Cigarettes and coffee, that's a combination.
Raindrops banged against a metal roof, causing the patrons to look at the flickering lights unsurely. Most of them didn’t even plan to go to that small, roadside bar in the first place. The owner must’ve had some friends in a local weather team – it was the only explanation for the torrents of rain that had made all the ponies in the nearby street look for shelter in the shady diner, smelling of sweat, wet coats, and coffee.
Vinyl looked at the battered cup in front of her. She didn’t trust the food served there, but she had to admit that the coffee wasn’t bad. Hot, black, with a thick layer of grounds at the bottom of the cup – a bitter caffeine bomb that was making her stomach twist and her brain going into overdrive. She took a sip and winced. She actually had nothing against milk or sugar in her coffee, but the foul weather was making her sleepy, and taking a nap in a place like that could mean waking up in a bath full of ice, being about 170 grams lighter.
“Excuse me, can I sit here?” somepony asked.
“Yeah, sure,” Vinyl replied. The cup of coffee was currently the only thing that existed in her entire universe. Only after a minute or so, she raised her head and looked at a blue pegasus whose white mane was hanging flat against her temples, making her look miserable.
“How’s the coffee?” the mare asked.
“If you have an ulcer, it’ll burn a hole in your stomach,” Vinyl replied, looking at the muddy substance at the bottom of her cup. Either she was a really bad clairvoyant, or her future involved a trip to Hayseed Swamps.
“Works for me,” the mare said.
“Take a whole pot,” Vinyl muttered, her eyes still fixed on the cup, as if she was trying to levitate it without using her horn. “It seems that I’ll have to spend some more time in here...”
“It seems so,” the mare said. She looked at Vinyl and smirked. “I think I know you...”
Vinyl groaned. “I knew it. Even when I don’t have my glasses, somepony has to blow my cover.” She looked at her interlocutor closer. “Though, actually... Where did you leave your goggles and suit, Ms. Wonder–”
“Shh...” The mare glared daggers at Vinyl. “Fleetfoot. There are twenty thousand Fleetfoots in Equestria, nopony will get suspicious...”
“Yeah, right...” Vinyl muttered. “I thought the same when I was in Stalliongrad. I almost got trampled, smothered, and ripped apart by a bunch of thirteen-year-olds...”
“Such things happen.” Fleetfoot nodded. “Guess it’s just another downside of being famous,” she said, lowering her voice to a whisper.
“You don’t say.” Vinyl sighed. “Some fan sent me a letter written in her own blood. She thought it was romantic. Do you know how blood smells like after a week? Like rotten eggs.”
“I was just thinking about grabbing something to eat, but I think I’ll only get the coffee...” Fleetfoot muttered.
“Trust me, it’s better for you,” Vinyl said. “Food here is a bunch of carbohydrates and fats thrown together into a bowl and mixed with salt and chilli so you don’t feel the taste.”
“Maybe...” Fleetfoot muttered. A waitress, a young filly with indifferent expression walked to their table and put a pot of coffee and a cup for Fleetfoot on it. Then she vanished as quickly as she’d appeared before. “Well, it can’t be worse than what I have to eat. You know, you weigh a few pounds more than you should and Spitfire’s on your ass...”
“Sad,” Vinyl said. She poured Fleetfoot and herself a cup of coffee. She levitated her cup. “For Spitfire...”
Fleetfoot took a sip of her coffee. “Spitfire’s not that bad. Ring Out is worse...”
“Who’s he?” Vinyl asked, taking a large swig of her coffee and hissing when it burned her mouth.
“Our masseur. Torturer wannabe.” Fleetfoot stretched her wings. “It feels like somepony removed all your bones and then put them back.”
Vinyl nodded. “After one of my early gigs, I slept in an old cart, next to the speakers and all my equipment. When I woke up, my friend had to take me to the orthopaedist in that cart...”
“And what did he say?” Fleetfoot asked.
“That I have magnesium deficiency and that I shouldn’t drink so much coffee.” Vinyl shrugged and took a sip. “So I started to eat chocolate. After a few months, I broke the cart when I sat in it.”
“I started to train because my mother thought I was fat,” Fleetfoot lowered her voice to a whisper. “Even when I became a Wonderbolt, she only said that now I should try even harder.”
“Really? Mine keeps saying that I looked cute.” Vinyl patted her flank. “She says that now I look like a coat hanger. Every gig is like a few hours in the gym, you know...”
“Well, I spent way too many hours in the gym,” Fleetfoot replied. “And I hate it. Flying is cool, but gym... Eww...” She rolled her eyes. “Exercise, diet, massages, diet, smile and wave at the reporters, go to sauna, exercise more, go to a training, try to look fresh despite getting only three hours of sleep...” She took a sip of her coffee. “Still better than being in a weather team...”
“Weather team doesn’t sound bad.” Vinyl looked at the ceiling. “Seems that those guys have fun today...” She levitated a pack of cheap cigarettes. “You don’t mind?”
“Don’t worry about me,” Fleetfoot said, looking at the cigarettes. “Umm... Would you be so kind...”
“A sportsmare, huh?” Vinyl chuckled and levitated the pack to Fleetfoot.
“What Spitfire doesn’t know won’t hurt her...” Fleetfoot muttered, taking a cigarette.
“That’s the spirit, girl,” Vinyl said. “Besides, my grandfather, Phonograph Cylinder, used to smoke sixty cigarettes a day and he didn’t get cancer.”
“It’s genes, I guess,” Fleetfoot muttered. “Our doctor loves talking about them. He even took blood samples from us to determine why we’re so good flyers...”
“Or maybe it was because he fell out of the window when I was three.” Vinyl shrugged. “Mommy couldn’t cope with that for long... Even though she was mad at him since he named her Shellac...”
“That doesn’t sound like a bad name...” Fleetfoot looked at her cigarette unsurely, realising that something was missing. “Have you got a light?”
“Don’t need one. Look!” Vinyl levitated a cigarette and charged her horn. With a quiet “pop!”, the cigarette started to burn. Then Vinyl did the same to lit Fleetfoot’s cigarette. “Well, Shellac is nice, but... Phonograph Cylinder... Shellac... Vinyl... You get the idea?”
Fleetfoot shrugged. She inhaled the smoke and started to cough. “Geez!” she exclaimed as soon as she regained an ability to breathe. “What are they made of?”
“Dunno, but the price tells me that they simply dust the floor in the factory, roll the cigarette from that and old newspapers and sell it,” Vinyl said, blowing the smoke out. “When I was younger, I had no money and I got used to those...”
“Before or after your lungs turned to ashes?” Fleetfoot asked. She drank the rest of her coffee and put a cigarette back in her mouth. The coffee acted as local anaesthetic, so she didn’t cough her bronchi out.
“Dunno,” Vinyl said, refilling Fleetfoot’s cup and pouring another one to herself. “Anyway, when I have a child, I’m gonna give them some cool name. Blue Ray sounds cool, don’t you think?”
“Not bad.” Fleetfoot nodded. “Are you, umm... planning something?”
“Not yet,” Vinyl replied, blowing smoke through her nose. “Foals aren’t something you can make just like that...”
Fleetfoot chuckled. “Yeah, you need a bed for that... Or some remote cloud, if that’s what floats your boat.” She drank some of her coffee and shook the cigarette above an ashtray.
Vinyl scratched her mane. “I prefer more traditional approach, thank you,” she said. “I meant, I wouldn’t want to hurt the kid even before it’s born. First I’d give up this...” she waved her cigarette. “Then alcohol, coffee, all that stuff. Then I’d wait a year to make sure none of this shit is left in my system. And, of course, I’d have to find a stallion who wouldn’t be just an annoying attachment to a penis...”
“That’s... troublesome,” Fleetfoot muttered. “But, when I think about it, quite responsible.”
“I know...” Vinyl replied, nodding. “I did quite a few stupid things when I was younger and ponies think I’m dumb. Since then, I’m trying hard not to be dumb.”
“Yeah, ponies...” Fleetfoot crushed the cigarette butt in the ashtray. “Ponies say lots of things. I’m a jerk, Spitfire’s a jerk... Once I read in a newspaper that I had an affair with her.”
“Did you?” Vinyl chuckled. “It’s fine, by the way. And you don’t have to tell me...”
“I didn’t.” Fleetfoot took a large sip of her coffee. “With Spitfire? Geez... I don’t have masochistic tendencies. I had to put up with my mother and that’s enough...”
“Is it true what they say about her?” Vinyl asked, using the cigarette butt to light another cigarette.
“No, she doesn’t eat recruits for breakfast,” Fleetfoot replied. “At least, not all of them.”
“Good to know,” Vinyl said. “Seems that’s not gonna stop raining.”
“Meh.” Fleetfoot sighed. “If it weren’t for the rain, I’d be now lying curled in a bed in my hotel room, trying to catch some sleep before the evening training. Now I at least have somepony to talk to.”
“Same with me,” Vinyl inhaled the smoke and held her breath with her eyes closed, letting it fill her lungs. “My technical crew isn’t fun anymore since I gave up drugs.”
“You were–”
“I don’t wanna talk about that, okay?” Vinyl sighed. “It was only a few times, but still... In Vanhoover, I threw a dealer down the flight of stairs. I’m clean for two years.” She looked at her cigarette and a half-full cup of coffee in front of her. “Well, mostly clean. I prefer stuff that’ll kill me without turning me into a brainless wreck first...”
“Whatever suits you,” Fleetfoot said. “I’m not the one to judge. I did my share of stupid things too...”
“Like everypony else.” Vinyl blew out a wisp of smoke. “It’s kinda natural... You’re young, dumb, and whatever your parents do to protect you, you’ll do lots of stupid stuff...”
“Tell that to my mother.” Fleetfoot sighed and finished her coffee. “Do you know that I once ran away from home? I ended up in Manehattan and almost became a singer.”
“And what happened?” Vinyl asked.
“I can’t sing and the rest of the girls were a bunch of jailbaits on a run, like me. We trashed the flat we lived in, our drummer ended up in a hospital and we stopped talking to each other. Vodka and teenage hormones don’t mix well.”
“Yeah...” Vinyl muttered. “I wanted to start a band too, but I’m not good when it comes to talking with other ponies. That’s why I became a DJ. You know, there’s a crowd around me, but, in some sense, there’s just me and the turntables.”
Fleetfoot clicked her tongue. “Who’d say? The most energetic DJ in Equestria is, in fact, a loner.”
Vinyl smirked. “Well, nopony would say that one of the best stuntmares in Equestria smokes, was in a rock band and has parental issues...”
“I only smoked one cigarette,” Fleetfoot muttered. “And you’ll soon poison the whole bar with them...”
“Nopony complains,” Vinyl muttered.
“They can hardly breathe and you want them to talk?” Fleetfoot shook her head. It seemed, however, that other patrons didn’t mind; they were too busy talking to each other. Also, the odour of cigarettes was only a small portion of the plethora of smells permeating the place.
Vinyl looked around, sniffed and smirked at Fleetfoot. “If you want, I can give you one more,” she said. “I shouldn’t smoke anyway...”
“Why not...” Fleetfoot muttered and took a cigarette from Vinyl. She looked at the empty pot. “Seems that we ran out of coffee...”
“I already had three, so I’ll pass,” Vinyl said. “Unless you can perform CPR...”
“I’d rather not,” Fleetfoot replied, waving her hoof at the waitress. “But I’ll take one for me...”
“Geez... You won’t be able to sleep.” Vinyl shook her head. “I’m pretty hyper, but I usually fall asleep everytime I’m doing nothing, no matter how much coffee I had.”
“Sleep is overrated.” Fleetfoot chuckled. “I had a dream recently that Spitfire and I were blowing up a changelings’ nest and all our friends died. Couldn’t sleep for days after that...”
Vinyl nodded, grinning. “Hmm... Going into a big hole in the ground to put explosives in it? I think I have an explanation...”
“Don’t make me punch you. I wouldn’t forgive myself that...” Fleetfoot blew out the smoke, once again wondering about her poor lungs.
“Hey, I didn’t even tell you my explanation...”
“Let’s say that I figured it out. How about you?” Fleetfoot asked. “Any dreams you wanna share?”
“Worst ones?” Vinyl scratched her mane. “Do you prefer the one about a local drunk beating me to death, the one about being on an airship that was about to explode, or the one about me stealing money from mafia?”
“That last one doesn’t sound bad...”
“Yeah, except mafia chased me throughout the whole Equestria, and I was stuck with two jerks who thought I was stupid,” Vinyl said. “You see, my dreams tend to be like that.”
The waitress brought a cup of coffee to Fleetfoot. The pegasus took a sip. “I usually dream about flying. Maybe it’s just some projection of what you do?”
“Yeah, because I totally steal mafia’s money...” Vinyl muttered. “Though I do have dreams about sitting in my basement and writing songs. They also get weird...”
“Or maybe it’s just too much caffeine and nicotine.” Fleetfoot blew out the smoke and drank some coffee. “Magnesium deficiency, breathing problems...”
“Thank you...” Vinyl muttered, glaring at Fleetfoot angrily. “You now sound like my mother, you know?”
“You should listen to her.” Fleetfoot smirked. “Exercise more...”
“I jog every day. And I use stairs instead of an elevator,” Vinyl said. “Also, it’s funny when a runaway kid tells me about listening to my parents...”
“Touché.” Fleetfoot chuckled. “But, as you said, I was a kid back then...”
“And now you listen to your mother?” Vinyl asked.
“No. We don’t talk to each other.” Fleetfoot inhaled the smoke and held it in her lungs for a while before exhaling.
“That’s sad,” Vinyl said and looked through the window. “Seems that it stopped raining.”
“Finally,” Fleetfoot muttered. She quenched her cigarette, finished her coffee, and got up from her seat.
“Leaving already?” Vinyl asked. “Was my company that bad?”
“No, it was good,” Fleetfoot said. “Just... I need some fresh air...”
Vinyl sniffed the air and winced. “Yeah, not a bad idea...” She stood up and stretched her hooves. “I guess the air is really fresh after the rain... What do you think about taking a little walk?”
“Works for me,” Fleetfoot said.
Together, they went out of the bar and went down the now-empty street.
