On The Rocks

Chapters

Part I ~ First Rounds
Part II ~ Happy Hour
Part III ~ Toasting Goodwill
Part IV ~ Final Call
Part V ~ Closing Time
Epilogue

Part I ~ First Rounds

Author's Note

Content Warning:

The following story includes characters that display and express tendencies of homophobia and transphobia, as well as domestic abuse and similar difficult subjects, and thus will contain some scenes that readers may find distressing.

It is a difficult truth to accept that anyone on the LGBTQ+ spectrum may be subjected to hatred and torment, sometimes even from their own family, and this story is intended to shine a light on these painful truths. Nobody deserves to be persecuted for being themselves, but the fact is some people are. Be their ally, it means more than you can imagine.

Reader discretion is advised.

Part I ~ First Rounds

So yeah, I fucked up big time.

There’s nothing I can do. Nothing at all, no words I can say that will make any difference. Knowing that I’m useless in this situation is hard enough, but not as hard as knowing that of the two of us, the only one who would know what to do in a situation like this is in fact the one desperately clinging to me as if her life depends on it. Octy's barely able to make a noise louder than a snivel. My hooves are wrapped around her too, but it almost feels like it’s making no difference at all. She’s way past upset. Her whole fucking life just fell apart in front of her eyes, and I’m all she’s got left in this world.

And that ain’t much.

My mind keeps going back over and over all the crazy shit that just happened, but I can’t see what else I could have done. I start to wonder where the night went wrong, but then I realize, maybe it was when I…

Yeah, that was it. I saw red, got mad, and boom. The whole thing goes to shit, and it’s my fault. Instead of being in that big, warm house, in a queen sized bed, I’m sat in a cramped taxi with broken heating, in the middle of a late night storm. And Octavia’s desperately cuddled up to me, not even moving a muscle, except for a whimper or a sob every now and then. I see her breath rising in the cold air, steamy tendrils clawing at nothing in particular, and all I can think about for now is getting her home. It’s a long train ride ahead when we finally get to the station, although she’s definitely in no state to travel. But we can’t stay in this town for any longer than we have to, the more time we spend here will just be more pain for her.

Between a rock and a hard place, much?

We pass through the town square, as the big clock tower above the town hall starts ringing for ten o’clock. I can’t believe so much shit happened in twelve hours. In fact, literally this time yesterday we were leaving our house in Ponyville and heading for the station to catch an overnight train. It's a long ass way to Trottingham, we figured the time would pass quicker if we slept on the way here. It was eleven at night when the train left Ponyville, and we didn’t get here until just after nine this morning. I dunno if there’s even gonna be a train we can catch tonight. Just gonna have to make like a pegasus, and wing it.

Okay, ding. That pun was a sin.

But I’m serious when I say I have no fucking idea how long it’ll take to get home. Octavia’s not gonna be up to conversation, not in this state. Plenty of time for me to dwell on all the shit that just happened.

I sit forward in my seat slightly, just for a stretch, but I feel Octavia’s grip on me tighten dramatically. Like if she ever let go of me, she’d lose me forever, and she’s desperate not to lose me too.

“It’s okay,” I whisper as gently, and with as much affection, as I can. I follow up by nuzzling her mane and kissing her on her forehead. “I’m right here with you. I ain’t going anywhere.”

The words seem to work. Her grip loosens slightly. But only slightly, she’ll never let me out of her grasp. That’s about as much conversation as I’ll get out of her at the moment, small gestures and whimpers. This is one night I’ll be happy to put behind me, but one she’ll never forget.

The sound of a train whistle in the distance snaps me to attention, and less than a minute later, the taxi pulls up. Out the left window and through the heavy downpour, I can see the lights from inside the station building.

“That’ll be seven bits,” a gruff voice announces, startling me.

I look to my right to see the driver, having detached himself from his stirrups, has made his way round to the window. His raincoat looks hopelessly overwhelmed as the rain completely smothers it, washing onto and straight off of it in a fierce torrent. His teeth chatter beyond any control. I can’t help but feel sympathetic, right up until the moment where I pat myself down and realise exactly what I’ve forgotten.

“Oh, crap,” I say out loud.

The taxi driver rolls his eyes, with the typical ‘oh, not that old story again’ look on his face, one that’s more out of frustration than anger. He’s probably heard it a million times before, and he’s clearly not about to let a fare slip from his grasp. Not without a fight, at least, given the weather that he’s stuck out in.

My heart sinks as I realise the only solution.

“Tavi,” I say softly. “Have you got your purse?”

She doesn’t respond at all. I may as well have not said a thing, for all the good my asking did. There’s no point asking again either, I’ll get the exact same silence in reply. I can’t tell if the taxi driver hasn’t noticed the state Octavia is in, or if he just doesn’t care, but he holds eye contact with me in an expectant stare.

I fumble around the seat, Octavia’s grip on me tightening the very instant I take a hoof off of her. It’s like the beautiful, intelligent mare I know and love has been reduced to a feral animal, solely living by instinct. Right now, I'm her life-jacket, and if she lets go of me she'll sink. It kills me to see her like this. Feeling a slight lump that she’d been resting against, I resist the urge to make a victorious ‘ah-ha’ when I recognise the feel of the metal clasp of Octy’s purse.

She won’t budge at all, so it takes some effort to pull it out from beneath her, but I’m so relieved to hear the jingle of coins when I do. And I breathe a sigh of relief as I open it. Not only are there enough bits, but Octy had the foresight to keep hold of our train tickets in here too. The taxi driver gives a satisfied grunt when I pass him the bits, plus a couple extra as a tip. It’s the least he deserves, having to pull a taxi on a shitty night like this.

Yes, I know it was Octavia’s money. I’ll pay her back.

It takes us a few minutes to walk from the taxi rank to the station building. At normal walking speed, it would have been about thirty seconds. If we’d ran to get out of the rain quicker, that would have gone down to about ten seconds. But Octavia couldn’t move any faster than a shuffle, even with me there to support her. I don’t think she even noticed the rain at all, even though it could have been a typhoon for all I know.

When we finally get into the station, I grimace. The building is just one room, and not even a very big one. Several small benches sit against the back wall, next to a coffee machine. The only other things to occupy the room are a wilting potted plant, and the booth used to sell tickets and answer customer inquiries.

Go figure, it's closed.

I should explain, we’re in the outer areas of Trottingham. Central is where you get the big stations with the trains that arrive and depart at all hours of the night, but areas like this, despite the rich ponies that live here, just don’t have that much need for trains to arrive so often. This station only has one platform, and I realise the likelihood of getting a train out of here tonight is dwindling rapidly.

After spotting a number of timetable leaflets sat on the desk of the booth, I grab the one for long distance services and lead Octavia towards the nearest bench. The collective puddle of all the water streaming off of us begins to drench the scruffy carpet, but I really don’t give a damn at this point. I set her down, before sitting down next to her myself and gently ease her into a lying position with her head on my lap. I don’t think she even notices how drenched we are. She shivers a bit, but she’s been shivering this whole time. Again, the guilt hits me. She deserves better than this. A wooden bench in a draughty station building, soaked from the rain and with no clue as to when we can get home.

A blood-stained bandage wrapped around my hoof begins to slide around, totally soaked from the rain and no longer really able to serve its intended purpose. So I slip it off, ball it up and toss it towards a wire-framed trash can. It splats loudly as it lands neatly in the bottom. Heh, three points.

I open the timetable, hoping for some clarification on the matter of getting home. The tickets in Octy's purse are our open return tickets, that let us get back on any train heading back towards Ponyville, just as long as we do it within thirty days. Problem is, they don't cover the private rooms like we had on the way here. Those you have to book in advance on a specific train, when you know which service you'll be using. And we don't have enough bits here to get one. We'll be able to get on the next train, but it'll be economy benches for us.

Staring at the charts written in tiny numbers, it takes me a few minutes to work out which one is the right schedule for us. I glance up to a battered clock hanging from the wall, which says ten past ten. It takes a phenomenal amount of willpower to keep me from a furious outburst, which would have involved some very colourful language. The last train of the night left at two minutes past ten.

The train we’d heard when we reached the station? That was it.

After that, the next train of our service isn’t until seven in the morning. My groggy brain takes a moment to do the math, but I finally realise we aren’t getting into Ponyville until five in the afternoon tomorrow. All I want is to get Octy home as soon as possible, but I can’t even do that.

Without any control, I let out a frustrated sob. Yes, I cry, big fucking deal.

But I’m not crying from sadness. It’s exasperation. Exhaustion. It's fucking... everything right now. I fucked things up with her parents, I had to steal money from her to pay for our taxi, I can’t get her home until tomorrow, and I can’t do anything to comfort her right now. The whole shitty fucking situation is all my fault. I dug this fucking hole, but can I get us out of it? No.

Ugh... deep breaths, Scratch... you're no good to Octy if you break down yourself...

She whimpers again, which brings my attention back round to her. Where my attention should be right now. I stroke her mane softly, gently making that weird shushing sound that’s meant to be comforting. Fuck knows why I do it, but it looks like it helps. There's no sleep on the cards for me tonight.

A couple of hours go by, but it feels like months. I hear it when the clock tower we passed earlier hits midnight. Octavia fell asleep a while ago, but it’s fitful. She’s having nightmares, not that I’m surprised. My ass goes numb from the crappy wooden bench, my back hurts from leaning against the brick wall for too long, I’m fucking freezing, and to top it all off, I kinda need to use the little filly’s room. I don’t move though. I’m not leaving Octavia’s side, not for the rest of the night.

And not being able to sleep, I’ve got more than enough time to think over all of the events of yesterday.

“Vinyl, wake up you lazy cow.”

“Bite me, rich bitch.”

Octavia giggled loudly, right in my ear, as she leant in to kiss me on the cheek. She let out a little snort at the same time, which shut her up straight away. I could tell she was embarrassed, but I gotta be honest and say that I think it’s fucking adorable when she does that.

In fact, while I’m being honest, I’d expected things between us to be… well, awkward, after ‘that night’, but things have been better than ever. No, really, I mean it. It was like an enormous weight had been lifted off of our backs. We’ve been closer, there’s been so much more of our epic banter, and even our… well… our ‘intimate’ time has been better.

Ah fuck it, I’ll just come out and say it bluntly. She’s been riding me like a rodeo horse. She’s an aggressive one when she wants to be. Don’t even get me started on how bad she gets when she uses the riding crop.

“What time is it?” I asked, rubbing my eyes. I hissed loudly and retreated under the covers as soon as Octavia parted the curtains, revealing the rolling Dappleshire hills racing past our window. And sunlight that was a little too bright.

“Quarter to eight,” she replied, tutting to herself and tearing the covers off of me.

Bitch.

“I was hoping we could get some breakfast before the dining car closes,” she said, though I could tell by the tone of her voice she was less impressed with the foetal position I had taken to. She’d obviously forgotten how warm those covers were. But, she had a point about breakfast. If anything was worth the ultimate struggle of tearing yourself away from your bed, it would be food.

I felt something small and metal bounce off my shoulder. Looking up and peeking one eye open, I saw Octavia had tossed me my glasses. Igniting my horn, I levitated them and pushed them up my muzzle. Ahh... that made the sunlight a lot more bearable...

“Fine, I’ll get up,” I groaned. Never one to turn down a chance to play the role of the doofus, I rolled off of the bed and fell straight to the floor with a thud. “Carry meeeee!” I begged playfully, staring up at her with the widest puppy dog eyes I could muster and reaching out to her with all four hooves.

“A great lump like you? I’m not overly keen on the idea of putting my back out.”

“That’s not what you said last night.”

“Oh, shut up,” she said, poking her tongue out at me as she headed to the door of our small compartment. “Now come on, they stop serving breakfast at eight.”

“Fine,” I conceded, hauling myself off the floor and following her out of our small compartment. My back gave a small spasm as I stood up, but given how tough the bed had been, I wasn’t that surprised. ‘Bed’ was actually a just generous way of saying ‘crappy foam-covered bench that folds down for sleeping on’. We could have upgraded to a bigger room with an actual double bed, but we'd figured it’d be cheaper to go for the basic digs. Never again.

The hour or so we had left of the journey went by... pretty quickly actually. The breakfast was, honestly, pretty gross. It’s a train meal, so it’s not like I was expecting any of that gourmet stuff you get in Canterlot, but seriously, how do you get hay bacon strips wrong? Ugh. I'm not gonna be able to look at hay bacon for weeks without feeling sick.

Sometimes I weep for equinity.

By this point it had been a little over a month since ‘that night’, and while I’d told Octy she could open up to me with as much or as little information about her past as she felt she needed to, she’d decided to pretty much explain most of it on the night I’d asked her to write the letter to her parents. What she'd said previously was that she'd had the sex change operation at age seven, but this wasn't actually true. Seven was the age she'd started transitioning, but the actual operation... you know what, let me just give you the full low-down as best as I can remember it.

Octavia was born under the name Philharmonic Melody, to her mom Allegra and her dad Staccato in Trottingham General Hospital, twenty-eight years ago as of the twentieth of November. Even as a young pony, she knew she was different, but had difficulty opening up to adults about it. Most ponies simply called her ‘Phil’, but she always used to say 'Call me Philly' because it sounded just like filly. In kindergarten, she’d preferred playing with the other fillies rather than the colts, you know, dolls and whatever. In school plays, she always wanted to play the female roles, and once was even caught trying on one of the princess costumes for a Summer Sun Celebration pageant her pre-school was holding. Naturally, being different in Upper-Crustville lends itself to terrifying all the stick-in-the-plot adults around you. Once her dad caught wind about her doing girly stuff, he had her put in a colts-only school, which is where she started suffering from anxiety and depression.

This went on for a while, and she still doesn’t know if her dad even noticed how she was feeling. Luckily just after her seventh birthday, her mom took her to a psychologist. An old family friend, it turns out, somepony smart enough to know that kids can understand themselves enough to know how they need to live their lives. It’s a really long story, the way she told it, but the short version is that when the psych suggested that she was really a filly in a colt’s body, it gave her an emotional lift that brought her mother to tears of joy. Her father never really approved, apparently, but he preferred it as a solution over the anti-depressants Octy had been on for months.

As I said, when Octy first drunkenly dropped the bombshell about the whole thing to me, she told me she’d had the sex change at seven. She really gave me the basic version there, seeing as until then I knew absolutely zip about transitioning. It was an over-simplification that bordered on innacurate. Seven-years-old is when she’d started presenting as female, a stage called social transition, and she made all the first basic steps like name changes, whole new wardrobe, pronouns, all that stuff. Hormone blockers came next, to give her the most natural puberty possible, but the hardest part for her was that she wasn’t legally allowed to… um… get her ‘plumbing’ fixed until she was sixteen.

‘Tartaurus in Equestria’ is how she described those few years of her life. She had been attending an all-mare boarding school, and it had been several years since she’d had her name and gender corrected on her birth certificate and other stuff, but she still had… well, you know… the wrong parts. Very few ponies actually knew, due to her attending a very traditional school with strict uniform requirements, meaning her privates were always covered by several layers of cotton and dreary tartan, but one of the ponies who did know was her just-as-traditional headmistress. And because in her bigoted eyes, Octy was still a stallion, she forced a lot of strict additional rules onto her. She had to have her own changing room for gym, and her own bedroom separate from the normal dormitories where the other school fillies slept.

Octy’s dad had to pay a fortune on top of the school fees to keep the headmistress happy. See, I don’t get all this contradiction about him. From the way Octy described him to me, he sounded just as ‘traditional’, narrow minded and backward as her bitch headmistress, but rather than rely on Trottingham’s free public health services (something Equestria really needs by the way, I hate how much I pay in health insurance) he paid for all her medication, surgery, and even a whole new wardrobe of girly clothes himself. Paint me confused.

After Octy had the final operation, just before her seventeenth birthday, she was over the moon. Not literally of course, but despite how much pain she was in for the first few months that followed, she’d said, and I quote straight from the horses mouth, “My ten year journey has finally come to fruition.”

Like, that was the first thing she’d said when she woke up. I think the drugs were still making her woozy.

By her eighteenth birthday, the pain and anxieties of her transition were just a memory. She was a normal teenage mare, getting ready for her final month before the start of her university course. Which, coincidentally, is where I came in. But that's a whole other long-ass story in itself, so let's just skip back to where we left off.

Part II ~ Happy Hour

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Part III ~ Toasting Goodwill

Well that could have gone better.

As Allegra had promised, once I’d been escorted up to my room (yeah, they gave me and Octy separate rooms, what was this, high school?) and I’d gotten all my stuff from Octy’s trunk, she'd arranged for a bucket of ice to be sent up to me with bundle of kitchen towels. Butler dude had really done a number on my head, I could already feel a lump forming.

And my glasses… ugh. Luckily I always travel with some spare pairs and a few replacement lenses, just in case of emergencies, but I was still royally ticked off. It only took me a couple of minutes to brush out all the glass shards into the trash, and replace the broken lens with a new one. By the time I’d clicked it into place in the frame, I heard the door open behind me. Turning around, I saw Octavia step in, looking sheepish.

“Not exactly the first impression I’d hoped for,” I said, pushing my glasses back into place on the bridge of my muzzle. The new lens, straight out of its packet, was much cleaner than the weather worn one that I hadn’t needed to change. Everything looked… lopsided, so I took my glasses back off to give the old lens a clean with a wet wipe.

“I’m so sorry, Vinyl,” Octavia said, stepping towards the ice bucket. She scooped out a generous bundle of clear cubes, which she wrapped up in one of the kitchen towels. Then she stepped over and held the bundle to the side of my head, immediately causing me to let out a sigh of relief.

Ohh sweet Luna, that felt good…

“You got nothing to apologise for, Octy,” I said, holding my glasses up to make sure I’d gotten the worst of the smudges out of the old lens. Nope, just made it worse. “It ain’t your fault your parents reanimated a brainless corpse to order around as a servant.”

She giggled scandalously. “I assure you he was far more attentive and polite when I was younger, but he certainly seems to have declined since then. I do hope Mother and Father aren’t working him too hard. He must be in his eighties by now, I was rather astonished to find him still here and in uniform.”

“You reckon your old man didn’t want to let him go?”

”Entirely plausible. Father does seem to struggle to let go of those close to him.”

”Except you.”

Her eyes widened and her cheeks flushed, and I cursed myself for letting the words slip out without filtering my thoughts first. That was way too blunt, and Octy took half a step back as she processed what I’d said. Great, good going Vinyl. Real smooth, you dolt. My turn for an apology.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that,” I said. My head began to throb again, with Octy no longer holding the ice pack against it. I put my now clean-ish glasses back on. “I just meant… umm…err…”

”No no, you’re right,” she conceded, but there was no hiding her crestfallen expression as her eyes scanned the room, unable to look at me. “Before the therapist recommended that I transition, Father kept me close-by. But it was only afterwards that he seemed to start keeping me at a distance.”

”You mean, sending you away to boarding school.”

”Yes. There are several schools in Trottingham that cater only to fillies. And in the brief span where he put me in an all-colts school, that was also one only across town.”

“So why would he send you so far away?”

She bit her lip, and her wandering eyes locked onto a spot on the floor right in front of me. Now, I know it was a long-ass time ago, but see if you can remember when I told you about that night after Club Zero. I said that Octavia can’t tell a convincing lie, not even if the fate of all of Equestria depends on it. One of the ways I can elaborate on that, she was demonstrating. When she’s in a situation that makes her uncomfortable, she’ll scan her surroundings. But when she’s about to lie… yeah, she bites her lip and finds a single point to focus on. Nine times out of ten, she’ll focus on a point on the floor in front of whoever she’s about to lie to. Now, I dunno if she knows about this tell, but it’s probably why she never wins when we have card game nights with Lyra and Bon-Bon.

“I don’t know.”

I raised an eyebrow and examined her face carefully. We were on shaky ground here, and I knew coming into this I was gonna have to tread carefully. Her discomfort was not only obvious, it’s like it was being amplified to twist the knife in my gut that I get every time I see her hurting. So at this point, I figured I had two options. First possibility: I push her for an honest answer, at the risk of upsetting her for the sake of satisfying my curiosity. Or the second possibility: deflect, be an adorable loving marefriend, and diffuse the situation. I figured option numero dos sounded muy bien in this particular scenario.

What? My mom was born in Mexicolt, when I was growing up I used to spend every summer at my bisabuela's hacienda just outside Gallop Juárez. I can be multi-cultural as well as being an awesome DJ, y’know. Fillies, colts, and everypony in-between; it's cool to respect your heritage.

So, what did I do? Put on the widest, evilest grin I could muster. There was a flash of recognition in her eyes, as her mind processed what was about to happen. And the exact moment I spotted this, I pounced. Tackling her, I sent us both sprawling backwards, right onto the bed that was pretty conveniently positioned right behind her. She squealed, knowing exactly what I was planning, but there was nothing she could do. No power in Equestria could save her now. Not from the indomitable might of the one and only Vinyl Scratch…

I lined my mouth up right in the middle of her belly, spread my lips wide, and then pressed down and blew as hard as I could.

All four of her hooves flailed wildly around as the loud razzing noise echoed through the spacious room, and her squeals doubled in volume as I carried on with my assault. It didn’t take very long for her to give me exactly what I wanted. Just as I started to feel myself running out of breath, her squealing gave way to fits of giggles, as she breathlessly started begging me to stop.

Okay, I ain’t that cruel, so as soon as she asked me to, I let go of her. She gasped desperately for air as I scooted up along the bed to lie down next to her, my head flomping loudly on the pillow. Damn, yeah the side of my head was still hurting, but holy Celestia were those pillows comfy…

With her chest heaving, she turned her head to face mine, and I figured fuck it, I could put up with a smidge more pain to have a nice little moment with my marefriend. So I ignited my horn, and levitated my glasses over to the bedside table. I had to blink a few times as my eyes adjusted to the light in the room. But as everything drifted back into focus, I turned them to face Octy. Her muzzle was inches from mine, and I could see her nostrils flaring as she was still trying to get her breathing under control. Hey, what can I say? I’m a fierce opponent sometimes.

And… we just looked into each others eyes. She’s so beautiful. You know, in a lot of ways I’m grateful for that night where she dropped the bombshell on me. The introspection it gave me afterwards really made me stop and think about what’s important.

Her. She’s the most important thing to me.

And as we lay there, not saying a word and just gazing at each other, I looked for my favourite detail about her eyes. These tiny little diamond shapes on the border of her purple irises. Like… like microscopic stars I could watch all night long. I feel like wherever I go, they could lead me home. Meaning that as long as I’ve got Octy by my side, even in tough times, I’ll always find my way back to safety. I’m actually working on a song about her and her eyes, but it’s still in the pretty early stages. Octy’s a pretty damn good muse, y’know? One with a whole damn galaxy in her eyes. I might even try singing it to her.

I could have just lived in that moment forever. Even with my head pounding. She tenderly brought her front hooves up towards our faces, and I did the same. We locked hooves, and just held each other there. And for just one sweet moment, nothing else mattered. Unfortunately, as was becoming pretty standard for me, the universe decided we were enjoying a bit too much of a good thing.

There was a quick series of loud knocks on the door, knocks which reverberated agonisingly around my aching head, and one of the ponies who worked here as a maid pushed the door open and stuck her head in.

“Beggin’ yer pardon, misses,” she said, in a very strange accent I swear I’ve heard from one of the young colts around Ponyville. Pipsqueak, I think his name is? “But Mister ‘n Missus Melody are ready ta receive yer in the garden fer tea ‘n crumpets. They’ve requested that I h’escort the both of youse there.”

”Thank you, Poppy,” Octavia giggled, winking at me. “Wait outside and we’ll be with you in two ticks.”

“Very good, miss,” Poppy replied, disappearing out of sight as the door clicked shut again.

“Oh sweeeeeeeeet Luna,” I groaned as I hauled myself up into a sitting position, grabbing my glasses off the bedside table. “Does everypony here have to talk in a way that’s so fricking hard to understand?”

“An unfortunate remnant of centuries of class divide,” Octavia explained, rolling off the bed and straightening her bow tie.

“Whadda ya mean remnant? There’s still a class divide.”

She sighed. “With everything going on here right now, do you really want to dwell on the inequalities of a capitalism based social hierarchy?”

“I do if it buys us another five minutes before we have to go face to face with your old man.”

“...an entirely fair position to take.”

I shuffled off the bed towards her, pausing only to go back for the ice pack wrapped up in the towel, and walked over to stand next to her at the door. She turned to me, looking uneasy. In return, I gave her a long, reassuring kiss, which seemed to steady her.

”Right,” I said, levitating the ice pack to the side of my head. “We’ve talked about this plenty of times, we’re here now. You’ve given me all the warnings you needed to. Let’s do this. You ready?”

There was a short pause. She inhaled deeply through her nose, and then gave me a nod.

“Alrighty then Pansy,” I declared loudly, pulling the door open. “Lead on!”

“Poppy,” Octavia corrected.

”Alrighty then Poppy. Lead on!”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Octavia suppressing a laugh. Yep, sometimes all you need in a scary situation is somepony keeping the mood light.

The maid, Poppy, led us down sweeping staircases and ornate corridors out into the sprawling grounds of the estate. Even with the cloud cover, I still found myself sweating as we walked past gardens and fountains. How big was the damn place? The mare’s stuffy black uniform must have been torture in the humid weather, but she seemed to brush it off with all the grace and decorum that you tend to see with anypony whose job it is to wait upon the well-to-do.

“You know, I don’t think that was the full hour we were promised,” I whispered to Octy as we passed by the entrance to a hedge maze that arched ten feet above us.

“Probably not,” she agreed. “I’m guessing Father had her tactfully wait nearby in case she heard anything untoward going on. Such as, oh I don’t know, a loud but justified reaction to having my marefriend blow raspberries on my tummy.”

And this time, it was Octy who made me snort with laughter. Well played. She gave me a playful bump with her flank as we walked along behind Poppy, who looked back at us quizzically. But if she wanted to say anything, it seemed like she thought better of it.

Just at the moment I started to think this gazebo might actually be in the next neighbourhood over from the one the main house is in, we rounded a corner and boom, there it was right in front of us. And honestly? Gazebo wasn’t the word for it. This wasn’t some rinky dink collapsible lump of plastic and tarp, this was a goddamn bandstand raised above the middle of a freaking lake. Given how they seem to love understatements here, I’m guessing they just refer to this huge body of water as a pond.

Underneath the ‘gazebo’ were four ornate chairs set around a table, one piled high with plates and dishes of so many different cakes, sandwiches, and other snacks that I couldn’t help but wonder if the table was strong enough to hold it all up. Jeez, I’ve been to gigs in Canterlot that didn’t cater this well. Even to a ballroom full of snobs. There was no way all four of us could eat that much. Again, understatements. ‘Tea and crumpets’, my plot.

A ring of about a dozen ponies, all dressed in serving clothes, surrounded the outermost edge of the gazebo. As we stepped up onto the platform, Poppy took her place at a vacant spot in the ring. Octavia’s parents were already sat at the table. The butler dude who’d thumped me upside the head stood just behind the two of them, forward from the ring of other waiting staff but still stood to attention. Staccato was flipping through a huge newspaper, his face looking as dull and emotionless as it had earlier, and Allegra was sipping at a steaming mug she was levitating up to her face. She beamed as she noticed us.

”Ahh, my darlings, please take a seat,” she exclaimed. “I do hope your room is to your liking, Miss Scratch. And Octavia sweetheart, I trust you had no difficulty in remembering your way around?”

”Not at all mother,” Octavia replied as we sat down, with her sat opposite her mom and me opposite her dad. Each seat had its own place setting with the fanciest silverware and plates I’d ever seen. “And I’m most pleased to see my room hasn’t changed at all since I was last here.”

“Well, it is your room, darling. The staff are under strict instruction, keep it tidy but not to alter it. We want you to feel like you may return to it whenever you wish. Don’t we Staccato?”

Octy’s dad glanced up at his wife from the newspaper. His expression didn’t change, and not a single word came out of his mouth. He stared coldly at Allegra for a few seconds, then continued to look back down at his paper again.

Huh.

“Anyway,” Allegra continued. “We both hope that two of you shall find yourself right at home here. Now Vinyl dear... oh good, you fixed your glasses! Well, first and foremost then, how is your head feeling?”

“Oh, uh…” I stumbled. Somehow I’d forgotten about the ice pack I was still holding against my head. Putting it down, warmth rushed back to the lump I’d been pressing it against, but what not long ago had been a splitting pain was now a barely noticeable feeling of tightness. The swelling must’ve gone down a lot.

”Feeling better?” she pressed.

“Uh, yeah. Thanks, Mrs Melody.”

“Oh please, you’re involved with our daughter, I think we can skip the formalities somewhat. Allegra, please.”

Phew. Okay, her mom seemed cool enough at least. And after that, I felt a bit of weight lift off my shoulders as I let out a relieved chuckle.

”Okay, Allegra. Yeah my head feels a lot better than it did earlier, thank you.”

“What can we get you both then? Tea? Coffee? Octavia, we have your favourite too.”

“Ooh,” Octy gasped. “Do you mean Miss Ruby still brews her own cocoa?”

“Of course darling,” Allegra said, tapping one hoof loudly on the table. Almost immediately, one of the waiting staff was by Octavia’s side with a huge porcelain flask. He tipped a reddish-brown looking drink into her cup.

I don’t know how they kept it hot when the nearest kitchen must be miles away… it definitely felt like we walked for miles to get there. But the liquid was steaming away, so it must have been hot. Octy held the mug up to her face, and took a deep inhale through her nose. She sighed in relief and started taking little sips. I guess it must've been a really good cocoa.

”And Vinyl?” Allegra asked.

“A coffee for me please. Milk, two sugars.”

There was a lot of effort on my part to stop me jumping out of my chair in fright as a pony dressed in black materialised at my side. Luna damnit, how do these guys move so quickly without making a sound? But true to my request, the smell of freshly roasted coffee beans flooded my nose as he filled my cup. He added some milk from a small jug and dropped in two cubes of sugar, then stepped backwards with a bow.

Octavia was still sipping dreamily at her cocoa as I levitated my spoon to stir my drink. Whatever blend they used for their coffee, it smelled so fucking good. I couldn’t help but grin, sure this place was a bit… to borrow something Octy would say, a bit ‘ostentatious’. But honestly, if you like coffee like I do, and you’d smelled this stuff? You’d probably be happy to overlook the obvious peacocking going on.

”Chin chin,” Allegra said, levitating her own cup up in a toast. “To the happy couple!”

”Cheers,” I replied, as both me and Octy mimicked her movement with our own cups, hers in both her hooves and mine in my magic. Then I went to raise my cup to my mouth.

”You don’t take it black, then?”

I froze, the cup less than an inch from my lips. Looking up to who had asked the question, my eyes locked onto Staccato. The dude was still looking at that newspaper. I don’t think he’d even looked away from it while asking the question. Octavia and Allegra both seemed to shuffle uncomfortably in the silence that hung in the air, and I couldn’t help but notice as Octy’s ears drooped.

Oh. I’ve dealt with snobs before. I knew how to handle this.

Shrugging, I brought the cup to my face, and slurped as I drank. Loudly. The coffee was a bit too hot, but honestly I didn’t care. I gulped and gulped it down, even letting a few drops dribble down my muzzle for good measure. Did I mention how fucking good the coffee smelt? Because it tasted even better. Oh mare, if I could drink only one thing for the rest of my life, it would be this. When my cup was drained, I let it clink loudly back down on its saucer.

”Nah, I prefer it sweet and milky,” I said, waving a hoof dismissively and suppressing a burp. “I don’t like it when things taste too… bitter, y’know?”

Staccato’s eyes left his newspaper and fixed on me. Just as before, his expression never wavered or changed. Just cold, emotionless, almost bored? It was one thing when he was doing it to Allegra, but when I was in the crosshairs? I felt a chill run down my spine, and had to adjust my stance in the chair as my tail quivered. This dude… I’m not gonna lie, something about him was super intimidating. I was starting to understand Octy’s nervousness. But, never one to back down, I held his stare.

Only problem was, then I noticed Octavia out of the corner of my eye. Glaring at me. And I glanced over to her, where our eyes met, and within a few seconds, some almost unnoticeable facial expressions seemed to illustrate a silent conversation that passed between us.

‘What are you doing?’

‘What? Just showing this dude I ain’t gonna march to his bassline.’

‘Please, you made me a promise not to agitate the situation.’

‘Well yeah, but I…’

‘Please Vinyl, you promised.’

‘Ugh, fine.’

I coughed quietly as I wiped the drops of coffee off my muzzle. “But, the only reason I don’t like things bitter is because I’ve got a mean sweet tooth. Maybe that’s why I’m in love with your daughter.”

Hehehe. Nice save, Scratch. Damn I’m good.

“Well, if that’s the case, don’t just sit there with a grumbling tummy,” Allegra piped in as Octavia gave me the tiniest little smile. “We’ve got some of the finest pastries in Trottingham here. Everypony, shall we dig in? I’m famished.”

“Yes, absolutely!” Octavia said, her ears slowly rising back up.

For a few minutes, everypony at the table fell silent as we all piled food onto our plates. Staccato, life of the party he is, silently folded up his newspaper and held it up above his head. The butler dude, whose name I am formally giving up trying to remember, took the paper and then stepped backwards.

There were so many different foods on show here, I barely knew where to start. But Allegra’s suggestion of pastries sounded good, so I decided I’d go with a cinnamon roll, a raspberry turnover, and a slice of apple pie. With a big spoonful of whipped cream, mmm. Octavia was eagerly smearing butter on a something that looked a bit like a biscuit, while Allegra was quietly sipping her tea, looking back and forth between me and Octy like she was eagerly taking in the sight of the two of us just being there. And then there was Staccato, who chewed a sandwich but didn’t really seem interested in anything else.

“Mmmmffff,” Octavia exclaimed, as she bit into her food. She paused to swallow, leaning back in her chair as she savoured the taste. “Proper crumpets. You can’t find these in Ponyville, or even in Canterlot. Oh how I’ve missed these… only Trottingham seems to have them.”

“Comforts of home, my dear,” Allegra said. “Now, Vinyl darling, how did the two of you come to be? Octavia did say in letters that the two of you attended university together, but I’d rather like to hear things from your side.”

I swallowed my bite of (incredible) cinnamon roll. “Yeah, university. Damn, that was so long ago now. Remember our dolt of a professor, Octy?”

”Oh, yes,” Octavia giggled. “So Vinyl and I met in our first psychology lecture, and…”

She fell silent as Staccato cleared his throat. Almost completly in sync, her and her mom’s heads turned to face him. Which was… yeah, super creepy.

“I’m curious,” he said, putting his sandwich back down on his plate. “What exactly is it that would give a ‘DJ’ cause to consider participation in a psychology course?”

Wow. Just wow. I mean, first of all, I really didn’t like the way he said DJ. Like pronouncing the two syllables was painful for him. Secondly, what a weird fucking question to interrupt with. He was looking at me again now, but the empty stare was gone. Now it was like he was trying to get a read on me. I could swear I saw his eyes narrow just a tiny bit as he looked me up and down, assessing me.

”Well,” I replied, cursing inwardly as my tone of voice gave away how caught off-guard I was. “When I release albums, I design all the record sleeves myself. I like to think I’ve got a good eye for graphic design, colour choices, that kind of stuff, y’know?”

Was that an eye-roll? You stuck-up asshole…

Okay Scratch, deep breath, keep the peace and do it for her.

“But I already knew the kind of stuff I like. So while I was doing modern music as my major, I took the psych course as my minor, cause I wanted to understand why things are eye-catching. What colours can make ponies feel a certain emotion. How to make the album covers give a better idea of what kinda vibe the music has without, y’know, actually saying what the vibe is. Don’t tell the audience what they should be feeling, show them instead.”

“Oh how delightful,” Allegra gushed. “What a fascinating thing to consider. You’re an insightful one, aren’t you? I can normally tell, you know.”

“Vinyl’s very good at reading a crowd, especially during her performances,” Octavia added, grinning at me. “I do think it’s a crucial part of what makes her so good at what she does. She’ll take the ebbs and flows of mood in a room, and she’ll ride on them to create a stellar performance that is breathtaking, every single time.”

“Being good at pushing records and making computer noises hardly qualifies as an admirable trait, child,” Staccato chided, looking at Octavia with one eyebrow raised. “And I shudder for any respected educational institution that would offer ‘modern music’ as a course.”

Octavia’s eyes shot over to me. We were thinking the same thing, I could tell. But neither of us said it. That I dropped out. If this is how he was treating me already, I’d be damned if I was gonna let him know that I was a college dropout too.

Though as luck would have it, the universe threw us a lifeline. Another member of staff, standing out from everypony else with his blue uniform, walked into the gazebo. He carried a silver tray on which lay an envelope, which he delivered to Staccato. Seems like Octy’s dad is important enough to get business telegrams in the middle of lunch.

Staccato opened the envelope and read the note. After he’d finished, he gave a much more obvious eye-roll, and rose to his hooves. And as he did so, something happened. Exactly in sync as they had earlier, both Octavia and Allegra seemed to flinch away from him. But if any of the waiting staff noticed, or even cared, none of them said anything.

”I have some matters to attend to,” Staccato said stiffly. “I’ll see you all at dinner. Bleathman, with me.”

After he left with... um, the butler... the mood lightened a lot. Me and Octavia sat with her mom, still awkwardly surrounded by dozens of staff, but the conversation flowed a lot more smoothly. It was actually kinda nice. The two of us told story after story of all kinds of different shit we got up to during college, though we apparently had both gotten the same memo about toning down the crazier stuff to make it more palatable for her mom.

But it turns out, Allegra had some pretty cool stuff to say as well. She's a bit of a history buff, but instead of any of the usual boring lectures I'd come to expect from anypony who could be branded an egghead, she told us a whole bunch of crazy stories about their family tree. On Staccato's side of things, things were more what I expected, but with some surprises. Biggest of those surprises? It was Octy's great-great-great-etcetera-granddad who had actually been the pony who'd developed the first musical instrument that, by today's musical standards, we would call a cello. No wonder she was so good at playing it. Every generation of the Melodies had produced somepony that was very respected in the field of music. Even the road back in Ponyville that has some of my main performance venues on it, Melody Boulevard, was named for the family. I did always wonder if that was a coincidence.

The side of things on Allegra's branch of the family tree was much more interesting though, apparently they weren't all stuffed shirts and snobby know-it-all's. Allegra's great-great-uncle on her father's side had been a moonshine runner in the days of prohibition, a business most of the immediate family were in on. Yeah, seriously. In fact, they had to flee their hometown of Edinbray when they were found out, which is how they ended up living in the boondocks way on the outskirts of Trottingham. And apparently, a strong tolerance to alcohol had been a common trait in their bloodline ever since. Go figure.

Even as the grey clouds drifted above us and made way for black ones, and though at one point I could swear I heard thunder way off in the distance, we had a real nice time talking over the food and hot drinks. Best of all, Octavia was smiling again. The whole time. I think she missed her mom more than she’ll admit. A couple of times she looked over at me, and I definitely saw the little diamonds in her eyes shining brightly.

But something weighed on my mind.

Well, two something’s, actually. The first, was what Staccato had called her. ‘Child’. Not by her name, and not as any kind of pet name a parent would normally give. For example, my mom calls me ‘Jelly Bean’, or sometimes just 'Mija' depending on her mood, a fact that only Octavia knows about. It better stay that way, okay? No, he simply called her ‘Child’. Cold. Distant. Emotionless. Which kind of struck me as being on-brand for how he’d carried himself so far today. But you know the other thing about that kind of wording? It’s gender neutral. Like he couldn’t bring himself to call her his daughter.

And try as I might, I just couldn't shake the other thing from my mind. When Staccato had stood up to leave, the way Octy and her mom had flinched away from him... that just left my gut feeling like ice.

Part IV ~ Final Call

Author's Note

Reader discretion strongly advised. This is the chapter where things take a dark turn. That helpline directory again, if needed, can be found here.

Part IV ~ Final Call

Oh for the love of… I hate fancy dress.

By that I mean, dressing fancy. Like at the Grand Galloping Gala, for example. I performed there one year, with the Royal Aide assigned to me making sure my performance didn’t drift into anything too hardcore. And it being an event held in the royal castle, there was a strict dress code. I was required, strictly, to wear a dress. And I hate dresses. Some kind of suit or tuxedo would’ve been awesome, but nope! Outdated, strictly-defined gender roles had me all dolled up and looking ridiculous. At least the gig paid well.

Very well. Like, 'paying for a house deposit in one big hit' well...

Fancy dress though, like the kind you get on Nightmare Night? I actually love that. Since we moved in together, me and Octy have done couples costumes every year. Yeah, couples costumes, even before we were official. I guess I should’ve seen the writing on the wall on that one, huh? Last year she was the most adorable lion in Equestria and I was her lion tamer (hehehe), the year before that she was an astronaut and I was a green-skinned alien, and before that… actually, I’m getting off-track here. The point is, I was feeling pretty damn self-conscious when the time came for me to knock on Octy’s bedroom door.

After enough hours sat outside, the weather had taken a turn and it had started to rain. Even though we were under the gazebo, Allegra insisted we end the afternoon tea there, and return to the house to start getting ready for dinner. I was confused about how she was so ready to go straight into another meal right after lunch, seeing as I was still stuffed. But I didn’t account for how long it took high society ponies to get ready for their evening meals. My quizzical look when Allegra asked me what kind of gown I’d be wearing was clearly enough to cause her some shock, and she’d ushered me away.

Octy had followed closely behind, grinning the whole time. I guessed she knew what was in store for me. And the width of her grin being about a nine out of ten, I figured that meant I was in trouble. Some of the thunder I’d thought I’d heard earlier was now definitely there, getting closer as the clouds turned jet black. When we left the gazebo, I felt the first few raindrops start landing on me, and by the time we got back to the house it had become a full downpour. Luckily we didn’t get too wet. Well, me Octy and Allegra didn’t, but the waiting staff all looked like they’d need to change their uniforms.

It was at this point that Allegra had shooed Octy back to her room. And at first, I kept my cool. Until I was led (after miles of corridors) into a walk-in wardrobe about the size of the ballroom in Canterlot castle. Where dresses lined every single wall.

Ahh shit.

So going by my dislike for fancy dresses, it’s probably a bit easier to understand exactly why I felt so self-conscious. It took her a while to settle on something for me, but Allegra eventually picked out a sparkling red sequinned gown that, she said, went with my eyes. Damn her memory must be good, cause the only time she would have seen my red eyes was a tiny peek through the broken lenses. You know, while she was checking on me after my earlier head-bump. She’d given me some matching shoes that, luckily, I only had to wear on my hind legs. For fashion reasons, practicality, whatever I didn’t care. One less pair of shoes to worry about. But the worst part was when she’d sat me down, tapped a hoof on the floor and more ponies on her staff had appeared out of thin air. Not with food or drink, but makeup, perfume, and hair products.

Once again: ahh shit.

What even is time anyway? Because I have absolutely no idea how long I was sat down there. Apparently it was barely even an hour but it felt like years. I didn’t realise that the average Trottingham mare had all the skills of a criminal interrogator, but they were unrelenting as they yanked and twisted hair in both my mane and tail, and as they caked my face with weird smelling lotions and powders. My glasses had been the first thing to go, and every time I reached out to grab them, Allegra had batted my hoof away. Honestly, I don’t care what crime it was they were torturing me for, but by the time we were halfway done I was ready to confess to anything up to grand larceny. And when we were actually done, I could’ve bumped that up as far as treason. Not necessarily high treason though, I have my limits.

Once Allegra finally dismissed her assistants with another tap of a hoof, I breathed a sigh of relief. And that’s when I found myself being spun around to face a mirror.

Oh. Shit.

My mane looked awesome. Kinda… windswept, almost like a pegasus? I ain’t too proud to admit that whoever styled it, they did a freaking amazing job. Rather than the usual spiky way I like to wear it, the fringe was pushed upwards to hold the whole mess of hair on my head up in a bob that’s… kinda leaning slightly backwards? I dunno how to explain it really, I am in no way a professional stylist. But I can say that I loved it, and I might have to consider getting it styled right before my gigs in the future.

And sadly, everything from my eyebrows down was… meh. Well, I thought so at least. Like, don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the effort Allegra and her staff put into sprucing me up, but it was way too much makeup. I guess it looked okay, but it felt so thick on my face, I was probably going to clog a drain when I showered it all off. The whole ensemble was finished off as Allegra hung some clip-on hoop earings from my lobes. Which I actually kind of liked. But they’d get in the way if I tried to perform at the turntables while wearing them, so I decided this was probably going to be a one-time thing.

Well, all done then! With Allegra needing some time to get herself ready for dinner, I went to leave. Which unfortunately led into a bit of an awkward situation. See, as soon as I made to put my glasses back on, she had protested. A lot of work went into my eyeliner, eyeshadow, eye-whatever, and she didn’t want my glasses to hide all that good effort. Now, I don’t normally do this, but I got good vibes from Allegra. So, after making sure that we were alone (and I mean extra sure, I don’t know how the house staff pull off their teleportation but I didn’t want any of them to overhear), I explained my photophobia to her. She was understanding. But, and this was kinda fair, she did express that she was a little irked when I’d failed to mention it before they put so much effort into my eye makeup. To which I explained my position, I don’t like talking about my disabilities. Especially in a quiet room full of ponies I don’t know. She conceded that this was a fair point, gave me directions to Octy’s bedroom, and said she’d see us both at dinner. Which was in a little over an hour, so I had some time to kill.

As it turns out, about half of that was killed trying to find Octy’s bedroom in the sprawl of corridors that snaked around this place. Jeez, all they needed here were maps at every junction, since everything looks the same. Or even some damn signs. ‘You are here,’ and ‘Your marefriend is here,’, etcetera. Turns out I was on the wrong floor. Damnit.

Regardless, I eventually found myself knocking on Octy’s door. And in the silence that followed, I started to notice just how loud the rain was as it pounded down on the roof above me. It must’ve been a heck of a storm, cause the wind was howling something fierce as well.

Octy opened the door and I immediately felt the blood rush to my face. I’m pretty sure I’ve previously alluded to the attention deficit regions of my brain? Well as I looked at my marefriend in a simple white gown with a lace trim, in my head I suddenly found myself stood with her at an altar. A priest next to us, talking us through our vows. All our friends in attendance. The little diamonds sparkling in her eyes as we lean in to kiss…

And then I snapped back to reality. One thing at a time, Scratch.

“Oh Vinyl, you look beautiful,” Octavia gushed.

“Gee, thanks,” I replied as I stepped into the room, booping my nose to hers. “You couldn’t have warned me about the fancy pants dinners here?”

She giggled mischievously. “And deprive myself of that face you pulled when you realised? I daresay I chose the more… entertaining option here.”

“You’re a real sadist when you wanna be, y’know?”

”And you’re a fine teacher.”

I chuckled as I stepped into the room, and she closed the door behind me. The sight of Octavia in a white gown had definitely caught me more off-guard than I’d like to admit. If I was actually blushing, either she was being too polite to say anything, or she couldn’t actually see because of all the makeup smothering my face. More than likely, the second option.

But whether or not she could see the effect it was having on me, I could definitely feel it. My heart was bouncing around in my chest like you wouldn’t believe, and that old saying about butterflies in your stomach? These ones must’ve been dancing to happy hardcore.

So I tried to distract myself by looking around at her room, considering this is the room she grew up in, but… it was so, bland? It was almost exactly like the room her parents had put me up in, apart from a few more framed photos hanging on the wall, and a heavy-looking dressing table next to her wardrobe. Me and her, we made our bedroom back in Ponyville a little shrine to… well, us. When we started sharing a bedroom, that is. We’ve decorated the walls with posters, artwork, ticket stubs to shows we’ve been to, and pretty much anything else that we like. Yeah, we both like a lot of different things, but over time it became this awesome mashup of our two tastes. It was her idea in the first place.

But this room… it was so devoid of her personal touches that it actually kinda hurt me to look at. The photos on the wall, each one was of her and her parents at some kind of formal get-together. Stiff, formal, proper. Like each picture had been specifically chosen to show the three of them off in a certain light. And I couldn’t help but wonder if this bedroom was actually like a cage to her. A cold, bland space that resists her colourful personality. Only her old trunk in the corner gave off any sense of the room having been lived-in, and that had only arrived today.

A floorboard creaked next to me, and then Octavia was by my side, running a brush through her mane. I glanced at her, only for a second, but… well she’s pretty intuitive, and she pretty much knew exactly what was going through my head.

“The only problem with a family estate,” she explained. “At least, one that goes back for a number of generations? Every room is historic. It carries with it a piece of the Melody family history. And unfortunately, when rooms are considered historic, putting personal touches on them is a task to be executed in careful moderation and with carefully moderated taste.”

“So, no posters?”

”Indeed, no posters. Only a certain number of framed photographs permitted as well, and because of how old the wood is, Father would only let a qualified carpenter place photo hooks. Oh, and regardless of how often I begged him, I was not permitted to have the room painted pink.”

I nodded my head in approval. “Pink certainly would have livened up the place.”

She walked over to her dressing table and sat down at it, putting her hairbrush in a drawer and pulling out one of her toiletry bags. Ahh, it was the one that carried all her makeup, perfume and other stuff. Well, I knew I was going to be in for a world of silence as soon as that showed up. She’s a perfectionist by nature, and you can’t say a word to her while she’s doing her makeup. Why? She literally won’t hear you. Words go in one ear and out the other. It’s a little creepy, she zones out even more than when she’s working on a new musical piece.

With nothing else to do at that moment, I shuffled over towards her bed and sat down on it, careful not to crease the dress Allegra had loaned to me. And I just… watched Octy, as she applied all those creams and powders to her own face. Which might seem a little creepy, if you’re small-minded, but I kinda like seeing the way she fixes her mind on a task and powers on through until it’s done.

Apparently I zoned out as well, because it barely felt like a minute passed me by before there was a loud knock at the door. Yet another of the waiting staff stuck his head into the room, telling us (thankfully in an accent that’s easier to understand) that he was here to escort us to the dining room.

Oh sweet, I love this game.

”Hey, Octy.”

Nothing.

”I smashed your cello and used the strings as a fishing line.”

Absolute silence.

“Then I killed a stallion for his boots and hijacked a train.”

In one ear and out the other.

”And to top it all off, I found the hottest mare on board and made sweet sweet love to her in the dining car.”

Not a damn word from her.

”Just give us a few minutes,” I said, turning to the stallion in uniform. “She’s a little spaced out right now, I’ll get her back down on terra firma.”

All I got in return was a wide-eyed stare, a nod that must have taken weeks of subtlety training to perfect, and then the door clicked quietly shut again. Stupid move? Maybe. But I ain’t ever gonna turn down the opportunity to mess with somepony’s head. If that exchange ended up getting relayed back to Staccato, it could make dinner a little more fun.

Yeah, I’d promised not to stir the pot, but what harm could a little fun do?

And speaking of fun, I had to bring Octy to her senses before she drew a total mental blank over actually making it to dinner. She was currently doing something to her eyelashes with a small metal… thing that looked like it was specifically designed for torture. As opposed to being there to spruce up your eyelashes, with the feeling of torture just being a happy little accidental side-effect. I lined myself up behind, her, and the moment she moved it away from her eyes (I didn’t want her to actually hurt herself) I placed both my front hooves on her shoulders.

“BWAH!” she yelped, nearly leaping forward off of her seat. “Oh Vinyl, you absolute plonker, you know not to startle me when I’m doing my makeup.” She was talking through gritted teeth, but I could see the traces of a smile in the corner of her lips.

“A, if I didn’t startle you, you’d be there all night. And B, while you were communing with demons in whatever trance they put you in, our dinner summons arrived.”

Her ears folded back as she let out a groan. “Ohh, but I haven’t even begun applying my eyeshadow yet…”

“You look fine, don’t sweat it. It’s not like we’re going out anywhere.”

“But I…”

“Tavi, don’t sweat it. You look great.”

“Fine,” she conceded, giving me a look of resignation through the mirror. “But I’ve only curled one set of eyelashes. Let me quickly do the other?”

”Okay, you got thirty seconds, chop chop!”

So, about ten minutes later when she was finished, we found ourselves following the stallion of the house staff through the endless corridors. Octy didn’t know this guys name, as apparently he’d been hired after she’d left for college. To be fair to her, none of them were exactly big on conversation. Not even the one’s she did know. The whole time we were out under the gazebo, the most I heard from any of them were ‘yes ma’am’ and ‘would you care for a refill’.

I couldn’t help but shoot glances at her in her white gown as we walked. Oh sweet Celestia, give me strength…

We were led into a cavernous space that most ponies would mistake for an airship hangar, but judging by the long table in the centre? That would technically classify it as a dining room, at least by definition and intended purpose. But the size of the place… I swear you could have fit our whole house in it. A giant fireplace at one end of the room was lit, sending flickering orange light dancing across the floor and walls. Although most of one wall was covered in floor-to-ceiling windows, which gave us a pretty good view of the monster of a storm raging outside.

At the head of the table was… yep, you guessed it. Old cheerful-face himself, Staccato. Allegra sat next to him, wearing a purple satin dress that pretty much exactly matched the colour of both her and Octy’s eyes. And two more place settings were laid out, sat at the opposite side of the table.

While it might have been ‘proper’ to let Octy sit next to her dad, something in my gut stirred uncomfortably at the idea. So, being the doting and chivalrous marefriend that I am, I made a big show of pulling out Octy’s chair for her, and tucking it in as she sat down. The chair one space down from Staccato, that is. As I took my own seat, he narrowed his eyes at me slightly, but I just sent a cheerful grin back his way.

Nope, he wasn’t gonna get under my pelt that easily.

A minute of uneasy silence passed as by as the waiting staff set glasses of water and empty champagne flutes in front of us. One of the ponies started circling the table, pouring bubbly liquid from a bottle that looked super expensive into the empty flutes. But when he reached Octy, she covered the glass with her hoof and shook her head.

“Heck of a storm going on out there, huh?” I said, casting out a line of generic small-talk to see if I could land myself a natural segue into more substantial conversation.

And thankfully, Allegra bit hook, line and sinker. “Oh good gracious, isn’t it just? We’ve had somewhat of a deficit of rain as of late, but I dare say the weather team might have overdone it here.”

“The weather team back in Ponyville does a fine job,” Octavia chimed in. “It’s been years since they last had to produce a large storm to counter a rainfall deficit. They’ve had a big restructure and things have gotten even better since, and some of the management team are even being pegged as future Wonderbolt material.”

“Oh the Wonderbolts,” Allegra gasped. “I’ve heard excellent things about them, we’re a bit far out from their stomping grounds over here but we do hear the odd tidbit through the grapevine. Have you been to see them perform?”

Octavia nodded. “Yes, several times now. In fact Vinyl took me there on one of our earliest dates.”

“And how do they compare to the Red Arrows?”

Whatever Octavia said in reply, I missed it. I was busy experiencing mental whiplash as dozens of old memories flooded my brain, core life experiences resurfacing in quick succession one-by-one. Bright sunny days, surrounded by family and cheering crowds as red-uniformed pegasi raced overhead. How had I managed to file these memories away in the dusty corners of my head where I rarely looked?

“Oh mare,” I laughed, as Octy finished… whatever she’d said. “The Red Arrows, dude that takes me back. My Dad used to have distant family living in Neighcastle, we’d go visit them a couple of times a year, and we’d always go see the Red Arrows if they were in town.”

Octy shot me a surprised look. “You’ve never mentioned that before.”

“I haven’t thought about it in years. And I was real young, so the memories are a little fuzzy. But just the words ‘Red Arrows’ bring back so many happy thoughts. Nothing but good vibes and long days out in the sun with the cousins from my Dad’s side of the family.”

”How did you like the aerial displays?” Allegra asked.

“Errr…” I fidgeted sheepishly in my seat. “Well, see I don’t really remember much about the shows themselves. I was young last time we went, like six or seven, and… yeah, all the stunts just kinda blurred together. But they were brightly clothed so I could easily spot them in the sky, and doing all this cool stuff I could have watched all day.”

Allegra gave what Trottingham society would probably call a ‘polite chuckle’. “Well I suppose it’s not entirely fair to expect a pre-teen to memorise an entire flight show.”

”Well, I can say this much,” I said, as the most important memory hit me like a tonne of bricks. “There was one show, I think it was the last one we did before that side of the family moved to Whinnyapolis. And instead of the rock music they normally played in the background, they tried something different. They played some electronic music, I think some real early era drum and bass? Just… the moment I heard the music, I knew that was what I wanted to do with my life. Make music.”

“Is that when you got your cutie mark?” Allegra asked.

”You got your cutie mark trying out a set of turntables in a music shop near your home, as I recall you telling me,” Octavia said.

I nodded. “And the only reason I begged Dad to take me was because I’d heard that music at the air show. Apparently I was talking about it the whole train ride home, and they took me there just to shut me up, but once I got my mark they couldn’t not buy me the turntables. Jeez, I can’t believe I forgot all about that.”

“Well what a marvellous way to discover oneself,” Allegra gushed. “And a most excellent choice on the part of your parents to take you.”

”Yeah, I definitely owe them for that.”

”Indeed. Please, tell us about them. What do they do for a living?”

I cleared my throat. “So, my mom Arpa, she’s kind of… freelance, I guess? She’s generally viewed as an expert in Mexicolt culture, specifically traditional musical instruments. A lot of universities across the country hire her to give lectures and performances. And if there’s any community centres nearby, while she’s there she’ll try and go do free workshops for local residents, just share her love for her heritage, y’know?”

“She sounds like a delighful mare,” Allegra said eagerly. “And your father?”

“Oh Dad is awesome, he helps so many ponies. He’s one of Manehatten’s most respected…”

Huh?

Did Staccato just tsk at me?!

Just brush it off, Scratch. Octy’s counting on you to keep the peace, stay polite, don’t rise to anything that he does. If he wants a fight, he’s just cast out a net, and you’d be insanely dumb to throw yourself into that net.

“You got something you wanna say?” I asked, tilting my head towards him with one eyebrow tactically raised high above the other one.

Yep, right into the net. He got me.

“Oh no, nothing of any significance,” he replied with a roll of his eyes. “Only, confirmation of what I already expected to be true.”

Eerie quiet filled the room. I was only vaguely aware of the rain drumming against the window, and of Octavia and Allegra’s rigid postures. Which, in hindsight, was probably as loud a warning of danger as I could have expected from them at that moment in time. But unfortunately right then, I wasn’t really able to process anything besides Staccato’s words.

“And what, tell me, exactly is it you had expected?” I asked, slowly and quietly.

For the first time, an actual smile formed on his face. But not a happy smile, no no no, this dude wasn’t going to give me that level of decency. I’ve seen the kind of smile on his face before. This was an ‘I was right the whole time’ kind of smile. In one word? Smug.

”I had expected,” Staccato said, leaning forward and playfully resting his head on his hooves. “That my child would present to me a suitor of ill repute. The famed DJ Pon-3, in my very own home, what an honour indeed! A foul mouthed… ‘homosexual’ of little class and prone to violent tendencies. She is easily provoked, has poor table manners, and would act aggressively towards somepony generous enough to open their doors and shelter her. And finally, she lets slip precisely why she is predisposed to act the way she does. Because in a kennel of pure-breeds, she is a mutt. Her mother hails from a land of savages and in-breds, and her father is highly respected in his field, only in a city of ingrates and peasants so the accomplishment is hardly one to brag about. So I ask myself, is it nature or is it nurture? And the universe seemed to reply to me with great clarity, that it is equal parts one and the other. Oh, I had expected you, Vinyl Scratch. And you have not disappointed me one iota.”

In the silence that followed, the rain thrashing against the window seemed to intensify. Honestly, I kinda mentally clocked out. I don’t know for how long. It could have been seconds, it could have been minutes. Fuck, it could have been an hour for all I knew. I can only remember the most basic of sensations. My mouth wide open in a gawp, the vein pulsing on my forehead, the adrenaline racing through my heart as I held back with all my willpower against the overwhelming urge to beat this dude into a fucking pulp until his face was an unrecognisable chunk of bloodied flesh.

But if he’d been baiting me before, he’d just played his best card.

However, if I stayed in that room for just one minute longer, I would beat him to within an inch of his life. And then keep beating for a few more metres. His smug smile had evolved ever so slightly into a sneer, one that seemed to be saying ‘alrighty then, your move’ to me. So against impossible odds, I came back to myself and decided I could rise above this. At least, for now.

“Please excuse me,” I said, trembling as I pushed my chair back and rose to my hooves. “I need to use the bathroom.”

In my state of… well, trying to maintain composure, I only got the slightest look at the other two ponies at the table. Allegra was wide-eyed, one hoof covering her mouth as if she was trying to process what was happening. And Octy… oh, poor Octy… her eyes were practically bulging out of her head, her jaw was hanging low, and she had a long streak running down her face. Like a single tear had smeared her makeup as it left her eye and slid down her cheek.

But, I couldn’t stop. I had to get out. Even when the waiting staff started carrying trays of food through the door, I just politely stepped out of the way and made a quick escape once the doorway was clear.

What the fuck had just happened?

Like, I knew the dude didn’t like me that much. He’d made it pretty damn clear from the moment I got here. But that was just… brutal. Did I piss this guy off in a previous life or something? I wish I could have been trying to rationalise everything that had just happened as I wandered aimlessly through identical looking corridors, but honestly, my inner monologue was in as much of a stunned silence as I was.

Oh yeah, identical looking corridors. Which meant I got lost pretty much immediately.

After… actually, I don’t know how long I was walking. But after some time, I had to stop and take some steadying breaths. I’d come here to try and understand her family, her upbringing, why she’d never had the courage to tell me about the fact that she was transgender until I stumbled onto it by chance. And while I was starting to figure out exactly the level of hostility she must have had to deal with when she was growing up, I couldn’t begin to unpack why her dad was throwing so much hostility at me. And the attacks aimed at my parents as well? That dude had never even met them, so who the fuck was he to judge?!

Yeah it’s becoming cliché at this point, but again, I don’t know how long I was stood there just focusing on my breathing. I just needed to calm myself down, then I could work out how to get back to that dining room. Once back in there I could apologise for excusing myself while food was being served, and for any hostilities on my part today. I was just nervous. Yeah, nervous. Then I could ask him to explain what caused him to have prejudices for both Mexicolt and Manehatten, and methodically break down why my parents break away from those molds and excel as members of society. Maybe if we talked things out, I could look past the things he’d said about them.

Okay, I had a plan. That helped.

As my slow breathing began to bring me back down to reality, I became more aware of my surroundings again. The samey-same sections of corridor in the crazy house apparently had one single exception. When I’d stopped to gather my thoughts, I’d rested my hoof against what I’d thought was a section of wall. Now I saw it actually the side of a huge, wooden cabinet. I stepped around it to get a better look. Inside, behind glass doors, were dozens and dozens of photos, sat in frames on the shelves.

Now, admittedly out of curiosity, I stepped forward for a closer look. The photos were all of Octy. Young Octy, as she’d grown up. There were so many pictures, and while I recognised some from her album, there were even more that… well, I understood why she hadn’t wanted to keep hold of. Because she was clearly still a colt in them. But as I walked past shelf after shelf of the complete history of her life, I could see that they’d been arranged with love and care regardless of the change that happened when she was seven. Maybe she viewed everything before that as a period to forget, but whoever had arranged these had clearly wanted to commemorate Octy’s journey from downhearted colt to happy, confident mare.

So, it was definitely her mom who'd set up this display.

There was even an MRI scan framed there. Yeah, seriously. Her mom had printed and framed an ultrasound image of an Octavia who was still in the womb. I couldn’t help but be impressed. Her dad may be a piece of work, but her mom was all kinds of awesome.

And that’s when I spotted what was wrong.

There, in the scan. Literally, as I went to step away and keep looking at the photos, I saw it. At least, I thought I could see it. It didn’t make any sense to me, but there it was. For a moment, I wondered if it could be somepony else’s scan mixed up in Octy’s pictures. But there, clearly marked, was a timestamp dated three months before Octy was born. So why were there…

I yelped in surprise as I heard a well-spoken voice say ‘excuse me please’. Turning around, I saw the stallion from the waiting staff, the one who’d escorted me and Octy to the dining room. He was carrying an empty serving tray. Maybe on his way back to the kitchens? I was stood in the middle of the corridor, right in his way. And for a moment, instinct took over and I stepped aside. I got a ‘thank you, ma’am’ in return. But as he was halfway down the corridor, I called out to him.

”Hey, wait a sec!”

He stopped and turned back to me. “Can I help you, ma’am?”

”Yeah, yeah you can. Come here a sec.” Without hesitation, he walked back over to me. As he approached, I gestured to the MRI scan. “This is Allegra’s, yeah?”

”Yes ma’am, I believe so.”

”So why are there two foals?”

He raised both his eyebrows. “I… I’m deeply sorry ma’am,” he stuttered. “I assumed Miss Octavia would have informed you? When Lady Allegra was expecting, she was carrying twins. Two colts, Philharmonic and Symphonic. But unfortunately, Master Symphonic passed away before the pregnancy came to term. Allegedly, the doctors said it was a miracle that Master Philharmonic managed to survive.”

I felt my heart plummet into my stomach. Allegra had lost a child during pregnancy… Sweet Luna, nothing I’ve ever felt before could even begin to compare to how I felt at that moment. And that was just me being told about it. How it must have felt being there, being her, having a young colt that never even had a chance… just gone. Before even getting to see daylight. And Staccato, losing a son and probably having to support Allegra through it all. Suddenly, I was feeling something for him that up to that point, I never would have expected. I felt sorry for the guy.

And Octy… she’d lost her twin brother. Fuck, I didn’t even bother wondering why she’d never mentioned it. I know I’d never want to talk about it, if the pony who was supposed to grow up alongside me had never even lived long enough to get out of the womb.

The stallion gave me a look of sympathy. “I’m terribly sorry to be the one to inform you, ma’am. The situation is difficult to wrap one’s head around.”

”Yeah, it is,” I replied. My voice sounded alien to me, almost hollow.

”And to think,” he added. “Losing young Master Philharmonic only a few years later… one can’t begin to imagine the pain they carry with them every day.”

Huh?

”What? They… they lost Philharmonic?”

The look in his eyes was startling, and for a few moments he just stared at me, his mouth wide open as his jaw bobbed up and down, trying to produce words that never made it out. His ears drooped as he made to walk away, but I grabbed his hoof before he could.

”Ma’am, I…”

”Just tell me what you mean, why did you say they lost Philharmonic?”

“Miss Octavia was adopted by the Lord and Lady after Master Philharmonic was killed in an accident.”

My entire body felt like it had turned to solid ice. “What accident, what happened?”

”I’m terribly sorry ma’am, I don’t know,” he jabbered as he wrenched his hoof free from my grasp. “The whole incident happened long before I was hired, young Mistress Octavia had already left to attend university when I started here.”

“But.. but that’s…”

“Ma’am I cannot apologise enough,” he added, backing away from me. “But I must return to my duties.”

I was only consciously aware of watching him turn to scurry back down the corridor before I whited out completely.

The next thing I knew, Octavia’s face was inches from mine, her eyes wide and full of tears as she was desperately calling out my name.

”Vinyl, please, answer me!”

”Octy,” I gasped. Why did it feel like I’d been suffocating? “What… what’s going… on?”

”Oh thank Celestia, I think you were having some sort of panic attack. I came looking for you a few minutes after you left the dining room, and I found you here. You were hyperventilating, I was calling for you but it was like you couldn’t see or hear me. Oh… oh Vinyl, what happened?”

“I… I… uhh…” I stuttered. My mind fumbled for an explanation. And then my eyes fixed on the framed ultrasound picture in the cabinet behind her. “Octy, were you adopted?”

Her face… oh mare, when I’d started coming back to her, her expression had shifted to one of relief. But asking that question, the shift from relief to absolute horror was instantaneous. She let go of my shoulders, which I hadn’t even noticed she’d been holding onto, and took a step back. In her panic, she bumped up against the glass door of the cabinet behind her.

”Wh… why would you ask that?” she asked, her voice trembling.

I recounted everything that the stallion had said to me, and watched her carefully as I did so. The look on her face, the subtle shaking of her head, her eyes looking at pretty much anything but me… I’d say we were onto a subject she’d been desperate for me not to find out about. And once I’d finished explaining, I just had one question for her.

”Is it true?”

“Vinyl…” she whispered, biting her lip as her eyes locked onto a spot on the floor between my front hooves.

”Octy,” I sobbed, my voice breaking. “I need to know what’s happening here. Please, I’m sorry if it hurts to talk about, but can you just give me some damn decency and not lie to me?!”

Her eyes locked with mine. Her tears were flowing freely now, and I could feel them rushing down my own face too. I hated seeing her like this, her lips trembling and her eyebrows creased. But I couldn’t stand it any more to have her keep me in the dark. When she spoke, her voice was strained, like she was carefully examining every word before she said it, as if one wrong step would set off an unstoppable tsunami of tears.

”Yes, I did lose my twin brother before we were even born. But no, I am not adopted. The adoption story is a cover-up that Father came up with, rather than admit his child was transgender. Philharmonic Melody was run over and killed by a carriage while out on a family excursion, and in their grief, they visited a local orphanage where they found a little filly who resembled their lost child almost exactly. That was the official version of events that Father told everypony. Mother was strongly against it, and would have preferred we stuck to the true story. But Father deemed it better to have ponies think his surviving son had been stricken down by cruel fate, than admit I was besmirching the family name by transitioning from male to female.”

My mind reeled as she finished talking. The words she’d said… I understood the words themselves, but when combined, the finished sentences just didn’t make sense to me.

Her dad… had told the world his child had died, rather than openly admit that she had been born in the wrong body. Put on a pretence of adopting a young filly who miraculously resembled his lost son, instead of just being honest and celebrating Octavia’s commitment to transitioning and becoming her true self. He'd made her live her life with the pretence that she hadn't been born to them, because he didn't want ponies to think his child was transgender.

I am a very tolerant mare. But it was at this point that my mind snapped.

Part V ~ Closing Time

My head… ow, my head.

As I drifted back into consciousness, the blinding lights in my face became unbearable, so I had to bring my hoof to my eyes to block it out. But all my muscles felt disjointed and weak, and did I mention my head? Oh dear Celestia, Luna and whatever other horses they might have rode in on, my head hurt. But not like… it’s kinda hard to describe. Not like painful kinda hurt, more like… everything was floating around and feeling spacey, and it hurt to try and process this? It was super weird.

“I think she’s coming to,” said an echoey voice with a funny accent.

”Vinyl! Vinyl! Wake up,” called out a similarly echoey voice with an accent that was just as weird, but this voice was more familiar. Something about it made my heart flutter.

”Mamá,” I groaned. “Me duele la… la cabeza…”

“Vinyl,” said the familar voice again. “Oh Vinyl…”

“Por favor… apagar las luces…”

“Miss Melody, do you understand what she’s saying?”

“Exactly as I’ve been trying to tell you, the lights are too bright, give me her glasses.”

”Now listen here, we’ve explained this to you but…”

”No!” shouted the familar voice, a little too loudly for my comfort. “I’ve told you exactly what she needs three times now, the lights are too bright and her eyes are sensitive. Now give me her glasses right now before I shove that stethoscope up your arse and tell you exactly what your damn heartrate is!”

Damn… this pony had moxie…

I let out a low moan as something moved my hoof away from my face, and for a moment there was nothing but my eyelids barely blocking out the bright light shining down on me. But then some weight pressed down on the bridge of my muzzle and around my eyes, and the light dimmed a little. Not completely, but enough for it to no longer be painful to me. So, I dared to open my eyes.

It took a bit of blinking to clear the gunk out, but eventually things faded into view. The room I was in was white, giving strong impressions of being frosty and sterile. Slowly my senses started coming back to me, enough for me to put the word ‘hospital’ at the front of my mind. Several tubes and wires were hooked up to my forelegs, connecting me to a large machine that was being examined by a mare in white uniform. A mask covered her entire muzzle, which was causing the lower part of her own glasses to fog up slightly.

Feeling a weight press gently on one of my forelegs, I looked down to see a grey hoof had come to rest there. Turning my head to get a better look at its owner, I felt butterflies in my stomach as I saw her. Brain fog is a bitch, of course her voice was familiar. I love this mare.

”Oc…ty?” I muttered, fighting the haze my mind was bogged down in.

She gave me a series of small shushing noises that was… actually kinda soothing. “It’s okay Vinyl, you’re okay. I’ve got you.” She cracked a huge smile that made my stomach start doing barrel rolls as tears rolled down her face. Or was it rain water? Her mane was soaking wet, like she’d just gotten out of a shower.

I looked around, confused. This… this wasn’t the Ponyville hospital? And the nurse, assuming that she was the pony that Octavia had just been arguing with, her accent was not a common one in Ponyville. Like, at all. Where the heck were we? There was a strange tightness wrapped around my forehead, that it took me a moment to realise was some kind of bandage.

And then… as the nurse starting checking me over… it all started flooding back as my brain began to root itself back into place. The floaty feeling faded away as memories resurfaced. Train. Butler. Mansion. Gazebo. Dress. Dinner. Photographs…

“Octy…” I muttered, trying to keep my breathing under control. “What happened?”

She shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “How much do you remember?”

”Everything up until you told me about your dad, how he… he…”

“Okay, okay,” she said gently.

I couldn’t finish the damn sentence. Just… what her dad had done… it fucking broke me just thinking about it. But Octavia not only had to live through it, she had to live with it. Her whole life, she’s carried the weight of that on her shoulders. I don’t know how she could stand it.

“Well, after… that,” she began, talking slowly. I realised at this point, she’d changed out of her white dinner gown, and had washed all the makeup off her face. “I think something just broke, inside you. I’ve never seen you that angry, ever. It was rather intimidating, to be quite frank with you.”

Well I guess if I was ever gonna be the angriest I had ever been, having it be on behalf of my marefriend isn’t the worst way to go about it.

“Then you just stormed off. And I followed you. I don’t think you were thinking rationally at all, you kept going down random corridors, getting lost, doubling back on yourself. Blinded with rage, I suppose.”

“Yep. Rage, hehehe, that’s why I kept err… getting lost. Yeah.”

She gave me a knowing smirk. “Yes, no doubt. But eventually you found your way back to the dining room. Mother and Father were just finishing their first course of dinner and had been wondering where we were. I was astounded that Father had the nerve to carry on in such a blasé manner, considering the awful things he’d said to you, but you were rather quick to deliver some karma.”

”What’d I do?”

“You strolled right over to him, turned him to face you and… umm… well, to use the word ponies around Trottingham use to describe it, you… you nutted him.”

I gagged. “Ew, gross! What… how did… why?!”

“No no no,” Octy exclaimed, waving her hooves dismissively. “Cultural differences, Vinyl. The Trottingham use of the word is not remotely sexual. Here it means ‘to headbutt’.”

“Whuh… I headbutted him?!”

”Mmmhmm. Pretty hard too, it knocked you both out cold. Though it seems even in your fit of rage, you had enough sense to turn your head slightly at the last moment. Otherwise Father would have ended the evening skewered like a kebab. Unfortunately your logical reasoning must have already been skewered, as you turned your head so that you hit him with the bump that you recieved from Bleathman this morning.”

“How long was I out?”

”Not terribly long, about half an hour. Just enough time for us to summon an ambulance and get you both here. They tried to throw your glasses away, but luckily you’ve got me here, I wouldn’t let them. You started rolling around and moaning just after they hooked you up with all the tubes and wires.”

“And er…” I went to scratch my elbow, but some of the wires caught on the frame of the bed. “What about your old man, how’s he doing?”

She shrugged. “I can honestly say that I don’t know right now. He was still unconscious in the ambulance, Mother accompanied him away and I insisted that I was to stay with you.”

A pang of guilt hit me. ‘Don’t rise to anything’, that was the only damn request she’d made, and I couldn’t even pull that off. Jeez… talk about muddying the water. Sure, Staccato did a good job of that himself, but I sure as shit hadn’t helped.

“So, what now?” I asked.

Octy scratched her chin. “Well… the way I see it, you’ve put yourself in a favourable position with Father. By which I mean, favourable for you.”

”Huh? Whadda ya mean?”

“Well, in Trottingham high society, secrets are a second currency, and scandal can tear an entire family tree up from its roots. While we were in the ambulance, I informed Mother of exactly what it is you’ve found out, and no doubt she will pass this on to Father when he wakes up. You stumbled onto something he’s kept secret for twenty years, and if news broke about it, his reputation would be in tatters. He’d be a social pariah. And currently, the power to bring him down like that is entirely in your hooves.”

Huh.

”And… what do you think I should do?”

Her eyes met mine. “Vinyl, I want you to do what you think is best.”

This was… huh. Yeah. A pretty weird situation. After feeling like I’d been on the back hoof with Staccato all day, being suddenly thrown into a position of power was not at all what I expected.

“But, if the news broke, everypony would know about you. How could I expose you like that?”

”I don’t care,” she said simply. “This isn’t my home, so I really don’t care. My home is back in Ponyville with you. So what if a few pampered pricks find out I was assigned male at birth? Their judgement means nothing to me.”

That’s my mare. Screw what everypony else thinks.

“But honestly,” she continued. “If you’ve currently got leverage on your side, you’d be wiser to think about how you could use that as a defensive tool, not as a weapon.”

”Meaning what, exactly?”

”Let’s not mince words Vinyl, you just assaulted Father.”

It took a few seconds for the implications of what she was saying to really hit home. Yeah, the thought of Staccato being torn down and suffering the consequences of his shitty actions was pretty sweet. And very tempting. Or, I could go home peacefully with Octavia, back to Ponyville. Back where we both belong.

“Okay,” I said. “I want to go see him.”

This… turned out to be a hassle in itself. You see, it ain’t like the movies at all, when you get a bonk on the head. In the movies, the hero gets knocked unconscious, wakes up, kills all the bad guys and saves the girl. But in reality, even being knocked out for a short amount of time can carry with it some serious risks. My mind was still a little hazy, and apparently the only reason my head wasn’t throbbing like a bitch was because of the high strength painkillers they were feeding me through a tube. The doctors didn’t want me going anywhere until they ran some tests.

Luckily, Octavia is real good at diplomacy. The doctor who… I don’t know the technical terms, but basically, the one who knows the most about head injuries? He wasn’t going to be available for another couple of hours. So Octy managed to negotiate a wheelchair that she’d use to escort me to Staccato’s room, with all my drips and beep boop machinery on this little wheeled platform that could be pulled along behind. I don’t think this was strictly allowed, like at all, but Octy’s scarily good at her ‘can I speak to your manager’ voice. The other room wasn’t that far away, and even though I was holding all the cards, I still felt real nervous sitting there in my standard issue blue hospital gown as Octavia knocked on the door. Apparently the medics had no choice but to cut me out of the red gown Allegra had lent me...

”You ready?” Octy asked.

I just nodded.

The door cracked open an inch. “Oh, Octavia dear,” gasped Allegra, who threw it open the rest of the way. “And Vinyl, oh my poor darling, you’re awake.”

“Hi… Allegra,” I grinned. I hadn’t expected to feel this awkward, especially as somewhere in the back of my mind I couldn’t stop wondering about the price tag of that now-shredded gown. “If err… if it’s okay, I’d like to talk to Staccato.”

“Oh…” Allegra’s face took on a serious note that I’d yet to see from her. “Yes, I think that would be a good idea. Please, come inside, he’s awake as well.”

She stepped aside and Octavia pushed me into the room. And sure enough, there on the bed was Staccato. Like me, his forehead was wrapped up in a bandage. His eyes widened as he noticed me, and then his face took on a new expression. Which made it a grand total of four expressions I’d counted from him so far, at least I think. I’ve had a few pummels to the head today so my counting might be off.

Staccato was wary. He leaned ever so slightly away from me as Octy pushed my wheelchair right up to his bed, and looked me up and down like I was some kind of dangerous weapon. Like, in his head, he was trying to make a decision between fight or flight. At that moment it looked like flight was winning, but like me he was hooked up to all that usual hospital garb, so he wasn’t going anywhere. Allegra went round to the other side of his bed and stood by his side. She was still wearing her purple dress, and her makeup was patchy and rain-damaged.

“Relax dude,” I said. “I ain’t here to finish the job.”

“Ah,” he replied, the tension ebbing out of his shoulders, but he still looked uneasy. “Good.”

“So firstly,” I continued, looking back and forth between Staccato and Allegra. “I just wanted to tell you, I am so sorry about your son, Symphonic. I can’t begin to imagine how hard that must’ve been for you guys.”

Yep, that caught them both off-guard. Tears welled up in Allegra’s eyes as a hoof shot to her mouth. She was trying to suppress a sob. And Staccato, he just looked surprised. Then he gave a small nod that might have been in gratitude, but was equally likely his way of saying ‘please continue’.

“Secondly, I would like to propose a deal. I know something that you don’t want anypony to ever find out. In exchange for my sworn silence on that subject, you agree not to press charges against me for our little err… altercation over dinner.”

Not even a moment of hesitation. “Agreed,” said Staccato, who held his hoof out towards me. Which I wasn’t expecting, at all. But… never leave a pony hanging, right? So I reached out, and tapped my own hoof to his. Which apparently was not what he was trying to do, because he scoffed indignantly, Allegra let out a small chuckle, and Octavia sighed loudly behind me.

“Vinyl dear,” Octy whispered in my ear. “Hoofshake, not hoofbump.”

Oh. Duh.

I reached out again, grasped his hoof firmly in mine, and we both shook. He seemed more satisfied with that, and Octavia let out another sigh, though this one was of relief. At least I wasn’t gonna end up in a jail cell.

“Well,” Staccato said, his voice taking on some of the normal smug drawl I’d so grown to love over the course of the day. “I’m pleased that we can put that matter to bed. Was there anything else pressing on your mind, while you’re here?”

“Yeah, actually. Thirdly, I want to have a straight up honest conversation. No psychological warfare, no loaded comments, no trickery or subterfuge. Just a conversation where everypony says exactly what they mean.”

Subterfuge? Where’d I pull that word out from? But it was true, I was tired of all the tiptoeing around. And Staccato looked taken aback by that.

”Tell you what, since you were so nice to make the first move towards that at dinner, I’ll lay out all my cards for you. My name is Vinyl Scratch, known professionally as DJ Pon-3 but I leave that title at work. I’m a lesbian, and I am head-over-hooves in love with your daughter. I have photophobia and ADHD. I’m impulsive, loudmouthed, and probably a little too quick to jump into a fight. But ponies take all this and assume they know everything there is to know about me. I’m not an idiot though, I like to think I’m kinda smart when I need to be, but ADHD is the enemy of focus so my academic scores are nothing to brag about. But what I do have is good insight and observation, and you’ve told me everything I need to know about you.”

“Oh indeed,” he scoffed, going to cross his forelegs but, like me, got the wires caught on his bedframe. “And what information have you gleaned from me during your observations?”

”Your name is Staccato Melody. Given your domineering personality, I’d say you were an only child, very used to getting your own way. And you probably had a very traditional upbringing, ‘the stallion of the house is the head of the house, what he says goes’. He brings home the bread and his wife and children grovel at his hooves. In fact, grovel is probably an understatement, I’d say you and your mom were probably terrified of your dad, so why shouldn’t your wife and child be scared of you? You spent some time in the military, naturally, serving your princess and your country. And you bury yourself in your status and your work to hide from the fact that you perpetually mourn the loss of one son to cruel fate, and the other to the fact that she had her own plans for life that didn’t align with yours.”

His face during my spiel was a pretty damn spectacular sight. It jumped from indifference, to surprise, to shock, but as I wrapped up, it devolved back into his favourite, the cold emotionless stare. Allegra could barely look at me, her ears folded back in stunned silence as she examined the sheets on the bed.

”And how, pray tell, did you deduce that I spent ‘some time’ in the military?”

I shrugged. “Easy, it never leaves you. Your stiff posture, the way you carry yourself, even your military standard short mane that you’ll never bring yourself to grow out. It was definitely a position of authority, I wanna say you made it as far as a colonel? And one of the perks of the rank of commissioned officers is a personal slave… sorry, an ‘orderly’ as you would call him. So you were never left wanting for anything, even in the armed forces. And who knows, maybe you even grew fond of your new assistant, enough to offer him a position in your family home after your honourable discharge. A position as a butler, maybe? How am I doing, am I in the right ballpark?”

“More or less, yes.” The scowl on his face said everything I needed to. “So how precisely did you surmise all of this?”

”I’m not as dumb as you seem to think. Just… observation. Insight, and one or two educated guesses.”

“Is that a fact?” he asked, his eyeline wandering aimlessly around the room. “It appears I have underestimated you then.”

Oh, I couldn’t keep it up any longer. “Of course I didn’t guess all that, you idiot,” I laughed. “Octy told me all about you, weeks before we came here. I didn’t need to ‘observe’ it. But for a moment, you thought I had. And that’s the point, even if I ain’t got the smarts to actually try and deduce stuff like that, I still got you to doubt your judgement. And if you thought you could be wrong about me, don’t you think you could be wrong about other stuff too?”

”I don’t follow.”

“Your daughter, dude.”

His wandering eyes froze, and he turned his head to look over my shoulder, where Octavia was stood. Ugh, dios mio, again with the unreadable facial expressions. But his eyes seemed… I dunno, unfocused? He looked her up and down, and whatever he was seeing, all his energy seemed to be going into processing the visual inputs. Oh, and keeping his face stoic, of course. Luna forbid he let an emotion slip out right now.

”You lost a child, dude,” I pressed on. “And I cannot overstress that I sympathise with you on that. But you still have one, right here. One that you chose to tell the world isn’t actually yours. Why?”

Staccato’s face twisted into a snarl. “Why?! Because he was supposed to be my heir! Oh I was overjoyed when Allegra’s scans came back to show she was expecting twins. Two strapping young colts, an heir and a spare, to continue my bloodline. But no, one of them couldn’t survive the rotten pustule she calls a womb, and the other chose to turn his back on his intended path to mutilate himself and parade around under the pretence of femininity. You ask me if I could be wrong about other things? My bloodline ends with a half-formed fetus, and a freak against nature, and I am certain of that.”

Okay, so he really is a rotten piece of shit. And he’s damn lucky I was confined to a chair at that moment, as he earned a hoofslap at least three times during that rant. Allegra had gasped in horror at the comment aimed at her, but Octavia hadn’t responded to anything. I tilted my head slightly, to try and look round at her, but all I saw was a stony calm on her face. A well-rehearsed veil, like she’s heard this kind of stuff a million times before. Oh… Octy…

“Alright,” I said, maintaining my composure as best I could. “So now your priorities are out in the open, it was all about having an obedient little colt to carry on the family name. So when Octy came out, why didn’t you let her do her own thing and you could just, I dunno, try again?”

“Vinyl, dear,” Allegra began. “I wish it was that simple, but…”

Whoosh. Thud. It happened so quickly, I didn’t have time to process it until Allegra stumbled backwards, clutching her face as she let out a wail. I couldn’t believe it. One swift movement of Staccato’s foreleg, a sickening crack as his hoof impacted Allegra’s muzzle, and then my body flooded with adrenaline. I understood now, I’d been right. And damnit, I’d prayed I was wrong, in fact I would have given anything for it to just be an overly active piece of imagining on my part. But the flinches from both Allegra and Octavia made sense now. Staccato was an abuser.

As Allegra slumped against the wall behind her, Staccato adjusted himself in bed to sit slightly more upright. By the way he looked, you’d think he’d have just dealt with an inconvenient problem. Hitting his wife, to him, seemed no more inconsequential an act than swatting an annoying bug.

”Leave us,” he said, softly.

With a whimper, Allegra scrambled to her hooves and dashed to the door. Her movement was awkward as she held one hoof to her face, and she seemed to fumble with the door handle for a few moments before she finally got it open. When it slammed shut again, I gave another glance backwards at Octy. Her calm veil was still holding strong, with only the glassy look in her eyes betraying any emotional distress.

”You ask me,” Staccato growled. “Why I did not simply make another attempt to impregnate my wife?”

I turned back to face him, and felt my ears droop as the look on his face turned into one of seething hatred.

“Well, Miss Scratch. Clearly your powers of deduction far exceed my own, if only I had thought to attempt such a thing. But I daresay my attempts would have fallen short, as unfortunately my wife’s first endeavour towards pregnancy left her womb unsuitable for any further attempts. Had I known she was not fit for breeding, I assure you I would have courted somepony else. But as a wretched homosexual, I’m hardly surprised that the intricacies of copulation are a mystery to you.”

”She… what... but…”

“And what else could I do? Yes I had sympathy on my side when we lost Symphonic, but the scandal that would have broken after Philharmonic… ugh. Maybe I could have courted a mistress? Oh the tabloids would have just eaten that up, poor Staccato Melody, deranged and in grief after the loss of his second son, finds solace in another mare but brings a bastard child into the world. No amount of sympathy to my plight would salvage the damage to my reputation.”

I found my hooves again. “Alright, you’d claimed Octy was adopted, why not just adopt a colt instead if having a male child was that damn important?!”

“Because I’d already backed myself into a corner you fool,” he shouted back at me. “To think how I’d be viewed by my peers if I admitted that I’d allowed my son to debase himself in such an affront to nature. And to add insult to injury, my wife insisted that I bankroll the entire process?! If I have one regret in my life, it’s that I didn’t put my hoof down and stop that nonsense before it got too far. I was too soft when Philharmonic was a child, I wish I had the backbone back then that I do now. No, the adoption story was the only way. But the cover-up was that we only adopted a filly because we were touched by how strong a resemblance there was to our lost son. A story which would fall apart if we adopted a colt.”

“Listen to yourself,” I gasped, not quite able to believe what the dude was saying. “You care more about what other ponies think than you do your own daughter’s happiness and well-being. Yeah you paid for her to transition, but you didn’t give her an ounce of moral support. Fuck me, you made her feel like it was something to be ashamed of. And for what, all in the name of tradition?”

“Tradition is all we have!”

”Tradition is just peer pressure from dead ponies!”

“Oh will you both shut up!”

Both me and Staccato jumped as Octavia thrust herself right into the middle of the fray. I hadn’t even realised how loud we’d been shouting until the quietness of the room deafened me. And for a few moments, the only sounds were the steady beeping of the various pieces of hospital machinery, and the heaving breaths of Staccato and me.

“Vinyl,” Octy said, facing me. “Please, allow me.”

”No, Octy I…”

“Please. Let me say my peace.” Her gaze pierced me like a knife, but… that look of determination on her face. She had to do this for herself.

”Okay,” I conceded.

“Father,” she began, turning to Staccato. “Firstly, I feel like I should clarify something on Vinyl’s part. I gather that in a similar vein to how you thoroughly research the background of anypony wanting to do business with you before you sign into a contract, you had your underlings gather information regarding Vinyl as well?”

“Naturally,” Staccato replied evenly. He had returned to old faithful stoic-mode, but there was no hiding the rise and fall of his chest as he regained energy after our argument. “I don’t allow anypony into my home without thoroughly researching them.”

“So would I be right in assuming that among those research materials there was included a newspaper clipping, a few years old, regarding an altercation with another pony named Neon Lights?”

”That is correct.”

”Aw fuck.”

”Vinyl, hush.”

”Sorry.”

“What the newspaper fails to mention,” Octavia continued. “Is the provocation that led Vinyl to lash out and attack Neon Lights in the first place.”

Staccato raised an eyebrow. “And what provocation was that?”

”Neon Lights was incredibly inebriated that night. And there may have been more illicit substances involved, but that’s purely speculation. Regardless, at one point in the evening, his inhibitions dropped and suddenly I found myself squarely in his crosshairs. Vinyl and I weren’t formally together at this point, but we’d… ermm… experimented together, shall we say?”

I think at this point Octy was too wrapped up in remembering the details of the story, because if she caught the look of pure disgust that Staccato wore in response to that sentence, she didn’t react to it.

“Regardless,” she said. “I found myself to be the subject of his desires, and he wasn’t overly receptive to being told ‘no’. In fact after repeated attempts failed, and despite my efforts to inform him that I simply had no interest in stallions, he proceeded to force himself upon me. It was during this that the performance Vinyl had been giving drew to a close, and when she saw Neon Lights atop me and my desperate attempts to get away… well, the headlines explain everything else.”

Yeah… it’s not my proudest moment. Neon had to get stitches after that, and you can still see the scar to this day. Looking back, I don’t remember much about the actual assault. I think I had another ‘seeing red’ moment and just… all I remember is coming to and wondering why my hooves hurt. I never expected it to happen again, but tonight was an extreme case. Perhaps I need to think about anger management therapy.

“So,” Octavia concluded. “Do not judge her too harshly for that incident. She was defending me. End of story.”

Staccato seemed to be mulling that over. “Okay then, child. Anything else?”

Octy sighed. “Yes. I can’t keep the pretences up any longer. The weight is too much. I thought I had accepted my lot in life, but the way you talk about me, like me being myself is such a burden on you… it’s not something I can bear any longer.”

“Stuff and nonsense, child,” Staccato chided. “I thought I raised you to have more backbone.”

“Vinyl is right though, tradition is just peer pressure from dead ponies. And it’s that tradition that made you put up walls between us, when I started to live my life as the pony I truly am. Please Father, let us break that wall down together. Tell everypony who I really am. I am your child, your daughter. I am transgender, and so, so proud to say it. That should never have to be a point of shame for you. I know there’d be a lot of work into rebuilding our relationship, but I’m willing to put in the effort if you are.”

My jaw dropped. After everything that had happened, everything Staccato had done, Octy was giving him a chance to clean the slate. Damn, this mare was too pure for this world, way too willing to forgive and forget. This stallion was single-hoofedly responsible for her seeing herself as some freak of nature for almost her entire life. The reason she’d never had the courage to tell me that she’d been born as a colt. And here she was, throwing him an olive branch.

A shaky hoof slowly rose up from the bed, moving towards Octavia’s face. My heart stopped for a moment, but it came to rest gently against the side of her muzzle. And just… held her there. Could… could her words have gotten through to him? She let out a sob, and leaned into the hoof as tears started flowing down her cheeks.

”Octavia…” Staccato whispered.

“Yes, yes Father,” she laughed, her voice bordering on hysterics as the fur on her muzzle began to darken with tears. “We can start again, I just know we can.”

But Staccato pulled his hoof away, resting it on the side of his bed. He stared up at her, and gave the most barely perceptible shake of his head. “I lost one son,” he muttered. “And then you took the other one away...”

His hoof twitched. Time seemed to stand still as I saw what was coming, just a fraction of a second before it happened. Adrenaline surged through my system as I tried to push myself up out of my wheelchair, to stop it in any way I could. But I wasn’t fast enough. Up, his hoof swung.

THWACK!

I stared in silent shock. Staccato gasped. Octavia sobbed. In mid-air, she’d intercepted his hoof with her own. Now she was pinning it back down on the bed, trembling furiously as she held her other hoof high above her head, readying a strike of her own in reply.

“I didn’t take anypony away from you,” Octy said, her voice shaky. “Philharmonic Melody never existed. He was simply a mask I was forced to wear for the earliest part of my life. If I am guilty of anything, it is purely that I had the audacity to remove that mask.”

Staccato looked in disbelief from her face, to her hoof pinning his own down. “How dare you?! You… you insolent wretch!”

Octavia cackled maniacally. “Oh, oh I dare, Father!” She leaned in so her face was inches from his, her teary eyes wild and feral. “I dare to free myself from the shackles you imposed upon me from birth! Even before I found out who I truly was, my life was never really my own, now was it? Oh it was all set out for me, everything was written, your perfect son would go on to inherit your vast fortune. Well you know what!? Fuck your fortune, fuck your perfect little story, and fuck you!”

At this point, Octy was even scaring me. This was a side of her I’d never seen before. And Staccato… oh, that dude definitely pissed himself as his wild-eyed daughter got right up in his grill. So much for being the all-knowing, unconquerable head of the household. No, he was getting some much needed comeuppance now. I liked the words she was saying to him, even if the way she said them was damn terrifying.

“And your bloodline?” she continued, practically foaming at the mouth. “Your bloodline dies with you. Oh Father, you have my gratitude for financing my transition, don’t ever doubt that. But you get nothing else from me. Not now, not ever again. When the history books look back on Staccato Melody, all that there shall be is a footnote calling him a miserable, abusive twat whose pathetic desire to keep himself relevant in high society cost him his family.”

She turned and stormed towards the door, leaving both me and Staccato in stunned silence. I mean, good for her, she really did say her peace. There was a lot to unpack from her words, and they’d definitely been a long time coming. The only problem was, these words came from a broken heart. As she pushed past me, I got a look at her face. Her eyes. Those little diamonds… they’d shattered.

“You lost one son,” she cried as she stopped at the door. She wasn’t even trying to hide the fact that her anger had made way for just… unrelenting pain. “Most ponies would use that as an eye-opener to what really matters. We could have been a happy family. And you threw it away. You did that. Change your ways, or you will die a very lonely stallion.”

And with that, she threw the door open and left. Echoing hoofsteps faded away as she ran down the corridor, with the unmistakable sound of hysterical crying mixed in just to wrench my heart out of my chest.

When I could no longer hear her, I turned back to face Staccato. Oh, his face… this was the best expression of the day. Utter disbelief and horror. How dare he be spoken to in such a way, right? Well she dared. She gave him exactly the verbal assault he deserved. And I didn’t want to spend another minute in a room with him.

Yeah, it was probably pretty stupid, but fuck everything. I started unhooking all the wires and tubes connected to my forelegs. The machine beeped at me in protest, but screw it. I didn’t care. I just had to get out of there. After I very carefully removed a needle several inches long from my wrist, I looked myself up and down to make sure I’d gotten them all. Then, I rose to my hooves and glared at the stallion in the bed. As I ripped off my hospital gown, I had a moment of clarity. The only thing that had been scary about Staccato Melody was the hold he’d had over Octavia. With that gone… he was just a pathetic old stallion with bigoted views and too much money.

He grunted in surprise as I threw the blue gown in his face. Oh there was so much I wanted to say to him. There weren’t enough words in existence for me to stress enough to him how much of a piece of shit he was. How he deserved everything that had just come to him. And that I seriously hoped he spent the rest of his life in misery, squalor and loneliness. But, I settled for one of my abuela’s favourite insults.

“Que te chingue un pez espada,” I said, just about keeping my voice steady, and then I left. I didn’t look back.

On the bench outside, Allegra was waiting. She looked up at me in confusion as the door clicked shut. Oh, her eye… there was already a giant bruise forming, and everything around that eye was swollen and puffy.

”What’s wrong?” she asked.

”Just... karma,” I explained. “You should go get that eye checked out, y’know.”

“Oh err…” she seemed to stumble at the suggestion, like the idea hadn’t even occured to her. “I shall do, darling, I just wanted to make sure you were both okay first. But then Octavia just went careening off down the corridor, crying her eyes out.”

“We’re both fine,” I said. “Well… not fine but, we’ll be… I don’t know, okay. Just, which way did Octy go?”

Allegra pointed. “That way.”

”Thanks,” I said, breaking into a run down the corridor. I made it a few metres before I stopped. “Hey, Allegra?” I called back.

She looked at me, puzzled. “Yes dear?”

”Your whole family was in on the moonshining, right? So how’d you end up meshing into the high society stuff?”

”Oh, umm…” she leant back in her chair, bemused by the question. “Well, once the prohibition era ended, they continued running the distillery they’d set up on the outskirts of Trottingham. Except, they didn’t need to be so ‘cloak and dagger’ any more, as it was no longer illegal, so they brewed scotch whiskeys instead. It was a profitable venture, they purchased parcels of land to open a vineyard as well, expanding into wine production. By the time my father was born, they were an established fixture of Trottingham culture.”

”So, your whole family is wealthy?”

”Err… a somewhat impertinent question, but yes.”

“Did you and Staccato sign a pre-nuptial?”

”I say Vinyl, this is getting somewhat…”

”Please! Just… I don’t have time, just answer the question.”

She paused. “Yes, we did. Our family fortunes were to remain separate.”

“Okay,” I said, breathing a sigh of relief. “Run. Divorce him and run. He is pure scum, and you’ll be better off without him. I think it’s fair to say Octy just cut him out of her life, and please, for your own sake, you should do the same.”

I didn’t wait to hear what she had to say in reply. All I could think of at that moment was catching up to Octavia. So I just… ran. I figured she’d want some fresh air after her face-to-face with her old man, so I followed the signs for the exit. Some of the hospital staff in white uniforms must’ve recognised me, as they shouted for me to stop. They told me I needed to go lie down, they needed to keep me for observations. So I just shouted back that they could observe my asshole as I went out the front door.

Mature? Not really. But I didn’t care, I had no time to stop for anypony that wasn’t Octavia right now, and it felt good to vent a bit of frustration too.

Smart? Again, not really. With the whack on my head, leaving the hospital right now was probably the dumbest thing I could do, but I was on a roll with the bad decisions tonight, and at this point it was a sunk cost.

As I ran, I noticed blood trickling from the spot on my wrist where I’d pulled the really big needle out. As soon as I was sure there was nopony chasing me, I dove into a bathroom door. Very quickly, I ripped the bandage off of my head and tied it around my wrist and hoof. Hopefully that’d stay in place long enough to stop the bleeding. And with that, I poked my head out the door to make sure the coast was clear, and continued running.

Eventually, I burst through a set of glass double doors into the night. The very rainy night. Octy stood just a few metres away, facing outwards into the darkness. Her whole body shook violently as she wailed and sobbed. And my heart fucking ripped in half.

I raced to her side, pulling her in tight. She almost seemed to act on instinct as her hooves clamped around me. The fact we were both getting soaked with rain went unnoticed by her as she buried her face in my chest and howled, letting all her pent up pain and frustration out in one horrible symphony of heartbreak that felt like icicles in my heart.

I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what to do.

Here we were, hundreds of miles from home, with rain drumming down on us, and we had nowhere to fucking go. As I’d left Allegra behind, I only had one objective in my mind: catch up to Octavia. But then I realised, it was like a dog chasing a carriage. I’d caught her, so now what?

And then the universe must’ve looked down on us and figured we’d been through enough shit for one day, because it threw us a lifeline. Funny how I’d thought about dogs chasing carriages, as one with a familiar sign lit up on its roof started passing us by at that exact moment. A carriage, not a dog. Obviously.

”Hey, woah. Taxi!” I shouted.

True to my expectations, I don’t sleep a wink. Octavia manages it, and I figure of the two of us, she’s probably the one who needs it more. Exhaustion creeps up towards me, and my rational thinking comes and goes in waves. The dark room begins to light up as the sun starts to rise, and I think the painkillers they had me on at the hospital are starting to finally wear off. Though, weirdly, my head doesn’t hurt as bad as I thought it would. Maybe my rain soaked scalp helped cool the swelling? I dunno, I ain’t a doctor.

I watch, almost transfixed as the dying potted plant in the room begins to brighten. Shadows form behind it as the light gradually intensifies. The deep blue light fades slowly to orange, and when sunlight finally breaches the decaying room, it instantly warms me.

Octy stirs slightly as the room lightens around us. However, the warmth only spreads. I don’t know what time the storm finally passed us by last night, but from where I’m sat I can just about see the sky outside as the sun makes its relentless climb upwards. It’s a clear and cloudless day today. Huh. It couldn’t have been a day earlier?

Exhaustion must have been dragging me down, because I barely even reacted when the door opened and a stallion stepped in. Judging by his uniform and the whistle hanging from his shirt pocket, he probably worked for the rail company.

”Oh bloody hell,” he exclaims when he sees us on the bench. “Bloody vagrants, you couldn’t have found somewhere else to kip last night? You’d best be getting on the first train out of here, you mark my words, else I’ll be ringing the coppers. You hear?”

I give a limp nod in reply, and he steps through a doorway into the information booth to start sorting though leaflets.

If he's here starting a shift, then that must mean the first train will be here soon. What time is our train again? I don’t know where I put the timetable, but I vaguely recall the number seven being significant, so more than likely, it’s a seven o’clock train. I manage to sum up the energy to ask the clerk what time it was, to which he grumpily points to the old clock on the wall (which I’d totally forgotten about) and says it is half past six.

Hehehe, somepony hasn’t had his morning coffee…

The thought of coffee is enough to stir me. I turn to eye up the machine next to one of the benches, but… nope. Not gonna move Octy just yet. She’s able to disconnect from everything enough to sleep, and I damn well ain’t gonna deprive her of that until I actually have to. Time marches slowly past, and I briefly allow myself to bask in the comfort of the gradually-warming room.

And then my ears flick. Is it my imagination or was that… nope, that is definitely a train whistle in the distance. Chugging noises accompany it, and at the information booth the clerk starts busying himself even more with his organising of all the leaflets. I’ll admit, I’m not looking forward to what lies ahead. There is so much me and Octy have to unpack from the last twenty-four hours. But I love her. And she loves me. Together, we’ve got this. I know we do.

”Octy,” I whisper, giving her the gentlest shake I can manage. “Wake up, it’s time to go home.”

Epilogue

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