“Viny! Vinyl!”
The words cut through the haze. Vinyl groaned and rolled away from it, wrapping her sheets around her.
“Vinyl! For Celestia's sake wake up!”
Another groan. She moved as much as she could without antagonising her headache or making the blanket crawl across her skin. Then, the curtains opened and daylight flooded in, stabbing through her closed eyelids.
“AHYAFAGGABASTA,” she screamed, rolling away from the window and out of bed.
She hit the floorboards, barely cushioned on the carpet of abandoned plates, pizza boxes and discarded jackets. Pain stabbed through her temples.
“What the hell was that for?” she said, her voice cracked and dry.
“The gas is off, Vinyl!”
“So what do you expect me to do about it?” she said, rubbing her eyes and leaning up.
Octavia was silhouetted against the window. She hugged her covers tighter around her.
“Bloody hell, why’s it so cold in here?”
“That would be a side effect of THE GAS BEING OFF.”
That didn't help her headache at all. “Well stoke up the fire then,” she said, trying to stay wrapped up to save any vestige of warmth.
“Oh yes, let me lay on all the logs and coal we can't afford,” Octavia went on, striding up and down. She always strode when she was mad.
“Look, just put some cash on the meter,” said Vinyl, laying her head back down.
“With what cash!?"
Figured, Vinyl thought. Octavia might have been punctual about the rent, but she never seemed to have a penny to pay for the gas.
“Well, calm down. Just wrap yourself up and you'll be fine.”
“Celestia above, I need to practice today, Vinyl!” Octavia said, running a hoof through her mane. “I can't play wearing three jackets!”
“Then wear two,” Vinyl mumbled, settling back in.
“Huh!” Octavia stormed over to the door.
“And Octavia?” said Vinyl, from her nest of bedclothes and coats. “If you're gonna practice, can you practice quietly?”
Octavia gasped, her mouth flapping for the right response. Failing that, she stormed out and slammed the door. Vinyl's headache stabbed her in the back of the eyes. She groaned and hugged her covers around her.
Outside, the bells of Canterlot tolled ten.
Octavia, meanwhile, stalked into the kitchen, her breath misting in the air. She didn't spare a glance at the sideboards, nor the table, nor the sink. She didn't need to see them at a time like this. She didn't even look at the beer can her hoof bumped into. It rolled off into the wilder stretched of random detritus on the floor as she took refuge in her room.
Honestly, it wasn't great, but it was still better. You could see the floor, for one thing. She shut the door and leaned against it until she started shivering. A shower was out of the question since the water would be either freezing cold or frozen in the pipes, so Octavia set about brushing her mane and tail down. Partly to present the illusion she was freshening up, and partly to calm down. She could feel her hair was starting to grease, but there was nothing she could do about that right now.
Breakfast wasn't an option either, since neither the hobs or the oven would work and anything fresh had gone off when the freezing bricks in the fridge had run dry (Vinyl swore she’d learned the spell to recharge them, but she never seemed to remember it). And that was even assuming she could face the kitchen again. The sink in particular was something she didn't need to deal with right now. Regardless, Octavia's stomach nagged at her.
AGH. She'd need to go out. She still had a couple of bits from her last unemployment cheque lying around, so she'd get breakfast from somewhere close then head down to Loghtan's to practice. It would cost her, but at least`the sheds were usually pretty clean, and heated to boot.
She sighed and banged her head against the door, just once to clear her mind. She shrugged on her trenchcoat (old and rather ratty, but thick enough to keep her warm on a day like today) and turned to fetch her cello out of the wardrobe. Other than her bed and bedside table, the wardrobe was her only piece of furniture. It was out of place against a wall with peeling paint, like it had been lifted from the Bitz hotel, all big and grand and heavy. It was reassuring though, and it was where she kept her most valuable possessions. Inside were her only formal clothes (one bow tie in a box at the bottom), and her cello. That was the only rule that had stuck; don't touch the stuff in the wardrobe.
She opened it (it had a lock, but she'd lost the key) and heaved her cello case onto her back. She made sure to shut the wardrobe after, and that it stayed shut. Vinyl wouldn't be up for a while, so Octavia wrote her a terse note on the back of a takeaway lid which she wedged between two dirty mugs on the sideboard. Off out, back later.
The door stuck in the frame, but it yielded to a heavy kick. The walls in the stairwell down were peeling with damp, and part of the bannister had come away in some places, so Octavia stuck to the inside. She checked the mailbox when she reached the bottom (two letters for her, two for Vinyl) and pushed her way out into Canterlot.
The cold took her breath away, sharp and bright. The sun shone down, glinting on the frost on the dead lilacs that had colonised all the semi-derelict and run-down buildings on Coronation Court. She made her way down the street. No one was about at this time, so there was no chance of bumping into anyone. On the bright side, there was no risk of bumping into anyone either.
She went into the scrubby café on the corner of Coronation Court and Grazevenor Square and picked up a cup of coffee and an egg sandwich for three bits fifty. She drank the coffee, but saved the sandwich in a surprisingly difficult act of self-control.
Loghtan's was a couple of streets away, down an alley in a scratch of unused land between two old apartment buildings. They were supposedly abandoned, but that didn't stop Loghtan from renting rooms in them. He referred to himself as a 'purveyor of time and space', which meant he could give you a room or a shed and peace of mind for anywhere between two hours and two days, depending on how much cash you had to hand, and who was after you. He was a sheep from some godawful windswept island out near Connemara, and was convinced that the government was hunting him down.
“You see, it stands to reason,” he said as he brought Octavia through (after making sure her Cello case didn't contain anything untoward), “in a place like Equestria, there ain' much room for a freethinking sheep. They're all whored out to these big farms, in't they? Shaved clean of wool every coupla months and in return they get to stay in slavery.”
Occasionally he'd make a gesture with his head and scrape his long horns on the side of a shed. Octavia knew it was best to nod and walk.
“If they knew I was livin' here as a free agent, like, they'd have me removed, wu'nt they? So I gotta stay undercover like.”
“Trust nopony, I suppose,” said Octavia, idly, as they drew up to the shed she'd rented.
“Well,” Loghtan went on, except he pronounced it 'weww', “ponies themselves ain't so bad. It's the authorities you godda watch out for.”
Octavia nodded and passed him two bits twenty for the shed and an egg sandwich for three hours in it.
“This from the place on Grazevenor?” said Loghtan, eyeing it like a sommelier eyeing a bottle of Pinot Chateau Noir 1666. “They always get the eggs just right...”
He took it and wandered off, chewing thoughtfully, while Octavia went inside. The shed was half-buried under a pile of old mattresses, so it was as close to soundproof as you were going to get. Light came in through one dusty window in the roof, and heat radiated off a small stove in the corner. Octavia laid her cello down gently and rushed over to warm her hooves.
She put her coat on the hook on the back of the door and opened her cello case. She lifted out her instrument and bow, rosined up her bow, and tuned her cello. She liked tuning it, it was a nice instrument. Her parents had taken great pains to ensure it was as good as it could be, getting it custom-made and shipped in from a workshop in Trotsburg. It was made of a nice, dark, warm wood, and had been varnished 'til it shone. All things considered, it was worth more than anything else she owned.
Once she was satisfied with it, she set up her music stand. Something gentle today, something to calm her down. Through the cracks in the shed walls, the sound of Barhns drifted, out across the courtyard.
Vinyl came to slowly. Her headache had settled down to a sensation of two cinderblocks pressed to her temples, and her throat didn't feel so rotten. What time was it? Late, probably. Her own clock hadn't worked since she'd punched it for waking her up at six in the morning. The glass was shattered, and the hands drooped miserably at half past six. Octavia had given her hell for it at the time, heh, man, she'd loved that clock. Well, yeah, it had been her clock, hadn't it? In Vinyl’s defence, Octavia had loaned it to her in the first place.
Vinyl lifted herself up, disentangling her bedclothes and taking a moment to get stable. She stumbled into the kitchen, swatting the door open with magic. She rifled through the pile on the table for the half pizza she was sure she'd left last night, but found nothing. That pizza would sort her out for sure. She needed cheese for protein, tomatoes for minerals and vitamins and the crust to soak up the rest of the alcohol in her system. She checked in the fridge, in case she'd put it in there. As it was, she found a crust of bread (stale, but not mouldy) and a rind of cheese, which she washed down with the final tenth of a bottle of Smarmoff she found at the back. Not perfect, but it'd keep her alive.
As Octavia had said, the gas was off, so a shower would just freeze her to death. She could feel the cold waking her up already, so she shoved aside the pile of plates in the sink and stuck her head under the tap, taking a drink and letting it run over her head. She slumped against the sideboard and took a moment to collect herself.
Right, now she was alive and awake, she had to stay as such. Octavia hadn't made coffee, but Vinyl found the cafetiere still had maybe an inch or so of it left in. She drank it, getting a mouthful of grounds. It was bloody awful, but it'd probably keep her awake. Conscious that her wet hair was already starting to crisp with ice, she wrapped her hair in a tea towel, went back into her room and draped a blanket over her body.
Sooner or later she'd have to gel her hair up, otherwise it'd got all flat, but until then she'd take a lie down. Yesterday after all, had been a day of work, which meant today had to be a day of rest. Many who practice the new and arcane art of DJing saw themselves as above and apart from the crowds who flocked to them, but they weren't Vinyl Scratch. She who was never afraid to get her hooves dirty, and had had to hear about half her own gigs second hand. This was a fact she considered with pride. She dozed off, wrapped up in her blanket, and dreamed dreams of loud noise, screaming crowds, and thumping music.
Her was nap was briefly interrupted by the bells going off at one o'clock, but she paid them no heed. Wake up calls were for the weak.
Octavia put away her cello with a sigh. It was a good instrument, but she'd need a new one if she was going to get any work. Something with a little more utility, and a little less flair. She wiped her brow and clicked the lid shut. The stove was down to embers now, and the little stock of broken chair legs and shattered table that fuelled it had run out. Loghtan opened the door slowly and coughed politely.
“Beg your pardon, miss.”
“It's alright,” she said, smiling and hauling her case on to her back. “I was just going.”
“Very good,” said Loghtan. He shuffled over and leaned close. “Tell me if you see anyone official-looking outside,” he whispered.
Octavia's smile didn't change. “I will.”
Loghtan nodded and tapped his nose. “Can't trust the buggers not to try somfing.”
Octavia just kept smiling as she left.
She went to turn and head back to Coronation Court but... no, she couldn't. She couldn't go back to Vinyl yet. Instead of heading south back into Canterwell, she went up the street towards Hayfair. She needed a walk.
Her breath hung in the air in the sharp sunlight. She hunched her shoulders as she made her way down the street, keeping her neck in her collar. At least it wasn't windy.
Just up from Loghtan's block were more apartments, old noble blocks clad in white marble with neo-pegasine columns. Here on the edge of Canterwell they'd been abandoned by the original owners after the last cut to the civil list meant few members of the aristocracy below an earl could really afford a second home. Some bright spark had bought them cheap and split them into smaller flats, then sold the blocks on to landlords who rented flats to ponies like Octavia and Vinyl at prices you couldn't refuse but could easily regret.
As she walked on, though, she reached the wealthier streets around Gelder's Green where the middle and the upper end of the middle lived. A broad band of shopkeepers, entrepreneurs and nouveau riche houses, perhaps built in worse taste but certainly kept in better condition. Early seasonal snows had been bought wholesale from the Cloudsdale weather co-op, and the trees that lined the streets, although bare, were definitely better cared for than the scrubby planes down in Canterwell.
Octavia stopped. Where was she? The street didn't look familiar to her. She cast about for a familiar landmark, but drew a blank. She'd never even seen the Palace from this angle before. She'd wandered off her mental street map into a grey area. She glanced around and caught half a dozen well-dressed sneering looks. Here be dragons. Luna's moon, she must look awful. She huddled into her trenchcoat and ran a hoof through her mane. It'd only gotten worse during practice.
Bloody hell, bloody hell! If she'd been on a main road, or a street she knew, like Timpani Alley, or near a big theatre or an opera house she'd have been fine, but she was in some nowhere street in the wrong side of town getting eyeballed in ponies wearing fashion. She glanced around for the nearest street sign. Mareswell Hill.
Well where the hell was that?
Anxiety wound itself into her chest like a spring. She was lost. She blundered a little further until, by some miracle, she found a coffee shop. It was twee, all sanded white tables, cutesy chalked menus and carefully mismatched chairs, but it would be warm and it would do. She took refuge inside, getting a few judging looks from well-groomed artistes in turtleneck jumpers and plaid shirts (keep looking, she thought viciously, there but for Celestia's grace go you).
She took a table near the back, leaning her cello case against the wall. Right now, she didn't care if they made her buy something. She was on edge as it was, she swore to everything under the sun if anyone disturbed her here-
Shhhhh, stay calm. She was worrying too much and getting needlessly wound up. She could find her way home from here. If she just retraced her steps, then she'd be home and dry. She leaned back in her chair, and got a good look at the cutesy menu. She had to stifle a snort. No wonder these arty buggers were giving her the dead-eye stare, it was four bits ten for a cocoa. Sod that for a game of soldiers. She was about to get up and go when-
“Octy!”
Oh. Shit.
Octavia had never come so close as she did then to leaving through the window. Shitting shit, she had to get out of there.
“Fancy seeing you here!”
She didn’t want to look. She didn’t want to make eye contact and acknowledge that voice, but instinct made her. She turned, and looked. There, standing clean, fresh-faced, and well-dressed in a plaid shirt, was sister Fiddlesticks.
They weren't twins, and they didn't match colours, but they did look alike, so ponies were confusing her and Fiddlesticks from the day they were born. Well, she hadn't been born Fiddlesticks, that had come later when she shacked up with a bluegrass band and had made for the boonies. She'd known her when she was just little sister Allegro. And now here she was, all grown up and successful.
“Hi, Allie,” she said, smiling weakly. Then, because she felt something was expected of her, “You're looking well.”
“Ah, same to you, eh?” said Allegro/Fiddlesticks, grinning back and (oh bugger) taking a seat.
“Uh, thanks,” said Octavia. She bit her lip. “Um, I don't mean to be rude, but what are you doing here?”
Allegro leaned her chair back and laughed. “Well, we decided to split for the winter, me and the band,” she said. “We've all got family to see his Hearth' s Warming eve. Mutton Chop's even gone back to Connemara for their midwinter's do.”
Octavia nodded dumbly.
“Gosh, it's dead weird, you know,” Allegro went on. “We were just over there for the Gathering festival just this summer, and they had this big wicker mare they set on fire with loads of chanting and dancing and big standing stones. They're very religious, sheep,” she paused briefly, looking thoughtful. “Very big on oats, too.”
Octavia nodded again, stalling for time.
“Oh, but sorry, I should've asked. Do you want a drink?”
NO! “Sure,” said Octavia.
“Coffee, tea? I think they do liqueurs here too...”
“Just a coffee, thanks.”
“Mocha, latte, cappucino...?”
“Just a coffee.”
Allegro nodded and bustled off to order. Octavia sat like a rabbit in a trap. Move, she was thinking, move and get out of here. It’ll be all the worse if you don’t. Go now before she starts to ask questions. Don't let her-
“It'll be ready in a bit,” said Allegro, sitting back down with a smile.
Nod. Right. Get it over with.
“So... how have you been?” said Octavia.
“Oh, well...” said Allegro, dramatically. “How have I been... well, I've been busy mostly, band and whatnot. We've been doing the rounds on the festivals, you know. Glastigbury, Isle of Wight, Burning Mare, Oktoberfest, Black Country festival. Lot of work leading to a lot of other work. Networking, y'know.”
Nod.
“We've been all over, which has been bloody exhausting, but it's been a bit quieter since August. Just a few little gigs here and there. Not such great money sure, but these little places always have such great atmosphere.”
Nod.
“I tell you though, our last gig in Vanhoover didn't end up so little. Five hundred all trying to cram into a room ten feet square. We ended up performing out in the street on the back of the cart...”
Nod.
“...when Banjie turns to me and says 'where'd you put the spare picks?'...”
Nod.
“...I mean, I hadn't been drinking, but Ceilidh had, and she's a bit, well...”
Nod.
“...try explaining that to the guard...”
Nod.
“...Like back in Hollow Shades when...”
Nod.
“...a thousand all out in the courtyard...!”
Nod.
“...three thousand in cash, split five ways...”
NOD.
“One coffee and one large decaf mocha?”
Octavia glanced up suddenly as a coffee landed in front of her.
“Thanks,” she said, instinctively rifling through her pockets, knowing she didn't have enough.
“Here,” said Allegro, passing a ten-bit note to the waitress and getting maybe one bit fourteen cents in change.
Octavia kept rooting for appearance's sake. “Sorry, how much do I owe you?”
Allegro shook her head. “Don't worry about it, have it on me.”
Octavia briefly considered insisting, but then she remembered exactly how much change she had.
“Ah, anyway. Enough about me,” said Allegro, steepling her hooves over her mug. “How have you been?”
Octavia didn't answer immediately. Allegro leaned forward, all ears. Quickly, she formulated an answer.
“Uh, yeah, it's been fine,” she said, at last. “Been, uh, busy y'know?”
“Oh? You finally get a place in the Canterlot Philharmonic?”
“Uh, no, just...” LIE. “... Just a string quartet.”
“Ah, how's that working out?”
“We're... we're doing... we're doing okay, uh couple of gigs here and there.”
Allegro gave her a big grin. “Ah, all the classiest restaurants, eh? Do tell, where've you been?”
Octavia tried to remember where she'd applied to lately.
“The Strand?” she tried.
“What, up on Palace Walk? Get out!” said Allegro, still grinning.
“Uh, yeah, and the griffon place up on Regent Street,” she went on, agonising. “Borscht.”
Allegro chuckled. “Celestia's beard, you have been doing well for yourself,” she sipped her coffee. “And here's me out in the sticks, playing out of barns and off the back of carts. I mean, I remember this one time out in Hayseed Swamp...”
Octavia nodded and sipped her coffee. Allegro had enough to talk about for the both of them.
Vinyl woke up when the door slammed. The sound of stomping hooves told her Octavia was back on the premises. Luckily, her headache was virtually gone by now. She got to her hooves and waded through into the kitchen. Octavia was bustling to and fro, collecting every piece of dirty crockery and cutlery and dumping it in the sink like it'd cast aspersions on her mother.
“'Sorry for waking you up, Vinyl',” said Vinyl, yawning lazily. “'Oh, no problem, Octavia’.”
“Eat shit, Vinyl!” Octavia snapped, turning to her flatmate viciously.
“Jeez, what's gotten to you?” said Vinyl, reeling at Octavia's bared teeth.
“What's wrong? This flat's a fucking disaster area is what's wrong!” she said, heaving a few dirty takeaway boxes off the table and into the bin, which just disturbed the piled-up rubbish already in it.
“Huh. I didn't know it was getting to you,” Vinyl said, as the miscellaneous trash clattered on the floor around the bin.
“I told you when I moved in!” said Octavia, going back to her work. “I didn't want to be the only one cleaning up!” she shoved a heaped hoof-ful of bottles and cans into the bin, only to have them spill out across the floor.
“I think you need to empty it.”
“YOU THINK?” Octavia shouted. “Well why don't you help me by doing something instead of standing there like your mother dropped you as a foal!?”
Vinyl drew back a little. “'s no need for harsh words. I thought we were friends.”
“Then fucking act like it!”
Octavia spun the hot tap furiously. It rumbled and gurgled and dribbled a line of cold water.
“Gas is off,” said Vinyl.
“I KNOW!” Octavia snapped. “I know the gas is off because the gas keeps turning off because I can’t pay for it, like I can’t pay for anything, so I live in a shitty flat in a shitty corner of town surrounded by shit wearing shitty clothes until they fall apart because I can't get a job, so I'm living on fifty-three bits a week on unemployment allowance!”
She slumped against the sideboard, head in her hooves. Slowly, she lowered herself down, lying on the floor, sobbing quietly. “I'm fucking sick of it all...”
Slowly, something like regret sank into Vinyl’s stomach, and it paralyzed her for a moment. Then again, she'd seen melancholy drunks before. The concept was similar.
She walked up beside Octavia and sat down. Octavia shuffled away, still sobbing. Neither of them said a word.
After what felt like an age, Octavia's sobbing became sniffling, and Vinyl had the courage to speak.
“I'll... I'll clear up this mess.”
Octavia wiped her nose on her hoof. “'s no hot water.”
“That's okay. I'll just scrub a lot.”
It wasn't a joke, but Octavia gave a sniff that might've been a 'hah' under different circumstances. Vinyl scooched over and put her hooves around Octavia, who leaned against her limply, burying her head in Vinyl’s neck.
“I'm just so sick of it...”
“Don't worry. Don't worry.”
They sat there for a while on the kitchen floor. Octavia sniffed and sobbed and Vinyl hushed her as reassuringly as she could.
Slowly, Octavia lifted her head. “I forgot to bring the mail up,” she said. “Sorry, I was just so-”
“I'll fetch it,” said Vinyl, getting to her hooves.
“N-no, I'll-”
“I insist,” Vinyl interrupted. “You stay here.”
She smiled and Octavia smiled back weakly. Nothing to worry about. She was halfway out when she darted back in and levitated the bin.
“Better take it out, eh?” she said, grinning sheepishly and darting back out.
By the time she got back, Octavia was sitting the comfy chair, and seemed to have recovered a bit. She looked up and Vinyl walked in.
“Two each today,” she said, with a forced grin. She levitated them over to Octavia.
Octavia opened them quickly and sighed. “One rejection letter from the Bitz hotel and one reminder to sign on for unemployment allowance on Thursday,” she said, miserably.
“Chin up, at least they had the balls to reject you by letter,” said Vinyl, chewing her own letters open (magical shearing being a bit beyond her). “I remember one club I scared so bad they didn't even send me the damages.”
Octavia sniffed a laugh.
“So, what are yours then?” she asked.
“Oh, bills,” said Vinyl, without blinking.
She cast her eye over the first one '...be very grateful if you could perform...' yadda yadda yadda, she skipped down to the important bit. 'Wednesday the 15th... Eq$500 in cash and an unlimited bar tab'.
“If it's the water bill, tell them we're not paying,” said Octavia, smiling over at her.
Vinyl chuckled. The second one had a royal looking seal on it and began 'Her Majesty's Civic Guards...' Oh balls. '...vandalism, noise pollution, disturbing the peace... a fine of Eq$800 and an appearance in court this Thursday'.
She sighed. “Nothing we can't handle,” she said, quietly.
“Pardon?” said Octavia, lifting her head from a quick re-read of her rejection letter.
“Just wondering what we're going to do about dinner,” said Vinyl. “We're out of food.”
Octavia grimaced and sighed.
“We'll go for a curry,” said Vinyl, grinning suddenly. “Keep us warm until I get the gas back on.”
“I haven't got any money,” said Octavia, glumly.
“I'll pay for yours then.”
Octavia shook her head. “No, no, I couldn't...”
Vinyl sighed and rolled her eyes. “Well then, you can pay for the rice.”
She levitated two hoodies off the floor, each one more ratty than the other, and put them both on.
“But I- what if I don’t have enough?”
“Then I'll sub you, and you can pay me back when you next check comes through.”
Octavia nodded and stood up. She was still wearing her trenchcoat. She bit her lip and did a little mental arithmetic. Her next check minus a curry and rice.
“Well, alright,” she said in the end.
Vinyl smiled at her, and they made their way out of the flat and into the streets.
“...And the bouncer just gives her this look, like 'well, I'm certainly not'.”
Octavia almost spluttered out a mouthful of vivid yellow biriyani. She swallowed and gave Vinyl a scandalised look.
“So what did she say to that?” she said, wiping her mouth on her sleeve.
“Well, she just turns around, pulls this face and says 'well, if you don't want it, I'm sure plenty of stallions do' and struts off down the street!”
Octavia laughed and held out her hoof. Vinyl passed her the bottle of wine she'd somehow found to stave off the cold.
“So yeah, never saw her there again,” said Vinyl, grinning slyly as she dug into her korma.
They'd got the takeaway from the Hind place on the corner, and Vinyl had produced the wine while they'd been waiting, then they'd decamped to Grazevenor Square, where the grass was still greenish and the benches weren't too uncomfortable. It was only two or three minutes home, but they'd decided to huddle together on the same bench for warmth. She had another mouthful of curry and washed it down with a swig of wine. She tilted her head back and stared up.
“No stars out tonight,” she said, quietly.
“Well, no,” said Vinyl, levitating the wine her way. “They'll be moving in more clouds for winter, won't they?”
Octavia nodded. “Mind you, you probably couldn't see them, what with the street lights.”
“And the bastards flying the snow in,” said Vinyl, who'd found a good thread. She tilted her head back and shouted. “Bloody pegasuses, bringing in this fucking cold!”
“Vinyl! You can't say that!”
“Why not? Bunch of STONE COLD MURDERING Fmrglwr!”
Octavia clamped a hoof over Vinyl's mouth, trying not to laugh. Two ponies dressed for the cold, a mare and a stallion, hurried past. The stallion gave them a sidelong glance that Vinyl caught. She wrenched Octavia's hoof aside.
“Take a picture why don't you, you rich fuckers!” she shouted at them, collapsing into fits of laughter.
“Vinyl! Celestia's sake, you can't just-”
“CELESTIA!” said Vinyl, one arm up to gesticulate. “There's the biggest bastard of them all! She can raise the sun whenever she likes, but still makes it fuggin' freezing for four months of the year!”
The world at large was deprived of more of this political commentary as Vinyl took another drink. Octavia snatched the bottle out of the haze of magic and drained what was left.
“Hey! What are you doing?”
“Saving you from yourself!” said Octavia, fighting to keep the bottle out of Vinyl's grasp.
“Like hell you are!”
Vinyl wrestled her off the bench and she hit the ground with a hefty thud. The bottle rolled away over the gravel with a hollow sound. Vinyl sighed.
“Saddest sound in the universe,” she said, getting up and giving Octavia a hoof up.
“I think that's a quote, isn't it?” said Octavia. “'The saddest sound in the universe is the one you make before you give up'.”
“Very nice,” said Vinyl. “I don't think he'd ever heard an empty wine bottle before.”
“How do you know it was a stallion?”
“It's the kind of thing a stallion would say, isn’t it? said Vinyl, huddling up in her hoodies. “Right. Fancy going for a few at the Crown and Shoes?” she said, nodding down the street.
“No money, remember?” said Octavia. “Besides, I should probably get some sleep.”
“Mm, suit yourself.”
Together, they walked down the gravel path, beneath the bare trees. Maybe Vinyl was leaning on Octavia to support her, or maybe it was the other way around. Hard to tell in that light.
“Vinyl?”
“Mh?”
“Thanks for the curry.”
“Thanks for nothing, that's coming out of your next check.”
“Heh, right.”
“And you're paying for your share of the wine.”
“I thought you said that was a present for both of us.”
“Yeah, that was before you drank half of it.”
“More like a third.”
“Oh well you would say that…”
The sound drifted off over the park, between the frozen trees and over the roofs of Canterwell.
Octavia slumped in her bed without taking her coat off, wrapping her quilt around her. Her hooves were aching from a day on the hoof and her stomach was full of curry and wine. She'd regret it tomorrow, but... well, she'd just practice at home tomorrow. She didn't have the money for Loghtan's anyway, and plus, she had to make sure Vinyl tidied up, the thought of which made her smile.
Sooner or later, she'd get something to tide her over. One of the letters would be an acceptance. Maybe two, but she knew realism was the key to a really good fantasy. Until then... well, she'd just have to remember to sign on this Thursday.
She rolled over, and remembered she'd seen Allegro today.
“You should come over some time, it'll be nice to see you. If not, well, see you at Hearth's Warming Eve at mum and dad's, eh?”
She sighed and pulled her covers around her. Go to sleep, she thought.