Prologue

Octavia was curled up upon the couch in the comfortable confines of her living room. With her legs tucked away under her, and a pillow resting upon her lap, she possessed a warm, large mug of Earl Grey tea where both of her hands were wrapped about, seeking to the purchase of warmth by absorbing the residual heat that escaped the ceramic vessel of her brew. She had been like this, for hours, with a look of apprehension etched deep in her magenta crystalline eyes. The cellist nervously chewed at her lower lip, as her heart painfully ached deep within her chest.

For two years, and six months, she had shared this apartment with Canterlot’s most enigmatic, eccentric; and often at times, the most tomboyish of Disc Jockeys ever to grace the soil of Equestria. By no means was her roommate, Vinyl Scratch, famous. DJ Pon-3 was hardly a household name, but the DJ was most assuredly well known within certain, specific social circles; social circles Octavia hardly had the desire to interact with and purposefully ignored of course, but Vinyl’s name and reputation was perhaps more evidentially infamous, in the eyes of the press.

Not only was the electric two toned blue haired spinner unruly, ill-mannered and nigh on a sexual deviant, but the DJ was also poisoning Octavia’s personal space with her so called horrendous, eardrum splitting ‘music.’

She drunk. She smoked. She often returned in the early hours of the morning in a drunken stupor, stinking of smoke and booze, often crashing out on the living room floor; sometimes the couch, or sprawled out in the hallway on the path to her bedroom, which was annoyingly opposite Octavia’s own.

Despite all of these misgivings and flaws, Octavia finds herself enjoying the woman’s company, even though she was a stark comparison to herself, and the perfect model to everything Octavia found uncivilized and disgusting. But somehow, in the two years she had known her, Octavia never once questioned why she put up with it all. She never once despised the DJ, even if Octavia had to drag her drunken ass to the toilet to be sick, or to even wash the poor woman when she had thrown up over herself.

Not once did she complain, and not once had she properly scolded the spinner about her delinquent attitude. They were both young, and while Octavia felt she was far beyond the need to go out and drink the night away, the cellist also sympathized and understood with Vinyl’s creed.

Gotta make the most of it while you can, you know, Tavie. Who knows? Maybe tomorrow I’d be dead! Might as well have a fricken blast before I kick the bucket, eh?

The words of Vinyl echoing within her head, caused Octavia to jolt from her thoughts, and take note of her surroundings. The clock on the wall, next to the window in front of the couch, showed that it was almost 5:33AM. She had been sitting here for almost two hours, and she hardly noticed the passage of time.

Exhausted magenta orbs of worry, looked down at the now long cold mug of tea, and she lifted it for a sip. She did not care if the contents were now tepid at best, for she needed the caffeine, and the tiny drop of liquid courage she had added to loosen up her stiff, and nervous demeanour. Not a second passed as she swashed down the tea, did she make quite the grimace.

“Maybe I ought to microwave it, just a bit,” the heavy Canterlot accent muttered, as she moved to unfurl her legs from under her, while she moved a hand to grip at the parting of her black dressing gown, pinning the two folds close over her body.

The very moment she had decided to move, did she hear the front door tremble. She swung her gaze to the right of her, and eyed the front door that led into the joined living space of their small city apartment, with a perfectly arched brow.

At first, she thought it was just the building settling, for some times at night she can hear all manner of strange oddities from knocks in the floorboards to the creak of doorframes. It was a natural phenomenon, but it was something that still unnerved her. She hated old buildings, especially this rickety, down trodden apartment block.

However, combined with the oh-so familiar jangle of keys, and the failed attempts of unlocking the door, Octavia surmised that yes, once again, the DJ on the other end of that door, and was blatantly drunk. She always struggled to find the right key, and always struggled to insert the key into the damn lock. Octavia further predicted that the jockey had not taken off her stupid sun glasses, which probably did not help with the whole situation.

Still somewhat leant forward on the couch, undecided if she should stand, finally, the door swung open, unceremoniously crashing into the wall, and allowing the stumbling jockey into the living room.

Octavia frowned, as she inspected the spinner, her gaze of worry and apprehension giving way to a disapproving, almost annoyed expression, her lips thinning as a pang of… Something, awoke within her. Perhaps it was her lack of her sleep, and perhaps it was the fact she had been worrying all night about her friend, but Octavia no longer cared for her usual and well-practiced facade of aloof tranquility and elegance.

This was not meant to be a pleasant conversation, and it took Octavia months, to muster the courage for this intervention.

Silently, she studied the taller woman, adorned in her usual array of ripped jeans, white tank, and heavily worn, blue and black chequered skater shoes, to which Vinyl liked to call her ‘hip and cool stage look.’ Even though she looked like that almost all of the time.

Vinyl had not even seen Octavia, for the olive skinned woman was sitting in the dark, and was far too bleary eyed to notice. Closing the door behind her as quietly as she could – as to not wake Octavia and ignoring the fact she practically erupted through the door in such a fanfare it would had done so anyway, Vinyl sighed, and pressed her forehead against the now closed front entrance, groaning as the room mercilessly spun about her like a centrifuge.

What a party that was! It was perhaps her biggest turnout yet – the club was practically brimming with a sea of dancers, getting down to her wubs and partying on right through the hours of the morning. It was yet another successful night, and DJ Pon-3 was still abuzz with adrenaline, excitement, and above all else, she was completely smashed. How many shots did she have? Seven? Eight? And what the hell was she drinking anyway?

A triumphant, drunken smirk grew over her blue lipstick lips, as she turned finally from the door, only to start at the sudden appearance of Octavia Melody standing before her in her dressing gown, looking none too pleased. “H-Hey!” She slurred, “Ooocty? Whadda’ya… You know?” She could not hardly formulate a coherent sentence, and instead, raked her sun glassed gaze down over Octavia’s body, quite openly, “Doin’ up so late?” Then, she realized, looking quite embarrassed, “Aww, shizz, did I…” She hiccupped, “Did I~waake, yaa?”

Octavia said nothing. She merely kept her arms crossed over her chest, her gaze never unwavering from Vinyl’s face, nor did she even utter a word. If looks could kill, Vinyl knew she would had been blasted through the door in a heartbeat if the diminutive olive skinned woman had the strength.

“List’n, ‘Tavi—”

“No,” Octavia sighed, the single breath shaken, her words laced with a forced authority as a sad expression seemed to overtake the previous, simmering anger a moment ago, “You listen, Vinyl.”

“Look, ya kno’ can we jus’, talk in the morning…” She moved to brush past Octavia, “ ‘M really, reaaallly tired, n’ I just need’a—” She was stopped, by a firm grip on her forearm. The jockey looked at the smaller woman, with a frown, not appreciating the rather unfriendly gesture. “Tav, please. M’ tired and I…” She lifted a set of fingers to reach under her glasses, and moved to press against closed lids as she swayed there upon the spot.

“Vinyl, please, just listen to what I have to say.” The cellist pleaded, moving to put herself before the DJ, her hand still gripping the other woman to keep her in place. She was hardly strong, but gripped with as much force as she could to put forward the severity of the situation. Often, it took a rather direct approach to get Vinyl to understand something was wrong.

“Octy, I gotta really, really, got t’ go bed. I’m smashed, ya kno’w-awright? Probably not ‘member much, if ya wanna talk like right now...”

The cellist steeled her resolve, as she felt her chest constrict. “This cannot wait till the morning because we both know our schedules never allow us to see each other much at all on weekdays. We are going to have this conversation right now, because Vinyl, I’m worried about you.” Her voice was tender and friendly, but she could not help but look somewhat annoyed at the jockey’s response. “I’m your friend, Vinyl Scratch, and your drinking is getting out of control. I will not idly sit by while my friend ruins herself.” She wrinkled her nose a touch, the stench of booze practically invading Octavia’s senses.

Vinyl, looked completely flabbergasted, “Wha-but…” A stupid grin formed upon her lips, as she shook her head, “Don’ be stupid, M’fine. Jus’ a little drunk, thast all…”

“Scratch, you can barely speak or form coherent sentences let alone try and convince me that you are okay.” With her voice raising and irritation quaking her brow, Octavia pressed forward a step, gripping the arm tighter still, “Every night, you come home inebriated to the point where you can barely walk. You stink of booze, smoke, and—” She snatched the DJ’s glasses from off the woman’s face.

“Wha-HEY!” Vinyl watched as Octavia simply threw her prized glasses onto the floor, shocked, and visibly so. “Wha’ gives, Tavi?!” She shouted, right into her best friends face, eyes ablaze with irrational rage.

Octavia felt a sudden pressure behind her eyes, as she stared through the darkness at the DJs once beautiful, crimson eyes. At this present time, all Octavia could feel rather than the usual sensation of herself getting lost in those pools of molten magma, was pity. Tears tinkered at the corners of the cellist eyes, as she shook her head, aghast at how bloodshot Vinyl’s eyes were, and how wide her pupils were. “A-and you’re completely wired, aren’t you?”

Indignant, the DJ, turned her head away, avoiding the cellist’s question by simply changing the subject, “Let go me, Tavi. I wanna go t’bed.”

“Vinyl! Please look at me in the eyes and tell me what it is you are doing to yourself?” She gripped her other hand onto the sleeve of the DJ’s tank, “You were never like this when we first met. I knew you were outgoing, and… ‘Partied hard and played hard’ – as you so eloquently put it, but, Vinyl, don’t you see you are just spiralling out of control?” The cellist shook her head, as tears of anxiety streamed down her features, her exhausted state crumbling the mental barriers Octavia erects to often hide her true emotions from the world.

The DJ fell silent, as her hands worked to bury them into her trouser pockets.

“If this is all about Lyra—”

Something snapped inside of Vinyl at the mere mention of the name. She swung her head about to smoulder a look of pure distaste at the other woman, which caused Octavia to cringe. “Don’ go there, Tavi—”

Octavia, concerned for her friend more than anything else, pushed on. She had to get Vinyl to see that what she was doing, was never going to bring the woman back. “Vinyl, I know you. I know you like to hide yourself up in your rebellious disguise, because I know deep down there is a fragile heart, beating away inside of that chest of yours. I know what Lyra did was wrong, but you have to understand she has moved on from you, and I think it is time you moved on from her—”

“L-Let go of me, Octy.”

“You can’t go destroying yourself over a woman that betrayed you! If you have problems, then come to me and talk about them! Don’t go drowning yourself or taking Celestia knows what!”

“Let, go of me, Octavia.” Vinyl warned.

Octavia’s grip only tightened on both arm, and sleeve, “I’m afraid one day I am going to find you dead because of—”

Never, ever, once in her entire life had Vinyl ever felt such rage towards someone she called a friend. Never had she felt so small, and never had she felt so ashamed of herself. Octavia hit all the right notes, and it reverberated deep within the jockey’s heart that it simply shattered what was left. Inside she screamed, as she clenched her eyes shut, the image of Lyra swirling amongst the chaos of her drug induced high and drunken stupor, garnering a self-loathing and sorrow beyond her control.

By the time she had ripped herself back to reality, the walls of her world would come crashing around her, leaving nothing more than ruins of her former life, in its wake. Confusion washed over her as she regarded her raised, aching fist, then drew her wild eyed attention to the trembling, weeping olive skinned woman, below her.

Vinyl was straddling the cellist, pinning her to the ground with one hand wrapped around the woman’s neck.

“V-Vinyl, p-p-please s-st-stop…” Octavia whimpered, her magenta orbs oozing with terror and pain, as her strangled voice barely made it beyond her lips. The blue ring around Octavia’s puffing right eye glaringly obvious as to what had just happened.

A croaked whisper issued forth from the blue lips of the DJ, “Octy…” Unfurling her fist, the jockey stood up from the cowering visage of her friend, and stumbled backwards until her back cracked against the wall beside the front door. “I… I didn’t mean…”A look of horror now too adorned her face, the jockey unsure as to how it happened, or what, had happened. In a literal sense, all she saw was red, and that much was evident by her aching fist and Octavia’s wounded eye. To which she had little to no memory of doing.

Sliding down the wall, Vinyl moved to curl her fingers into her two toned electric blue hair. Despite the alcohol coursing through her veins, and the dugs to which alighted her mind in its gentle numbness, she had suddenly sobered up, as she watched her best friend curl up on the floor into the fetal position, and weep into her trembling palms.

Author's Note

My first fic, and I have no idea where I am going with it. It came into my head, and I just had to write it down.

I accept hate, flame, corrections and other such mediums. Anything to improve this idea, and its continued evolution.

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