Echoes from the Past (Part 3)
Octavia woke up on an old, weathered couch - too new to be classed as antique but too worn to be anything but - with a throbbing hangover, an empty whiskey bottle cradled in her hooves and a throbbing hangover.
Wait, did she just think that one twice? It was too hard to concentrate.
She was quite hungover, you see.
Her mouth was filled with cotton demons, her eyes were collapsing under their own weight and her skull felt like it was trying to flee her head and scatter itself to the far corners of Equestria, and probably would have succeeded if it weren’t for all that damned scalp getting in the way, or that it was debating separating into pieces and couldn't agree on the dividing lines.
Her nose twitched - it had caught the scent of something.
Congealed cheeses, fats, oils...
Octavia righted herself on the couch, head flopping lazily over the armrest, which had long been worn down past the ability to provide any actual support, as her eyes slowly pried themselves open.
Being waved around at about nose height was a glistening, glittery paper bag lined with foil, filled with a-
“Doner kebab.” Octavia groaned, swatting at it with a forehoof, “gimme. Get in my mouth you stupid floating grease stick.”
“C’mon, Octy, I go out and get you something nice and what do I get for it? Not even a ‘hello, my stupidly smexiful best friend in the whole wide world’ for it?”
Octavia pried her eyes wider still. It appeared that the kebab wasn’t floating of its own accord, as all truly blessed foods should do, but was being waved at her by by her grinning best friend’s magic, who appeared to have worked off the last of her own hangover, just in time to torment the pony flopped on the couch.
“I learned a spell earlier that boils the saliva inside a ponies mouth. Gimme the kebab before I’m forced to use it.” Octavia grumbled, taking another ineffectual swipe at the foil, watching it jerk away at the last second with a low, miserable groan.
“That was ambiguously worded. Let me take a swing,” she jerked the kebab back, “of my own at this; it boils your own saliva, right?”
“Well, yes,” Octavia growled, propping herself into a more reasonable position, “but then you would be forced to watch me suffer and it would be quite unpleasant, I can assure you.”
“Yeah, flaw in that plan, I’m already totally watching you suffer. How’s that going for you so far, anyway?”
Vinyl took a pillow to the face. With her guard down the kebab was an easy target. Octavia went in for the kill.
It was over in seconds.
It is a well known fact that greasy foods loaded with carbohydrates, like kebabs, eased a hangover and absorbed alcohol from the system in a poorly understood method known to the lay pony as ‘sopping up’.
Whether or not this actually works is currently highly disputed, most likely because it’s only been ‘proven’ by the first hoof accounts of drunk ponies. Octavia had no hesitations adding her agreement to the list, though.
“How much do you love me right now?” Vinyl smirked as Octavia absolutely went to town on the kebab.
“Dear Celestia above, I almost feel equine again.” Octavia moaned through another mouthful.
“Well, in that case, get your best bowtie on, bodacious bootylicious babe, we’re going clubbing!”
“Vinyl, my head is clubbing me.”
“Which is your body’s way of telling you you’re too sober to deal with this right now. Listen to your body Octavia.” Vinyl nodded, flashing a toothy grin.
Now any truly right-minded pony would see that was a terrible idea. They would see the flaws in it and how, inevitably, they would end up feeling so much worse because of it and quite possibly in the Canterlot drunk tank.
“You know what, Vinyl? That sounds like a great idea. Might even be a lot of fun.”
Octavia was not a truly right-minded pony at that moment, though.
She was quite hungover, you see.
For all the porcelain towers and ivory spirals Canterlot city wasn’t entirely ‘elite’. The upper crust had to have a lower crust to compare themselves to, and look down upon, to reinforce their fickle sense of self worth after all. Just because they were too good for such dreary things as manual labour and food service didn’t make those jobs unnecessary.
This resulted in Canterlot’s thriving working class, the ponies who actually did all the work and made life for the nobility possible. This resulted in the working class having its own businesses, homes and a chunk of Canterlot all to itself, close enough to work for the nobility but not too close, lest they get the idea that they were, Celestia forbid, equals.
Octavia found herself in one of these districts now, being led by the nose by Vinyl, whose head was bobbing away to a beat nopony but her could hear.
“So, what is our destination of choice this evening?”
“Why?” Vinyl bobbed her head at Octavia, grinning manically, “does knowing even matter?”
“Well, no,” she admitted, “but it would be nice to get a feel for your-” Octavia paused to scrounge for the words, “weapon of choice, shall we say, in your continuing war against my braincells and sobriety?”
“Hey!” Vinyl grinned, slugging her friend in the shoulder, “This time you’re dragging me into this little war we’ve got going on. That’s, like, a heck of a big difference and you should be thanking me as your guide.”
“Does thanking you comprise of buying you a drink?” Octavia sighed.
“Well, yeah. Or a round. Heck, maybe a bottle of something, that’d be pretty kickin’.”
“This is a debt I should probably settle now, then.” Vinyl was dancing, now, keeping pace laterally with Octavia but powering ahead in about every other direction at once. “Lest I get drunk enough, later, to think that honouring it like that is a good idea.”
“Hey, I’m questionably sober right now and I think that’s a good idea!”
“Decidedly my point.”
“Hey! We’re here!”
Octavia stood, stunned, as Vinyl continued to bounce off towards the club. She wasn’t really expecting her to drink at an establishment called “The Blue Moon”, was she? An establishment she could feel before she could see, the vibrations from what she could only assume were very large, loud speakers sending waves through the cobblestones beneath her hooves even as she rounded the corner.
Of course the place was also probably visible from the moon with all the electric-blue neon it had trimming the edges and borders. It looked-
Frankly, it looked very Vinyl. It felt very Vinyl.
“Why do they call it the Blue Moon anyway? Is it so exclusive you’re only let in very rarely? Is it because some pony thought it unnaturally beautiful?” Octavia raised her eyebrow and shot Vinyl a sideways glance.
She didn’t think it were possible but somehow her friend grinned wider. Surely her jawbone should have gotten in the way at some point...
“Just wait for it.” Vinyl paused, pointing at the sign with a hoof, “Wait for it... wait for it...”
The venue’s front-neon sign flared into life. A picture of a mare’s moon-themed cutie mark with an emphasis on the flank.
“Charming.”
“Oh, man, this place is classy all round, right?”
Octavia stared. She said that sarcastically, surely- No. No, she hadn’t, she actually believed that.
“This is going to be a long night.” She sighed, massaging the bridge of her nose with the edge of a hoof.
“Yeah, if we’re lucky. Heck, might even be a long morning too, if we play it right. C’mon, let’s get blotto and mosh a bit!” Vinyl started bouncing ahead, bobbing and weaving through the crowd that had started forming around the entrance.
Vinyl stopped suddenly, or at least restrained her dancing to one spot, and Octavia walked right into the back of her. Rubbing her nose, she glanced up and over her friend’s shoulder to see they’d just danced their way to the front of the line to get in.
The unicorn shot her a knowing, triumphant smirk before turning to the bouncer.
He was a wall of muscle with wings. Both mares had to crane their necks up at him to make eye contact as he held a little clipboard in front of him, or more likely a normal-sized clipboard that the pegasus happened to dwarf, and looked that them in bemusement.
“You two ain’t on the list.”
Vinyl stared at him in confusion, Octavia in indignance.
“How do you know we’re not on the list if we haven’t given you our names?”
Vinyl shot an annoyed glance at her friend and sighed heavily, turning back to the bouncer, who was doing noticeably less bouncing than Vinyl, with a saccharine smile.
“You’re new here, huh? First day I take it?”
There was the sound of granite scraping on marble as the wall of muscle nodded sheepishly.
“Chill, man, I get that, but you gotta learn the dance if you’re gonna work here for long. C’mon, you’re not gonna fool anypony with half a brain, and my buddy here has at least, like, three of those.”
Vinyl turned back to Octavia as the pegasus started counting on his hooves, moving his lips noticeable as he struggled with the numbers. It appeared to be a losing battle.
“Look, ‘tavi, baby, I love you but you gotta let me handle this, chill? You see that clipboard there with all the names on it?” She waited until Octavia nodded, shaking her head sadly, exasperation dripping from her voice in thick, greasy globs, “No, you don’t. What you see gripped between tall, white and brawnsome’s wings there is a clipboard full of blank pages. They just use that as an excuse to turn uncool ponies away. Right now we don’t look the part, or something.”
Vinyl levitated her glasses off, polishing them against the fur on the nape of her neck. They drifted in her magic lazily over the back of her neck until, tongue lolled out in concentration, they banged against her spine, causing Octavia to wince.
Out from somewhere behind the glasses a necklace of glowsticks fell and clasped around her neck, hugging her chest.
“Sweet, that does me,” she declared as she replaced the glasses with a flourish, “but we haven’t done you yet. Actually, that’s a blatant lie, I totally got you covered earlier.”
Octavia blinked.
“What did you do to me whilst I was passed out on your couch?” Her voice was slow, even and obviously masking a combined sense of panic and murderous intent should that panic be proven validated.
Vinyl’s horn glowed, red this time instead of its usual electric blue. Octavia thought, at first, that she’d tried to do something with her mane and bow tie, which she had seen glowing in her peripheral vision-
The problem was that they didn’t stop glowing when Vinyl’s horn did.
“Vinyl. What did you do?” Her voice was deadly calm now, emphasis on deadly, which the unicorn cheerily grinned down.
She turned back to the bouncer as Octavia inspected the her reflection in the polished club walls. She was dully aware of the other two ponies in the background of her mind, obviously haggling about entry.
Her bowtie was glowing neon red. Her hair had gotten maroon highlights, too, which were also glowing like Vinyl’s necklace.
“Cool, he says we look rave enough to get in, now, and I gave the big lug a few pointers. I count that as a win, all in all.”
“Vinyl, I’m not going to kill you-”
“Love you too, Octy.”
“-because this actually looks rather dashing and it got me in the building. That’s it. That is the only thing that stopped me-”
“What, breaking my neck or somethin’? Come off it, ‘tavi, we both know-”
“No, no, you’re right, I’d miss you far too much, in spite of everything. Also an investigation would just be so much work, and I’m finally getting somewhere in my life that suspicion makes hiding a body worth it, and we both know how much of a hassle that is, anyway.” Vinyl opened the door and bowed low and dramatically, Octavia entering in response with the four-legged equivalent of a curtsy and a smile, “So no, you’re right, I wouldn’t do that. Instead I think I would take all your records from their covers and put them back completely at random. Quite possibly use a few of them as a coaster for a lovely pot of tea whilst I do so.”
Vinyl paled noticeably, an impressive feat under all that white fur.
“That’s just cruel, Octy.”
“Yes, that sort of is the point, isn’t it? Just remember that the next time you think to amuse yourself with me in my sleep and we should be fine, though, shan’t we?”
“Point taken, and I have just decided I am entirely too sober for this.”
“Agreed. What drinks do you recommend, here?”
“The liquid kind.” Vinyl declared, throwing an affectionate leg over Octavia and guiding her through the pulsing, writhing crowd to the bar at the club’s center.
“Well, I suppose that narrows it down considerably, yes.”
“No, really, I think they used to have an oxygen bar around here, but it’s totally for novelty value only.”
“Ah, and here I thought you were being witty?”
“Hey, that’s your job. What do I always say, of the two of us, you’re the great wit? No, wait, grey twit. Totally easy mistake to make.” Vinyl flashed Octavia a grin, turning back to the bar to flag down a bartender, something she was able to do with only a meaningful look and an almost imperceptible nod, noticed even through the thick wall of ponies. Vinyl had a magic all her own in places like this, something that had nothing to do with being a unicorn.
“You know what, I’ll give you that one. That was rather clever.”
“Yeah, I’m still sober enough for wordplay and you’re sober enough that your laughter is still all refined and stuff. We’ll have two Blue Moon’s please, figure you name the place after a drink you gotta get it right, huh?”
Vinyl trotted up to the bar, the crowd of ponies rippling around her, making room without realizing it was quite doing it. It was a subtle thing and Octavia couldn’t help but watch on in awe as Vinyl returned with two full highball glasses, brimming with liquid the same electric blue as the club around them, without spilling a drop..
“No matter how many times I see you in ‘the zone’ it will never cease to amaze me.”
“Liquor’s on the line, ‘tavi!”
“But it’s more than that!” Octavia insisted, “You’re just-”
“Hey, I got enough problems with my ego as it is. Let’s find ourselves a booth near the dance floor, these drinks are about as good as I could have hoped.”
Octavia took a sip, so as not to spill any as Vinyl dragged her across the room again in that excited manner of hers, and her eyes bulged.
“This is liquid ambrosia. Pure, transubstantiated nirvana nestled betwixt ice cubes, chilled and distilled happiness and sweet nepenthe.” She breathed, staring at her glass in fascination.
“That was just a poetic way of saying we’re about to get wicked drunk, right?”
“Oh, yes, yes indeed.”
“Chill.”
And then Vinyl downed the cocktail in a single gulp, wiping her mouth with the back of a foreleg.
“Two more please!”
“I haven’t finished mine, yet.” Octavia took a pointed sip of her drink.
“Huh? Oh, no, they’re both for me.”
“Of course.”
The booth quickly filled with empty glasses, which a waitress had offered to take away but Vinyl had refused on the premise of ‘nopony messing with her score card’, each empty glass of varying shape and size not just a memory of a drink, but a trophy for keeping it and its brethren down.
For the moment, at least.
Octavia felt a warm glow that had nothing to do with the alcohol coursing through her right now. She watched Vinyl’s head bob downed another shot, much like a bird would a worm, and smiled wanly. The unicorn was a party pony through and through, of that nopony could deny - not without Vinyl taking it as a personal challenge - but she wasn’t usually this much of a lush.
Sure, she indulged in, how did one put it politely, the occasional overindulgence of liquor. Perhaps quite often, in fact. What she was seeing before her, now, though, was Vinyl on a binge, which was an almost terrifying sight. What would fell lesser ponies and corrode lesser livers, making a liar of that particular organ’s name, in fact, was currently laid out before her in empty glasses, most of which were Vinyl’s.
Most, but not all.
Which is why Octavia smiled. Vinyl didn’t like to binge to this degree normally. This was a pony who had gotten hangovers down to a science, and then from a science to an artform. She knew the exact quantities of what, and when, to drink so that her hangover merely encouraged her to drink the next morning, and was easily remedied by a Bloody Mare, and not put her off drinking altogether.
She saved that for New Years. It was her way of starting off her resolution each year; I won’t drink for a month. Just to prove she could.
Octavia shook her head, trying to shake off all the tangents, and blinked firmly. The point of her long, often derailed train of thought was that Vinyl didn’t take binging lightly. She suspected, in fact, the Vinyl was actually taking one for the team to mask just exactly how devastatingly plastered Octavia planned to get in much fewer glasses.
Vinyl was a damn good friend and Octavia loved her to pieces.
Okay - maybe some of it was the liquor after all.
“Yo, Octy?”
“Huh wa?” Octavia blinked, shaking her head again, a bit more vigorously this time.
“Ha! That was totally dignified, my friend, totally. I was just asking ‘are you okay, in there’? I swear, I was about to grab my uh... what’s the word... climbing gear, that’s it, and dive in after you!”
Octavia snorted at the mental image, then giggled for a few seconds. A totally reasonable amount of time to giggle, she reassured herself.
Vinyl raised her eyebrows, staring at Octavia for a few seconds, then smiled slowly, that wicked shark’s smile from before, creeping up the side of her face like a malevolent sunrise.
“Hey, you know what’d be fun right now?” A pause, a lowering of the shades, a tilting of the head to look over them to complete the effect, “We should totally hit the dance floor.”
“That sounds like a wonderful idea!” Octavia slid gracefully out of the booth and beamed back at Vinyl. Well, mostly gracefully, she lurched just as she stood up for the first time, but that was probably because gravity had a local fluctuation at that moment. It certainly felt rather intense for a brief second.
She’d have to ask Twilight Sparkle about that the next time she ogled those cute purple flanks and thought definitively salacious thoughts about them. Oh, after Twilight apologized for being so perfect. Then Octavia could forgive her by finding out if she was a perfect kisser, or if she was a fast learner with her tongue in-
“‘Tavi?” Vinyl snickered.
“What?!” she snapped. For some reason Vinyl found this hilarious.
“You’ve been standing there, staring at the wall and drooling for, like, a while now. I was just checkin’ first, before I tried anything with the magic markers.”
Octavia glared and blushed furiously. Well, more so.
“So, dance?” Vinyl grinned goofily.
“... fine.” She sighed and allowed herself a soft smile too.
This would be fun. This would be fun. This was going to be fun.
She chanted it to herself like a mantra.
Vinyl led her to the dance floor, sashaying across the floor and bobbing to the beat. Octavia tried to mimic her but whereas Vinyl’s bobbing and swaying had a fluid, careless grace to it, well...
Octavia mostly just betrayed her inebriation.
“I think I’m getting the hang of it!” She yelled over the music.
“Yeah, looks that way!” Vinyl agreed, doing a little spin.
Octavia kept to her bobbing for a bit, quickly building confidence in her own abilities. Each time she thought she might have really gotten it, though, Vinyl blew her away again with an effortless grin.
“Where did you learn how to moonwalk?”
“Big brother.” She grinned.
Octavia opened her mouth to reply, then closed it firmly.
'Only child. Dad’s dead. Small family. Smaller family. Never aga-'
“Hey!” Vinyl shot her a concerned look, “Want me to teach you?”
“Hmm?”
“To moonwalk. You looked really bummed all of a sudden.”
“Oh? Oh! Yes!” she dove for the excuse. She was meant to be having fun after all, not thinking about...
No. Not even thinking about thinking about.
“Chill. Alright, just watch me.”
Octavia did. Vinyl breezed backwards for a few seconds, stopping slowly and continuing on the spot for a few more, shooting her friend a big cheesy, never breaking eye contact.
“What- how-” her friend spluttered, “Seriously, how did you do that? More importanly how did you expect me to pick it up just from watching you?”
“Oh, I didn’t, you totally can’t if it’s done right.” Vinyl nodded back, “and I totally nailed it. Nah, just felt like having my ego stroked a bit. Your expression was priceless, I gotta say. Now, you stoked for this or what?”
“I... yes, fine, I’d very much like to.” Octavia conceded.
“You bet you do. Here- You snap your hooves up like this, right? Then as you push back you just slide,” she demonstrated, slower this time, “the other one back. Then you snap, bam, that one back up and repeat.” Vinyl slid across the floor in slow motion.
Octavia tried to mimic what she’d just seen.
“Okay, cool, not bad for a first try.” Vinyl nodded her approval. “Frankly, terrible, but for a first try? Totally acceptable. Let’s work on making it not suck now.”
“Your leadership and tutelage is awe-inspiring.”
“I know, right? Okay- Don’t drag your hoof, keep it, like, just a little off the floor. It’s all in the ankles, ignore your knees for the most part, as it is. Also, try to pretend you haven’t had as many drinks as you have.”
“I probably wouldn’t have let you drag me into this if it weren’t for those drinks, though, you realize?”
“Totally, which is why I said pretend. You’re going to totally regret this tomorrow morning.”
“The oracle speaketh her prophecy. Let’s just see if I can’t-” Octavia slid backwards a little.
“Hey, there we go, that’s the slide down.”
Octavia grinned. Then she beamed. Then she giggled and did it again. And again.
“And there’s the snap! Nice work, now just trot back over and I’ll teach you how to do it on the spot- Octy? Octy, just, just trot back. Octy? ‘Tavi!”
Octavia was lost in focus though. She’d gotten her rhythm down and was more than happily lost in the moment.
Snap, slide, snap, slide.
Bump.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” a gravelly voice growled from behind her, “I believe you just spilled my drink.”
Octavia blushed furiously as she turned to face the pony she’d just flank-checked, a rather large purple pegasus with a black mohawk, tipped at the edges with neon-green. “Oh, I’m very sorry, I was just-”
“Not looking where you were going. Yeah, I noticed.” He growled. “Care to buy me a new drink to replace the one you so inconsiderately-”
“Hey just a moment!” Vinyl was suddenly at Octavia’s side, muzzle-to-muzzle with the pegasus. “That glass was empty and we both know it. What, you’re trying to scare some bits out of my friend here?”
“She spilled my drink.” He repeated, calmly. “Prissy pony like her don’t belong in a joint like this, anyway. Why doesn’t she go back to the high streets, leave us working ponies alone.”
Octavia almost allowed herself to be offended before remembering that she had thought the exact same thing herself scant hours before.
“Look, she’s cool, alright? A little tipsy, sure, but she’s totally chill enough to rock out here. I mean, she’s with me, right?” In years to come, when Vinyl had actually made a name for herself, that might have been the end of it. Such things were not to be. “And I say she’s, like, half again the mare I am. So why don’t you apologize for trying to scam her before I get mad.”
The pegasus smirked at her. Another pegasus, this one slate grey with a scruffy blonde mop of a mane cut, stood at his friend’s side.
“Yeah, you get mad? What are you gonna do? Take this outside?”
Took it outside. Her father had-
“Vinyl, let me just pay the stallions, I’d really like to leave now.” Octavia said calmly, feeling far too sober again.
“What?! But-” Vinyl glanced at Octavia, who pointedly looked away, mouth twitching slightly at the corners. “-Oh. Oh, that’s just wicked uncool, you guys.”
“Hey, she bumped into me!” The first pegasus snarled.
“Look, we’ll pay the bits, whatever, just back off so my friend here can get some air, okay?”
“No.” he stated firmly. Even his friend stared at him in disbelief.
“No? Look, guy, what more do you want?”
“Yeah, Blitz, what-”
He silenced his friend with a raised hoof.
“I want you to apologize, and admit it was all her fault.”
“Oh you cannot be serious!” Vinyl snapped, glancing at her friend beside her. This was starting to feel like a really bad idea in the pit of the unicorn’s gut.
Go big or go home.
“Featherhead, if you can’t see my friend here isn’t really in the condition to-”
“What’d you call me?” Blitz snarled. His friend took a step back, eyes widening.
Vinyl was too preoccupied with Octavia to notice.
“Featherhead, look-”
Crack.
Vinyl neck snapped back as she fell flat onto her rump. Octavia’s head whipped up, pulled out of her spiral of thoughts, and she stared at the red spatters on the unicorn’s face.
Vinyl’s muzzle was twisted at an odd angle, but she hadn’t noticed that yet. Cradled in her forehooves she was staring at the twisted wire frames of her glasses, the popped and shattered lenses balanced beside them. A wet, globby sniffle, caught on thick ropes of blood, as she stared at the fragments of her most treasured possession and-
Octavia snapped her attention back to the purple brute before her, the smell of whiskey suddenly all the heavy on his breath, his eyes wild. He took another lurching punch with a forehoof, wings poised and flared at his sides.
Octavia leaned into his chest, adrenaline raging and pulse pounding in her ears, wrapping one foreleg around his barrel as she pressed the punch up with the other. She rolled with it, pulling his momentum and twisting it, planting her hind legs and twisting around her waist like it was a ball-bearing. A lash out of her hind leg, sweeping the back of his, and he was sent sprawling on his back.
His friend stared at her in awe and, judging by the blush, she suspected something else a bit untoward.
She straightened and flushed noticeably, aware of every eye around her suddenly on the small group.
“He started it!” She pleads.
She heard a snarl and her legs were swept from under her, pulling her down into a brawl with Blitz on the floor. She managed to use the momentum to sink an elbow into his wing joint, crushing it against the floor, and was rewarded for her efforts with a knee to the gut.
“Woah, horseapples, I uh- Blitz do you need any-” His friend was cut off as he’s pounced by Vinyl, growling like an animal, drunk, dizzied and in a very mild state of shock. Her fighting style, if it could be called that, seemed to consist of flailing at the very confused grey pegasus as violently as possible.
It quickly hit a nearby gawker who takes a swing back, only for Vinyl to duck at the last second. The punch sailed over her head and hit another gawker behind her. Those two stallions start a brawl of their own and from there-
It doesn’t take very long for the guard to arrive, at that point.
As Octavia and Vinyl were led out with many, many others, bound in hoofcuffs, Octavia found time to criticize her friend’s... decisions.
“What did I say about insulting stallions, particularly those much larger and drunker than yourself?”
“I shouldn’t do it.” Vinyl mumbled, like a preschool filly being chided..
“And why’s that?”
“Because then it makes it a pride thing.”
“Good. So, what did you do when you called that stallion a featherhead earlier?”
“I made it a pride thing.” Vinyl paused to reflect on this. “I’m so lucky you’re going to be too drunk to remember this tomorrow.”
“That may certainly be, but now you’re locked in a small room with me until then.”
“... eep.”
Octavia glared at the unicorn for a few seconds before her expression melted into a soft, genuine smile. Around the bruises, of course, where her face refused to move as it should.
“Thanks for standing up for me though. You were quite the chivalrous mare, earlier.”
“Oh, yeah, I bet you that’s the bit you’re going to forget tomorrow morning, as well.” Vinyl grumbled sarcastically as the two were locked into the back of the police wagon.
“Party hard!” Vinyl whooped.
Octavia blinked.
Octavia blinked again.
She appeared to be quite hungover, in a completely unfamiliar location and-
Yes, yes she appeared to have been arrested the night before.
“Vinyl, I swear to-”
“Oh! Hey, sleepy head! You’re awake.”
“Unfortunately, that appears to be the case, yes.”
‘Hello cotton demons. Hello explodey-skull. Did you miss me so soon?’
“Vinyl, could you give me your best analysis of our current predicament?”
“Okay. You’re wicked hungover, we’re both in the Canterlot drunk tank and you’re probably remembering all the stupid things we did last night.”
“Stupid things? I don’t remember... doing...”
‘Oh dear Celestia above us is that what my dancing was like?’
“There it is. Guard said somepony is already working on getting us bailed out, though. Fairly certain they’re dropping all charges.”
“Dropping all charges? Of wha-”
‘Oh, I sort of instigated a brawl, didn’t I.’ She paused and mentally surveyed herself. Wincing, she dared glance down. Her hangover had done a rather good job at masking her war wounds until Vinyl made her notice them. She was covered in bruises, sores and a couple of scabs.
“If it helps any,” Vinyl smirked, leaning easily against the cell wall, “You should totally have seen the other guy.”
Octavia paled. “Why would that help any? How could that possibly help at all?”
“Because, ‘tavi babe, you made a stallion twice your size cry for his mummy whilst defending my honour,” Vinyl fluttered her eyelashes coquettishly, sporting a grin that was most unsporting, “My hero.” She cooed.
“There is... I cannot... Okay, I will take a small amount of solace in the fact that this cannot get any worse. It is, in fact, impossible for it to get any worse. Therefore it must all be uphill from here or, as you would delight in me calling it, a ‘suck plateau’.”
Vinyl’s eyes widened. “Octy, you just tempted fate. Like, a lot. Didn’t even say ‘touch wood’. You realize how screwed that makes us?”
Octavia stood up from the cot she was lying on, though she may have been better off sleeping on the floor, and made a great effort to stand in the middle of the small room, eyes cast heavenward, feet planted defiantly.
“Come on! I can take it! What’s the worst you can give me that I haven’t already done to myself? Hit me with your best shot, universe!”
“Just a tipple with friends, huh?” a new voice snorted. “I bet you think Canterlot is just on a bit of a hill, too.”
“Vinyl, you didn’t happen to learn ventriloquism without my knowledge, did you?” Octavia asked whilst continuing to stare pointedly at the ceiling.
“‘Fraid not, ‘She Who Tempts Fate’.”
“Drat.” Octavia sighed, turning and facing Twilight Sparkle, who was staring at her with no small amount of wry amusement. “Low blow, universe. That’s just...”
“Cheap? Unscrupulous? Petty? Shameless? Cruel? I can keep going, if you want.”
“Actually, that would be rather nice, thank you. I’d do it myself, but-”
“You’re hungover, yes, I’d gathered that.” Twilight sighed. “I know a spell that could help with that. Several, actually, but I suspect that you’d just resent me more if I didn’t let you nurse your self-loathing a little while longer.”
Vinyl snickered, drawing Twilight’s attention to her.
“Ah, I’m glad to see your nose set right. I was a little worried about that for a while.”
“Nah, s’all good. Might have given it a little character, you know, like a-”
“Like a cheap vodka, yes, you did say.” Twilight grimaced as Vinyl grinned unashamedly at her.
“You have a very strange friend here, Octavia.” Twilight sighed, “I’m not sure I completely understand her.” She paused, levitating out a small key and twisting it into the cell door’s lock. “Or you, for that matter. She did tell me the circumstances of last night, though, and with some eyewitness corroboration I think I’ve managed to get you out of any serious trouble. You were provoked, that was certain, you tried to stop when your aggressor was on the ground, you never used undue force...” she coughed, “Though what force you did display was, apparently, admirable, if you’re into that whole ‘macho, knight in shining armour’ schtick.”
“Hey! Octy! She’s totally blushing!” Vinyl yelled a little too loudly. “I think she likes you.”
“N-no I’m not, I’m just- I wasn’t!” Twilight stood there, mouth moving but words getting gridlocked somewhere behind it, causing her to blush harder still.
“Well, she is now!” Vinyl grinned.
“You are a crude and lecherous little pony, aren’t you?” Twilight growled, drawing her mane down over her face.
“I am totally a cool and legendary pony, thanks for noticing.”
“Vinyl, please,” Octavia stated calmly, hoping neither noticed just how badly she wanted to fall over laughing hangover be damned, “stop being cruel to the mare that is the difference between freedom and you being locked in here all day with me until somepony else works out the paperwork.”
“N’aww, but she’s so cute!” Vinyl beamed, hopping over to Octavia and bumping into her, “You two should totally-”
Both mares silenced her with an icy glare. Vinyl tactfully decided to not tell either of them that they were blushing just as hard as each other by this point.
Nah, she’d save that particularly juicy piece for later.
“So, Twilight,” Octavia declared in as loud and neutral a tone she could manage, “When did you study law?”
“Hrrm? Oh, last night, as soon as I heard about what happened.” Twilight beamed happily.
“You picked up... in a single night?”
“Well, besides helping my brother with his guard homework, I didn’t have any interest in it until... oh, oh no,” Twilight paled, “This isn’t like one of those things is it? I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have... I mean, I didn’t mean to... I can’t help it if I just know things, okay?”
Octavia winced. She’d been so happy a second ago, and now just thinking about what had happened was...
The hangover had nothing on the guilt at that moment.
“Twilight Sparkle,” ‘Oh dear please let me have remembered her last name correctly,’ “I am sorry for what I said yesterday, and my behaviour. It was wrong of my to treat a friend like that.”
Twilight looked up at her, stunned. Vinyl stared and gasped.
Vinyl’s smile then took on unprecedented levels of giddiness as she bounded over between the two of them and pulled them together in a big, group hug.
“N’aww! That’s so sweet! You two are just so adorable, you know that? Like, full on, straight up cute. It’s practically-”
Twilight started wheezing a little.
“Too... much... contact...”
*Pop*!
“Huh. What was that about?”
Octavia sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose with a hoof.
“Celestia damn it, Vinyl.”
“What? Hey, at least she left the door open, we can just-”
“Hey! Prisoners must be escorted out of their cells.”
“What? But we’re released, you can just-”
“No leaving without your escort, ma’am.”
“Huh. Alright.” Vinyl trotted back and sat next to Octavia, who was currently slumped on the floor.
“How long until she gets back?” Silence. “A while, huh? Okay, okay, it’s chill, at least we still have each other.”
“Damn it, Vinyl, I love you like a sister, and you know that I always will, but words cannot express just how much I hate you right now.”
Vinyl snickered. Octavia shot her a glance with a raised eyebrow and a bemused expression.
"Sorry, sorry, I'm just thinking it's weird that you love me like a sister and that you totally want to jump my bones. Isn't that kind of..." Vinyl snorted and started rolling on her sides.
"Officers!" Octavia called out, eyes never leaving Vinyl, "Would you be so kind as to look the other way whilst I make the most of my time served?"
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Okay, I only get one shot at this so I've got to make it count. *Deep breath,* Here we go...
reactiongifs.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/I_Love_You_Patrick.gif
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Uh... Pay no mind to the last one.
Nice job brining us back to the present.
Also... A drunk and pissed off Octavia is not someone to trifle with.
Not bad at all, dude.
~Skeeter The Lurker
3375591
Sorry, dude, still very much in the past. Dad's funeral imminent and all that. This is the day after the last chapter, time wise.
We're about to go through all these happy fluffy first date moments, though, and it's all going to be sweet and happy and cheerful and hopefully funny. Going to be the brightest part of the story to date, hopefully.
Then I'm going to ruin it for everyone for, like, a decade or so. It's going to suck.
Still got to explain how Twilight didn't recognize her, after all, don't we?
3375618
Oh, whoops.
Hm. Didn't realize that...
Time for a re read!
~Skeeter The Lurker
Partway through the chapter, this jumped out
It's incomplete and doesn't look purposefully incomplete the way other bits do.
....
Now that I have read the chapter I'm extra confused as to why Octavia and Twilight didn't recognize each other in the beginning. I was assuming they never saw each other after the argument.
3375638
I'm officially dubbing these errors "G Dicks." When G Docs has cut something off because it's being a petulant dick about it, it is henceforth a "G Dicks" error.
Thanks for the heads up.
G Dicks blows.
Wait, this is still a flashback, right? So Luna hasn't returned yet, right? (Although once she does, I imagine the Blue Moon will be undergoing an... extensive reworking of its theme. To the Blue Smoking Crater.
)
I always find it a little weird when ponies invoke the 'knight in shining armor' trope, given that, y'know, Shining Armor is an actual, non-metaphorical pony. It's doubly weird when Twilight does it.
3375807
Force of habit and- Why, yes, I'm glad you picked up on the Blue Moon aspect.
Now...
Twilight invoking Shining Armour schtick is completely intentional. Think about it: Would you rather she was, in fact, into it?
Think about it.
3375807
I like to think that 'knight in shining armor' is just as common an expression to ponies as it is to us, and that Shiny has spent his entire Guard career hearing that joke.
I think you meant to only have either "so that her hangover merely encouraged her to drink the next morning" or "was easily remedied by a Bloody Mare" and not both.
Seems to have fewer errors from importing this time.
3376200
Gottit
3375702 Excellent work, sir! This was another fun chapter.
Gdocs absolutely sucks - I hate it almost as much as I hate Chrome. I think it might work better for you, though, if you either removed the comments or downloaded from a copy without them. I've downloaded many very large docs to FF from Gdocs and never once had it cut off text.
BTW, I should note that I hardly did anything for you this time. You did 99.9% of the Grammar Nazi work before I even got there.
Yesss! This update just made my night. Awesome as always! Great job.
3376000
Sure, I can buy that.
Octavia, crouching cellist, hidden badass.
3375807
THOU DARES DISPLAY MY RUMP IN SUCH A MANNER!
*Scoots closer to the owner*
Royal Canterlot Whisper: "In truth, we are quite flattered, by public appearance an all that."
Alt: The owner is Celestia.
3375853
I always wanted my own brother...~
My Dear Mr Numbers,
Either you are well versed in the art of the hangover OR you know somebody who is!
Another great chapter, so many questions that need to be answered!
Do Twilight and Octavia actually get it on? What actually happens to cause Twilight not to recognise Octavia at the concert?
The suspense is killing me!
Saw a couple of very minor typos but overall much
Site?
SITE?! 
this just gets better and better
3382876
Chiefly DrunkenUnicornsGoneWild.cn a surprisingly popular website on the recently created Canternet, initially a military tool that was made to co-ordinate military command with that back in Canterlot no matter the crisis or interference an enemy may pose in the meanwhile.
Such revolutionary technology has since been pioneered for softcore porn, a move that has perplexed many scholars who point out that, and I quote, "We're already naked all the time anyway, aren't we? Oh, Celestia, I feel dirty now..." Such scholars, like the quoted Twilight Sparkle, then proceeded to bathe for an average of seventeen minutes and twelve seconds each.
The more you know.
3384765
I meant more that it should be "sight", not site
3384998
Yes, I know, but I refuse to let a good alternate history joke slide!
3375702
That's one of the big reasons I don't use GDocs. Open Office is free, and just as good as Microsoft Office. Great chappie, by the way. I was wondering when this would update the other day.
Ok that was hilarious but I 'm a little lost
This is still a flashback right 
after Octavia's dad died 
So far I'm loving this story and I can't wait to see their first date 
I WANT MOAR NOW 
If that is alright with you 
3396432
Scroll back to Skeeter's comments if you're still confused.
I'm loving this fic so far, and I can't wait for future updates.
Yep, still amazing.
Mr Numbers, my dear chap,
NEED MORE SONNETS NOW......
Please and thank you
Loopy
Still one of my favorites, I really like how you write both Octavia and Twilight (and the rest of the cast fit right in too). Thank you for writing and sharing!
I still can't get over how much I enjoy this story. The humor is witty, and the... uh.
Well, besides the writing of the characters (and how the relatively unorthodox take on Octavia never once strikes me as out of place), there's not much I can really think to say. I'm not particularly good at analyzing storywriting. But still.
As ever, I'm very much looking forward to more. And as per my usual routine of "spam pony fics for a while, then go back to games," I can avoid the suspense of actively waiting on new chapters and just come back to a new chapter or two. Whee.
Oh dear, please tell me you haven't dropped this story! I must see more!
3908360
Due for a solid 6K+ update within the next few days, actually.
3908365
Thank the heavens!
all to often i get enthralled into a story and it just gets dropped
3908365
can't wait!
3908365 can't wait for it
Feed is saying you updated, but it's still passworded. Is it going through moderation then?
That is totally a weird and creepy way to describe your beta readers.
-F**k (I'm sorry).