Filly Friends

by thehalfelf

Hum

Hum

I took a tentative sip of my tea. Mulling over the flavor, I looked across the steamy cup at Mother. “You’ll never guess who I ran into a couple of weeks back.”

Mother took a sip of her own drink and cocked her head, curious.

“Vinyl Scratch,” I said. I reached into my bags on the floor, and gave Vinyl’s letter to Father.

My parents shared a look. “Octavia…” Mother started.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were talking to her again? Why didn’t you tell me we were going to the same school?” I asked. I could feel my anger from the carriage ride building again but I pushed it back.

“We’re sorry, Octavia,” Father said in his best soothing voice. “We didn’t know how you’d feel about it, or react, so we hid it from you. It… might not have been the best choice.”

Mother nodded along in agreement until the end, then rolled her eyes. “It was not our intent to mislead you, nor were we trying to hurt you, Octavia. Your Father and I felt that if we told you that Vinyl was going to the same school as you, and that we were paying for her tuition, you would see it as us approving of her actions and asking you to forgive her.”

“But I wasn’t—” I tried to speak, but Mother held up a hoof.

“I’m not saying you are or were,” she continued, hoof still raised. “You hardly spoke of Vinyl after she left. Myself, your Father, Rosin, Symphonia, Grandma Serenade, none of us knew your thoughts of feelings on the matter. All we saw was you moping around. So when Vinyl approached your Father about going to school after all, we decided to help her out and let you make your own choices.”

“We practically raised Vinyl,” Father added. “Neither of us could turn her away when she came to us for help. We just didn’t want our feelings to influence you into doing something you didn’t want to.”

I took another sip of tea to buy time to think. During the trip I had been ready to tear into them - at least be very upset - but I couldn’t deny that their reasoning was somewhat solid. If they had told me they were paying for Vinyl to attend school, what would I have done?

Part of me wanted to say that I would have run to Vinyl on the first day, given her a big hug, and carried on like nothing had happened, even though that was a lie. Even now that we had reconnected, I still let Vinyl take the lead on when we spent time together, and there was that distance I still felt between us.

I nodded to my parents. “Okay,” I said. “I understand.”

Mother and Father both relaxed visibly and shared another look. “In that case, shall I pour you more tea?” Mother asked, lifting the pot towards my very low cup.

We spent the rest of the afternoon and well into the evening chatting. Father was working on another new show, this time for a production company all the way in Las Pegasus. He and Mother would be travelling soon to meet the orchestra and begin prepping the show itself and would be gone for two weeks. They promised to mail tickets and arrange travel for Symphonia and I when the show came. When I suggested they do the same for Vinyl they looked taken aback for a moment, but happily agreed.

As was normal for my visits Rosin came early the second day. I awoke to her normal banging on my door. With a smile I crawled from my bed, grabbed a hairbrush, and opened the door. Before Rosin could even speak, I shoved the brush at her. “If you’re going to wake me up, you’re going to work for it,” I said.

Rosin snapped a perfect parade ground salute. “Of course, Princess Octavia. If you’d please sit on your Royal Behind, I shall comb your Royal Nes— I mean Mane!”

With the most regal nod I could manage half asleep, I sat on the floor in the middle of the room. Rosin sat behind me and began the task of wrangling my mane into shape. “Mels tells me you ran into Vinyl.”

I nodded without thinking and received a sharp tug on my hair in response. “Yeah. We have a psych class together.”

“Very cool, very cool. You punched her in the muzzle yet?”

“What!?” I whipped around, yanking the comb from Rosin’s magic in the process. It remained stuck, an unpleasant weight on the back of my head. “Why would I do that?”

“Because she broke your heart, left you alone, and ran off with a stallion.” She motioned for me to spin back around which I did, reluctantly. She resumed brushing. “I would have punched her, probably twice by now.”

“I’m not going to punch her.”

“Maybe not, but you want to.”

“No,” I answered immediately, then thought for a second. “No. I have no reason to. And she didn’t ‘break my heart,’ we were just friends.”

“Friends can break your heart, kiddo,” Rosin said, her voice a little lower than normal. “I nearly punched Mels when she started dating Legatus.”

This time she was ready for it and managed to pull the brush out of my somewhat tame mane before I turned suddenly. “What, really?”

Rosin nodded. “Sure, sure. She left me for some stallion like some cheap floozy!” She turned her head at the end and shouted the last two words out my door. I heard a surprised bang from the kitchen and Rosin grinned.

She continued quickly as somepony stomped up the stairs. “In all seriousness, I wanted to. I didn’t know what was going to happen to us. As it turned out, nothing, and I hope that’s how it goes for you too kiddo.”

“Oh, hey Mels. What brings you to Princess Octavia’s humble abode?” Rosin asked, turning as Mother burst into my room, wielding a rolling pin.

“Methinks a Princess’ attendant shouldn’t be using such crass language.” Mother stepped into the room, menacingly, lifting the rolling pin above Rosin’s head. “I think you should have your mouth washed out, young lady.”

Rosin scooted behind me, placing my brush beside me. “Have mercy, O’ Gray One.”

Mother did not.

<><><><><>

I thought a lot about what Mother and Rosin had said on the carriage ride back to campus. After Vinyl left, I hadn’t really wanted to talk about it and I hadn’t really thought about it either. I’d spend most of my time trying to keep busy so I didn’t have to. She’d left so fast and I had no break from school and life in general to deal with it.

Although that wasn’t exactly true. I hadn’t brought it up, and my parents had stopped asking eventually. But even now, I didn’t have a good answer as to my feelings on the situation. Everypony said I had been sad, and I was, but at what point had that sadness faded to the background. Had it?

Symphonia wasn’t home when I returned to our dorm room, so I went to bed with troubled thoughts. Several conversations with other ponies, long sleepless nights, and an entire carriage ride had done nothing to help me settle my mind on my current situation, or even really define my feelings in words. After thinking in circles, and tossing around in bed all night, I finally decided there was only one possible solution.

The next day, I told Symphonia I was going to miss practice that night before heading to my class with Vinyl. I greeted her as she arrived, and we sat together in silence for the entire lecture. As everypony was packing up after, I finally turned to her.

“I’d like to talk to you,” I said.

“Y-Yeah? Sure, what about?” she responded, failing to conceal her surprise.

“Not here. Come on.” I threw on my saddlebags and left the room, not looking to see if she would follow.

As we exited the building and turned towards the dorms, away from the auditorium, Vinyl spoke again. “Tavi, what’s going on? You’re acting weird.”

“I spoke with my parents over the weekend, and now I’d like to talk with you,” I responded.

“Is this going to be a bad conversation?”

I paused to ponder for a moment. “I’m not sure.”

Vinyl huffed a quiet sigh. “Great…”

Since Symphonia was going to be practicing for at least an hour, I led Vinyl straight into my dorm room. I placed my bag on it’s normal hook, directed her to the small seating area, and went to make tea. When I returned, Vinyl was fidgeting on the very edge of the couch. I set down our cups, the pot, and a bowl of sugar, then took a seat opposite her on the floor.

“I’d like to talk to you,” I began after a sip, “about when you left.”

Vinyl’s ears immediately drooped and she nearly dropped her tea. “Oh…”

I nodded and took another drink. “I understand why you left, I think, but I don’t understand why you never tried to reach out to me. You knew where I was, and I thought we were friends. I know we parted after an argument, but I didn’t think that was too harmful to our friendship. Friends fight all the time.”

“I could say the same for you,” she responded quietly. “You knew where I was. I couldn’t visit you in school because I’d dropped out, and it didn’t feel right showing up at Melody and Legatus’ house after how I left them.”

That did make some sort of sense. I knew that my parents held no ill will towards Vinyl, even then, but there was no way she could have. “True enough,” I conceded.

She shrugged. “So when you never came looking, I just figured you didn’t care anymore. Like you said, I left after an argument. We both said dumb things, but…”

“Everypony thinks I should be upset with you,” I said after a few minutes of silence. “Or is at least surprised that I’m not.”

I furrowed my brow. “At least, I think I’m not mad.”

“Y-You think?” Vinyl squeaked.

“I’m not sure. I think I’m supposed to be, but I’m more confused that I’m not. I hoped that talking to you about it would help.”

“I was upset for a little while. Not at you, exactly, but at everypony. It felt that everypony was just telling me no and trying to hold me back.” She set down her full cup of tea and sat back on the couch, looking towards the ceiling. “Then I tried to do it on my own, and saw how hard it was, but by then it felt too late to go back and apologize. I was so happy when Legatus came to talk to me. I thought I’d torched every bridge I’d ever made.”

“I was mostly sad.” I fumbled for words, trying to speak my mind without thinking too much. If I thought too far ahead, I was afraid the words would slip away. “You were my closest friend, and then you were gone, but I didn’t want to talk to anypony about it.”

“Sorry.”

I shook my head. “I don’t think you should be, really. You didn’t do it to hurt me, you only did what you thought was best for you at the time. If anything, it might have been better for me. Before I met you, I spent a lot of time alone, and that was something I had to learn to do again after you left. It wasn’t fun, but I think it was necessary.

“Symphonia is upset with you, because in her eyes you abandoned me. Mother and Father didn’t tell me that you were coming to Canterlot University because they didn’t want to make me feel obligated to reach out to you. Rosin thinks I should hit you—”

“What?” Vinyl scrambled away from me - as far as she could on the tiny couch - and covered her face. When no attack came at her, she relaxed a bit. “Actually, that sounds like a really Rosin thing to say.”

“Then Mother beat her with a rolling pin and washed her mouth out,” I replied absentmindedly. Vinyl burst out laughing and I couldn’t help but crack a smile as well. “I think I’m more happy that you’re back, but there is some part of me worried that you’re going to leave again.”

Vinyl paused a moment as her laughter subsided. “I wasn’t planning on going anywhere, Tavi. You were and still are my closest friend, and I’m not planning on risking that again.”

“Really?” I asked.

“Yeah, really. I had several years to think on exactly how and when I messed up. When I saw you in that classroom, all I could think was that I finally had a chance to make things right.” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Symphonia creep into the dorm. Vinyl didn’t though, and continued. “So for what it’s worth, thanks for not hitting me, and I’m sorry for vanishing.”

“Well, it’s about time!” Symphonia exclaimed. Vinyl jumped in the air and whirled around, rearing on her back to hold her forehooves up in front of her.

“Welcome home,” I said, hiding a smile with a sip of tea.

“I swear to Celestia, Vinyl Scratch, you better be serious about not leaving her again,” Symphonia continued, ignoring me. “I had to sit there and watch her be sad for months before she finally started to act herself again. Maybe her parents don’t want to talk about it, and maybe she didn’t herself, but anypony who even kind of knew Octavia could tell something was wrong. I worked and poked and prodded for weeks to get her to even smile.”

Vinyl tried to hide her shock, but I wasn’t so lucky. Symphonia was always a passionate pony, like her mother, but I’d never seen her this worked up. Still she continued, slowly advancing towards Vinyl until she had to knock the other unicorn’s hooves away to get muzzle to muzzle. “If you ever do something willingly that hurts her like that again, I will hunt you down and feed you your turntables, do I make myself clear?”

Vinyl nodded violently, nearly bumping her muzzle to Symphonia.

“Say it.”

“I understand, I understand!”

Symphonia backed up and nodded once. “Then we’re good.”

She rounded on me then. I had to repress the urge to flinch away. “So, what’s for dinner? It’s your turn to cook.”

“No it’s not,” I replied, shaking my head. “I cooked the night before I left for my parents.”

“Maybe, but I had to sit through a fifteen minute passive aggressive lecture by that horrible Lyra Heartstrings because you weren’t there. So, it’s your turn again.”

I laughed, letting the tension from my chat with Vinyl drain out of me. “Okay, I won’t argue there.” I stood and went to the hall to collect my bits. “Come on, Vinyl, let’s go shopping.”

“’Kay,” she said. She came to join me, giving Symphonia a wide berth. “Can we go to that new pop-up stand down towards the edge? They’ve got great hay fries.”

Author's Note:

I have rediscovered my love for writing Rosin.

I hope you guys think this is a good wrap up to the little subplot I'd been working up to the last couple of chapters or so. I think it was alright, but I'm always nervous about this kind of stuff. Leave me any feedback in the comments, I always look forward to it. Until next week.

Comments

[EddWar]

nice

[thehalfelf]

10165742
Nice

[Hobbestc]

That was fun. I like how Octavias group had her back no matter how things would have turned out.

[Dusty Old Qrow]

I'm always a slut for characters talking out their feelings and coming to a mutual understanding.