Choice

by AnOrdinaryWriter

50

You decide that spending time at Vinyl’s house sounds interesting and suggest going there.

“Sounds good. Let’s go!” Vinyl says, trotting past you. You turn around and, like a film transition, you find yourself on a cobblestone road with rows of houses on each side. When you look back, you see that the theater is gone, replaced by a mirror of what’s in front of you. Weird…

“Yo, you comin’ or not?!” Vinyl shouts, her voice echoing through the empty—aside from you and her—alley. You turn back and catch up to the unicorn standing some distance ahead and walk next to her.

“I just realized, you’re the first pony to come over to my new place,” Vinyl says. “Well, aside from Octy. She moved in with me a little while after we got together. I turned my living room into a studio plus I had an extra room so it was perfect for her. Speaking of the studio, we can mess around in there until it's time to go to the party.”

Vinyl stops and points to a house on your right. “This is it. Come on!” she says excitedly, marching on up to the front doorstep with you following suit. Her horn lights up, and the front door is surrounded by a white aura before opening wide in front of you.

You walk in, greeted by a short hallway. Along the floor are several soda and beer cans lying around, having been carelessly thrown to the ground instead of into a recycling bin. However, in the next second, they all explode in tiny white blasts of magic before vanishing.

“Sorry about the mess, I didn’t exactly plan for visitors,” Vinyl says sheepishly as the clatter of tin cans hitting the ground goes off in another room. You shrug forgivingly, following the mare into the room ahead.

You make a pretty good guess that this is the living room that Vinyl Scratch was talking about. Both halves of the room are painted different colors, one half blue and the other a light brown, divided down the center of the room. On the blue half, electronic equipment like keyboards and large amplifiers stacked on top of each other are connected by cables that string from one to the other. On the brown half is a cello with a music stand beside it and a table holding a mug of what appears to be half-full tea. It’s pretty simple to discern which side is who’s.

“Welcome to the place where the magic happens, literally and figuratively. Ya know, since I’m a unicorn and I can do magi—ANYWAYS, I wasn’t kidding when I said I transformed this living room. Used to have some old couches which the previous owners left behind, but I got rid of those and added speakers, repainted it—Octavia helped me with that, and a whole bunch of other stuff.”

Vinyl gestures to the blue side of the room. "My side obviously. This is where I make all sorts of tracks. You can make any beat you want with these babies. C'mere, I'll show you how!"

She steps behind the keyboard, messing with the buttons and settings on the device which are completely foreign to you. As you step over wires to stand beside Vinyl, you hear the front door open, followed by the clopping of hooves entering.

The unicorn looks up from the keyboard and smiles, yet with a slight frown. "Huh, didn't think Octy would be home that soon," she says, leaving her place in front of the keyboard to go greet her marefriend. As she does, the gray mare you’d seen on stage at the theater trots into the room with a saddlebag around her back.

“Sup, Octy!” Vinyl says.

Octavia looks up somewhat in surprise. “Oh, Vinyl. Hi, I wasn’t expecting you to be here.” Her british accent stands out to you immediately. Her eyes then lock on you. “You were the one at the theater this morning, correct?”

You nod.

“Well thank you for the support you gave me, I’m glad you enjoyed the performance,” she says gratefully, proceeding to hold out her hoof. “It’s nice to meet you, I’m Octavia.” You shake her hoof with a smile.

“Oh yeah, that was an A plus performance Octy. Even my friend here was telling me how good you were.” Vinyl bumps you on the shoulder, giving you an appreciative smirk.

Octavia looks at Vinyl again, and you think you see her smile flatten a little. “Thanks. Erm... Vinyl, can I talk to you in private for a second…?”

Vinyl seems caught off guard by the question. “Uh… sure, yeah.”

The atmosphere takes a sudden awkward turn as Octavia backs into the hallway and motions for Vinyl to follow. The yellow unicorn sighs, like she knows what this is going to be about, and turns to you nervously. “Uh, just wait here a sec, I’ll be right back.” She then follows Octavia into the hallway, leaving you alone in the living room.

You stand in place alone, waiting for their conversation to be over. You look around the room, thinking about trying out the instruments in the room to entertain yourself while Vinyl’s away. Then again, you don’t know the first thing about these kinds of instruments, especially the keyboard in front of you with not only piano keys, but a wide variety of buttons ranging from large to small.

You see what looks like the power button on the left of the keyboard and press it. The keyboard buttons light up, and you decide to press one of the keys. When no sound is produced from the keyboard’s speakers, you try to find out why when you realize that it's connected into the amplifiers behind you. You turn around, faced with a row of knobs and switches, all of which you have no clue what they do or how they work…

You decide to just wait until Vinyl comes back.

Come to think of it, she hasn’t been back for a while. Have they been talking for that long? You step toward the hallway when your ears perk up at the sound of… arguing? Their voices are faint, and it seems like Vinyl and Octavia are trying to keep it down, but there’s no doubt in your mind it's arguing.

When you look into the hallway, you see the two mares at the other end, talking to each other with clear tension between them. While Octavia’s face is calm and slightly somber, Vinyl is pacing lightly with a stressed expression.

“Listen, I know recently we haven’t seen each other much, but that can change—I’ll cut down on touring.”

“Vinyl, be honest, you’re busy with live shows all across Equestria, and you can’t just cut down because it’s how you make a living. Yours and my motivations are different and with how things are now, it’s just going to get worse further down the road.”

“C’mon Octy, I’ve supported you through so much stuff, and even if we don’t see each other as much, we still stay in contact, and now you’re saying this, I mean… really?”

“I’m grateful for your support, Vinyl. Truly, I am. My point is that it has nothing to do with you. In a few days I have my performance and from then on, our relationship could become uncomfortably distant, and I’m sure we both don’t want that. So maybe this is for the best.”

“Well, you said it yourself. Could. Things could be different, or… who knows, you might not even make it! Wrong thing to say, I’m sorry.”

You watch as the argument takes place and feel an incentive to jump in and calm them down. However, it’s awkward enough that you’re witnessing this argument take place, and part of you just wants to stay out of it and go on your merry way.

Intervene___________________________________________________________________________________________________Leave