of all people, would understand.”
The detective was quiet for a moment. “Yes, I suppose I would.”
Octavia smiled at him pleasantly. It seemed to make him uncomfortable. “I’m afraid you’ll have to tell us what this is about?”
A rumbling voice came from the alley in front of them. “Not really. You isn’t being arrested for anything. You’re just comin’ wiv us.” A dark red stallion with a crooked jaw walked out in front of them, his lips twitching as he tried not to smirk. “I put you down in the repor’ as co-operative. You isn’t gonna make a liar of me, is you?”
Vinyl’s hoof shot across her chest to hold her back.
It wasn’t a dark interrogation room with the one way mirror and the blue tiles. It was well lit, almost cozy office room with a tape recorder between her and the detective, a stallion who was only a few years older than she was, the colour of manila folders.
Octavia eyed the door. “I asked for my lawyer.”
“They’re on their way, but until then—”
“I didn’t tell you who my lawyer was.”
There was a long pause. The detective continued, "We're having trouble getting your wife to talk."
Octavia didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. “I wouldn’t bother. Just send her home.”
“I don’t think—”
“I’ll co-operate,” she added, “but it’s pointless to keep her. Besides. I heard we aren’t actually under arrest?” Without the crooked-jawed one in the room, her confidence was coming back. But there was just something about him, specifically. She didn’t know what it was, but he had the air of someone who’d as soon throw a kitten into a sack with a brick in it and toss it in a river as pet it.
“Not yet,” the detective said cryptically, but she wasn’t in the mood for it.
“Well, I’m sure you can think of something soon enough. But until then—”
“Think of something?” The detective leaned across the table and hit ‘record’ on the tape. “What makes you so confident we’ll think of something?”
Octavia rolled her eyes, not taking the obvious bait. “The Princess keeps clever enforcers, I hear.”
The detective hummed. “Would that be a treasonous tone?”
She rolled her eyes again. “The alternative is that she’d keep stupid ones, which doesn’t inspire patriotism either, does it?”
The detective snorted, and scribbled a note on a notepad. “You think you’re clever then?”
“Well, obviously not, because the Princess hasn’t tried to hire me, now, has she?” Octavia smiled.
The detective was unimpressed. “I thought you said you planned on being co-operative.”
“I am!” Octavia protested, leaning forward, “This is me being co-operative! Unless you’d like to see me be difficult?”
The detective pulled out a notepad and pen, and scribbled something down. “Noted. Well, you’re not under arrest, but it seems that an associate of yours is about to stand trial.”
“You’d like me to testify against Photo Finish?”
The detective leaned back in their chair and glared. “I never said who.”
“It was painted across the sky.” Octavia snorted, falling back in her chair, “Or would you like me to pretend to be shocked for you?”
He grit his teeth, and scribbled another note. “You will be asked to take the stand for her case, yes. It would be suspicious for you to leave the city before the trial, but the trial will be held as soon as possible. A few days at the most.”
Take the stand, but not explicitly against her. If Photo Finish was the traitor, then she wasn’t being brought in as a witness, but as a defendant. This was just pretext to get her into a courthouse, surrounded. It was a trap.
She cleared her throat. “Are you threatening me?”
The detective rolled his eyes. Then, he slammed his hooves on the table. “Miss Octavia, please!”
“What?”
He kicked the leg of the table hard, juddering it. “Please, restrain yourself or you will have to be restrained!” He roared at her, “Miss Octavia—” He slammed his hoof on the table again, hard.
Then, quietly, he reached across the table and hit the stop button on the tape recorder, rewound it.
His tone was just bored, now. Like he was talking down to a child who’d gotten as far as precociousness would get her. “Do we now have a better understanding of what threatening you looks like?”
Octavia nodded, staring at the recorder.
“Good. I’m recording over that, now. Never happened. Because, as you keep saying, you’re co-operating, aren’t you?”
Octavia nodded again.
“Alright. That’s all. You can go home now, and your wife as well.”
“Thank you.”
She wasn’t allowed to cry until she got home, she decided, not even a sniffle. She couldn’t show weakness.
Octavia fiddled with her gold ring, and wondered if she still had what it took to be married to an artist.
When Octavia got back to their apartment, Vinyl had already put together her green tea set. An heirloom pot, a ceramic jar of jasmine.
It was easy to make green tea, but difficult to make it well. It required concentration, careful measurement of ingredients, patience for the water to drop below boiling... all these things focused the mind and calmed the nerves as much as the tea did.
That Vinyl already had a cup of it that Octavia could smell from the stairs meant she’d gotten there a lot sooner.
Octavia ignored the tea at first, went for two painkillers, crushed them into a crystal glass, doused them with scotch, filled the glass with tapwater and clattered some ice cubes into it, taking as deep a gulp as she could without burning her throat.
Then she sat down next to her wife, both staring into their drinks.
“You know,” Octavia said into her scotch, “I’m supposed to be the calm, sensible one. I feel like we’ve entirely got this the wrong way around.”
Vinyl put an empty teacup in front of her and lifted the teapot. Octavia waved it off.
“I don’t feel it that strongly. But thank you.”
Vinyl put the pot down. She didn’t need more than the tea - she just needed to stop taking caffeine pills and energy drinks to bring her down.
Octavia needed something that’d take blunt force trauma to the sharp spikes of anxiety. Her mind was going a million miles a minute, and it wasn’t heading anywhere worth going.
They sipped their drinks in silence, both thinking and trying not to think.
“I’m going to the club,” Octavia said, when all that was left of her scotch was the ice. “I’ll try to move the piano over the hatch down. Is there anything you want from the basement before the end of the week? Because I don’t think it would be sensible to go down there for a little while.”
Vinyl shook her head, and nuzzled into Octavia’s shoulder. Now she didn’t want to move.
I wonder if we’ll get sent to the same prison. Maximum or minimum security? It was high treason, certainly, but it was non-violent high treason.
Would they separate us just to be cruel?
Absolutely.
“Vinyl, before I go. If things look bad at the trial, if it turns out they know anything...” she paused. “Do you remember any of the dumpsters I told you about, or the false walls? You know where I put the fake papers and passports?“
Vinyl nodded.
“Good. Then we need a meetup point. In case things go badly for one of us, or we get separated. Where can we find each other?”
Vinyl thought. Other ponies wondered how Octavia could get along with Vinyl so easily when she was loathe to talk, but it really was like she could read her thoughts. Vinyl glanced at her, writing the club off her mental checklist. When she looked down, she was thinking of the apartment and writing that off. When she looked up she was thinking of Photo Finish, and writing that off.
What other places did they have, she was wondering. What other mutual friends?
They’d come to Manehattan to escape Canterlot. They were refugees here. They had friends, fulfilling work to do here, but it wasn’t home.
Vinyl looked at her with her red eyes, and silently asked Octavia to tell her what she was thinking. Just because Octavia knew what was happening in Vinyl’s mind didn’t mean that Vinyl did...
“There’s a train station station to the south west, about a day’s walk outside of the city,” Octavia said, “That could take us to Ponyville.”
Vinyl’s eyes lit up. Her head whipped back and forth as she tried to work out which direction south was. Not having a sunrise made it difficult to remember.
“Across the bridge, then left. There’s a big hill overlooking the city there. Meet at the top, where there’s clear sightlines?” A grim chuckle. “No need to talk about only moving by night. That’s been made simple for us.”
Vinyl nodded, then kissed her.
They’d always talked about settling down in Ponyville, but it had felt wrong with... how things had turned out.
Now Octavia was quietly hoping they’d need to run. Just give her the excuse to go home.
Her headache tablets were kicking in enough she could make it to the club.
Ebon was waiting for her outside the club, again. Octavia jingled her keys as she approached, so as not to spook her. Ebon jumped anyway.
“How long have you been waiting?”
“Not long,” Ebon admitted, touching her forelegs together self-consciously, “I heard you were taken in by the guard, so I was coming to see if they had put anything on the door...”
“You were worried they were disappearing me?”
Ebon nodded. “I didn’t know where you live, so I came here.”
Octavia unlocked the doors to let them both in. “Well, I’m glad you’re here. I’m moving the piano, and it helps to have someone who won’t ask questions.”
Ebon reached out to touch Octavia’s wrist as she turned the key. “Move the piano? Why? Are you selling it?”
Octavia looked down at the hoof, and Ebon pulled it away. She led them both inside and locked the door behind them. “No. Over the hatch nobody’s supposed to know about. Photo Finish-”
“I saw!” Ebon blurted, shocked.
“I think that was the point,” Octavia hummed, walking to the center of the room. “And because she’s a good friend of Vinyl and mine, and a regular, they might be looking a little closer at the club than I’m used to. So I thought it’d be smart to move the piano over the basement entrance, put some nice carpet down, maybe move some seating onto the stage area...” Octavia was working this out in her head as fast as she was saying it. Moving the piano here was going to be suspicious unless there was a good cover for it.
“Let me headline,” Ebon said, fierce eyes burning into the side of Octavia’s head, “Three shows a week.”
Octavia couldn’t help but smile. “Now, isn’t this a bit of an opportunistic moment to be negotiating contracts?”
She shook her head, no. “Then moving the piano would be my idea. Lying across it is a big part of my act, isn’t it?”
“Oh, now, that’s brilliant isn’t it? No, now is exactly the time to negotiate a contract for you. We can put that in your rider clause.” Octavia ran to the corner she’d left all her accounting and legal paperwork, rifling through it. “Anything else you’d like?”
“Are we—is this negotiating?”
“You’re negotiating from a position of strength! Feel free to haggle.” Octavia barked out a laugh, finding the forms she needed. She’d already drafted something for her, after the first night. This was a bit more than she was planning to give, but she wasn’t unhappy with what she was getting. “Make this look good. Your wildest dreams. Only blue smarties, a particular soft drink in the dressing room, you’re a rock star now.”
Ebon stood over the hatch, where the piano would be, and looked around the room. “This is... this is very sudden.”
“First thing that comes to mind,” Octavia clapped her hooves, chop-chop, “wildest fantasy, what can I give you?”
“Private practice sessions with you!” Ebon decided, jumping on the idea before she could think twice about it, “They’ve been wonderful.”
“Yes, you have been learning quite quickly with them,” Octavia penned a few notes down, “What else?”
“Can I have my own keys in? Or is that too much to ask?”
“You already know what I’m hiding here, and I don’t imagine you’d steal anything. Accepted. What else?”
“What else?” Ebon protested, “What more should I want?”
“A leaflet campaign of no less than one thousand to be distributed, a radio spot at prime time on a station of your choosing, to be determined,” Octavia wrote as she spoke, “the floor plan, of course, and the acoustics to your specification, but we’ve already done that. Free drinks from the bar for evenings you perform. And to be referred to by a title of your choosing.”
“What, like, Duchess?”
Octavia rolled her eyes. “If you wish. But no, more like...” here she struggled, “Mistress Ebon?”
Ebon shivered. “It feels weird to hear you call me that.” She was blushing
“Don’t be embarrassed, you’re a fine talent. Lady Ebon, then?”
Ebon took a deep breath. “Just Miss Ebon should be fine.”
“Miss?” Octavia wrote down in surprise, “Not Ms?”
Ebon flicked her tail like a whip crack. “You never know, it might help to advertise that I’m single.”
“Ah. I see,” Octavia signed the document. That made it as official as it was ever going to get. “Ever playing the seductress. Your signature here?”
Ebon read the document, then read it again, holding the quill in a shaking grip.
Octavia paused, pulling the paper back towards her for a moment. “Did I do something wrong?”
Ebon leaned forward even as Octavia pulled away. “This is the first time anyone’s had me sign a contract before,” Ebon whispered. “I’ve been dreaming of this since I was a teenager...” She winced, and rubbed at the wrinkles under her eyes. “You say I’m playing the seductress, but I haven’t been that young in decades.”
“And left wanting all that time. Never complacent. You’ve got a hunger to you that’s very attractive,” Octavia reassured her. “But I won’t hurry you. Savour the moment. Believe me, I’m in no rush, after you sign this I’m going to ask for your help moving that bloody piano, and it will be miserable.”
Ebon finally signed the contract with a laugh. “Thank you. For everything. I’ve never felt like this before...”
Octavia gestured at the contract. “The ink’s been dry on most of this for a while now. This isn’t a snap decision on my part. You’ve earned this.”
Moving a piano is never easy, but having magic on your side admittedly helps a lot. They set it down on the carpet, pinning the hatch closed.. Ebon looked across the piano, both of them panting with exhaustion.
“You’re going to be fine, right?”
Octavia paused. “Honestly, I’m more worried about Vinyl. She and Photo Finish...” She paused and considered her words very carefully, “are very close. It might end up being guilt by association. And if it turns out anything happened here, then that’s me gone as well.”
Ebon winced. “Oh. They can’t really do that, can they? It doesn’t seem fair.”
Octavia adjusted her bowtie, which had gotten twisted when her neck muscles strained against the piano’s weight. She clicked her tongue. “Well. If you do things a certain way, the right way, then it doesn’t matter how unfair it is,” she said. “Ponies will protest, sure. Some newspapers might denounce it, the brave ones. But do you think anything’s going to change? As long as it looks like things are being done properly, then they will be protested properly, too.”
“So, what?” Ebon frowned, “It’s not worth doing anything?”
“Of course it’s worth doing something,” Octavia scoffed, shuffling through her legal forms, “Which is why it’s important they’re discouraged from it. The reason things are so bad is because Nightmare Moon has made things not-quite-bad-enough for ponies to do anything drastic. But that’s exactly why we need to do something anyway. To force her to either make things better, or force her hand enough that it’s intolerable.”
Octavia only realized she’d been turned her mental filters off from the way Ebon was wincing. It was nice to have someone she could let her guard down around, but she was in enough trouble already.
Ebon was silent for a while. Finally, “Are you sure you’re not getting arrested?”
Octavia was suddenly sure she wasn’t. And she realized that the reason was because, really, she hadn’t done anything worthy of it. She’d been too careful. She’d been too scared to associate with the ‘wrong crowd’. And she would have to stand trial anyway.
She wished she could have Photo Finish’s conviction—a word which had an appropriate double meaning in this context.
“I am certain I am safe,” she said, dribbling disgust into the words however it would fit. “Now. Help me pick out a radio station for you. We should probably get started on the copy...”
Ebon stopped her. “Actually, I do have one... small request?”
“Of course.”
“Do you remember the first song I sang with you. For you?”
Octavia nodded. “La Vie En Rose? Of course. Feeling sentimental?”
“I just have a feeling that everything's going to turn out well for you, at the trial.” Ebon nodded, gesturing at the piano. “And since we already moved the piano.”
Octavia was already moving for her cello, a skip in her step. “Of course. Same as before?”
Ebon shook her head. “I was thinking in G major, this time?”
Last time had been in a longing, minor key. Octavia had to agree, the ‘horoscope reading’ for G was much more cheerful; the happiness of a close relationship, the feeling of good things to come.
And, with Ebon singing it for her... She could let herself believe it, too.
Octavia rolled out of bed because somepony had started hammering on their front door. She tied her bow-tie half asleep as Vinyl threw a pillow over her ears and twisted to face the opposite wall.
As she made it to the living room, the hammering got louder, more urgent. “Yes, coming. What is it?”
“Summons.” Someone shouted through the door, “You were informed...?”
So soon? Photo Finish’s lightshow must have had its intended effect. “Ah! Be right with you.”
She opened the door on the detective from before, and the stallion she thought of as Crooked Jaw.
“‘Ello. We ought to get a move on, ey?” He grinned at her.
Octavia went through her mental map of supplies and fake papers three times in her head. “As ready as I’ll ever be. Let’s get a move on then.”
Photo Finish had obsessively taken command over the courtroom lighting. Her extras bustled about, hanging keylights over the audience stand, three-point lighting setups for the prosecution, defense, and witness box. The judge’s box was bottom-lit, to give the grown-up version of holding a flashlight under your chin when you tell a scary story.
Cameras were mounted on tracks and dollies, with one on a crane to monitor the audience. The cables all fed to an editor’s box in the corner, switching the feeds effortlessly. Photo Finish herself sat in the defense box, beaming, the layout diagrams the majority of the papers in front of her.
Her attorney looked like she was about to have a stroke.
“How did she get away with this?”
Octavia was prodded in the back by her escort, guiding her down the middle of it all to the wings of this stage.
“Princess let ‘er.” Crooked Jaw answered from behind her. “Thinking of putting ‘er on the next newsreel, I ‘eard.”
Octavia jerked away, she didn’t like how he’d snuck up so close to her. “It’s a historical moment. Might as well give history the most flattering view.”
Crooked Jaw chuckled, and Octavia went cold at hearing it. “I s’pose.”
“You suppose?”
“Still a war on. The...” There was a pause, then a grunt as he forced his pronunciation, “rebellion is still official. Might just end up ‘anged. One way to go down, eh?”
As he emphasized the word ‘rebellion’, Octavia made an effort not to look around at the ponies setting up the cameras and lights. She recognized a lot of them as fans of Vinyl’s work. That made her feel safer, in a weird way, until he’d mentioned hanging.
Octavia’s stomach twisted into an icy knot. High treason was a hanging offense? Was Octavia here to testify against Photo Finish so that she might be hanged?
If Photo Finish had been betrayed by one of her friends that knew about Vinyl...
She was a musician, in a past life, and her mind couldn’t help but play the sound of twanging rope and her wife’s neck snapping with crystal clarity.
“No running now,” Crooked Jaw pushed her forward again, “Show’s about to start.”
Octavia took the witness stand after she didn’t know how long, they hadn’t left her a clock in the waiting room. It had felt like years, but it might have only been an hour. It was impossible to tell.
She couldn't help but admire just how much Photo Finish had outdone herself with the courtroom lighting. It felt suitably dramatic and suspenseful. She realized that she was just a side character, that Photo Finish was the protagonist of this movie, and felt comforted by that.
Photo Finish nodded to her from the defense, as if to reassure her that everything that had happened until now was going fine, as planned.
The judge looked down on her, over the rims of his glasses.
“Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?”
“Yes,” Octavia lied.
“Then we may proceed. Can we hear from the prosecution?”
The prosecutor approached her. Octavia looked over at Photo Finish, whose expression was unreadable behind her sunglasses. She couldn’t tell anything yet. “Ms Octavia, if you’re prefer to be called that?”
“I would.”
“Ms Octavia, do you have any idea of why you’re here?”
“I am co-operating with authorities, who didn’t tell me anything other than I was to be here.” Octavia was careful with her words. Until she knew whether she was here to defend herself, or to testify against Photo Finish, she didn’t want to commit either way. Which, she suspected, was the trap.
“Objection!” Photo Finish’s attorney leapt forward, slamming her desk. “Leading the witness.”
“Sustained,” the judge banged his gavel. Octavia breathed a sigh of relief, which the prosecutor took an uncomfortable note of.
“Ms Octavia,” he started pacing as he talked, “What would you say your relationship with Ms Finish is?”
“A good friend, and a great friend to my wife as well.”
“That would be a Ms Vinyl Scratch?”
“Yes,” Octavia felt like these questions were leading her into a trap, but she couldn’t see what it would be, or how she could possibly avoid it at this point. She kept her breathing even, denied her heart its chance to beat in her chest.
She was a performer. She knew how to deal with stage fright:
“So, more than a business relationship?”
“I would say so, yes.”
“That’s interesting. Would you like to comment any further on that?”
“I’m sorry, but is this going somewhere?” Octavia asked with a raised eyebrow, and the audience chuckled somewhat. She even saw a juror stifle a giggle.
“I have to agree with the witness,” the Judge said, “If there’s a point to this line of questioning, you might like to get there soon.”
“The point is,” the prosecution carried on, failing to hide his frustration, “that we have at least a receipt to Octavia’s establishment in Photo Finish’s penthouse. She supplied the catering for the party that Ms Finish was throwing in celebration of... Ms Octavia, do you know?”
“A launch party for her newsreel success,” Octavia saw the trap this time. She was being tempted to lie, but anyone who had seen her and Vinyl leave the house in dresses that night would be able to lead her down an awkward series of questions. “My wife and I were both invited.” The truth was unexpected.
But the prosecution seemed ready for that, too. “So, you weren’t just catering. You were going as friends of the defendant?”
“I should certainly hope so. Unless she was just trying to get cheap liquor out of me...?” Octavia shot an exaggerated glare at Photo Finish, obviously performing for her audience’s sake. It got another quiet chuckle from the right ponies, but it also gave her a chance to read Photo Finish’s reaction.
She smiled cryptically. She was impressed by one of them, that was for sure. But at trapping Octavia, or Octavia evading one?
The prosecution was enjoying getting what he could with the information asymmetry. “Would you say that Ms Finish is closer to you, or your wife?”
“It’s impolite to think of your friends in that way,”
“Well, let’s say someone has a sword to your throats. Ms Finish only has the ransom for one of you. Whose does she pay?”
The smile disappeared from Photo Finish’s face, just as it did from Octavia’s. “My wife. I suspect.”
“Ms Vinyl? And do they have long conversations? What do they talk about?”
Octavia grit her teeth. “My wife prefers not to speak, when possible.”
“Interesting. Because we can connect you and Ms Finish together, as a patron. But Ms Finish and Ms Vinyl? What makes them so close? A shared interest?”
“Well. Maybe she likes my wife more because she doesn’t talk as much.” Octavia forced a smile. “But you’d have to ask Photo Finish that, not me.”
The prosecution backed off. Octavia had made a good deflection, yes, but the problem was she had been seen to make a good deflection. A juror leaned forward in their seat a bit more, more interested.
“Were you aware of the seditious nature of the newsreels Ms Finish sent out, when invited to the release party?”
Here was the final moment of truth. If Photo Finish had betrayed her, lying right now would incriminate her severely. If she wasn’t, then confessing would implicate her. Her life was over if she judged this wrong.
Octavia tried to divine meaning from Photo Finish’s expression again, and found it blank again. There was an effect Vinyl had shown her, in editing. A blank expression takes on the context the viewer puts on it — or the editor.
All trying to read it would tell her were her own feelings in the reflection of the dark sunglasses.
In the dark glass, though, she saw her answer. She remembered the way she’d thrown that ball at the pegasus’ face when they tried to peak in.
Maybe Photo Finish would throw a ball to spook that pegasus to earn her trust. But Octavia had seen dozens of marks on her windows, dozens of throws. There was nothing they could offer that she wanted, and everything she wanted was something they couldn’t give.
It had to be someone else.
“No,” Octavia committed her second perjury of the evening, “I did not. Actually, nobody has even told me what she’s been arrested for?”
There was a horrible pause, then everything continued on.
“You haven’t heard?”
“Well, I don’t have many friends, and the one most likely to know is the one who got arrested,” Octavia protested, again getting a smile from the jury. “There was nobody else to tell me.”
The prosecutor got uncomfortable about that. “Ms Photo Finish made her own little drama film about our Princess. A seditious and malicious hit-piece.” The prosecutor watched her lack of reaction. “You don’t look too shocked by this?”
“Well, it sounds like something she would do.” Octavia shrugged.
Photo Finish grinned at that. All the lights, cameras, the dramatics; she wasn’t planning on being innocent here. She was probably just hoping she didn’t take anyone down with her. Which meant Octavia was free to play the audience.
The prosecutor plowed ahead, getting right up in her face. “You were aware of Ms Finish’s political leanings, then?”
“Well, I said we were friends. It’s easier to be friends with someone if you don’t talk politics.” She grinned back, practically humming you can’t catch me, you can’t catch me at him. “I was more speaking to her flare for the dramatic.”
“I see,” the prosecutor nodded.
Photo Finish’s attorney stood up again. “Excuse me, your honour, but I have to ask where the prosecution is going with this? What they hope to gain by this questioning?”
The Judge nodded. “Again, I have to agree with the defense.”
The prosecution smiled, which Octavia didn’t like at all. It meant she missed something. “If it pleases the court, Ms Octavia here has hosted evenings here for Ms Finish late night after closing hours at her club. We have reason to believe she colluded in this endeavour by providing a venue for the treason in question to be discussed.”
“I have, have I?” Octavia raised an eyebrow, leaning forward, daring the greasy little stallion. “Says who?”
Photo Finish leaned forward in her seat. The jury shifted.
“A detective trailing Ms Finish noted her irregular hours, and that someone else they were tailing was also staying behind well after business hours, with the locked doors.”
Octavia paused. It hadn’t been an informant; It had been a tail! They hadn’t been betrayed, Photo Finish just wasn’t paranoid enough to notice the surveillance. She looked around the room for Crooked Jaw, and saw him staring right back at her, his expression... thoughtful. Attentive. He was trying to read her.
She fiddled with her bowtie, then tightened and neatened it. She forced an effortless smile.
“I see. This is quite embarrassing for me.”
The prosecution paused, falling into the obvious question instead of pressing his advantage, buying her precious seconds. “Embarrassing?”
“Well. I hadn’t liked to advertise that sometimes we hold release parties for our friends.” Octavia ‘admitted’. “If that sort of thing gets known, you make the wrong sort of friend.”
“Like the kind who’ll spread seditious, treasonous material?” The prosecutor led.
Octavia shook her head. “To put it in terms you’d understand, I’m sure you have those friends who only hang around with you for the free legal advice?” She paused, and looked at the jury. “Or is that most of them?”
The jury laughed, and the prosecutor was absolutely flustered. It was meant to be a deflection, but apparently she’d hit a raw nerve. That wasn’t good, actually, as much as it got a genuine laugh out of her audience. She had made things personal. And just like in the police station, she was only giving the illusion she had any power over the situation.
The prosecutor moved into a fencer’s stance, staring her down. He was unblinking. Worse still, he was preparing his offense, preparing answers for answers. Octavia couldn’t prepare if she couldn’t guess his approach.
He shifted. “Did you know your wife was seen attending these events?”
“I didn’t know she was seen attending them, no.”
“But you don’t deny that she was there?”
“I don’t deny it.”
“Your wife, who you said, is better friends with Ms Photo Finish than you are?”
“I did say that.”
He stepped to the side, like a feint, guiding Octavia’s eyes naturally towards the jury. Getting them interested worked to her advantage before, but now it meant they were paying attention. The sword cut both ways. “But you didn’t say what they were close over?”
The truth came quicker than a lie. “My wife is a fan of Photo Finish’s work.”
He clicked his tongue. “So naturally your wife would attend wrap parties for Photo Finish’s new works?”
“Naturally,” Octavia agreed. There was a tightness in her chest now - he was building to something, and she didn’t like the direction.
“Did Photo Finish discuss her project with your wife, then?”
Octavia couldn’t think of any smart deflections, dodges or jokes. “I don’t know,” she said carefully.
This time the judge leaned forward in his seat. That was awful.
“Would that be a reasonable explanation for why you wouldn’t know what your wife was talking about with Ms Photo Finish?”
Photo Finish was hissing whispers to her attorney, who was shushing her. She’d stopped smiling a while ago.
Octavia stayed silent at that. The jury rocked forwards onto the edges of their seats.
“Ms Octavia, do you think your wife would keep information from you to protect you, even lie?”
Octavia opened her mouth to answer, but the prosecution cut over her.
“Actually, I have a more important question I need to ask you first.” He stepped back, making a gesture like he was sheathing his sword, “Would you do anything to protect your wife, up to and including lying under oath? Committing perjury?”
The defense attorney jumped up so fast she nearly flipped their heavy table “Objection!”
“Sustained,” the judge agreed, though there was obvious disappointment in his voice.
“No further questions, Your Honour,” the prosecution walked back to their desk.
Octavia felt the eyes of everyone in the courtroom staring at her.
The awful detective was smiling crookedly.
Octavia walked from the courthouse to the club, checking all her hiding spots on the way for her kits. They were all still there. If she ran tonight, could she trust Vinyl to work out what happened, and to meet her over on that hill? She wasn’t sure. She couldn’t be sure, and she wasn’t in the right frame of mind to think things through right now. In either case, she wasn’t ready to go home and tell her what had happened. That they suspected her.
But if she went home, she’d have no excuse not to tell Vinyl about the trial, about everything that had happened. Worse, she’d have no way to keep it from her. So instead, Octavia went to the club for a drink, to see just how much the break was hurting it.
To hide from her wife for just a little while.
She turned the corner, a hoof already reaching for the keys in her vest pocket, when she dropped them. They clattered to the concrete.
Police were swarming the building, moving in and out of it. Some were carrying film reels. The security door lay to the side, battered and broken.
“No,” she whispered to herself, grabbing the keys and watching to make sure nobody had heard her drop them, “no, no, no...”
She turned and ran home.
Pegasus officers flew overhead, in the direction she was running.
“No!”
She took a hard turn onto her block, just in time to see Vinyl get thrown into the back of a police wagon in cuffs.
Octavia slammed her back against an alley wall and breathed deep. They’d taken Vinyl totally fast and by surprise, or else she could have run for it.
She considered grabbing her supplies, but only for a moment. If Vinyl wasn’t going to go with her, what was the point of going to Ponyville?
Octavia went to run again, but her legs were starting to betray her and her throat felt like ragged strips. She walked, instead, toward Ebon’s apartment.
It wasn’t that far. Ebon lived fairly close. It was just enough time to think, though.
She was sure she remembered there correct address. She’d had to mail her often enough. It would be the first time she went there, but Octavia had a great head for directions, and Manehattan was an easy grid system to navigate.
So, one tired foot in front of the other, she got to the right building, then up the stairs to the right floor, and then to the right door. And she knocked.
Ebon opened the door. “Octavia?”
Octavia looked past Ebon. Sheet music scattered everywhere. Empty wineglasses, and plates stacked up in the sink. The roof had dark shadows from cigarette smoke, and there was the smell of an indoor cat pervading things. At least she’d managed to keep her houseplants alive, and the walls were covered in paintings signed by their artists. Old friends who’d found their fortunes and left her behind.
She stopped looking over Ebon’s shoulder, and made a sick smile at her instead. “Do you mind if I come in?”
“Of course! You look dreadful. What happened?”
Octavia shuffled through the door and took a deep breath. Ebon closed the door behind her with a worried look.
Then, when the door closed with a soft ‘click’, Octavia punched her square in the nose, and felt it break.
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Damn, if I ain't true.
Civil War
Oooooh I love how you write this
Gaaah
I'm completely thrilled
What
I'm lost
What
I might know, but like
what?
Not like hot chocolate...the philistine (or should I say filly-stine XD) I'll let myself out now sorry not sorry.
My little joke comment aside, I love how you have written this world the ever present sense of something not being right but being unable to put a finger on it. I have a bunch of questions now such as how does Ebony fit into this? Is Vinyl mute or is she like Big Macintosh just more so?
In any case keep up the great work.
"waiting room. admiring just"
Is something missing here?
9845287
Oh wow you're right that's super odd. I know what's supposed to be there but I'm not sure what edit I clicked off that it truncated like that, and it's in the middle of a paragraph so it snuck by without me noticing.
One sec, I'll clear that up now.