Vinyl sat on the floor of her makeshift studio, her head bobbing to the rhythm pumping from the speakers. Normally, both she and the well-worn boxes would be confined to her other studio- the one that Tavi called Vinyl’s ‘antechamber’- but her roommate was out at some audition or something. Honestly, Vinyl hadn’t been paying attention; when Octavia started talking about the cello, that was the sign for the little part of Vinyl’s brain associated with attention to turn itself off, only springing back to life when the earth pony mentioned she’d be gone for a couple of hours.
That was pretty much when she stopped paying attention again, instead devoting the energy between “yeah Tavi,” and “uh-huh” to creating a plan.
A plan which amounted to moving stuff downstairs and living like a rock god, but hey, it was a plan. It even had steps to it. Step one being ‘levitate things down’, and step two being ‘play awesome tunes’.
Tavi, of course, was sure to disagree. If you were going to do something, it had to be complicated and elaborate and well-planned out, with themes and counter-themes and all that other stuff that went into the Cello. Tavi seemed to think tying musical theory into everything was hilarious. She wouldn't approve of such a direct approach, or of the speakers, or of the music being channeled through them.
She also probably would have accused Vinyl of being lazy, which was patently untrue. Being Equestria’s number one DJ meant more than just being ahead of the curve; Vinyl had a reputation to uphold, a reputation that meant she had to listen to up and coming bands in the most acoustically-correct way possible.
Case in point; her detailed analysis had proved that this album had a pretty awesome bass line. She knew a club or two that would fit in perfectly for, with some tinkering of course. Like now; the vocals started again, and Vinyl could have sworn it sounded like her roommate was screeching at her-
She stopped head-banging long enough to look up, and look at Octavia. The mare’s normal grey coat was looked particularly reddish, her brown eyes shrunken to dots. Vinyl had a suspicion that it wasn't because the audition went badly.
She raised a hoof.
“Heya Tavi,” she said with a grin. “Take a load off and listen to this.”
Music had always seemed like the perfect problem-solver. Vinyl had lost count of how many times she had seen ponies fighting, only to be reconciled by an inexplicable song-and-dance routine. She was hoping that the song part would be enough to cool Octavia down.
Apparently, it wasn’t. “Vinyl! What did you do to our lounge?”
Behind her glasses, Vinyl blinked in confusion. “Our what? You mean the living room?”
“It has a coffee table, so that makes it a lou- you’re sitting where our coffee table is supposed to be. Vinyl, what did you do with my coffee table?”
Octy had a tendency to fixate on stupid things when she was upset. “Hey, Octy, relax. I know you’re attached to that thing, but I couldn’t have it clogging up my studio. I pushed it to the kitchen.”
Surprisingly, that didn't seem to make things better. Instead, Octavia’s eyes bulged and her mouth dropped. “You pushed- what do you mean studio? Vinyl, this is a living room, you can’t just turn it into your personal recording booth!”
“It’s not a recording booth. I’m not recording. It’s a studio. And I thought it was a lounge?”
“Who cares what it is, I can’t have guests in it without a coffee table!” That was going a bit far in Vinyl’s opinion; true, Octavia seemed to use that table for basically everything, but still…
“…So if you’re not using it, can I keep the speakers in here?”
Ponies- Octavia included- thought that Vinyl didn’t have an ear for music, that she compensated by playing things as loud as possible. That was completely and patently untrue. She might not have had Octy’s talent for it, but the unicorn was more than capable of differentiating between sounds. Case in point, there were at least, like, six tones of frustration working through Octavia’s scream.
“Okay, jeeze, no need to get defensive, Tavi. You coulda just said no.”
Octavia glared at her roommate, as Vinyl focused on the speakers; a light blue aura emerged from her horn and surrounded the instruments. The DJ backed away, leading them upstairs and back to her room; by the time she returned downstairs, Octavia had pushed the table back into the center of the studio- or was it a lounge again, now?- and was busy scrubbing at the armchairs. Vinyl peered over her friends shoulder, spotting the faint, black stains her tools had left behind.
“Hey, Tavi? Don’t touch that. Seriously. You do not want to know where that speaker was.” Vinyl started to laugh, while Octavia, once again, glared. “Trust me. You could get arrested, for reasons that may or may not involve illegal substances. Hypothetically.”
“Great, so I’m burning another arm cover. Wonderful.” Octavia sighed, taking a seat on the sofa, as far from the armchair as possible, dragging her Cello-case behind her. Vinyl took a seat on the other end of the sofa, ignoring her glares.
“Hey, Octy. Question. How come you get to put your instruments on the furniture, but when I do it, you go all Nightmare Philharmonica on me?”
Okay, from the way Octavia glared, that was probably the wrong thing to ask. “Because my cello is an elegant instrument, tuned and cared for by masters of the craft for decades.” She almost cradled it as she spoke. “My grandmother- the one whose coffee table you moved- bought her. My mother kept it tuned and kept up. It is the most important part of my heritage. It is more than just an instrument, it is a work of art. It, like my music, is classic.”
“My speakers are classic.”
“Being old and unkempt does not make your ‘boom boxes’ classic, Vinyl. It makes them old and unkempt.”
“…Did you seriously just call my Rolling Pones speakers boom boxes?”
“Well yes. That’s what they are, aren’t they?”
“Oh Tavi,” Vinyl said, trying not to snort with laughter. “Don’t change.”
Not that she would, of course; at least, not if the suspicious glare she gave Vinyl was any indication. Mare can’t even take a compliment…
“Anyway… what was that cacophony you were listening to, anyway? It sounded like somepony was trying to make a guitar while the cat was still alive.” After a moment of silence, Tavi’s smirk started to falter. “You see, classical guitars and other stringed instruments were made out of catgut. The name is actually a misnomer, since no cats are actually used for it, but the joke was that your music sounded like one. Get it?”
“I got the joke Octy. It wasn’t funny.”
The earth pony frowned. “But… wait. Then why are you laughing?”
“No reason.” Vinyl snorted, covering her mouth with a hoof. “Anyway… it’s Undergound stuff. You probably never heard of it.”
Octavia frowned again.
“Vinyl, are you trying to be ‘hip’ with me? Because I assure you, I have known plenty of Diamond Dog musicians, and whoever told you that caterwauling was Diamond Dog music was scamming yo as much as whoever it was that told you that you were buying Rolling Pones speakers.”
“First, stop the cat jokes, Octy, it’s never gonna be funny. Second… s’not that kinda underground. It’s Underground Music, with a capital U-an-M. Stuff that ponies don’t know about yet, artists who haven’t sold out. And I can’t tell if you are trying to say I’m cool, or calling me a hipster.”
Vinyl wrapped her magic around the record sitting on her playing, slipping it into the cover and levitating it towards her friend. She held it out in front, ready for Octavia to take… but judging by how she was trying to lean forward to look at the album while keeping her hooves as far away from it as possible, that probably wasn’t gonna happen.
“The TailFeathers,” Octavia muttered, squinting her eyes. “Vinyl, what are those griffon’s wearing?”
“I know, awesome, right?”
“More like garish. Did they dye their features? And why are they all giving me the middle-claw?” She sighed, leaning back, not seeming to notice as she straightened her bowtie. “Honestly, Vinyl. What kind of mad pony would want to listen to music like that?” She looked up, into Vinyl’s grinning face. “Never mind, forget I-“
“This kind of stuff? This is real music, Tavi!” Vinyl dropped the record onto the table, and leapt onto her hind legs. “That stuff that everypony listens to every day, it’s all so samey. Everyone, competing to make the most bland and easily marketed product they can, so they can sell as much to as many ponies as possible. But this? Underground, Alterative, whatever- the TailFeathers are original, they’re the kind of stuff that no pony else listens to. They’ve got their own voice, their own style, they’re totally distinct from the herd!”
“So, what, because not many ponies know about them, that makes them ‘cooler’?”
“Um, yeah? Because they don’t compromise their artistic vision just to sell more albums. They might not have a lot of fans yet, but that’s just cause they’re like me; they are so far ahead of the curve, they lapped it and have to wait for everypony else to catch up to them! They might not be big yet, but they are gonna be- those are the voices that are gonna define music for a generation!”
“Celestia help us all,” Octavia muttered. “But… wait. Vinyl, how are you like them? You just said they don’t have many fans, and that makes them cool, but I know for a fact DJ Pon-3’s music is everywhere.”
“Yeah, well… there’s an exception to every rule, ya know?” Vinyl grinned, patting herself on the chest. It was true, she was pretty popular… but that just showed that ponies had great taste. For some reason though, Octavia began to laugh. “…What?”
“Oh, nothing. I just realised that this explains everything.” She went silent, but continued to grin, an odd look in her eye.
Vinyl frowned. She recognised the look. It was one that Tavi got when she thought she’d thought of something clever, and usually involved trying to one-up her. Vinyl really, really hated that look.
“Well, you keep saying that nopony listens to classical music,” Octavia continued after a moment, a forced casualness in her voice as she buffed her hooves. “Whereas DJ Pon-3 was the number one selling artist for… I forget, two years running?”
“Three,” Vinyl replied slowly. The months following the Royal Wedding had seen her record sales soar.
“Well… that certainly explains everything, doesn’t it? Why you’re always so hard on classical music, I mean. You’re jealous.”
Vinyl stared. “What.”
“Oh Pon-3,” Octavia continued, sighing. “I am so sorry. I really had no idea. If I had known you were jealous of how cool I was, I wouldn’t keep flaunting my cello around you…”
“No. Wait. Back up. I am not jealous. How could I be jealous? What’s there to be jealous of? I’m awesome. You’re being dumb, Octy, stop being dumb.”
Octavia smiled, patting Vinyl on the mane. “There there, dear. No need to be defensive about it. I’ll just put away my things, and we can go back to trying to ignore the situation. I certainly won’t bring up my obscure music that practically no pony has heard of and listens to anymore.”
“No but… no. That’s not how popularity works!” Vinyl stomped a hoof as Octavia eased off the sofa and started pulling her cello case behind her. “Everypony knows classical music, so the fact that nopony listens to Marezart or Beethoofen doesn’t make them cool!”
“What about Marebeer,” Octavia asked from the stairs. She looked over her shoulder, her smirk growing at the puzzled expression on Vinyl’s face. “Minotaur composer, Karl Steeler? Saddlehausen? Oh dear.” She chuckled. “I’m just making things worse, aren’t I? I’m so sorry, Pon-3. I’ll just take my stuff out of sight. Enjoy your swim in the main stream.”
Vinyl stared in shock as Octavia ascended the stairs, finding her voice when she was out of sight. “Yeah, well… it’s mainstream, not the main stream, and that’s totally not how coolness works, Tavi! Tavi? Tavi! You are not cooler than me!”
She stared upstairs in stony silence… before a deeply affected sigh floated down.
Tavi was dumb. That much was obvious; a pony would have to be dumb to think that just because no one had ever heard of you, that somehow meant you were hot to trot. Which classical music so wasn’t. Vinyl had heard classical music- it wasn’t possible to avoid it when you shared an apartment with an uptight perfectionist like Octavia- and all of her exposure to it had re-enforced two things; that it was very dull, and that it wasn’t, by any stretch of the imagination, cool.
And she was DJ Pon-3. She knew cool.
The fact that she was going to buy some classical records when she should have been preparing for a performance was just about Vinyl proving how uncool they were, not proof they were not un-cool.
Tavi’s starting to get inside my head.
She sighed, entering the shop.
It wasn’t a classical store- Octavia was too well known in those, and if Tavi ever heard about this, she’d never let Vinyl live it down. But it was one of the best stores in Canterlot; the owner actually had pretty awesome taste. He catered to the normal ponies, of course, but he could always be counted on to have some breakout artists mixed in the pile from before-they-were-famous. He’d actually been one of the first ponies to stock on Vinyl’s first album.
He also had a big classical section, right at the back. Vinyl had always ignored that, treating it like some kind of eyesore. She groaned, taking a few hesitant steps towards it.
She picked up a hoofull of the most interesting covers… which meant she picked things almost at random. Whoever had designed these sleeves had absolutely no imagination; most were just a picture of a lit-up instrument, a title, and then a list of songs on the back. No lightning, no splash of color, no chimeric hell beasts rising from the pits of Tartarus to be vanquished back by a kickflank guitar solo. Vinyl hadn’t listened to any of them, and she already knew they were going to suck.
She dropped the albums on the counter, desperately trying to avoid the owners’ eyes.
Funny thing about celebrity; most ponies tended to recognise you. The owner was actually one of the cooler ponies about it, one who could be relied on not to gush about the fact that DJ Pon-3 was there, or use it as some kind of advertisement. It was one of the reasons she liked shopping here; other places had tried those same tactics. It made Vinyl Scratch feel like a sell-out, which she totally wasn’t. Vinyl had worked hard to cultivate DJ Pon-3’s image as the mistress of cool; the mane and her reflective shades just added to the awesome of the music.
It also meant that, so far as ponies were concerned, DJ Pon-3 was that crazy mane and glasses. Ditch the shades, and most ponies didn’t tend to look twice at her. And right now, Vinyl was trying to stop any pony from looking at her.
“You okay, Scratch,” the owner asked as he rang up her order. Vinyl continued to avoid his gaze.
“Course I am. Why wouldn’t I?” She looked at the classical albums she was sliding into her saddlebags. “Those aren’t for me. They’re for my roommate. Octavia. You’ve probably never heard of her- not that that is a good thing,” she added quickly. “She’s a musician, but she does classical music, so you wouldn’t have heard of her, ‘cause she’d not cool or anything. But she’s sick, and she wanted something to listen to, so I’m here. Doing this. For her. Because I’m a cool friend.”
She stared at the stallion, narrowing her eyes. He said nothing, just staring uncomfortably.
“…So yeah, listen, you got any TailFeather albums,” Vinyl added. The owner sighed a little, visibly relieved that the topic was moving to more familiar, safer grounds. He had stocked Pon-3 when no one else had taken the chance; Vinyl always felt the need to return the favor any chance she got. “However much you got, you should buy more of ‘em. Trust me, those guys are gonna sell a lot when they hit it. You’re gonna want to have a lot of their stuff.”
“Got it… thanks Scratch. Enjoy your mus- er… I hope your friend enjoys her music.”
She stared daggers as she backed out the door. As soon as she left, the manager went backstage, and put in an order for TailFeather albums, and began making plans to expand the classical section. There had to be something to it if DJ Pon-3 was buying it, right?
He made a special note to look for any albums by this ‘Octavia’ mare while he was at it.
Octavia was gone again, but that didn't mean anything. Vinyl refused to take the chance that she might come back and find Vinyl crashing on the sofa, with classical music pumping out of her speakers. As a matter of fact, she refused to even take the chance of her coming home and hearing the speakers through the floor. Or pick up the vibrations from the speakers through the floor and recognise- she checked the back of the sleeve- the Concerto in G Minor.
Vinyl bounced her head to the music running through the headphones. The music was exactly what she had expected it to be. Slow. Plodding. Dull. So booooooring…
There was a timestamp on the sleeve; according to it, this song- the first of nearly half a dozen- lasted close to an hour.
She looked back at the clock. It had been about five minutes.
This was about the moment when guitars should have started up, or the drums should have kicked in, or a riot should have started. The third one; Vinyl liked that. The idea of a riot breaking out in the auditorium when Octy and her band tried playing this. A riot that overthrew the stuck-up ponies of Canterlot who liked this kind of thing, the Music of the Revolution drumming in the background.
Huh. That doesn’t sound like a bad idea, Vinyl thought. She reached across the desk, pulling out a piece of paper and a pen, and began scribbling some ideas onto it. When she was done, she looked back at the page, grinning… before horror sunk in.
She had gotten an idea for a song from classical music.
She scanned the sheet. Some of what she had written were twists on the song she was listening to, highs here it was low, fast where it was slow.
Vinyl stared at the sheet, a dark sense of betrayal seeping through her. She shred it with telekinesis, stomped on the pieces and tossed them in a wastebasket. She wrenched the headphones from her ears, and marched downstairs.
Matches. I need to burn it. Tavi can never find that, she thought, taking the stairs two at a time. Tavi must never know.
She grumbled, her hooves dragging her into the kitchen. She slumped at a table, letting her magic do the work of pulling out a mug. Vinyl sat, her face flat on the table as the coffee machine began boiling, trying not to hear the bubbling of water as the slow-rising thud of drums, or the whistle of steam as that of a flute.
Vinyl groaned with frustration, lifting her coffee and skulking into the living room, dropping onto the couch. Her magic kept the mug near her face, and now and again, she raised it to her muzzle, taking deep sips of the steamy liquid.
I’m thinking about this way too much, she thought. So Tavi thinks she’s cooler than me. So what? We both know she’s wrong.
Even so, the DJ took another long, sullen gulp, glaring at Octavia’s table as she did.
“Stupid table,” she muttered the blue aura of her magic floating the mug over it. “And stupid Octy. This is all ‘cause I moved her antiques.”
She began tipping the cup to one sie, slowly, letting the liquid gather at the edge. Hey, it was a coffee table, right? And this was coffee. Not her fault if she spilled some on it by accident, yeah?
The mug tipped another few degrees, hot, chocolate-colored liquid gathering at its lip. A large drop began to roll along the outside edge, a drop that stretched as gravity started to work on it, and-
The door opened. “Vinyl? What are you doing up?”
“I didn’t do anything,” the unicorn yelped, righting the cup and dropping it on the table. Her roommate approached her, eyeing the mug with the same disapproving glare as a parent.
“Indeed,” she grumbled, lifting it. She wiped the dark ring underneath away, setting a coaster on top. “What have I told you about eating at the coffee table, Vinyl?”
“Not eating. I’m drinking. Shut up,” Vinyl said, folding her hooves stubbornly
“What? Vinyl, what’s gotten into you-“
“Nothing, okay? Nothing! I’m fine. I’m better than fine, I’m cool. Cooler than you, and cooler than your dumb music, Octy!”
Octavia stared at the white unicorn for a moment, her mouth open in an un-ladylike expression she was sure to deny having later on… before she started smiling, with that same, gloating look she had had before.
“Ah, I see,” she said, sliding onto the sofa. “Still a little jealous, miss Pon-3?”
“I’m not jealous, what do I have to be jealous of?” Vinyl snorted, ignoring Tavi’s smirk. “I’m playing at a club tonight. I’ve got gigs lined up for the rest of the month. I am bringing in so much money that I could literally buy out your half of the rent. Why would I be jealous?”
“Aww… poor Pon-3.” Octavia chuckled, seeming to ignore her friends’ words. She leaned forward, closer to Vinyl’s ear, and began to whisper. “I’ll tell you a secret though. A secret about ‘coolness’, as it were.”
Despite herself,Vinyl’s ears perked up. Worse, Octavia noticed. Her grin grew wider.
“All you have to do is apologise for calling classical music ‘lame’.”
“Never!” Vinyl jumped to her feet, glaring at her friend. “I am never gonna say that, Tavi! Not only is classical music the lamest thing ever, there is no way that you know something about coolness that I don’t!”
She stared, trying not to let her magic flare and hit Octy, no matter how much she totally deserved it. ‘Don’t use magic missile’ was a something everything unicorn learned a foal, but right now, it was a rule she was very, very tempted to forget. Octavia had no idea how close she was to getting the full, unrestrained fabric of creation blasted in her face.
Instead, she just kept looking at Vinyl with that same, mocking expression. She sighed heavily. “Poor DJ…” Vinyl grumbled, picking up her mug and stomping towards the stairs. As she approached the step, there was a shout from Octy.
“Oh, Vinyl-“
“Fine, I won’t stomp my hooves!”
Octavia smirked, leaning over the back of the sofa. “Actually, I was just wondering what you thought of the Concerto? You’ve been beep-bopping your head to it ever since I came in.”
Vinyl stopped dead, staring at Octy. The earth pony was grinning, not seeming to notice, as ever, how ridiculous her attempt at being “cool” was. Vinyl opened her mouth to speak, then closed it. She worked her jaw again- and again, nothing. She felt her cheeks start to catch fire, then turned and ran upstairs, as far and as fast away from the laughter as possible.
Not even the club music could completely erase Vinyl’s bad mood. That was saying something, considering it was so loud that it was hard to even think about anything, least of all how wrong and un-cool Tavi was being.
This stupid classic thing was really starting to get to her; like, really getting to her, if she couldn’t even focus during a music set. That wasn’t good.
It also wasn’t the kind of thing that Vinyl could afford to be distracted by. She stood on a platform at the end of the room, surrounded by speakers, her magic wrapped around the turntable. It was her job to make sure that all of the ponies partying enjoyed themselves, and she couldn’t do that if everypony thought legendary DJ Pon-3 was a grump. So, she forced a grin, shaking her head in tune to the electro pumping through the building.
Lights twirled around her, throwing the silhouettes of dancing ponies against the walls. There was a flash, splashes of colors playing across the room, changing in tune to the shift of the bass and tenor. Vinyl was grateful that glasses were a part of her stage persona; the lights would have blinded her more than once without them.
For the first time in days, Vinyl felt like she was home.
She turned down the volume, rearing even higher and punching the air with a hoof.
“Hey! Is everypony havin’ themselves a good time?” She grinned at the roar of applause. She wrapped her magic around the records on her desk, and pulled another pair from her saddlebags. There was a near inaudible intake of breath.
“All you ponies here tonight, pay attention, ‘cause you’re about to get a sneak preview at the future of music!” Vinyl’s grin grew as she slotted the records into place. The excitement in the air was so electric, she could almost feel it in her horn. Screw Tavi; this was the pulse, the lifeblood of cool. The ponies on the dance floor, they were the ones who really knew what was or what wasn’t cool, and just looking at their grinning faces was proof that DJ Pon-3 was the queen of cool.
She dropped the needle, and the heavy drum beats of the TailFeathers started playing from one speaker.
Then Vinyl Scratch’s body locked up as the Cello Concerto drifted out from the other.
The party ponies all looked at once another. From her perch, Vinyl could see frowns, her ears hearing murmurs and confused muttering rather than the excitement of before. And- while it hadn’t happened yet- she could already see how this ended: by this time tomorrow, everypony who was anypony was going to be saying that DJ Pon-3 had lost her edge.
Fessing up and replacing the disc wouldn’t be much better, either. Dj Pon-3 did not make mistakes. She- Vinyl- just didn’t. It was part of her reputation.
The same reputation that she was watching go up in flames.
No.
No way. She wasn’t gonna let that happen. She was Vinyl Scratch; she was DJ Pon-3! What was a little fire to that? Absolutely nothing. Better than nothing; that was where the best kind of music came from, from the melting point between ‘artist’ and ‘genius’. No, it wasn’t her reputation that was on fire.
It was her soul.
Vinyl’s grin grew even wider as she made a mental reminder to remember that line for later.
“Hey! What are you guys all standing around for,” she called. The crowd looked at her with even more confusion. Vinyl wrapped her magic around the two records. “This is supposed to be a party, so let’s par-tay!”
Her magic spun the records. There was a loud, satisfying scratch, followed by the music kicking off again- not the uneven , unbalanced mess of Griffons and a cello, but a powerful mix, of Symphony and Rock. Vinyl began bouncing her head again, two-tone mane bouncing wildly around her. It took a moment for the crowd to join in, but pretty soon they were dancing again.
At the end of the set, Vinyl switched out the concerto, making sure she pulled out the proper records this time.
The ponies in the club never seemed quite as enthusiastic as they had during that one though.
Vinyl groaned, waking with a face-full of furniture. Her saddlebags lay on the table; probably Octavia’s doing, since Vinyl was sure she left it lying on the floor when she’d slumped in at… actually, she had no idea when she had come home. Three o’clock? Four? Later.
Late, at any rate. Definitely late enough that she hadn’t gotten enough sleep to make up for it; the sun was still up.
Vinyl groaned, rising to her flank, and staggering into the kitchen. Coffee. Needed coffee.
And she wasn’t the only one who knew it; Octavia had left a pot on. Vinyl smiled to herself as she poured a mug, reading the quick note pinned nearby- just a short message that Tavi had to go and she’d be back soon. Nothing about why, or when she’d be back, or anything.
“Think she’d stick around to see if I was okay,” Vinyl muttered, going back into the living room. She sat down with a contented sigh, levitating the mug to her mouth. She had done a great job of salvaging last night- this morning- whatever, the club gig, but it wasn’t surprising she felt exhausted.
Octy always said Vinyl didn’t know how to take care of herself. She said that if she wasn’t around, Vinyl probably would be dead in a week from some disease. That was stretching it… even if Vinyl had to admit that Tavi was exactly the kind of obsessive-clean housemate she needed to keep everything in check.
The point was, though, that Vinyl did know how to take care of herself. Enough to know that it wasn’t just the club that had worn her down- the last hoofull of days had aken their toll on her. She felt exhausted.
She glared at the saddlebag. Forget all this ‘Classic is cool’ stuff- DJ Pon-3 was cool. She proved that last night didn’t she? She made classical music sound cool; that was an accomplishment to be proud of. Enough of one that she could get rid of those stupid CD’s and get back to what was important.
She looked up from the bag, and saw Octy’s cello case leaning against the wall.
…Okay.
Okay.
Vinyl had listened to classical music. She’d played classical albums. Both of those were not cool. Which meant there was exactly one thing she had left to try before she could prove, once and for all, that classical- and thus, Tavi- were not as cool as she was.
But… did she dare?
She knew musicians who were super protective of their instruments; hay, she didn’t like anyone touching her deck or speakers. Tavi was way, way worse than that. Vinyl had seen the way she had handled the instrument, like it was made from glass, or had been autographed by the Rolling Pones or something.
She had also seen the smug look on Octy’s face when she said that playing classical made her better than Vinyl, which pretty much settled it.
She opened the case, pulling out the instrument, and met her first problem.
The thing was bigger than she was. How in Tartarus did Octy play this thing?!
Vinyl grumbled, standing on her hind legs. She leaned against the cello, at the same time leaning it against her own shoulder. Great; not just big, but it was heavy too. Seriously, Octavia carried this thing around everywhere with her? Vinyl never noticed, but she must have been built like a horse.
Okay, so… standing in position, check. Vinyl held the bow in a hoof for a moment, before wrapping it in telekinesis instead. It wasn’t cheating; if Octy was a unicorn, she would so play it that way!
She floated the bow to the strings, and pulled it across them. The following noise was one of the most awful things Vinyl had ever heard.
“Okay, so… that was wrong,” she said, grimacing. She placed a hoof on the neck of the instrument, holding down some of the strings. She pulled the bow across again, and made another noise, slightly more melodic this time. She placed her hoof further down the string, and drew again, producing a different tone.
Vinyl chuckled. Why does Octy say she needs to practice all the time? This is easy.
She kept at it, putting her hoof in one place and pulling the bow across. It wasn’t particularly graceful- she didn’t like the cello, but she had heard Octavia playing, and she had no intention of ever telling Tavi that it sounded kind-of awesome when she did it- anyway, it wasn’t great, like when Octavia did it… but it wasn’t hard either.
She turned back to the coffee she left on the table. Her horn sparked blue, and a second aura wrapped it as well, floating towards her. At the same time, she pulled the bow across the strings… and there was a snapping sound.
Then a crash.
Vinyl stared as the mug dropped, shattering on the table. Dark, thick liquid spilled over the broken ceramic, soaking into the wood finish, and into the small dent the impact had left. Vinyl felt the color fade from her cheeks, as she watched stains seep into Octavia’s favourite piece of furniture.
She’s going to kill me.
She looked back at the cello, and her eyes shrunk to pinpricks.
The string she had been playing had snapped in the centre, half curling away from her, and the other curling towards, like a giant middle claw to Vinyl’s face.
Octavia is going to kill me, she thought again. They’re never going to find the body.
Images flashed through her brain, almost faster than she could process them. Headlines about pony music legend DJ Pon-3 going missing. Weeks of investigations leading to no results. Octavia tearfully offering inspectors cupcakes.
I can fix it, I can fix it! She ignored the table for the moment; she could only process one problem at a time, and this seemed like the bigger one.
Okay. Okay. A broken cello string. How hard could that be to fix? She was a unicorn, she had magic! Telekinetically, she took a hold of each of the strings and pulled them back towards one another, until the broken ends met.
There was a spell for making broken things whole; she remembered that when she was a filly. She also remembered only barely paying attention to it when she was a kid, but that was how these things worked, wasn’t it? You buried stuff until you needed it, and this was definitely a situation where she needed it.
So she focused. She scrunched her eyes tight, trying to visualise the cello whole. Unblemished. The only thing that kept coming to mind, however, were the broken strings and a grisly, mental image of the broken state Vinyl would be in once Octavia found out what she did.
She heard a sound, like crunching, and quickly decided that probably wasn’t what was supposed to happen.
She edged an eye open, then stared. The telekinetic field had extended itself across the entire cello, which was currently floating in mid-air.
Emotions could affect spells; that was something else she’d remembered from her foalhood. She’d only meant to try and push the strings together. Apparently, doing magic in a panic and under –reasonable- fear for one’s safety counted as ‘emotionally distressed’, because somehow, the spell had gone wrong.
Octavia would say awry. Horribly, horribly awry.
Vinyl could see the magic trying to force the ends together. Unfortunately, the ends it was trying to connect were the top and bottom of the cello. Vinyl’s eyes widened, as she watched the instrument begin to bend.
“No,” she whispered. “No, no, no.” She tried to stop the spell, but…
There was another, louder crunch, of wood buckling. She stared in horror, as the base and tip of the cello met in the middle, the rest of the instrument crumbling and snapping around them. The telekinesis failing and dropping the instrument onto the floor like a broken ball probably didn’t help the cello either.
The world seemed to crumple around Vinyl , just like the cello. The black walls crushing her. Faintly, beyond it all, she heard the hammering of hooves, desperate plea bargaining and, above most else, screaming. She was pretty sure it was her own.
“…Vinyl?”
Vinyl blinked. Octavi stood in front of her, a concerned look creasing her expression. She blinked against rapidly, as Tavi sighed.
“Thank goodness you’re alright,” the earth pony said, smiling. She reached out and pulled the unicorn in for a hug.
“…I am?” Being hugged by a possibly deranged mare didn’t strike her as being alright.
“Well, you stopped screaming, and you aren’t catatonic. I think we should mark that as an improvement at least.” Octavia let go, staring at her friend. “What happened? I came home, and you were just… standing there in the middle of the floor. And then you started screaming! I was about to go and get a doctor to have a look at you… what happened?”
“Um.” Vinyl blinked, looking around the room. The sun was in a lower position than it had been; the coffee she had spilled on the table had seeped in to it, leaving thick, dark stains. The cello, for some reason, was gone, and its case was closed.
She had sudden flashes of forcing a twisted wreck of wood and strings into a case and hammering it shut. Octavia hadn’t noticed yet, but Vinyl saw the tiny nails closing the monster inside from ever getting out… or, at least, giving Vinyl a head start while Octy pried it loose.
Was Tavi still waiting for an answer? She raised a hoof, pointing at the table. “I spilled something.”
Octavia raised an eyebrow then looked at the table. She paused when she saw the stains, and Vinyl was sure she was going to flip out right there. At least she would be spared the torture that would come when Octy found the smashed up cello.
Instead, Octavia walked into the kitchen. Vinyl expected her to come back with a knife; instead, she was carrying a cup of tea. She stood over the table, and tipped the contents onto it.
“There,” she said, setting the cup down. “All better.”
Vinyl felt her jaw drop. “But… what? Tavi! I thought-“
“What? That I care about a table more than you?” Octavia smiled, sitting on the sofa. “Vinyl, it’s a table. I knew from the end of the first week living with you it was going to get damaged somehow. Frankly, I’m still surprised that it has four legs. A little staining is nothing.”
“But… but the other day! You were freaking out over it!”
“Ah, yes, well…” Octavia’s grey cheeks went a little red. “I… you may have noticed I was not in a good mood. Our recital… well, it didn’t quite go as well as I had hoped. Apparently, no one got the memo that all the princesses would be in attendance. I have never seen such a group of professionals turn to amateur hour so quickly.” She grimaced. “Including myself. I was angry and… I may have taken that out on you. I’m sorry Vinyl.”
She exhaled deeply, relaxing. “I have been trying to say that for days. It’s such a relief to get it off my chest.”
Octavia was sorry? Octavia?
Octavia was so relieved at finally saying it that she didn’t seem to notice the way Vinyl was staring at her. The DJ swallowed. “So… you’re in a better mood now?”
“Substantially,” she replied. She laughed lightly. “My band and I were away speaking to our agent. Apparently, somepony has ordered a significant number of our records; particularly anything with my name on it. And, apparently, there have been an increased number of sales in classical music. Rumour has it some popular trend-setter has been drawing attention to the genre for the last few days.”
She smiled, setting a hoof on her chin and looking at Vinyl. “We’ve negotiated certain rights,” she continued. “Royalties, sales, new releases… yes, Vinyl. I am in a very good mood.”
Vinyl took a deep breath. “In that case… there’s something I want to tell you.” Her voice shook a little, and she swallowed nervously. “It’s… well, it’s something I should have said before, too.”
“Oh? What is it, Vinyl?”
“I think classical music… is lame. It’s really, really lame. I hate it with every part in my pony body.” Octavia sank down into her chair, her smile slipping a little bit. Vinyl continued. “But… just ‘cause I think it’s lame doesn’t mean it is lame. And it doesn’t mean that you can’t like it. You like it, even though everypony else tells you how un-cool it is, and… and I guess that’s kind of cool.”
“You’re really the only pony who ever tells me its lame, Vinyl.” Octavia laughed, reclining. “But all right. I can accept that, I suppose. After all, my best friend listens to electro and has Rolling Pones speakers, which is rather lame, but I make do with it.”
She paused, smiling. “Hmm. And I did tell you that I’d tell you a secret about being as cool as I am if you apologised, didn’t I?” Vinyl nodded. “Well, DJ Pon-3 is pretty popular, isn’t she,” Octavia said.
“Yeah, think we established that part already.” She rolled her eyes. “You have fewer fans so you’re cooler than me.”
“Right… well, how many of DJ Pon-3’s fans are fans of Vinyl Scratch?” Vinyl stopped, staring; Octavia still looked a little smug, but there was compassion in the smile. “Not very many, right? So I’d say that makes her much cooler than DJ Pon-3”
“Octy…”
“In fact, I’d say Vinyl Scratch is the coolest pony I know.”
Vinyl stared at her friend for a long moment, before scrubbing at her face. “Great. Got something in my eye,” she muttered pulling off her glasses. “See, this is why I wear glasses, so dirt and stuff doesn’t get in.”
“Right,” Octavia said. “Dirt. That got past the glasses you were wearing.”
“Exactly.” Vinyl straightened her glasses again, taking a breath. “Anyway… thanks, Tav- Octavia. You’re the coolest pony I know, too.” Octavia
beamed. “Which is why I know you’re gonna be cool about what I did to your cello.”
“Thanks Vinyl- wait, what?”
Author's Note
First pony fiction- and, to be honest, the first piece of writing I've done in a long time, period. I hope you guys enjoyed it; if you did, please leave comments. And if you didn't, please leave even more comments so I know how to do better in the future.
Thanks for reading!
