It's cold outside
It was snowing. A lot. Really, there was a lot of snow.
If Twilight Sparkle wasn’t one hundred percent sure the windigos didn’t have their creepy translucent hooves in the mix, she would’ve been quite worried. She was still worried, though.
Back to the snow, Twilight was slowly making her way through it – over, actually, since she did have a horn, and her cutie mark all but demanded she make use of it whenever possible. She had wings, too, of course, but the mere thought of robbing her body of the little heat they provided while folded was enough to make her shudder.
The snow made it difficult to move around for everypony, some having been literally buried with their house. Ponyville didn’t have the greatest snow clearing service. Princess Celestia could probably take care of the situation… and cause a flood. That wasn’t going to happen either way. The Princess had pretty openly dismissed Twilight’s concerns, saying that an alicorn should be able to handle a few hooffuls of snow, and compared to the storm of – well, Twilight had forgotten the year, but she wasn’t about to admit it – this was but a trifle. She had countered by threatening to ask Spike to melt the snow.
However, the snow wasn’t what was irking Twilight the most. It was her own mind, mercilessly repeating a single phrase from a Hearth's Warming carol over and over which she didn’t even know the words to! But hey, that proved she wasn’t tone-deaf like some… dragon kept insisting, right?
Luckily, her destination was already visible. A quick teleport to the front door was the next logical step.
Appearing in front of the aesthetically clashing house, Twilight immediately fell knee-deep into the snow. Somepony had at least tried to relocate some of it. That was good – somepony was home.
Grabbing a few carts worth of snow and flinging it to the side – hopefully, there was nothing important under there –, Twilight cleared a path to the door. The house was split right down the door, beyond which all of Ponyville’s musicians lived. Well, perhaps that was a bit of an exaggeration.
How two almost polar opposite musicians managed to live in the same house was something beyond Twilight. Of course, a simple sound bubble would fix the issue. The DJ was a unicorn, if she remembered correctly.
Twilight raised her hoof to knock but noticed a doorbell and pushed that instead. A sound came from inside that was definitely an ordinary doorbell. A bit disappointing, but why fix something that isn’t broken, right?
The steady clopping of hooves on wood preceded the door swinging open.
The white-coated pony on the door was not the one Twilight had hoped for. She knew Octavia Melody, she didn’t know her… acquaintance. The pony was looking around inquisitively, most likely surprised at the relative snowiness of her walkway.
Finally, her eyes settled on Twilight, who’d already been quiet for about three seconds too long. Before she could open her mouth, however, the other pony spoke. “Hello, Princess.” Accompanied by a small acknowledging nod. Her voice certainly didn’t sound enthusiastic, but it wasn’t unfriendly either.
“Hey,” Twilight smiled, “any chance Octavia is home?”
“No, but come in, Princess. It’s cold.”
“Not when you’re part pegasus,” Twilight lied – she was cold, very much so. “But thank you….” She desperately searched through her memories to match a name to the pony.
“Vinyl Scratch, just Vinyl is fine,” Vinyl said dismissively.
“Ah. Pleased to meet you, Vinyl, I’m Twilight.” Vinyl was, of course, aware of that, but Twilight tried to keep the ‘princessing’ to a minimum.
“So, I take it somepony canceled on you?” Vinyl guessed correctly.
“More or less,” Twilight replied as she took in the house. The dual nature wasn’t contained to the outside. It was actually like having a simultaneous experience of stepping into a music studio at two very different eras. “Trains are, well, not moving. And I was hoping–”
“That Octavia wasn’t on the same train as your band.”
“Umm, yes,” Twilight said slowly. After a small pause to consider the facts, it was pretty clear that Octavia would not perform tonight at a Hearth's Warming party in Ponyville’s castle. “I see.”
Twilight let out a sigh of defeat. Music was still not crossed out on her planning list. In fact, it was the only thing not yet crossed out. It was, by Rainbow’s definition, totally uncool. “Okay, I’m sorry for bothering you then, Vinyl.”
After a short pause, Vinyl frowned and spoke up, “Princess, I am quite offended you dismiss me so easily.”
Twilight’s heart nearly skipped a beat as Twilight’s ears folded back, her gaze turning back to Vinyl. “I’m sorry– I didn’t– I mean–”
Vinyl’s mask broke as she snorted a laugh. “Relax, Twilight. It was a joke.” Jokes were supposed to be funny, which this was decidedly not, but Twilight wasn’t going to point that out. “The offended part, not the proposal.”
“You’re willing to perform?” Twilight asked, surprised, and perhaps a bit suspicious. “Tonight? On such short notice?”
“You were going to ask the same for Tavi,” Vinyl stated simply.
Twilight had to admit; that was true. “Well, yes… But she’s…”
“Your friend,” Vinyl said. Twilight caught the slight narrowing of her eyes. “Friendships are powerful, indeed.”
Before Twilight could come up with an appropriate answer, Vinyl walked further into the house. “Coffee or tea?” she called back, “Or, some hot cocoa, maybe?”
“Coffee would be nice,” Twilight admitted, more to herself, but Vinyl got the request. Friendships were powerful, indeed. That was most certainly true, in every literal sense. For some reason, that sentence didn’t sit well with Twilight. No, it didn’t sit well with Vinyl.
Sure, friendships were often too easy to abuse, but in that case, was that even true friendship?
Twilight shook her head and found herself gravitating towards Vinyl’s fancy-looking equipment. She didn’t touch anything, naturally. She wouldn’t have wanted some random mare to have their hooves all over her own scientific equipment.
In some ways, music was a lot like a science, and yet at its core, it was an art. Not unlike magic, actually. You could measure the strength of a levitation spell just as you could measure a soundwave and tell which note had been played and how loud.
And yet, just like how you couldn’t start measuring the magic of friendship, you couldn’t measure the feeling a piece of music would invoke in listeners.
Twilight had come to the conclusion that magic was way easier to study than music. Maybe if she had a music-related cutie mark, she would’ve sung a different tune, but alas, she didn’t. Looking at Vinyl’s equipment, the only part she could confidently say she understood were the speakers. All the other pedals and buttons… she couldn’t even begin to guess the function of.
“Eh, it’s not that complicated,” Vinyl said, stepping into the living room with two cups of steaming coffee levitating in her magic, one of which she passed to Twilight. “Alright, I will entertain–”
“You will?” Twilight’s face lit up.
“~your request.”
“Ah. Of course. My request...” Twilight took a gulp of the admittedly delicious coffee. It was a bit too hot, but ‘hot’ didn’t hold much weight when you’re living with a dragon. “So, will you?”
“Yeah, sure,” Vinyl said after a short consideration.
“Great!” Twilight beamed, “Thank you so much; you have no idea how much that means to us.” Twilight wasn’t sure if going for a hug was appropriate in this situation, but she was a princess and could technically write decrees to state otherwise if not. Of course, the nervous side of her won by a large margin, and she didn’t actually hug Vinyl, but it was a nice thought.
“But I should tell you that, if Tavi was here, we both would’ve said no.”
“I know, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have come with such short notice,” Twilight admitted. Great, now she was feeling bad again.
“It’s not that. We are usually totally booked during the holidays,” Vinyl explained. “It’s just that today I and Tavi were going to… spend together,” she said, her tone faltering. “But, I don’t think she will make it, so I’ll be happy to spend time with you instead of here, alone.”
“I’m sorry your plans went up in flames. Or buried in snow, I guess,” Twilight chuckled, getting a similar response from Vinyl.
“We ought to discuss details, then. You know, when, where, how long, what kind of music, payment, all that jazz.”
Twilight wished she’d taken her lists with her. It was Pinkie, who was doing the actual party planning, not her. Twilight was here in the first place because Pinkie was busy dealing with a ‘chocolate fountain emergency.’ And that was something not to be questioned.
“Alright. It’s from sunset to… well, it’s a Pinkie party so I imagine until ponies start falling unconscious. In my castle. The music was actually a crystal choir and a small string quartet that we managed to acquire through Cadance, who is here because of Celestia, who will also be present for a short while and–”
“Hold on. You want me to perform to three princesses?” Vinyl asked, sounding more than moderately alarmed. Her expression wasn’t saying anything different, either.
“At least four,” Twilight said matter-of-factly. “And definitely no more than eight.”
“What.” Vinyl stared at her blankly.
“And as for payment,” Twilight started with a smile that was just a bit too wide, “as you can see this is kind of a big deal, and you’re my only hope right now so you could literally ask for a castle to be built and I’d make it happen.” Twilight’s voice had risen a few octaves. She was already in the phase of repeating to herself that the upcoming Party was not going to be tantamount to a train full of alicorns getting derailed while crossing a canyon.
“But! This takes planning!” Vinyl nearly shouted. “If this was just you, I could– something– but all one-hundred and sixty percent of Equestria’s princesses!”
“What, am I not princess enough for you?” Twilight asked sarcastically. That had about the exact opposite effect she desired.
Vinyl was visibly shaking, her mouth moving silently.
Twilight slowly shook her head. There was no reason to freak out about this. No, really there wasn’t. Absolutely none. Nothing could go horribly wrong at literally any moment in the next couple of hours.
It wasn’t apparent if the problem was that Twilight wasn’t Celestia, but for some reason, Twilight didn’t care much for Twilight’s advice.
At this point, Vinyl was starting to fall into something akin to a Twilight freakout, who was also on the edge of a Twilight freakout, but at least she was aware of the impending Twilight freakout, which meant she could probably avoid it long enough to coax Vinyl out of a Twilight freakout. She should copyright that at some point. Oh wait, her friends already probably had, and it was probably something stupid like intense twilighting. “Okay, calm down. It will be fine, just do whatever you think is good, and… everypony will be happy.”
“I– ah–”
Rule five of a Twilight freakout: trying to speak was not recommended, as that usually failed to produce the desired effect of being intelligible to other ponies. And also wasted oxygen.
“Trust me, only friends and family are invited.” Twilight said in a reassuring and not panicky tone, “I’m positive that you could literally blast siren song out of these speakers, and nopony would be mean about it. Except for Flurry, who would probably just blast– actually nevermind.”
“I– ‘ll do it, obviously.” Vinyl said. “No, not the siren song,” she clarified to Twilight’s great relief. “I’m not sure if I should ask for a mountain of gold to treat the stroke you probably just gave me or if this will put me so much in your debt that I’ll have to become immortal just to make us even.”
“The mountain of gold is more likely,” Twilight said, then smiled. “Or did you expect me to pay you in exposure?”
The brief silence was enough of an answer.
“Honestly,” Vinyl shrugged, “in this case. I wouldn’t mind. If there will truly be at least four princesses,” she added smugly.
“If that’s not the case, I have bigger problems on my hooves,” Twilight replied, frowning slightly. “Say…” Twilight said carefully, “by any chance you happen to find ponies actually trying to do that?”
“Do what? Get me to perform to the entire royal family?” Vinyl asked, smirking.
“Paying you in exposure,” Twilight said, not meeting Vinyl’s eyes, “It’s just what you said. Earlier.”
“Remind me.”
“Friendships are powerful, indeed,” Twilight said.
“I guess you can look at it like that,” Vinyl said. Now, Twilight was no politician, much less a master of words, but she could recognize a dodged question in a heartbeat. She wasn’t going to pursue it, though.
And as fate would have it, Vinyl was. She let out a soft chuckle. “A lot of ponies attempt it, especially with the newbies. I fell for it too, at first. Hard.”
Twilight couldn’t quite say she could sympathize, but she at least understood. “I’m sorry that happened to you. At least it worked out, right?”
“You apologize too much.”
“Sorry about that.”
Vinyl rolled her eyes. “I am about to entertain the princesses, plural, am I not?
“That is correct. Also, I’m glad you told me that,” Twilight said sincerely.
Vinyl nodded, taking her signature shades from his instrument desk. It was disturbing how much connections Twilight’s mind was able to make just by looking at Vinyl, no, not Vinyl. DJ P0n-3. She really had made a name for herself.
“Alright, Princess. Looks like we have a castle to bring down.”