A Gentleman in Equestria

Chapter 3: End of the first day

Somehow, Vinyl, Derpy and Octavia had convinced Dose to let me go. I've got to thank them later, who knows how long he would have kept me in care. A while after stepping out of the interrogation room, as I now called it, I realised something. This building was far too big for just classrooms, I bet it had dorms and rooms like a university would.

  "I should probably see someone about getting a room." I said, testing my hypothesis "Can someone show me where to go?" Derpy shrugged, not knowing anything of the matter and Octavia looked at Vinyl, who stated:

  "Well, we could soon, but me and Octavia have to go to our music practice, we're on stage for the dance in a few days."

  "Could I join you?" I asked, wanting to see the musical ponies perform, "Dose tried a lot of things, but he didn't try music." Octavia and Vinyl looked at each other, exchanging expressions to communicate.

  "Alright," Octavia replied, ,"I guess it could help you." She trotted off down the corridor. Vinyl beamed at me, then followed Octavia down the corridor. I turned to Derpy.

  "You coming?" I asked her.

  "No," she responded, "I've got homework to do."

  "Well, I'll see you later, or tomorrow, ok?" I said. She nodded, smiling, and bounced the opposite way from Vinyl and Octavia down the corridor. Realising that I was quite far behind them now, I galloped after the two musical mares.

    I caught up, panting. Shit, I've got to get fitter.

  "How big is this school?" I thought aloud. The corridor stretched out in front of us, as big as a great hall. Every so often, we passed doors with subject names on them: maths, art, magic. Wait- magic? I did a double take at the white text on the door, yeah, that's a magic classroom.

    "We're here!" Vinyl said after a few minutes of walking and idle chatter. We had arrived at a door, similar looking to the others we had passed, with the words: "Music: DJ Room" printed on the glass in white text.

    Octavia sighed.

  "Why must we practice in here?" she complained, "Why not in the auditorium?"

  "You know why," Vinyl retaliated, "because my equipment isn't set up there!" Octavia huffed and trotted forward, opening the door.

  "Is she always like this?" I asked Vinyl.

  "She'll be fine after a jamming session." she replied. She trotted into the room, I followed.

    Inside, there were a few speakers, a piano, Octavia's cello and what I assumed to be Vinyl's DJ setup. The walls looked to be covered in some sort of foam padding, probably used for soundproofing.

  "Nice room." I remarked. Vinyl smiled at my compliment. Octavia sighed, she obviously didn't like to be in here. They went to their respective instruments, ready to practice. I stood on my hind legs and leaned back against the wall, wanting to see the performance.

  "Ready?" Octavia asked Vinyl.

  "Ready." Vinyl confirmed. She levitated a record from behind her equipment and flipped it onto the decks in front of her. Octavia started to glide her bow across the strings of her cello, then Vinyl set the record spinning.

"That was great!" I told the two mares after they had finished their last song.

  "Thanks!" Octavia replied, now in a much better mood. Vinyl took off her headphones, and trotted over to Octavia and me.

  "Yeah, thanks," she said, "it's good to hear feedback from all the work we put into it." I looked over to the piano sitting near the wall. 'I wish I could play that,' I thought, 'but it isn't going to be the same as the ones back home. Also, I don't have fingers.' Vinyl noticed me staring, and saw what I was looking at.

  "Remember something?" she asked.

  "I don't know." I answered. I could always have a crack at playing, I mean, I could play back on Earth.

  "There's no harm in trying." Octavia told me, "Have a go!" She gave me a slight push in the direction of the piano. I trotted towards it, getting a closer look at the keys. 'How do I get hooves on those?' I said in my head as I saw the keys: they were the same as pianos at home, way too small to play with my hooves.

  "Go on, try it!" Vinyl encouraged. I sat down on the stool placed in front of the piano. This cant be so hard, right? I lifted up my right hoof, then brought it down to try and hit B. 'What the hell was that?' I thought, as I felt a strange feeling just before my hoof came into contact with 5 different notes at once. Suprisingly, though, only one note sounded, the B which I intended to hit. 'Huh,' I thought. I went again to hit the B, and again I felt the strange connection. It was as if I had fingers that weren't there, but could come into contact with the piano.

    I placed my hoof a few centimetres above the keys, again I felt the connection, imaginary fingers splayed against keys. 'I guess it is just like back home' I thought to myself. I tested the control of my imaginary fingers by playing a few chords.

    The two mares were still behind me, waiting with bated breath to see me remember something from my past. Of course, it was something I already remembered, my many years of lessons and playing back home, the hundreds of songs I knew off by heart. I brought up my left hoof, again forming the connection, which the only explanation for could be magic, and I started to play the first song I could think of.

    Vinyl and Octavia were mesmerised at my performance until Vinyl recognised the song I was playing, and put a record on her decks, bringing in the bass of the song right in time. She had her headphones on once again, bobbing her head in time to the music. Octavia still stood behind me, impressed at my performance. Then, I began singing:

Take seat youngin'; Stay around for spell

I got a little story that I wanted to tell

Would ya

Please stick around, take a listen and see

Cause back in my day, things were always grand as can be

Now all the

Streets were paved gold and gems; Glimmerin'

Lightin' up the skies at noon; This town is shimmerin'

Waitin' on nobody cause we got stuff to do

Cause we through with the new

We're talking old school, kids, that's just what we do!

Back in the day, it was the prime of the time

Imagine all the greats singing together in rhymes

and listening together on old Gramaphones

and old Radios it was a hell of a time

Let me tell ya youngin', man the old days were grand

You could walk down to the beach and plant your hooves in the sand

You didn't have no worries

All was grand as can be

So everybody take a listen

Open your eyes and see

So trot with me through the autumn leaves

And keep close to stay warm

Soon you'll see how much you mean to me

Feelings I've never felt before

Skippi-do-bop was the name of the game

Swinging like crazy everyone goes insane

It's like a game except everyone wins

Why isn't music like that, anymore?

My god everything is such a bore now

Everything's the same thing over again

With all that hippin' and the hoppin'

and the bippen' and the boppen'

They dunno what the jazz is all about, you see

You'll look back at your days

I'm sure you'll experience it sometime

cause when you grow old

everything seems cold

and new generation will arrive

So trot with me through the autumn leaves

And keep close to stay warm

Soon you'll see how much you mean to me

Feelings I've never felt before

So trot with me through the autumn leaves

And keep close to stay warm

Soon you'll see how much you mean to me

Feelings I've never felt before

  "Wow," Vinyl remarked, "Nice playing!"

  "And singing!" Octavia added. I blushed slightly at the compliments.

  "So I guess that's something you remember then?" Vinyl asked.

  "What?" I asked, lost in the moment. Then I remembered my lie. "Oh! Yes!" I replied, "All my lessons came back to me." I hated lying to the mares, but they wouldn't believe me if I told them the story of what had happened within the last 8 hours.

  "It's good you're getting your memory back." Octavia told me, "Soon you'll be fine!" Vinyl shot her some sort of look. "I mean," Octavia added, "it's not like you are fine, in ways, now but..." she trailed off, unsure of where to direct the end of her sentence.

  "I know what you meant." I told her, "Now, how about getting me a room?" Vinyl gasped.

  "Oh no!" she yelled, "I am so sorry! The office closed about 10 minutes ago and it only opens until morning!"

  "Well," I said, unsure of what to do, "applying is no longer an option." I thought about what I could do to have a decent place to sleep through the night. "I could see if I could stay at the infirmary overnight. Dose might be willing to let me have a bed."

  "No!" Vinyl argued, "I can't let you do that! It's my fault you don't have a room by now, you can stay the night in my dorm."

    'Well,' I thought, 'it has to be better than sleeping on the mattresses in the infirmary, which I'm pretty sure are made of cardboard.'

  "Alright," I said, "but don't you dare offer to sleep on the couch. Your room, your bed, your privilege. I'll sleep on the couch."

  "Whatever, just follow me to my dorm" Vinyl replied.

It took 10 minutes to get from the DJ room to Vinyl's room. Octavia had left us after 5 minutes to go to her own room, and so it was reduced to me and Vinyl chatting about music for 5 minutes until we reached the room.

    Vinyl trotted forward, and manipulated the lock on the door until a soft click was heard and the door swung open. Vinyl walked into her room, I followed close behind. The room I saw was fairly simple; a couch, a coffee table, a couple of wooden chairs, some counters and appliances in the corner in a small kitchen area. There was a door off to the side which I guessed to lead to the bedroom. It was a mostly tidy room, but a few unwashed plates and strewn about cables stopped it being pristine.

  "Nice place." I complimented.

  "Thanks, I try" Vinyl replied, smiling.

  "So," I pointed my hoof to the couch, "I'm sleeping on here?"

  "And why would I let you do that?" Vinyl asked, "It's because of me that you don't have a room of your own. You can sleep in my bed." This was a tempting offer, but I stood by my conditions.

  "No. That was my one condition. I sleep on the couch, you sleep in your bed." I told her.

  "Don't make me beg, Arch!" she argued.

  "You don't need to, just sleep in your own bed tonight." I told her.

  "No, you sleep in the bed" she said.

  "No, you" I retaliated.

  "No, you"

  "No, you"

  "No, you"

  "No- you know what?" I asked.

  "What?" Vinyl asked, inquisitive of what I was about to say.

  "We'll compromise," I told her. A look of realisation dawned on her face.

  "You mean, both sleep on the couch?" she asked, confirming her thoughts.

  "Or both sleep in the bed," I corrected her, "with a pillow partition, of course."

  "Not a bad idea," Vinyl said.

Soon enough, we were both settled into Vinyl's bed, with a pillow partition between us, both of us facing outwards.

  "It's good this worked out," I said, slightly turning my head to see the back of Vinyl's.

  "Yeah," she turned her head to face me, her glasses were off now, showing her dark red irises. They were startling and enticing at the same time.

  "Well, it's nearly midnight, I guess we should get some rest." I told her, gazing into her eyes. They were so encapsulating, the deep red contrasting against her electric blue hair.

  "Yeah, I've got more practice tomorrow, so early rise" she answered. She turned back around facing outwards. "Good night Arch."

  "Good night Vinyl." I replied. I lay there, staring into the dark of Vinyl's bedroom, as I heard Vinyl slowly drift off to sleep.

    I couldn't believe it. I was in Vinyl Scratch's room, in Equestria. I closed my eyes, and let myself drift off to sleep. As my conciousness slipped away, I was left with a final thought:

I am one of the luckiest humans alive.

A/N: I think my writing has improved here from the first two chapters. I hope to make all chapters this long. Feedback is much appreciated.