"VINYL!" Octavia called out as she opened the door. "I'm home." She looked around as she carried her cello case to her music room, setting it back down just inside the door.
"Vinyl?" she called again. The house was dark, and extremely quiet. Granted Vinyl preferred to keep things on the dimmer side, but normally there were at least a few lights on. There also tended to be some music, unless Vinyl was wearing her headphones while working.
Octavia started going through possibilities. Still asleep? No. Even after being up and working all night and not falling asleep until after dawn, Vinyl was always up by this time. Work? Vinyl had not mentioned having a performance tonight. Maybe she had gotten one while Octavia was out.
Running for the kitchen, the gray mare checked to see if there was a note. None had been left, but there was some mail on the table, which meant it had been checked today. Among it was a box that had already been opened. Curious, Octavia picked it up and read the label.
Manehattan Noble Garment Corporation.
The mare's eyes went wide in surprise. She was familiar with the company. They made expensive, high end clothing. The type worn for balls, banquets, and operas. She had been given a bow tie from them once by a beau who wished to bed her. It was very high quality, but extremely expensive -- as she discovered when the stallion attempted to use the price to make her feel obligated to have his way with her. Fortunately for him, the fabric worked well to stifle the bleeding from his nose, although it was most likely that the stains made it non-refundable.
The box was a very unexpected thing to find. Vinyl would never wear the type of clothes made by Manehattan Noble Garments. She also considered such things to be "stuffy" and "boring." Octavia disagreed on that. She liked the outfits and accessories she had seen, but they were far to costly for her to be willing to purchase.
Maybe the box had contained a gift Vinyl had ordered? Octavia considered, but found it unlikely. If it had, Vinyl would have either hidden the box after opening so the gift would not be discovered, or would have been waiting at the door with the gift and barely containing her anticipation of having Octavia open it. Vinyl had a tendency to become hyperactive with excitement when it came to certain things, such as friends opening presents she bought them.
"What are you up to?" Octavia wondered aloud. "And where are you?"
The garage, she suddenly thought.
The garage was more of Vinyl's domain around the house. It was where she stored her equipment, as well as where it was built, repaired, and upgraded. It was too bulky to come in and go out of the house proper with any ease, and Octavia refused to have wires, speakers, and framing materials lying all over the place. For the most part, there actually were four quadrants in the garage: equipment which was in full working order and ready to use (a lesson Vinyl had to learn the hard way); equipment that was undergoing maintenance and repair, so it would work and not breakdown during a performance (again learned the hard way); equipment that was being upgraded (most often better woofers or tweeters for the speakers); prototypes for new ideas (currently filled with equipment that was supposed to show music in a variety of colors, shades, and intensities of light for ponies that were unable to hear it).
"Vinyl?" Octavia called out again as she opened the door to the garage. Like the rest of the house, it was dark. Octavia reached for the switch, but stopped when she thought she saw something. She stared into the dark room, letting her eyes adjust and trying to catch sight of whatever it was she thought she saw sooner. After thirty seconds without seeing anything, she turned on the light.
A hissing sound reached Octavia's ears. She turned toward it, just in time to see a white coated unicorn in a black cape lunge at her. Octavia only had enough time to let out a scream as she felt teeth pressing against her neck.
"Vinyl!" Octavia cried as she squirmed against the attack. "Stop! That tickles!" She started to laugh as she continued to try and pull away.
"No," Vinyl said, pulling back from the earth mare's neck. "Not until I have sated myself on your sweet tastiness." She leaned back into the neck, nibbling at it.
Octavia continued to laugh and try to pull away, but Vinyl just held on as tight as she could. So the best case scenario would be carrying the caped unicorn around with her and being tickled helpless. That was assume she did not fall down from it.
"Okay," she cried out. "Okay. I give up. Seriously. Stop."
With another hiss, Vinyl pulled away, releasing Octavia. The unicorn mare grinned widely as she looked her friend.
"Don't look so pleased with yourself," Octavia said. She tried to sound upset, but she was still breathing heavily from laughing so hard. She looked at Vinyl who continued to stand there, grinning smugly. Her magenta eyes gleamed with mischief and the black cape hid most of her white furred form.
"So this is what you bought?" Octavia asked. "An opera cape?"
"Yeah," Vinyl answered. She turned to pose. "Isn't it awesome? Just wait until the fangs I ordered get here. I'm going to be the best vampire-pony ever."
"But Nightmare Night isn't for five months."
"Oh, wow." Vinyl perked up, nearly jumping. "I totally forgot about Nightmare Night. I could wear this and have a monster monster party."
"A monster monster party?" Octavia repeated, raising an eyebrow.
"Not a 'monster monster party' 'tavi. A monster monster party. A party where all the ponies are dressed up as monsters and the whole thing is monstrous."
Octavia stopped and rubbed at her head. Sometimes she needed a moment to understand what her friend was saying. She had pretty much given up trying to understand all the slang that was used after trying to understand why a garment that was being described as "tight" was a good thing.
"So why did you buy an opera cape?" she finally asked.
"It turns out there are rumors I'm a vampire," Vinyl answered with a grin. "So I thought 'hey, that sounds like fun. I should totally hype this up and use it to my advantage.'"
"So you decided to buy a cape and fangs." Octavia rolled her eyes and shook her head. "That seems very much in character for you."
"Yeah. And I'm not the only one either." Vinyl's eyes narrowed as her grin grew wider. "You should hear what they are saying about you?"
"Dare I ask?"
"They say that you're..." she chuckled, "a ponywolf."
"A... ponywolf?" the gray mare stared at her friend for a moment. "You mean a pony that turns into a wolf during the full moon."
"Yeah. Don't worry though. I totally set them straight."
"A dear Celestia," Octavia groaned.
"I told them 'yes, 'Tavi can get a little moody at times, but it has nothing to do with the moon.'"
"VINYL! You didn't!"
"No," Vinyl answered as she burst into laughter. "I didn't but you should have seen the... look... on your... face..." She stopped laughing, swallowing as she saw the look of anger Octavia was giving her.
"Now... Now Octavia, sweetie, there's no need to be upset. It was all just a joke. Come on. You know I love you and would never actually do something like that to you. There's no need to turn violent."
Vinyl knew that Octavia could have a bit of a temper. Although she had seen it a few times, she had never been on the receiving end of it at its worst. Admittedly, Vinyl had pushed her luck a little too far on numerous occasions and seen an infuriated Octavia.
Octavia groaned and poked Vinyl in the nose.
"You can be such a foal sometimes." She gave a shake of her head and moved back.
Vinyl let out a sigh of relief.
"Still," Octavia continued, "that cape must have been expensive. It's not like you to spend so much on something like that, more so since you know you'll probably get bored with it."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Vinyl asked.
"Vinyl, you know I love you. But you do have a tendency to get bored with things pretty easily."
Vinyl opened her mouth, but Octavia held a hoof up.
"I know," she continued. "You would never do that with me, and you have always done well with your business, keeping your gigs and such. I'm very proud of you for that. It does not change the fact that more often than not, you do get bored easily. I've seen you come up with a lot of ideas, and most of them are forgotten after a week.
"Plus, this cape is pretty expensive." She reached out, taking a hold of it in her hoof. "You have always been careful about your bits. Since you've gotten everything in motion, you have never been late or short on your share of the bills."
"Plus I was able to bail you out of jail," Vinyl added with a smirk.
"We said we would never speak of that again!" Octavia shouted.
"I never said any such thing."
"My point is... that you normally don't spend so much money on something, especially something as a joke you're going to get bored with in a few days. It's just not like you to be so extravagant."
"Aww, Octavia." Vinyl grinned and got up to hug her friend. "I didn't know you cared."
"That is the least accurate response you could possibly think of."
"Yeah." Vinyl gave her a kiss. "Okay. I do have another reason. Like you said, I have a tendency to get distracted easily, so I also bought this to show you that I was serious."
"Serious?" Octavia asked. "Serious about what?"
"I..." she let out a cough and shifted. "I..." the white unicorn turned to look away before looking back at her friend. "I... I... I want us to go to the opera..."
"I'm sorry," Octavia said as she shifted her head. "I didn't quite catch that."
"I..." Vinyl clenched her teeth. "I...want... us... to..." she took a deep breath, "go to the opera."
"But you hate opera."
"That's because most of them are so boring," Vinyl groaned before falling backwards and laying there. "But... " She moved to sit up. "You have to promise not to tell anypony else what I'm about to say."
"May my bow break before Princess Celestia if I do."
Vinyl smiled at that. Having her bow break in front of the princess during a performance was what Octavia thought of as her worst nightmare. So if she made a promise like that, Vinyl knew that she meant it.
"I've been feeling..." Vinyl shifted, "stuck creatively lately."
"You have artist's block?"
"No! No. I didn't say that... I've just..." she shrugged. "I just haven't really been feeling it lately. So, I was thinking that I should try to expand my horizons. Flex my creative muscles. Like when you first started practicing jazz, and found out how much you like it."
Although known as a classical pony, Octavia listened to nearly all sorts of music. Admittedly she could not bring herself to enjoy the house/electric/techno style Vinyl did, and she was mostly ambivalent toward rock and roll, but she found she greatly enjoyed jazz and blues. So much so, that she had started learning to play such music.
"So you've decided to try and force yourself to listen to opera in the hopes of expanding your interests?"
Vinyl gave a shake of her head.
"No. Well..." she gave a shrug. "Not exactly. I've been feeling stuck for a while, and was trying to come up with a what to do. Then, I had the best idea ever. I decided... I was going to create.... drum roll please."
She got up and moved closed to Octavia.
"A rock opera." Vinyl grinned wide, looking incredibly proud of herself.
"That sounds more like you," Octavia stated with a smile of her own. "So you want to watch regular opera to get a feel for the basic methods."
"Yeah." Vinyl gave Octavia a hug. "I knew you'd get it. I mean sure, I could probably find a book to read about it, but-"
"I've seen you reading," Octavia interrupted.
"Yeah. I'm more a hooves on pony."
"Why didn't you just say so?"
"Like you said, I get a lot of ideas." She moved to press against Octavia. "I know you would support me if I told you, but I also know how flaky I've been about some of the things I've talked about doing. So, I wanted to prove to you that I was going to make an effort and take this seriously."
"Vinyl," Octavia grinned as she put a leg around the unicorn, "in all the time I've known you, you have taken very little seriously."
"Oh har har." Vinyl rolled her eyes. "But I am serious. This is something I really wish to do. And it's something I want you to do with me. Not making the rock opera, but going to the opera. I know you like that kind of stuff. So maybe you could help me understand it. Kind of like... a study date."
"You are serious," Octavia gasped out. As long as she had known Vinyl, the unicorn had never shown an interest in studying. Anything and everything Vinyl did she either learned on her own by trying, or by having a more experienced pony show her how it was done. Using a book was normally a last resort, and that was only on the part that was immediately relevant if she could help it.
"Very well," the gray mare stated. "I will help you to learn about opera so that you can attempt to write a contemporary version of your own."
"YES!" Vinyl shouted, bouncing up and down. "Thank you thank you thank you! This is so awesome."
"Glad to see you're so excited." Octavia took a step back and turned around, heading for the door.
"Heh." Vinyl grinned. "Maybe you can have this count toward your community service."
The statement made Octavia stop in her tracks, her face heating up in embarrassment.
"I completed my community service already!" Octavia shouted. "So... so... oooh. Bite me!" Not the most lady-like thing for her to say, but she could not come up with a better response for some reason.
Octavia started to walk again, but stopped when she felt something grab her flank. Before she could even ask what was happening, she let out a squeak as she felt Vinyl's teeth press into her flank. Octavia felt her face heat up as she let out a small moan.
She yanked herself away hard.
"Vinyl Record Scratch!" Octavia shouted, turning to press herself nose to nose with the unicorn. "If you are going to do something like that...at least let us get to the living room first." She grinned and gave Vinyl a kiss.
"Catch me if you can." She turned and ran off, grinning as she heard Vinyl chasing after her.
Author's Note
I have no idea what happened here. I meant to write this thing as a goofy short little thing where Vinyl bought a cape to pretend to be a vampire. Then other ideas started to look in as well as head-canons and concepts of the characters relationships and personalities started to leak through. It still has the main idea, but now it just has a lot more added to it.
Well, hope you like it all the same.
