Center Street faded behind her in its neon cacophony of hellish hues, nightclub signs ablaze and nightponies eyes alight with spirit. With each rhythmic step, she felt the familiar cosmic complacency course throughout her body. She could almost feel her veins constricting and eyes dilating, the latter measured in proportion to the disdain in the glares of passersbys as night took her through the wealthier parts of Canterlot. But who are they to judge?
Turning a corner, our pony in observation was struck straight in the eyes by a thousand collective glitters, the mica ground into the sidewalk, concrete manifesting itself in an oceanic sparkle. It appeared as if the cosmos lay both above and below her, which thanks to a perfect dose of narcissism and LSD, became her reality. What passed as Vinyl stood there seemingly alone, transfixed by the mundane, cannot be measured in moments or minutes. Instead, what passed her were opportunities: the could haves, should haves, and would haves that made up her life. At this moment, the pony could have turned the corner and headed home, she would have stayed and watched the sidewalk. "You should come with me." came a voice from above.
Luna, the Princess of the Night, who happened to have quite an infatuation with this particular mare after their cocaine fueled shenanigans following Cadence's wedding, said from her cloudtop view. Hearing the invitation, but not knowing from whom or where it came from, Vinyl looked around. In the garden-side bushes, behind the chairs, under her hooves. Nopony was there. There never was. Thoroughly afraid and tripping hard, Vinyl ran.
Luna watched the fleeting mare from above.
"There's always tomorrow" she whispered as she rolled over in her cloud, brandishing a bottle of vodka with her hoof while lighting a cigarette with the other.
The fierce-faced buildings across town came and went in haunting succession. Vinyl hustled towards her destination, a small apartment flat owned by her old friend Neon Lights. Despite being an incredibly nice colt, Neon was unfortunately, a nice colt. He could be likened to the quiet and whimpering cute puppy of the litter that is perpetually adored. In reality, these traits lead to a comparatively plain individual, too passive to take risks and too quiet to make a name for himself amongst the roars of his peers, which is why he would always be her opening act. The dissonance was consistent brain fodder for Vinyl, not for Neon’s sake, but because she almost felt it was toxic to her own explosive lifestyle.
Selfish as this thought process might appear, Vinyl was not very concerned with the perception of her character. She knew she lived an honest, albeit, vicarious lifestyle. If somepony were to look down on her for shooting every shot, pursuing every opportunity, and surrounding herself with only the most ambitious and vivacious characters his extensive acquaintance network has to offer, then buck them.
Zoning out between the whitewashed night sky and the onslaught of streetlights and starlight, Vinyl began to find herself closer and closer to the flat. The night sky kept her wandering mind occupied as she traveled throughout the heart of the city. Although by now she was struggling, playing hide and seek with her sanity, when she managed to find the glorified cinderblock.
It wasn’t but a few flights of stained stairs that separated the DJ from a place where she could rest herself, as by now her fours were beginning to constrict to the point that her jacket flayed just the slightest bit. Finding herself eventually at Neon’s welcome mat, it took but a single knock for the door to swing violently open, as if a butler had been anxiously anticipating guests.
On the other end of the threshold was no other than Vinyl's familiar, toothpaste-green friend. Neon’s smile was drenched in a mix of relief and resentment, but nonetheless glad he wasn’t being kept waiting any longer. Flattered by Neon’s display, Vinyl extended her pleasantries painfully longer than she should have, knowing that Neon would never be so direct as to blatantly ask for the herbs he was so impatiently smitten over.
“How’ve you been Neon? I’d ask which fillies you’ve been foolin’, but I know you wouldn’t have gotten any action with that pubesque goatee on your chin.”
Neon smirked full heartedly and extended his hoof for a friendly shake without even so much as acknowledging the statement, while the hoofshake spontaneously blossomed into a full on hug amongst the two reunited friends. Vinyl didn’t take kindly to having such a well-crafted and personalized insult brushed off more easily than a sexual advance from an overzealous stallion during last call in a dive bar. Nonetheless, Vinyl took it in for a moment of shameless respect for Neon’s aloofness.
After the exchange of pleasantries, Neon retreated to the fridge to make drinks, leaving the exhausted DJ an opportunity to take in her surroundings. Between the soft reggae playing, the beer haze in the air, and a familiar yet bittersweet sex stench, she made herself at home. Peeking around the foyer hallway into the only common room of the suite, she quietly judged the single female stranger laying on the couch.
Vinyl often had a solid breakdown of how somepony presents oneself, and in which direction she should carry the conversation before they even had an opportunity to speak. Because of this, the socialite DJ was able to calibrate her interactions to give a sense of security and openness when needed, or alternatively, to disarm a raging bitch. She believed that every warm body on this planet is both consciously and subconsciously judged on their posture, appearance, and presence. Posture, she believed, was representative in particular of how someone feels at the moment. Say, for example, and without a better fitting subject for this analogy, Neon was in a bar eying two identical twins. Under ceteris ponibus conditions, with all other variables equal, the twin with a wider stance, more relaxed-and-back shoulders, and even pelvic tilt would not only be more approachable, but also slightly more likely to leave the establishment with Neon.
Presence is in many ways similar to posture to her, in that it speaks tomes of a person’s identity. While posture can tense or relax depending on situations throughout the day, ones’ presence will generally remain constant, and is felt more than empirically described. It was the kind of thing that a pony did or didn't have, but DJ had enough to spare, and it kindled like a bonfire when in the stage lights she called home.
Despite her obvious intoxication, the couch-locked female conveyed an air of class, comfort, and confidence. Her bare face, unobstructed by makeup or malice wore a smile a size too large for her diminutive features while her hand crafted, discordant outfit consisting of a crooked pink bowtie and a forest green flannel shirt. Nothing about how she presented herself at the moment seemed to make sense, but perhaps it wasn't supposed to.
She was sprawled comfortably along the couch, hookah hose in hand, playfully taunting Neon with smoke rings from across the room. Vinyl was led to assume that the young mare was Octavia, Neon's most recent (by a longshot) love interest that circumstance had conveniently kept her from meeting.
The DJ was almost surprised in Neon's ability to attract such a mare; but he is a nice colt, after all. However, what did surprise her was that the earth pony’s apparent class was so very different from Neon’s usual type, but only if the term 'usual' was interpreted loosely. Dodging around the couch, Vinyl pulled up a chair, rooted herself, and levitated a spare hose.
"So you must be Octavia." The name rolled off her tongue, shrouded in a cloud of vapor, twisting and winding in a pale blue aura as the unicorn toyed with it.
Casually, she replied without much interest "Indeed, and you must think you’re Elvis Coltstello the way you dressed yourself with that jacket and scarf. What else do you know about me?"
Vinyl was disarmed for a moment.
This mare is stone cold.
The resident badass took a moment to gather clues as to her challenger’s personality. She chose not to take cheap shots, such as speculations into why she drank her straight bourbon in swallows rather than sips. It seemed that someone who drank like that in such an intimate setting drank more to forget the past, rather than enjoy the present.
"Well I'm hesitant to bet bits that you're a mare with the way you rock that Axl Rose haircut."
The words crept out from between Vinyl's snickering cheeks and purple shades, slowly enough as to make it appear as a joke.
The earth pony was rather amused in the care this mare took in insulting her, and checked the unicorn's grin with a coy smile.
With divine timing, Neon turned the hallway from the kitchen with drinks in hand, three half-filled highballers of Pinnacolt vodka. The gray mare’s being shamelessly the fullest. Placing them on the central coffee table, he positioned himself next to Octavia on the sofa. Vinyl took this opportunity to procure the centerpiece for this evening’s gathering and levitated a quarter ounce of Everfree’s finest from her jacket pocket, much to Neon's excitement.
Picking apart the glistening flowers was perhaps her favorite part of the process. She likened breaking up the nuggets to passionately undressing a beautiful mare, of which she took more than adequate care in each. With a full pipe, Vinyl ceremoniously offered it to Neon, who most graciously accepted. The pastel green of the pipe blended almost perfectly into his hoof. The DJ used Neon's preoccupation while smoking to strike up conversation again with Octavia.
"So how did you and my opening act meet? Knowing Neon there was most certainly drugs and a club involved, but you’d have probably only known about one."
Neon choked on a cloud of smoke.
The gray earth pony tastefully finished her draw off the hookah before speaking again.
“Online dating”, she relied matter-of-factly. She changed her expression to a palpable sarcasm as she clasped her hooves and looked up at the colt. “He had me at plz respond.”
Vinyl didn’t fight as her snicker grew into a full on smile. She watched as Neon, in typical fashion, tried frantically to deny the accusations while passing Octavia the pipe, only for it to be passed over to the white mare. Neon was blushing internally, well convinced by himself that online dating was something far beneath him, when in reality, the reciprocal was the case. A thought made a cozy little home in the back of her head as Vinyl watched the scene unfold and breathing in a deep breath of silken air.
Well Vinyl, this one’s alright.
The rest of the night slipped by in a blurry haze, their memories of witty one-liners, sexual innuendo, and depreciating humor playing out before them with to an audience of inebriated minds. Despite the fact that they would only remember bits and pieces of the nights engagements, all three contributed to the drunken revelry with lighthearted commentary and personal flair. Recollection of what was said exactly would be difficult, but looking upon the night and each other with a smile and rose-tinted glasses would become second nature.
Vinyl awoke, welcoming Celestias warmth as she rolled out of bed with a muffled thump. She didn’t consider herself a morning pony by any means, but she also couldn’t afford to fix her heater until her next couple gigs came through, so Vinyl welcomed the beating sun and whatever head pounding her migraine demanded. She brushed her teeth, and donned her shades before starting a pot of coffee. While her coffee brewed, she stepped outside to enjoy a morning cigarette while she did her adult duties of retrieving the paper and bills.
The rich smoke filled her lungs as she inhaled deeply, keenly in tune with the chirping of the birds layering over the soft rumble of passing carriages, building upon the syncopated rustle of leaves in the gentle breeze. Vinyl took her time on the trip to the mailbox. There was no rush in her stride today, she was committed to enjoy herself for the first time since the beginning of finals, whose end was celebrated in drunken revelry the night before. She wasn’t much the mare for lazy days, preferring mixing or getting into shenanigans amongst the company of her friends, but she was also the kind of mare to try anything twice.
Vinyl approached the mailbox, which had obviously received attention since yesterday morning, given away by the remains of a smeared blueberry lightly dusted with crumbs clinging to the side of the box. She mused briefly over what happenings the paper would hold today, or which exponent had been applied to her bills. She gathered her parcels and extinguished her cigarette in a flower pot that was spilling over with its carcinogenic contents before returning inside.
Just in time for her coffee to finish brewing, the DJ waited only a moment before bringing the pitcher to her table with her, one of the few pieces of mismatched furniture the furnished her living room. It wasn’t quite out of necessity that she had so little furniture; it just made the room easier to clear out in the events of a party. Vinyl added a bit of cream to the pot, opting out of the repetition of refilling a mug. She once again returned her attention to the stack of envelopes in front of her, assorting them in piles based on perceived importance. Bills to be dealt with once she had the funds, instrument catalogues for when her bank statement reflected a positive integer, and her copy of Mares Monthly for when she got a little bored that evening. Her stacks now sorted, she fixed herself upon a curious manila envelope, not being entirely sure where to put it. It was a little bigger than the other articles she had received, but it wasn’t marked with Urgent or One Day Only! and that plainness made it different. Clearly inflated by its contents, the envelope taunted her from across the table.
Vinyl inspected it closely in her hooves. It was obviously addressed to her; she shifted her focus from her name to the gold-stamped return address on the top left.
Office of Royal Correspondence
1 Canterlot Castle
Canterlot, Equestria
Vinyl’s mind immediately filled itself with delusions as she looked towards a place far away from anything near her. She was asking herself questions, and her mind readily answered.
H-Had Celestia found out about what happened after the wedding?
No, surely she couldn’t have; Luna passed out and that alley was pretty well hidden
Maybe she just wants to thank me for the performance?
She’s done that twice already.
Don’t worry; it’s probably just a noise ordinance violation
The DJ, unaware of her own anxieties, paced around the room; continuing to mumble half-baked conspiracy theories to herself, searching for the very answers that were laying right there in front of her. She drank from the coffeepot in painfully large gulps, hoping to find the answers there.
Thoughtless moments passed, then came a wave of calmness.
Just open it ya dumb filly
In a moment of clarity, under the explicit order of the voice in Vinyl’s head, she once again resumed her position at the table and opened the letter in a diplomatic fashion with an air of tranquility obtained through mental exhaustion. Her hoof slid between the gummy seal, as she cringed autonomously with each inch of progress. The seal broken, Vinyl tipped the envelope upside down, revealing yet another letter and a trifold print.
Beckoning, and already half-unfurled, the elongated parchment drenched in fluorescent colors opened before her with the assistance of her hooves.
Silence was broken by a gasp that took in ever cubic centimeter of air in her immediate vicinity. Vinyl’s eyes widened to an impossible extent, and her lip quivered as it tried to form words. Her racing mind was voided of all coherent thought processes. The room faded away from her field of vision as she focused on the parchment with unseeing eyes. As moments passed and everything crept back into clarity, Vinyl once again read the parchment to make sure that it was real.
Burning Mare
2014
Headlining
Vinyl Scratch & Neon Lights
...
The rest of the names below her didn’t matter, but she recognized them as popular electronic artists. The parchment fell out of her hooves and once again, she began pacing.
This couldn’t be real
I didn’t even apply!
… Wait, Neon headlining?
A white hoof made contact with Vinyl’s cheek, which were somehow paler than before. Blood returned to her brain as she processed the information before her.
It’s obviously a joke. It had to be. Princess Luna must be trying to get my hopes up because I didn’t stop by again after the wedding. I mean, I always assumed she had some kind of complex but I didn’t think she’d go this far.
With the conclusion firmly ingrained in her mind, Vinyl began laughing. Starting out as a nervous chuckle, it quickly grew in intensity until she was in stitches on the floor, wiping tears from her cheek as she continued on with herself. Despite her outburst, a dark curiosity grew in the back of her head; that of what the other letter contained. which grew and grew until the two thoughts met at equilibrium, pulling herself out of her manic fit instantly. Her magenta eyes, still fresh with a few tears of laughter, swept over to the second letter and fixed themselves upon it.
Moments passed as her mouth hung open, hypnotized by the possibility of an explanation for the charade. Slowly, Vinyl made her way back to the table so she could stare at the letter from a different angle. The envelope was blank on the front. With a cautious hoof, Vinyl flipped it over.
Emblazoned upon its cream exterior was a red wax seal, holding the letter closed. An impression of Luna was stamped into the wax, and Vinyl almost swore the princess was smirking at her. This didn't relieve Vinyl’s suspicions in the slightest, and she continued staring at the letter. As unicorns subconsciously do, Vinyl sensed that there was a slight enchantment on the letter, but its arcane energy was perceived as nothing more than a faint buzz. It wouldn't deter her in the slightest from opening it, though.
Vinyl reached again towards the envelope, taking it in empty hooves and opening the seal. Her heartbeat was racing and her white coat was beginning to mat with sweat. She tipped the envelope, sending the contents sliding out. A folded piece of paper lay there on the table in front of her. The DJ was finished musing herself with possibilities of ulterior motives at this point, and surrendered fully to her curiosity.
Two hoof-written words marked the center of the paper.
Say hey
Vinyl winced in confusion, and questionably mumbled to the letter.
“H-Heeeyyy…..?”
But her questioning inflection was cut off as a dark blue aura swept in from the corners of her perception as her body dematerialized. Even her mind blinked, as if somepony had pressed her reset button.
Vinyl didn't remember closing her eyes, but when she opened them, they took in nothing but darkness. A snort broke the silence and a voice called out to her.
"So . . . Why didn't you return my calls?"
Author's Note
Special shout out to JawyBean over on Deviant Art for the cover art.
Check out his page from the source image!
Chapter Two- Business Casual
A bastard sun broke through the guard of her blinds, seeking her sensitive eyes with unrelenting prejudice. She rolled in her bed, a matted form of grey undulating the covers as she attempted to escape the scouring arrays without avail; the beams of disapproval at her previous night’s indulgence reflecting directly off the most unlikely of surfaces, homing in on her flustered mug.
Oh Celestia, just this one day. Please, please leave me be!
But Celestia did not answer the tormented mare’s beckoned call on this day, nor had she on the day before, or the day before that.
Mumbling obscenities at nopony in particular, Octavia rolled out of her nest into a room unfit for a pony of her current affliction.
Everything was immaculately kept, her white desk against her white walls with white pencils parallel atop a stack of white paper. Octavia kept herself as she kept her room, well-maintained and aesthetically pleasing. It mattered not to her if she ended a night of drinking behind one of her regular bars sporting a disheveled mane and a stained bowtie. As long as she arrived with pride in her gait and a coat fresher than wet paint, she’d be satisfied with the sloppy happenings of a Canterlot evening.
Taking only a moment to start the electric kettle she kept in the washroom after shambling in, Octavia began her morning routine before steeping her cup of tea. Once warm to the touch and soothing to her parched mouth, she sipped the nectar that had never ceased to satisfy day in and day out for as long as she could remember. She brought forth a cascade of warm water and began to shower.
The mare, an outline of gray among a backdrop of porcelain, bathed in the company of her tea. Octavia massaged her mane from root to tip, taking careful consideration into each follicle as she had an unwarranted phobia of mare-patterned baldness. Taking a sip of Earl Grey between phases, she washed her coat, ridding herself of the relics of a past day’s adventure so she could become a Tabula Rasa to collect grime anew.
The shrill pitch of sliding steel marked the end of her relaxing shower as she turned the faucet. With grace and care, Octavia stepped over the edge of the shower as to avoid a most embarrassing accident. She began to dry herself, picking a separate towel for her mane, face, and coat from three separate racks on the wall. A white linen chased her dark mane around in circles as she tucked the corners neatly within itself. Octavia patted her face, carefully extracting what oil may have been left on her, and examined the towel with a smile of satisfaction upon seeing that the damp cloth was as pristine as it was prior.
It was about this time that the serene quiet was interrupted by a low gurgle from deep within her belly, longing to be satiated and filled.
A fog bowed beneath her as she opened the washroom door and turned into the kitchen where a usual sight immediately drew her eyes, a scrap of parchment with skewed calligraphy, partially smeared by long-evaporated liquid. She trotted towards it, a smile growing on her face as she took it in her hooves and began to read.
Octavia,
I made you breakf…. there’s a sandwich on…. Music Theory textbook, remember to study…. final today… cello practice… 6… Vinyl… cool mare.
Love,
Drunk Octavia
Receiving these letters was a near daily occurrence for Octavia ever since she discovered the joys of alcohol in her teenage years. Drunk Octavia attempted to chronicle her victories and confess her transgressions to the only mare she knew would understand. It came in handy quite often, as Drunk Octavia often took care of the chores around the house, finding it a much more enjoyable task to complete when realized that she’d have no recollection of it in the morning.
Octavia had even given life to her alter-ego by bestowing her a more formal name, Sterling Grey, a name derived from her late grandfather who had been well known among the elite of Canterlot as a well-meaning businesspony with an affinity for the sauce. Her grandfather even had a drink named after himself at a ritzy hotel bar in Manehattan aptly named “Papa’s Pantydroppers”. The recipe was a not-so-closely guarded secret among the hotel staff and the Grey family, two parts 98% distilled corn spirit and one drop of red food coloring. It was a humble drink that burned like sin, but there was a universal satisfaction that everypony felt upon shooting it, a sense of camaraderie shared among the countless hazy night the drink had brought.
Sterling was the guardian angel to a hungover Octavia. Sterling never failed to tell Octavia when she needed to be at the courthouse to contest a drunk and disorderly charge, to whom she needed to apologize to for a well-intentioned insult that’s sarcasm was ill-received, or a bar tab that she had not cleared the night before. Octavia never had a diary, even as a filly. Instead, Octavia filed away Sterling’s letters and added them to a scrapbook on rainy days. She was currently on volume six. There were only but a few ponies who knew Octavia by the name Sterling, most notably bad hookups and strange ponies in far-off towns.
Octavia came back to after realizing she had floated off to a quiet spot in her mind. She re-read the letter. The mare remembered the day’s occurrences with clarity, the usual song and dance of university life, but not too much after arriving at Neon’s apartment. Despite having a generous half of the letter obscured by what smelt like a late vintage pinot grigio, it seemed like a rather usual evening, with the exception of this ‘Vinyl’ Sterling had mentioned. Octavia didn’t bother herself with trying to remember, knowing full well and good that her endeavor would be met with futility. Instead, she was reminded by a rumbling bass in her stomach that she was indeed mortal, and sought after the sandwich prepared by Sterling in the most generous of intentions.
“Dammit Sterling, you just HAD to close it, didn’t you?”
No reply.
If her anxiety towards the situation at hoof didn’t overshadow all her cares of public persona Octavia may have felt embarrassed about muttering to a pony that wasn’t just not in her presence, but that didn’t really exist at all. Her mane may or may not have been still wrapped in a towel, but Octavia wouldn’t be the right pony to ask. Her eyes remained fixed in front of her, calculating the path of least resistance to the university library.
Sterling, with the best of intentions, had prepared several peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for breakfast and placed them on top of her music theory textbook, opened to the pages that she was be ruthlessly questioned on in her afternoon exam. In one of Sterling’s greatest shows of drunken logic, she had also closed the textbook to ward off staleness. In the nighttime, as Octavia trumped Sterling for control of her body, the jelly had seeped through the pages and stuck together an entire chapter in a sticky, stained mess.
Octavia’s only hope at this point was to waste no time in making her way to the university library where she hoped that a copy of her textbook remained available.
Pressures like this were an accepted part of the university mare’s life. To Octavia, every quiz was a pop quiz, every exam an exercise in bullshittery; and when it came to studying, Octavia could teach a washed up prostitute a few things about cramming. Octavia did not think of herself as the kind of mare to work well under pressure, she only worked under pressure.
But this felt different, there was an importance placed upon the exam by her overactive irrationality. Hallucinations of grades streamed through her field of vision, a half assed matrix composed only of zeroes. A semester of adequacy culminated with this day. It was do or die for Octavia, and she felt the weight of the world: not bearing upon her, but bursting out from within her.
She neared campus, crossing the final street, shuffling into a brief canter every other step. Octavia had fully surrendered to her hypnotic state, dancing around ponies who were coming and going, while following her angle of approach to the fraction of a degree. Ponies who stood idly in conversation, or lost in thought received a proper shoulder to the flank and a scoff in passing. The steel doors of the faux avant-garde structure opened towards her by the command of the motion sensor positioned in front of it.
Once inside, Octavia was almost intimidated by the unending stacks of books, organized in rows by a system she did not fully comprehend. Regardless, the mare cantered as she scanned the rows side to side, top to bottom, hoping to recognize the spine of the book that was burned into the back of her retinas by pure, searing desire. She passed row after row in this method with an all-seeing gaze, taking in everything that lay before her like a newborn foal looking out onto the world for the first time. As her eyes panned violently, she almost missed the green-spined text with purple lettering that mocked her in its innocuousness. She appeared in front of it with no recollection of even moving towards it, and seized the book. Octavia was hard pressed to let out a sigh of relief, even after having the first part of her errand come to fruition. This was only half the battle.
Her awareness of her position in the library placed her only a few steps away from the nearest armchair, which she claimed as if it were the highest peak in Equestia. The text had opened before her flank met leather, and Octavia was pouring over it, not seeing the individual words, but allowing the knowledge they represented to flow into her from their captivity within the pages. She sought patterns in their meaning, seeking similarities with what she already knew. Her trance deepened as she reached a zen-like state, fully consumed by her fear of failure.
Perfect darkness was what her eyes took in, leaving her no clues to her occupation in space and time. Silence was broken by five simple words that answered Vinyl’s unasked question.
“So, why didn’t you call?”
Magic pulsed in the air; a series of candles around the chamber came to life and illuminated a streak of electric blue obscuring her vision in their shadowy glow. A pair of eyes behind blues of their own stared from across the room, a glossy white in orbit of pupils the size of bits. They closed briefly while an exaggerated sniff broke another silence; the whites returned from behind their lids vigorously renewed. One lid opened beyond normality, and the other twitched violently about halfway up as if it were stuck. A surge of magical energy crackled and whirred in a deep bass. The candles sparked and grew grossly incandescent.
“BY… MY… MANE!!!”
Luna threw her head back as her mane chased it over in a glorious arc. Vinyl, no longer confused or edged, let loose a piercing cackle of unrequited laughter, taking no precautions in bracing herself as she doubled over onto the floor in a heap.
“SUBJECT!! THOU SHAN’T MOCK THE PRINCESS IN HER OWN CASTLE! CHECK. THINE. SELF.”
Fully illuminated now was the Princess of the Night maintaining only but a shred of her royal dignity as an accusatory hoof wavered in the air, pointing at Vinyl. A thin white line hung under the princess’s snout like a penciled in mustache. Vinyl, out of breath and grasping at her sides, redoubled her efforts to continue on laughing at the caricature before her.
“Luna…! Cut it out…! I-I can’t take it!” Vinyl pleaded between breaths as her belly pulsated from the painfully joyous outburst.
Luna looked to both sides nervously, and backed slightly as if in defeat, but her whole body quivered and a new train of thought came through before she pounced on Vinyl with playful intent. Vinyl looked up and saw a psychotic grin that defied whatever laws there are that state how large a grin could be. Vinyl was silenced in amusement and terror, and the room fell quiet once again, interrupted only by the sound of the DJ wiping a dribble of drool that had found its way downward to her brow.
“So, why didn’t you call?” Luna repeated, backing slowly off the frightened Vinyl as both mares regained some semblance of composure.
“Luna, I don’t have a phone.”
Luna’s expression shifted as a hoof greeted her forehead with an audible whomp. Vinyl put no more thought into it, but Luna’s cheeks flushed as she cataloged the legally incriminating, and downright bawdy messages some poor, random mare in the Canterlot directory named “Vinyl” must have received. She trotted across the room to receive her checkbook and stroked an integer with an irrelevant number of zeroes behind it to the payment of “Vinyl X---“.
“What are you doing Luna?” Vinyl asked with a mix of worry and hopefulness.
“I’m just writing a bribe sweetie. Taking out the trash is normal for some ponies, and this is very normal around the castle. You’ll learn that.”
The insinuation of Vinyl staying around the castle long enough to learn of the morality of bribery fell upon inattentive ears, she was now taking in the setting around her now lit with a blue-tinted aura. The room was large, to say the least. The bed that Luna was previously perched upon lay in the middle, an obnoxious purple centerpiece to the carousel decorum surrounding it. Shelves of various dark, muted hues lined the circular walls, topped with mementos and sentimental keepsakes from ponies most likely long forgotten by most, the shelving carved and detailed in elaborate fractals and swirls by the hooves of what must have been extraordinarily well-paid craftsponies and artists.
“Well, I suppose you received my letter at least… “
“Yeah, I w----“
“HUSH WHILE YOUR PRINCESS SPEAKS.” Luna boomed in a deep bass, swaying the candle’s flames gently under her command. “… Which is why you were summoned here.” Luna continued with a forced calmness.
“…”
“… You may speak, Vinyl.”
“I’m guessing you rigged the lineup then? Not that I don’t appreciate it…. but, I don’t want it, Luna”
Luna cocked her brow, “Pray tell.”
“Well there’s not much to pray tell,” Vinyl’s voice dripped with sarcasm at the statement before firming “it’s just too much to accept from a friend, and it’s beyond too much if it’s from someone more than a friend.”
Luna took a moment before speaking.
“It’s a good thing I may soon be something else entirely then, Vinyl. If you so choose.”
Vinyl’s facial expression became a stiff cocktail of confusion and intrigue.
“Allow me a tangent… Vinyl, how would you like to be my personal ever-so faithful student? All royal princesses pay our dues to the arts, such has been tradition for many years before your own. You may well know by name Celestia’s understudy Twilight, a student in the arts of magic. Or perhaps you have heard of Cadence’s new bimbo Ovid, whom she’s teaching the ways of the art of love, whatever that means. You and I are similar, Vinyl, and I’d like to take you in to further our studies of the magic of music. The matter was brought up after the latest conference on the Equestrian Conference for the Arts, and I volunteered to nominate you, though the committee was rather hesitant at first.” At this, Luna raised again the checkbook she had laid back on the desk and flopped it about in the air.
Vinyl reeled at this, it was simply too much to take at once. She had been transplanted from her home with one question, and that was the why behind all of this. Not the why behind Vinyl, so much was apparent in Luna’s near-obsession, but why was this happening? None of this made sense, and Luna’s illusory mysteriousness wasn’t doing Vinyl any favors. Her mind raced as conspiracies and malicious intents were concocted and dissected, but the randomness of the encounter placed any underlying logic into the realm of theory. Further, what could Luna even teach her about music? Luna couldn’t perform, and it would be outright madness to consider that there was anything the princess could offer beyond a monolithic Rolodex of musical contacts across Equestria and a rather large bank account, but there was something to be said for that in itself.
With Vinyl’s dead end in deliberation, silence reigned.
“Would you like me to explain?” Luna offered in a tone that only slightly suggested that she was coming down. Vinyl nodded.
“Well Vinyl, you’re naturally talented, but you’re damn sure not the best at whatever It is you do, to put it bluntly.”
Vinyl stared with a gaze so sharp it could cut glass.
“Your greatest resource right now is potential. Once that potential meets at harmony with your, rather boisterous personality, you’ll be huge. Think about it selfishly, you could no longer be playing nightclubs for ponies who wandered in by curiosity, but for ponies that traveled Equestria to see you. With hard work and dedication, as well with quite a bit of royal fanfare, you might have a shot at your destiny. I can see it in your dreams, Vinyl. You want that; but in addition to pursuing your visions of grandeur, you may also be able to further ponykind’s understanding of the magic of music.” Luna was staring psychotically at Vinyl now, her eye still twitching. As Luna took a step towards her, Vinyl took a half step away. “But you will need something worthy enough to dedicate yourself to.”
Vinyl, now backed into the wall, weighed the proposal. Dedication and hard work were things she had experimented with as a filly, but her experience was like tossing a stone into a pond and hoping for a tsunami of good fortune. She had been getting along just fine with her carefree floating through university, and she was happy with her life at the moment.
“You have an opportunity to seize your future on the account of the Royal Court, and perhaps even become a cornerstone for musical progress. Do you really even have to think about this?” asked a puzzled Luna, her voice carrying a condescending tone.
Vinyl felt something tugging deep inside, a shred of doubt that maybe the present wasn’t all that life had to offer. Perhaps it was time that she followed her dreams, and the door to possibility was a coked out princess who was currently muttering seemingly sagely advice a while buffing out a tiny discoloration on her desk.
“I-I’ll do it.”
Luna soared across the chamber towards the source of the tentative agreement.
“WON-derful, Vinyl. I really think you’ll enjoy Los Pegasus. However, I fear there are a few details about the trip we’ll need to discuss first.”
Vinyl’s ears perked up hesitantly.
Author's Note
I edited the first chapter to include Vinyl's morning (thanks BD for the advice!).
