Maybe It Was Me And Maybe It Was You
Vinyl Scratch wasn’t a typical pony. As a matter of fact, she was as far from ‘typical’ as it was possible. She was a bit eccentric, hyperactive, sometimes creepy or obnoxious. She liked to sleep all day and party all night long. Quiet, boring life – lying on the sofa, doing the dishes, work in office for eight hours a day, Monday to Friday – definitely wasn’t for her. But, just like the other ponies, she liked to meet new friends, talk with them, and have fun.
Too bad, the train didn’t seem like a place where she could find a pony to talk with. It was going to be a long ride and although she took a book with her – a cheap, paperback novel with a muscular stallion wearing a shining armour on its cover. He was standing next to a horrified mare, aiming his (stunningly large) sword at something that looked like an enormous mass of green tentacles. Vinyl already guessed half of the plot from that picture and hoped that the other half would surprise her.
When she reached her compartment, somepony was already sitting there. Vinyl looked at her closer. A grey mare with a violet mane was reading some papers with an indifferent expression. She didn’t raise her eyes or made any other, even the slightest movement indicating that she’d noticed Vinyl.
“Umm… Hello?” Vinyl said.
“Hi.” Was her only answer. Her voice was devoid of any trace of emotion, but there was something about it that Vinyl liked. The DJ sat on her seat, her eyes focused on her companion.
She had to admit that the mare was pretty. For some reason, Vinyl always had a soft spot for grey earth ponies, no matter, mares or stallions. She wasn’t picky when it came to choosing partners. They didn’t even have to be ponies, she remembered well her short-living romance with a griffon.
Vinyl slapped herself mentally. It wasn’t even five minutes since she’d entered that compartment and she already thought about seducing the fellow passenger. Who, judging by the look on her face, was a serious pony who had no time for chit-chatting with other ponies. Reluctantly, she turned her gaze away from the pony in front of her, and focused on her books.
It didn’t exactly help. She guessed the half of the plot correctly, but the other half was more about tentacles and big swords than she thought it to be, causing her imagination to do weird things. When the train left the station, she already started to picture herself as a damsel in distress, waiting for a mysterious, grey warrior to save her from the elder god from the outer space. As the plot thickened, she began throwing nervous glances at the mare.
“Do you need something?” She heard the deadpan voice. Her companion’s expression was almost condescending. Or maybe Vinyl only imagined that – she could swear that not a single muscle moved in grey mare’s face since they’d met.
“Yes… No!”
“Okay.” The mare went back to her papers. Vinyl wiped sweat from her forehead, scolding herself mentally.
Fifteen minutes passed in awkward silence. A ticket inspector visited them, then the train stopped on some station in the middle of the desert. When it left it, Vinyl cleared her throat.
“I guess I should introduce myself.” She said. “My name’s Vinyl.”
“Maud.” Her tone didn’t change even for a moment.
“Nice to meet you, Maud.”
“You too, Vinyl.”
Vinyl wasn’t sure if she really meant it. However, she decided to go on.
“What are you reading, Maud?” she asked.
“Sedimentary Environments and Correlative Sequence Stratigraphy of Upper Cretaceous — Paleogene Succession in El-Alamane, Zebrica.”
Vinyl rose her eyebrows. The only thing she was sure now was that Maud’s papers definitely had no tentacles in them. Not to mention brave warriors in shining armours.
“Sounds sciency…” she said.
“I’m a geologist. My primary field of interest are rocks.”
Vinyl finally felt that Maud said something she understood. She decided to stick to that topic.
“Rocks? Cool. I like rock too. Let me guess, your favourite genre is alternative rock? You look a bit… umm… alternative… hipster-ish. Did I mention that I like rock too? Though I like electronic music more. Dubstep, trance, drum’n’bass… I’m a DJ myself and–”
She paused, seeing a pair of turquoise eyes piercing her from beneath half-closed eyelids. On a second thought, Maud’s expression didn’t change; just the message it conveyed suddenly turned from a mild interest to a mild irritation.
“I guess it was a misunderstanding.” The grey mare said. “I meant rocks.”
Vinyl muttered something that sounded like apologies.
“You remind me of my sister.”
“Umm…” Vinyl wasn’t sure if it was good or bad.
“I love my sister.”
“Good for you,” Vinyl replied. Suddenly she thought about the implications.
No, she thought, most ponies don’t love their relatives that way… As slapping herself mentally didn’t help, she hit herself mentally with a chair. Twice, for a good measure.
Again they spent some time in silence. Vinyl tried to read, but she reached the point when plot became predictable. Not to mention that a will of socializing, hidden somewhere deep inside Maud’s psyche, decided to show up.
“I have a pet rock.” she said. She took a small pebble from her pocket and showed it to Vinyl.
“His name is Boulder.”
“Cool… Hi, Boulder!” Vinyl exclaimed. She was unfazed by the fact that the pony in front of her was apparently eccentric, if not insane.
As a musician, she was often meeting insane ponies. Or rather, eccentric ponies. Insanity was reserved for the ordinary simpleton. Artists, nobles, VIPs – they all were eccentric. Her first manager had a habit of dragging a sweater tied to a leash everywhere, pretending it to be a dog. Her ex-marefriend kept a foal preserved in a jar full of formaldehyde, whom she called Bob. The janitor in her old flat in Manehattan was a Nightmare Moon cultist. She could easily get on with even the craziest of them.
Hell, Maud wasn’t even the first pony with a pet rock she knew. She heard that a fashionista who had once asked her to play during her fashion show had an affair with a giant boulder called Tom. That was partially the reason why Vinyl stopped telling Aristocrats jokes – real life could easily overcome everything her perverted mind could come up with.
“He likes you.”
“Cool…”
The train started to climb up the mountain. The sun was slowly setting.
“Wanna play a game?” Vinyl asked, taking a deck of cards from her saddlebags. She always had one with her in case of cards emergency.
“Sure.”
“You’re not very talkative, aren’t you?”
“No.”
“Okay, I see. Can you play poker?”
“Yes.”
Vinyl shuffled the cards. Immediately, she saw that Maud was a tough opponent. Last time she saw such a good poker face was when she’d accidentally eaten her ex-coltfriend’s mushrooms and ended up playing poker with an iron, microwave oven, and a basket of dirty laundry. She still owed ten bits to an iron.
Soon, she realised that playing poker with Maud was a mistake. Before the sunset, she lost ten games in a row, and was thanking Celestia that the earth mare didn’t want any money from her – she already had to give five bits to Boulder, who somehow got a straight flush. She was about to propose another game, when she saw her fellow passenger watching the mountainous landscape behind the window. Suddenly, Maud recited:
Mountains
Are just big rocks
Rock
Is the heart of a mountain.
Sun.
Is not a rock at all.
But it’s so nice
When it reflects in quartz.
“Wow…” Vinyl exclaimed, “You didn’t say you were a poet!”
“It’s just a hobby.”
“Yeah, a hobby… Listen girl, I’m a musician, I can recognize a good poem when I see one.”
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. Do you write something other than blank verse? Or, umm… not about rocks?”
“No. I guess I’m a bit sedimental.”
“Wait, was that a pun? So, you do have a sense of humour after all.”
Suddenly, Maud expression changed again without actually changing. This time her stare caused chill to run down Vinyl’s spine.
“Just because I don’t express my feelings like you do, doesn’t mean I don’t have a sense of humour,” she said. In complete deadpan, just like she always did, but for Vinyl it sounded like scolding.
“I’m sorry,” the DJ said quickly, “I didn’t mean to–”
“Don’t worry, I’m not mad at you. And cheer up, you look miserable when you’re sad.”
Vinyl never thought she’d live to see a day when the pony whose pet rock was more emotional than her would tell her to cheer up. She smiled half-heartedly upon that thought.
“Much better.”
The train began to ride down the mountain. The moonlight was reflecting in Vinyl’s sunglasses, resting on a small table next to Boulder.
“So, you have a sister, right?” Vinyl asked.
“Three sisters. Inkie, Blinkie, and Pinkamena Diane.” If Maud was able to chuckle, she’d probably chuckle right now. “Our parents are quite creative.”
“I have an older brother,” Vinyl said, “his name is Long Play. He’s a DJ too.”
“Inkie and Blinkie help my parents on a rock farm. Pinkamena… Pinkie… lives in Ponyville. She’s the Element of Laughter.”
“Wait… Pinkie Pie is your sister?”
“Yes.” Maud stated simply.
“I remember her from Princess Cadance’s wedding. Could you believe that I slept through all that battle with changelings? She woke me up just before the party started.”
“I can believe that.”
“Yeah, I’m such a sleepyhead… You know, I’m almost nocturnal…”
“Me too. It’s easier to enjoy rocks when there are no ponies around.”
“You aren’t very sociable…”
“Not really. Besides, there’s a moon…”
She looked through the window and recited:
Moon.
A big rock in the sky,
I love how it shines.
Rocks.
Are pretty.
So is the Moon.
Rocks.
“That was so romantic…” Vinyl stared at Maud in awe. She was trying desperately to still the beating of her heart, but even beating herself mentally with a baseball bat couldn’t help her. Something about that weird, seemingly cold and unemotional pony, fascinated her. She felt like she was a teenager again. Well, she usually felt like that, but this time it was different – she was like a filly who fell in love for the first time.
“You know, I should give you some lessons.”
“Lessons in what?” Vinyl asked, confounded.
“In hiding your feelings. Since you entered the compartment you’re staring at me, blushing like that shy friend of my sister.”
“What? No, I just… I’m just prone to sunburns…”
“Vinyl, please…” Was that a trace of a chuckle in her voice? Vinyl’s ears perked up, but when Maud spoke again, her tone was emotionless as usual.
“Too bad, I’m not a fillyfooler.”
“Oh, don’t say ‘too bad’. I… I’m used to that. You know, I hopelessly fall in love in many mares. Most of them are straight. And I often find out that I was never in love in them in the first place. It was just a crush. You… You might be a one-time crush too. You know, tomorrow morning we’ll leave this train and soon we’ll forget about each other. I–”
Suddenly, she felt Maud’s lips joining with hers. The kiss caught her completely off guard, causing her to jump back.
“What was that?” she shouted.
“One-time crush. As you said, tomorrow we’ll go, so at least have some nice memory of me.”
“You naughty girl…” Vinyl shook her head and hugged Maud. Their lips locked once again. The DJ closed her eyes, a pleasant smell of rock candies filling her nostrils. She could feel their taste on her tongue. Maud held her in a tight, firm embrace. The strength of her muscles, trained by the years spent on the rock farm, made Vinyl feel safe, like a newborn foal in their mother’s hooves. She felt the fabric of Maud’s dress on her skin, its touch almost driving her insane.
Their lips parted, but Vinyl didn’t want to retreat. She sunk her face in Maud’s fur and promptly fell asleep.
She woke up the next morning, still hugging the earth mare. Her mane was dishevelled and her eyes were bloodshot. Every bone in her body hurt – the position she was sleeping in wasn’t very comfortable. She stood up, stretching her body and put her sunglasses on.
“Wake up, sleepyhead,” she whispered, “We’re almost there.”
Maud muttered something in her sleep, then opened her eyes. When she looked at Vinyl, a faint shadow of a smile appeared on her face.
The train almost arrived at the station. They collected their belongings – Maud checked if Boulder was safe in her pocket – and went to the corridor. Finally, they left the train and trotted through the station, to the crowded street of the town.
“See you, Maud,” Vinyl said.
“See you, Vinyl,” Maud replied. They both went in opposite directions.
“Wait!” Vinyl shouted, spinning to see the grey mare again. “Will we see each other one more time?”
Maud was already far away. They were separated by a crowd of ponies, there was no way she could hear Vinyl. But the DJ was sure that just before she finally lost eye contact with her, she heard her voice – as usual unfazed by anything – saying exactly one word.
“Sure.”
Author's Note
For some reason, I'm in mood for Nick Cave's songs (something between "The Ship Song" and "Jesus of the Moon". I guess if I were listening to Murder Ballads, this story would take a completely different turn.)
