In a Cello Mood

Dear Diary,

Of course we fell asleep on the train. And waking up at two in the morning is not an entirely pleasant experience. Of course, there was still excitement at arriving at a new place, but this excitement was greatly mitigated by our mutual exhaustion.

Thankfully, we didn’t have to walk much through the busy (and dangerous!) night streets, for the train station was close to the city centre… and we felt cheated. I mean, I expected rustic houses made of crystal and, I guess, ponies made of crystals? But the only thing different about the ponies is their eyes, and I’m not just talking about the shape or the way they light up in the darkness (creepy!): I am talking about how dull they were, the very few ponies we’d met on our way to the hotel. It feels as if King Sombra doesn’t really know what’s best for his citizens. But, on the other hoof, he is widely praised here, from what I gather, for saving the economy and for his restorative works in the capital.

I guess that crystal houses only exist on the outskirts because we haven’t seen a single one! It’s just skyscrapers, all over the city centre, just like in Manehattan or Los Pegasus. Thankfully, one of those skyscrapers was a hotel…

***

“Why have sixty floors in a hotel?” Vinyl wondered, letting Octavia through the glass doors. “I mean, how many ponies actually visit the Crystal Empire at this time of the year?” She shivered and shook off the snow that had fallen onto her sweater and scarf. “I wish we wore pants,” she grunted, walking with Octavia to the counter.

“Good… evening?” Octavia greeted the receptionist mare, a blue unicorn whose face immediately wrapped itself up in a perfect smiley expression. “We need a room for me and for… uh, for my… uh…” Octavia paused, blushing uneasily, and looked at Vinyl hopelessly. The “not showing our relationship” plan was not working at the start. Should she say for her and her “friend”? Or should she take the risk and hope they are given a room? Octavia began sweating, though it might be because of the sudden change in temperatures.

“We need a room for Tavi and I,” Vinyl explained brightly, all the while avoiding using any definitive nouns. She grinned smugly at her blushing marefriend with a quite victorious look in her eyes.

“Oh no you don’t.” Octavia’s embarrassment died out of extinction as soon as she heard the offending words. “It’s ‘Tavi and me’. Do you say ‘For I’? No you don’t.” Octavia stomped her hoof against the floor. “You say ‘for me’. It’s the same is such a sentence. We are not the subject of the sentence, so it’s ‘for Tavi and me’!”

A thin, minute silence washed over the lobby before the receptionist mare cleared her throat audibly. “How many nights will you be spending with us?”

“Just a night,” Vinyl chimed in, visibly unperturbed by the lecture. “We’ll be off on our train Sunday evening.”

“That would actually be two nights,” the receptionist mare answered, smiling uneasily at having to upset her customers. “It is merely two in the morning, and I believe you would like to spend this night in our hotel as well.”

“Oh, sure.” Vinyl laughed naturally, making Octavia marvel at how she wasn’t ashamed or anyhow embarrassed at being corrected. Her social skills are indeed better than mine. “Two nights it is!”

“Okay,” the receptionist brightened up, taking out a calculator. “Two nights in a standard room, two single beds…”

Octavia looked at Vinyl in panic. Two single beds? That meant that they wouldn’t be able to sleep together for two nights, feel each other’s warmth, nuzzle and hug until they fell asleep… But at the same time they couldn’t order a room with one double bed because...

Vinyl caught the glance at once and cleared her throat. “We were thinking more of a room with two double beds,” she suggested to the receptionist. “We love comfort, and, frankly, a single bed is never enough.”

Octavia chuckled, feeling much more at ease now that the receptionist nodded with a smile and began to recalculate. “That’s just because you’re chubby, Vinyl.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Vinyl waved her hoof in the air. “Your words don’t wound me.”

“Of course!” Octavia snickered. “Nothing can wound through that layer of fat.” She poked Vinyl’s belly, giggling.

The receptionist smiled, because, apparently, it was all right for two young friends to act this way, as long as they didn’t break the adamant moral code of the Empire. “That would be two hundred bits. A hundred each.”

Vinyl grumbled a little at the price, but reminded herself that this way a classy five-star hotel for classy posh ponies, and that their room was supposed to be even classier and more posh. Meanwhile, Octavia fished out the bag of bits and took out two pouches, a hundred bits each.

The receptionist mare smiled and accepted the money. “Here are your keys.”

***

“Brr! It’s cold!” Vinyl took off her scarf as soon as the two ponies entered the small cafe. The ponies inside glanced at them with their weird, shining eyes - which were still so painfully dull - and diverted their attention back to their food and drinks.

The two mares quickly walked towards a small empty table by the window, taking off their caps but remaining in their sweaters. After all, it wasn’t significantly hotter here inside. “Yes, quite cold,” Octavia agreed as the waitress, a cyan mare with a tasty-looking pink mane, arrived at the spot. “Didn’t think it was this cold in the Crystal Empire…”

“Oh!” The waitress brightened up, placing the menu before the mares. “You two are tourists, from Equestria, no less?” Receiving nods from Octavia, who smiled back politely, and Vinyl, who immediately opened the menu, the waitress clopped her hooves together, remaining in a weird back-leg-stand. “That’s wonderful! Let me give you a ten percent tourist discount.”

“Thank you.” Octavia lowered the intensity of her smile and opened the menu. “I think we’ll need tea, or coffee, or hot chocolate, because it is really cold outside and-”

“How about vodka?” the waitress suggested. Vinyl’s ears immediately perked up. “Round here, we warm up by drinking vodka. And it’s cheap!”

“Is it pure Stalliongrad vodka?” Vinyl wondered, immediately interested.

“Better!” The waitress brightened up visibly. “It’s local Crystal Moonshine, ready to warm you up from the first drop!” she said, as if reciting an advertisement. Though, Octavia thought, advertising moonshine had to be a special, advanced level of stupid…

“Give us two!” Vinyl immediately proposed, without actually consulting her marefriend.

Octavia sighed and shrugged. “Sure, why not?”

“Come on, Tavi,” Vinyl urged as soon as the waitress walked away, “After all, what’s the worst that-”

“No!” Octavia hissed, “don’t say that! You know that if you finish that sentence-”

“-could happen?”

Octavia sighed. “We’re doomed.”

***

“Come on, Vinyl, let’s make out just a little!” Octavia begged, leaning on her marefriend as Vinyl slowly but steadily made her way towards the hotel. The grey mare grabbed the unicorn by the waist and tried to draw her in. “Come! On! Less juss make out in the streets…”

Despite Vinyl’s semidrunken attempt to evade the assault, Octavia attacked her lips with hers sloppily, embracing the white unicorn. The kiss lasted for seconds, and Octavia, with her eyes closed, didn’t have a care in the world as she lost herself in the sensation.

“Stop right there, you criminal scum!”

Octavia’s eyes shot wide open as Vinyl broke the kiss and pushed her away. The cellist had some difficulty with standing still, but decided that slight shaking from side to side was all right and acceptable. “W- What the-” she began, seeing the very angry policepony standing before them and huffing into his moustache. “What law did we break?” she formed the idea coherently enough for herself to be proud.

“Propaganda of homosexual relationships, including visual propaganda, is forbidden.” The policepony advanced on the two, taking out his gun. “You either pay five hundred bits as a fine or face imprisonment. Resisting arrest is considered an act of terrorism and will allow me to shoot you on the spot.”

Vinyl’s eyes grew fearful, while Octavia realised she was inebriated enough not to care. “Here!” she shouted demonstratively, taking out five pouches out of her saddlebag and throwing them at the policepony’s hooves. “Take all we have! Because- uh! Because you suck.”

“Forgive her,” Vinyl began speaking very quickly, picking up the pouches and levitating them towards the stallion. “She’s had way too much moonshine and speaks nonsense. We are just two Equestrian citizens, enjoying our stay here in the mighty Crystal Empire.” She gave her best fake smile.

“Ponies like you disgust me.” The policepony collected the pouches, placing his gun back in place. “Stay in Gayquestria, you homos.” With that wise advice, he turned round and walked away without casting a sideglance.

“What a jerk,” Octavia observed, glancing at Vinyl, who was breathing heavily.

“What a jerk?” Vinyl yelled and turned on her marefriend, growling, “What a jerk? You have nothing more to say in your defence?” The mare stomped her hoof against the cold, cracked, snow-covered asphalt. “‘The most cautious mare’ my flank! You knew how we have to hide our relationship here and you still get wasted and- and why am I even attempting that,” she finished, watching Octavia stumble twice without taking a single step. “It’ll be lost on you anyway. Let’s go to the hotel, you’ll sleep it off. Who would’ve thought two shots of vodka would do this to you…”

***

I am not a drunk.

I drink for fun.

I tolerate alcohol.

I don’t drink alone.

I don’t have a problem.

He has a problem. That stupid policepony.

Vinyl has a problem. A stick in her flank.

Everypony has a problem in this crazy country. Not me.

Not me.

Octavia Philarmonica, October 31st