Music and Magic

"So... you work here?"

For an inner city Manehattan record store, Twilight definitely couldn't believe how... small it was. I mean, she knew that business space was tight in the city, but this store couldn't have been much larger than the first floor of the Cake's bakery back home! And for all the music it was carrying, that was a surprise. There had to have been upwards of 1000 records on the walls! And that's not including the rows of vinyl running through the middle of the store. Twilight thought about how good a representation this story was of Manehattan - indescribably small, but indescribably full of things to do and look at.

And Twilight liked it. A lot.

Vinyl was on a mission, scrolling through the V's and S's like the meaning of life was going to fall out from between two of the vinyl sleeves. Unfortunately, the search was for naught. Vinyl sighed, then smiled. "Oh well, I rake in enough money from people buying my record at gigs, I don't need some obscure record store carrying it."

Twilight was a bit confused. "Wait, you work here. Don't you have an inventory list where you can look up the stock? Why did you spend five minutes checking the shelves?"

Vinyl chuckled a bit. "You say that as if I do inventory like I'm supposed to.

"But take a look around, isn't this place just amazing?"

Twilight just smiled, playful sarcasm behind every word she said. "Yeah, you bet, Vinyl... there's so much room for movement, too!"

"Yeah, I know that's a big issue around here..." Vinyl said, navigating through the rows of Vinyl to get to Twilight. "And sorry about forcing you to come in with me, I know this probably isn't your thing.

"But as I said, this place is amazing in every way. When you have about 1,500 records at your disposal and a record player to play them, the world is your oyster."

"I feel the same way about my library back home," Twilight said. "It was just massive, and I could pick any book from the shelves whenever I pleased. I can't believe I'm already sad about not being there anymore, but it was an amazing home."

Vinyl draped a hoof around Twilight. "Hey, don't be said, you just got here! Let's get home, I'll show you around the apartment."

Vinyl and Twilight were back in the comfortable Manehattan city air once again, walking through the packed Manehattan sidewalks to the oddly euphoric sound of carriage traffic and busy ponies on their cell phones. The sun was starting to drop, and the pink sky draped over the city, covering everything with a mystical pink tint.

"So, Vinyl..." Twilight said, finally confident enough in her directional abilities to walk alongside her city-minded friend. "You say you produce music. What is your music like, exactly?"

"I don't know how to describe it really, Twilight." Vinyl said, racking her brain for some form of explanation. "I guess it's like... I don't know... doing some incredibly strong uppers and diving from the top of the Statue of Liberty into a pile of basses and drums. Does that help any?"

"I can honestly say that it didn't." Twilight said. "But I'm gonna trust that that means it's good."

Vinyl laughed. "Eh, it's alright. I've never considered my songs genius or anything, but a lot of friends say I should send some of them in somewhere, get signed to some minor record label and work my way to Equestrian fame."

"So why don't you?" Twilight asked, wondering how far away Vinyl's home was - not that it mattered to her, of course, talking to Vinyl was entertaining. Twilight hadn't known her but two hours, and it already seemed like they had been friends since they were fillies.

Twilight had only ever felt that feeling five times before.

"Eh, I don't see why I would." Vinyl said, stopping to get yet another bar of chocolate. "The music industry is pretty vacuous these days, and I don't think anyone other than coked up raveheads would enjoy my stuff, much less some suited stiff behind a desk."

Twilight was a bit confused. "I get the part about the music industry, but you shouldn't sell yourself short. I think you should at least try to send it in somewhe-"

"And we're here!" Vinyl exclaimed, standing in front of a tall apartment complex in the middle of the city. Twilight couldn't comprehend how tall it was - there must have been 20 stories in that building!

"How high up is your apartment, Vinyl?" Twilight asked, fearing the worst.

"Oh, only about ten floors up. There's an elevator, don't worry."

Twilight sighed. "Thank Celestia.

"Oh hey, Vinyl, remember earlier when you said that only coked up raveheads enjoyed your music?"

Vinyl turned around, smiling that confident smile of hers. "Well, I may have been exaggerating a bit, but yeah. What about it?"

"Well, does that make you a coked up ravehead?" Twilight mused.

Vinyl stopped and looked at Twilight. "One OTHER thing you need to know about me, Twilight, is that I need neither coke nor a rave to be a coked up ravehead."

And with that, the two friends stepped onto the elevator, Twilight still pondering what her friend meant by that.

"Welcome to the lair of Vinyl Scratch, Twilight." Vinyl said, throwing her keys on the counter.

The place was actually rather nice, Twilight had to admit. The living room had a couple of chairs, a TV, a record player, a shelf of records, and a couple of tables. Concert posters lined every wall in the house in a way that was neither obtrusive nor clashing. Twilight was surprised at how well Vinyl furnished the place. The kitchen wasn't special, but it wasn't trashed either. That in itself was commendable.

"Nice apartment, Vinyl." Twilight said. "Where do you do your music production?"

Vinyl smiled. "I'm glad you asked, Twilight! I do it all over here, in this room."

Twilight was led down a hallway and to the last door to the left. Inside that room was so much musical gear, Twilight could barely believe Vinyl could use all of it; there was a bass guitar, a drum set surrounded by microphone, about six synthesizers, effects pedals virtually everywhere in the room, and that was all brought together by what appeared to be a audio recorder.

"..."

"I know. I love it too." Vinyl said, reaching for a record sleeve on one of the shelves. "This is my recent album, consider it a housewarming gift, but in reverse."

"I'll definitely listen to it later tonight, Vinyl." Twilight said sincerely, but occupied with everything in the room. "So, you know how to play everything in this room?"

"You bet!" Vinyl said, going around and sampling each instrument, playing each as if it was her life's work to master these instruments. "Turns out, Celestia's school? KILLER musical wing."

"I mean... how can you know all of this, Vinyl? It's making my head spin."

"Well, by that logic, how do you know all the spells you do?" Vinyl said, sitting at the audio recorder and turning some knobs. "I couldn't tell you any of the contents of my 3rd or 4th year magic classes textbooks..."

She picked up the complicated audio recorder, careful not to pull any cables out of place or touch any of the knobs. "But I could tell you EVERYTHING about how this works. I could tell you the math behind scales, I could tell you the math behind frequencies, sound waves, and virtually everything about audio.

"We're all geniuses, Twilight." Vinyl said, passing her out of the room. "Just in different things."

THAT'S what Celestia sees in her! Twilight thought, looking around the room. She has virtually limitless potential. Everything she tries and likes, she masters!

She exited the room, finding Vinyl sitting in one of the chairs watching TV, half eaten candy bar levitating in front of her. "Hey, Vinyl..."

Vinyl looked up. "What's up, Twi?"

"Can I listen to that record of yours? I don't know what you do back there to make music, but I really want to hear the final result."

Vinyl smiled, switching the TV off and taking the record out of its sleeve. "Yeah, of course. It may be abrasive to you, but you asked for it."

Vinyl set the needle on the record, and like that sound was everywhere in the room. Pure musical mayhem filled the room, prodigy-like bass guitar blanketing over frantic, erratic, and odd drum rhythms. Keyboards came in soon after, adding a layer of weirdness to the already unleashed sound of raw drums and raw bass. There seemed to be no motif, no repetition; the rhythm of the song was easily recognizable, but finding any patterns was a challenge in itself.

Twilight's anal retentive mind went crazy. Music with no structure? She had never heard anything of the sort!

And it was beautiful. Although she acknowledged how interesting and "cool" the sound was, Twilight didn't realize its beauty until Vinyl opened the living room window, letting the sounds of Manehattan amalgamate with the sound of the music. The music started sounding less like random sounds and more like a soundtrack to the busy life of the busy city, the random, scattered nature of the two sounds blending together to create a feeling within Twilight she had never felt from music before.

And before she knew it, silence. She was back in Vinyl's living room, so to speak, with nothing but the sound of the city and the sound of a settling apartment to occupy her ears.

"Vinyl... that was beautiful."

"You can't be serious." Vinyl said, taking the record off of the gramophone and putting it back in its sleeve. "You can't have thought that was beautiful. It takes years of conditioning to find music like that beautiful."

"Vinyl, that wasn't simply music." Twilight said, retrieving the record from her friend once more, the rest of which could be listened to later. "That was life as music."

Vinyl laughed. "You sure you've never done drugs? Because that's a pretty druggy thing to say, Twi."

"No, I'm serious! You've encompassed crowded city life into audio! This is amazing, I need to write the Princess about this!"

"You do that, Twilight." Vinyl said, smiling as she sat back down. "Oh, and thanks for complimenting my music like you did. It means a lot."

"Well, it's the truth, isn't it?" Twilight said. Sitting down on the couch adjacent to Vinyl.

"I mean, yeah, I guess I've never thought about my influences in that way, but you're right." Vinyl said, obviously holding something back.

"And..." Twilight said, trying to get whatever was stuck in Vinyl's mind out.

"Well, what you said, I just never thought I'd hear someone compliment my music like that. It's certainly nothing Octavi-"

Vinyl stopped there, catching herself mid-sentence and freezing in her chair. Twilight waited for a second, seeing if Vinyl would continue or simply remain unmoving.

"Hey, Vinyl..." Twilight said, getting up and standing in front of her. "Are you okay?"

"What?" Vinyl said, out of her trance. "Oh, yeah. I'm fine.

"Oh, Later tonight, do you wanna go by Central Park? I figured you'd want to spend some time there, as a non-native and all."

"Sure, that sounds fun." Twilight said. She wasn't sure if she wanted to know the rest of Vinyl's sentence, but she didn't want to seem obtrusive, so she just abandoned it completely.

"Well, it's settled!" Vinyl exclaimed, walking to the kitchen. "More chocolate to celebrate!"

"Vinyl, that's the third one today!" Twilight yelled.

"Actually that's the fifth one today, you just weren't here for the first two!"