The Hollow Kingdom of Octavia

Exhibit J

"Vinyl!"

Vinyl finds it strange that, for the first time in what probably had to be an incredibly long time, Octavia was the one coming home after her. She hadn't known what to even do with herself without her good buddy at home to pal around with. She had just been on the verge of making a booty call when Octavia burst in. She finds herself somewhat disappointed.

"Yo, what's the haps?"

"'What's the haps?'" Octavia parrots her, which has never been a good sign. Vinyl knows what parroting means, especially parroting slang. Octavia would never use "haps," not even under the threat of death most likely. "'What's the haps?!'"

"Everything alri-"

"Who is Grainy Mead?" Octavia says with emphasis on each word so as to grab the flaky unicorn's attention; however, the name in her query is enough to illicit a physical response from Vinyl. She stutters for a second, unsure which question she wants to ask back first.

"How do you-why are you-what-why do you wanna know?" Vinyl finally manages to complete a query, although she kicks herself for it immediately.

"Because he died last night, didn't he?" Octavia is right on point with her attacks.

"Oooh, ah... you know about that?" Vinyl wants to know why and how, but she isn't in a position of power currently. "Look, Octavia, just simmer down."

"Simmer down?" There are no grounds under which Octavia would even consider simmering down right now. "Vinyl, you're covering up a murder! As well as a kidnapping! On top of a drug deal! Who is this Grainy Mead pony?"

"Octavia, girl, I don't know how much you know, but it's better you don't know more than you already do." She looks her friend in the eye, but the earth pony refuses to give any ground.

"Vinyl, who is he?" She is firm, just like always. Even her anger runs cool.

"I'm trying to prevent a fucking gang war, Octavia! I don't want you getting involved."

"Too late for that, Vinyl. Waaaay too late for that!" The two mares are in a deadlock, but Octavia isn't about to give up. "If you don't tell me, I will find this Byjove character and tell him everything that happened!"

"No! Octavia, no! You don't want to do that!" Vinyl tries to plead, but she is not fast enough for Octavia's temper currently. Her friend starts to turn to go, but Vinyl gets down and starts to genuinely plead with her. "No, nonononono no! Octavia, just listen for a sec! I'll answer any question you want to know. Don't go, just don't go!"

Octavia stops. She spins around reiterates her question.

"Who is Grainy Mead?"

"He's Byjove's second in command, his closest personal confidant. He was basically Byjove's favorite pony ever. He didn't do anything without Grainy! He didn't even go to the bathroom without him."

"And who is Byjove? Who is he exactly?"

"He controls most of the dealers in Canterlot," Vinyl says, getting back onto her hooves. "And he was supposed to control all of them as of last night, but..."

"Things went south."

"Because the guards showed up!" The whole disaster hinged upon that factor, the thing that shook the whole situation to its core. "Chariot was going to hand everything he had left over to Byjove's control before he skipped town."

"So Chariot is a rival drug lord?"

"I dunno if 'drug lord' is the right term for him, but he controls a sizable fraction of the dealers too. There's a lot of heat on him though, so he's looking to move on to someplace else. His relationship with Byjove was shaky at best before the meeting, but this was supposed to be one last show of good faith so Byjove would give him a good price and also put in a good word for Chariot and get him started in his next life, so to speak."

"But he's not going to do that if he finds out that Chariot killed his best friend, I guess?" Octavia hit the nail on the head, getting a solemn nod out of Vinyl. Everything made a lot of sense now, even if everything was still terrible. At least she could wrap her head around it; however, there was still one, tiny, little thread dangling off of Vinyl's explanation. "Byjove has to know Grainy Mead is dead."

"Yeah, naturally."

"Well, no, not naturally." Octavia felt an odd twinge of caution creep up. "He must know that Grainy was murdered. If he doesn't already know it was Chariot, who does he think did it?"

"..."

"Vinyl!"

"... This was the one thing I absolutely, positively didn't want to tell you about." Vinyl breaks eye contact. She stares over in the direction of her room. "If you don't want to know..."

"Tell me." Octavia had thrown caution to the wind quite some time ago. Besides, the pieces were already falling into place in her head. She doesn't want confirmation, but she dumbly seeks it out.

"... Byjove wants vengeance for Grainy Mead. He blames the heat on Chariot for the guards showing up at the deal last night, so he told him that if he didn't produce Grainy's killer the deal was off. We needed a scapegoat, and we had already captured him... so..."

"Byjove thinks Shining Armor killed Grainy Mead." Octavia couldn't stay quiet. Her dumb seeking gives way to her own dark deductions, and they do not stop coming. "You're going to let Chariot hand Shining Armor over to Byjove, so Byjove can kill Shining Armor." The house isn't a prison, it's death row.

Vinyl tries to say something to Octavia, but she misses her chance when the hysteric mare tears out the door. Her immediate fear should be that Octavia is going to find Byjove and spill the beans, but Vinyl knows Octavia better than that. Her secret is safe, for now.

What does concern her is that she is no longer in the mood for a booty call. She needs some special cheering up, the kind of irresponsible thrill that a stranger can provide; however, she also doesn't feel like going out to find somepony. All seems lost for sexy times, until she has a thought.