Sound Barrier

by Emerald Flight

Rating: everyone
Tags: Romance
Length: 5438

Oh my God, 200th tracker celebration. ScratchTavia.

Everyone knows that the world revolves around sound. That's why tunes can get stuck inside your head so easily, and how a single lyric in a beautiful song can be so inspiring. This was Octavia's view on the world: beautiful music, and the ponies who listen to it.
But, by chance, she comes across somepony new, and somepony with a new sound, at that. Can music so Scratch-y be beautiful too?

A 200th watcher request, for smithandrew125. This will eventually be finished sometime after my other major fanfics.

Published 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2012-06-27 06:15:39 UTC

Introduction - Piano

   There are days in everypony's life that just feel perfect. Octavia had had many of these days in her life, days when the world around her was at peace and there wasn't a worry in her mind. She attributed it all to her music, of course; playing it, listening to it, absolutely immersing herself in it. When her cello began to play, the world around her crumbled to an unimportant dust.

   Some ponies said she wasn't quite right, what with the constant melodies always coming from her little stand-alone house off in the suburbs of Ponyville. She didn't mind, of course; her life was pretty much perfect - she was making an honest living doing something she loved.

   Today was one of those days for her. She woke up to birdsong, which was, in her opinion, second only to her cello. The temperature was perfect; that cool-but-not-cold feeling that made her feel weightless. She turned over in the silky covers. It would be an excellent day.

   Eventually, she forced herself out of bed, yawned, stretched, and shook her head, stumbling off to the bathroom. All the while, she was humming and mumbling to herself: "Hmm hmm hmm..." "Oh, dear, what a mess." "Brushie brushie..."

   A few lines from one of her favorite composures swung through her mind, sweeping with it a lot of her thoughts. She stood for a moment and stared into the mirror, lowering her brush and blinking drowsily. She might have stared at herself for hours had it not been for the short knock at the door.

   She shook her head again, snapping back into reality. She tossed the brush into the sink in front of her and turned smartly on her hooves, walking quickly to the front of the small house.

   She fumbled with the doorknob for a moment before opening it. "Oh, good morning, D-"

   "Hi, Octavia!" Derpy said, a bit too loudly for so early in the morning. "I have some mail for you!" she continued, smiling and pulling a small blue-tinted envelope out of her saddlebag and handing it to Octavia.

   "Um, thank - thanks, Derpy," she said, managing a tired smile and taking the envelope between her hooves. "Why, um, why did you bring it to the door?"

   "It looked super important. Also, your mailbox isn't working."

   "Did you remember to unhook the latch?"

   She grinned sheepishly. "I tried, but I couldn't grab hold of it. Sorry."

   "Oh, it's fine," Octavia replied. "I wouldn't have gotten up if you hadn't knocked," she chuckled.

   "Okay, well, have a good day, Octavia!" she said cheerfully, walking off the porch before taking flight and disappearing from view.

   She smiled and tore open the letter, and turning back into the house, shutting the door behind her.

   It began with an intricate, rather fancy symbol and  a name she didn't recognize. She was suddenly proud of herself... somepony she didn't know knew about her. Done well, haven't I? She read on:

Dear Ms. Octavia:

We're sorry to contact you with such late notice, but Master Silverwing desperately needs entertainment for the small banquet he's throwing in one week's time. He noticed your performance at the Grand Galloping Gala last year and the year before and decided that you were a perfect choice.

If you'll accept the job, you have one week. We need an ambiance artist, half an hour maximum. 28th Street in Canterlot, house twelve. We pay well. Send us an RSVP by post to let us know. Thank you!

   She rubbed her eyes and looked over the letter again drowsily. There wasn't too much to understand in it, but she still couldn't grasp it. She just wasn't a morning pony.

   Her eyes lingered on the words 'Canterlot' and 'job' and her ears pricked up. She gasped and squealed, fully snapping back to attention. She got an offer! It'd been weeks since the last party she was asked to play at. More ammo for the bank.

   Of course, it wasn't really the money she was happy about. She was always glad to spread her music. In fact, she probably would've done it for free, just because they asked. Well, money was money, and music was music. She trotted happily upstairs to her music room, snatched a piece of paper out of her composure desk and threw together a short RSVP - before a sudden thought hit her.

   One week. One week to find a slow, long ambiance song and re-memorize it. And she couldn't use the one she used at the Gala. Oh, she had her work set out for her.

   So she set to it.

Chapter 1 - Crescendo

   There was little noise in the cab, save perhaps for the clicking of hooves on floorboard as the other passengers moved around her. However, it was filled with a golden dimming evening light that kept distracting the now-alone passenger, the musician, as she scanned her sheet music over for the last few times.

   This was it. Finally, after endless hours of practice, practice, practice, she'd finished. It was the longest piece she'd ever memorized; this, besides the fact that she could play it to the note, made her proud of herself.

   Iambica Heartstring's Twentieth Sonata, D major. Octavia loved the Heartstrings' pieces (all four generations of them); she remembered in school that she tended to lean towards music instead of her other studies just because of their composures. The was they were written fascinated her; the way they were ableto blend a quick-paced section smoothly and beautifully into a slower-paced, undertonal section, the fantastic crescendos and the smooth, pulse-slowing decrescendos, the tied notes fitting into one another like the pieces of a perfectly-made jigsaw puzzle...

   She sighed contentedly, before shaking her head and getting back on track. The most difficult part, as she'd noticed before, would be the bridge. It was made entirely out of sixteenth and thirty-second notes. Insane for most celloists: not in their wildest dreams would they play that. Not even attempt.

But, Octavia sighed, I made a commitment. She brushed her mane back into its neatly styled position and adjusted her bow tie, all the while steeling herself. Of course she could do it. Nonstop practice came with benefits, of course.

   She glanced down at her right hoof, illuminated by the sunlight pouring with its last strength through the train window. She smiled when the string-player's groove caught her eye. Tonight, I suppose you'll be worn even deeper, she chuckled to herself.

   The train rolled to a stop right in the center of Canterlot with a quiet screech. Octavia was last out, but she compensated for it by breaking into a quick trot the moment she stepped off the deck.

   Her hoofsteps echoed around the almost-empty main street, reverberating against what seemed to be an urban static. Octavia tilted her head, moving her back slighty and taking some of the weight of the cello off her forelegs: yes, there was definitely a background noise, but she couldn't tell what it was. Ooh, concentration, Octavia! her mind shouted at her, and she continued her trot around the branching web of roads making up the great Capitol city.

   She arrived with mere minutes to spare. She waved off the greetings from the staff and other musicians and ran through the Sonata again in her mind. Such a lovely piece; she couldn't ruin a sonata of that quality with shoddy recitation. She just had to calm down and remember. Remember correctly. Remember correctly with right timing.

   She was taken by total surprise when she was up. It was a thirty-eight minute piece; she needed all the concentration she could gather, and the lineup didn't allow her to gather anything but a chunk.

   At least she wasn't the center of attention. The banquet before her was bustling with prim-and-proper pony aristocrats, a few of which seemed familiar. Another reason to play well.

   She cleared her throat, stood up her cello, drew her freshly-rosined bow from her case, and closed her eyes.

   As her bow touched the instrument in front of her, its being as a bow ceased abruptly. The bow became part of Octavia. As her left hoof moved deftly over the neck, the bow danced and bobbed and weaved in front of her, each time throwing an ecstasy of sound into the open hall. Note offer note, line after line, her cello and the two supporting violins threw tittering, fluttering, and flowing notes around the room.

   Octavia could feel the world leave. She closed her eyes and smiled, the notes coming to her as a second nature. She was drawn momentarily back into the physical world when she noticed subconsciously that everypony in the banquet was silent. She almost wanted to laugh, but kept her mind on her music.

   Finally, after twenty minutes of Heartstring's beautiful Twentieth Sonata, it was time for bridge. Two measures and a beat of rest was all she was allowed, and, as the violins' volume fell as smoothly as the setting sun's light had left the world that evening, Octavia began to play.

   Her hooves raced against one another. A tie, a key change, rapid-fire. Octavia exhaled during a two-beat break and endured. Just ten more measures. Just nine more measures.

   G, E, D, B, *SNAP*.

   The terrible crack was heard throughout the entire hall. A few ponies gasped. Octavia's eyes snapped open, and she shimmered, barely clinging on to the hope that everything she knew was wrong.

   Its neck was snapped. Snapped in two. The strings dangled loosely like tendons from the now-useless piece of maple.

   She could hear a short sob escape her throat, and put the neck slowly back into the cello case. Tears began to flow freely down her cheeks as she packed away the body as well. Her lavender eyes could be seen glinting with tears as she pulled the cello case onto her back and walked professionally, solemnly, out of the mansion.

   She never would forget the last words her mother said to her. She was lying broken on the clean white hospital bed, with her eight-year-old filly standing on the rail. She gasped, and whispered two things into her ear.

I wanted to hear you play your grandmother's cello. Just once.

I love you, Octavia.

   And with that, she was unceremoniously gone. No nurses were nearby, no other family members. Octavia was then alone in the world. Eventually, she began to prefer it that way: her and her music, alone. No more tears. No more heartbreak.

   She left the orphanage after graduating music school, moved to the outskirts of Ponyville when she finally got a steady job, and she'd been there since, playing her cello. The cello that had always meant so much to her.

   And it was gone. Forever.

   She'd been running blindly through the dark streets of Canterlot for what must have been hours. She didn't cry as she ran. She didn't feel the need to. She just wanted to get away from that disaster, that terrifying untruth. That impossibility.

   She slowed, suddenly out of energy and out of breath, on a broken street corner. She looked vaguely around at the shabby and peeling buildings, with the flickering street lamps and the rundown concrete sidewalks, and one phrase passed through her mind:

The wrong side of the track.

   Now, Octavia began to feel something deep in her chest. She walked miserably to the corner of an oddly-coloured, apparently abandoned townhouse, sat down, raised her hooves to her eyes, and began to sob quiety into the still, empty night. She was lost. Her first love was ruined, possibly beyond repair. Things had gone past bad; they'd fallen to depths so low Octavia didn't see how she should climb back up.

   Her sobs, rebounding through the empty streets, brought something new back to her ear: she could again sense that strange urban static. That sound that was filling the city quietly. It softened her depression for a moment, made her forget about her problems, made her curious.

   She stood shakily and walked out onto the open street, feeling the full weight of her instrument and groaning. The sound became clearer, more realistic. She could feel a vibration in the air, and was drawn on unsteady hooves to its source: a small brick passage leading to a basement.

   Above the passage entrance was a small, colourful wooden sign, neatly decorated with the words "Smooth Club" in bright neon green. She looked down at her hooves, at the words "Bass" and "Liquid". She gasped, and looked quickly to her right, She adjusted the case on her back. Did she really want to be entering such an off-looking establishment?

   Suddenly, a pitch change in the staticy sound made her shudder. A tune erupted form the basement, full of low, scratchy sounds that tickled her spine. If anything, maybe she could ask a few questions to the club's patrons. What kind of music, besides her beautiful classical, of course, could affect her like that?

   She took a deep breath and stepped down into the dimly glowing passage and through the pink and green curtains.

No. No, this isn't my kind of place at all, Octavia thought as she stepped timidly into the main room and glanced around at the various, odd-looking ponies sitting at the circular tables scattered patternlessly around the room.

   There was a silhouette of something Octavia couldn't recognize at the front of the room, with a pony - maybe two - moving back and forth, back and forth behind it. She couldn't help but feel something strange towards the music pounding from it. Her head felt light for a moment, and the dim neon lights turned to a swatch of smeared colour before she inhaled, cleared her head, and took a seat at an empty table nearby with visible intimation.

   She threw a glance once more around the room, and gasped as another pony slid into view from the shadowed corner. Turned out that she wasn't alone at the table: another mare, shockingly white against the blackened background, shifted into view.

   She and the other pony stared at one another for a second or two, maybe a minute; at least she assumed that the other mare was staring back. She couldn't see through the pair of oversized sunglasses covering most of her face. The blue in her mane seemed dulled by the surroundings, but Octavia could still sense its bold colour.

   Eventually, she found the mind to speak. "H-How long have you been there?" she asked, practically wincing as she felt her nervousness hamper her eloquence.

   The other pony chuckled under her breath. "Just long enough." She spoke softly, in a disparity to her appearance. There was a rougher edge to her voice, suggesting a retirement from a life on the streets. It wasn't close to as refined as Octavia's.

   "You're new here, right? Never seen you around before," she continued, prodding for information. "I guess you're a musician? Band-geek style?" she added jokingly.

   "Yes, of course. I - um - I play the cello," she replied, choosing not to discuss the recent chain of events. Her mood dropped slightly, but was perked up again as the music coming from the stage a the front flowed back to her ears. She sighed happily.

   "Cello. Right. Well, you know, anypony's welcome here."

   "Where is 'here', speaking of?" Octavia asked after a brief pause.

   "The Smooth Club. Didn't you see the sign?"

   "Yes, I know, but - what is the 'Smooth Club'?"

   "Well, we play around with a lot here. There's liquid garage, UK garage, dubs, drum-n'-bass every other Thursday, and a huge acid-and-dubstep rave-y thing every Sunday night," she responded, her voice picking up to a cheerfulness now.

   Octavia looked at her, up at the stage, and back to her. "I'm not sure what any of that means."

   The white mare turned back to her, cocking her head and grinning almost condescendingly. "You serious?"

   Octavia turned her head, a light, embarrassed blush appearing on her cheeks. "I - I heard sound coming from the basement, and I just..."

   The other mare's smile turned genuine quickly. "Did you like it?"

   Octavia shot a glance at her cello case. "Well, I've only ever liked classical... you know, Hayden, Heartstrings, Ponnell... anything?"

   "Nope."

   Octavia sighed. Looks like she was right. She was better off sticking with her own genre. She stood, picked up her cello case, and began strapping it to her back before a low voice echoed through the room. "That was Koda7, everypony. Second-to last for tonight is three hours' worth of Vinyl Scratch. Vinyl?"

   The white mare, who was sitting across from her mere moments ago, was gone when she turned back around. Movement caught her eye near the front, and, as she watched, a flash of sky-blue mane crossed the light befor the silhouette began to change.

   Box after rectangle after wire began to disappear, and, as an olive-coloured stallion dragged a cart full of equipment off of the stage, a tan stallion dragged a shadowed cart onto the stage. It took the stallion and the white mare (Vinyl Scratch, right?) a few minutes to put together the new boxes and rectangles and wires before the tan stallion trotted off the stage following a wave from the mare.

   Suddenly, a deep, synthetic scratch swept through the room, rippling through Octavia's body until it began to vibrate her bones themselves. Vinyl Scratch's hooves became a darkened blur as layer after layer of sound was added to the growing musical track, each different than the last. Beats, unlike anything Octavia had heard before. A reverse-sweeping tone that tickled her nerves. And finally, a blipping, popping, stabbing electronic melody set in a minor key that gave her a chill.

   Octavia closed her eyes and let the cello case fall to the floor behind her. She sat slowly in the padded chair again, leaned back, and absorbed this new ambrosia of music into her core. There was a certain beautiful tone to the liquid and reverberating drums and notes that wavered and wobbled through the air. Of course, it couldn't beat classical... right?

   Hours passed. The melodies changed and varied, stopping for short breaks before returning to the staticy sound, leading in, sometimes, violently throwing the track for an electronic loop. Octavia wished it wouldn't end.

  But it did. And almost the second after it did, Octavia's eyelids became terribly heavy. The symphonies she'd played blended into this new musical discovery in her head, creating a sound in her mind unlike any other. She'd experimented with other sounds before, from rock to rap to metal to reggae to soundscape to - to country, for Celestia's sake. And nothing would ever come close to this.

   She was brought back into reality by a tap on her shoulder.'"Morning, sleepyhead," the white mare laughed. "Go home."

   Octavia shuddered, and her eyes snapped open. She turned her chair around and coughed, standing to greet her. "Hello again... um... Vinyl Scratch?"

   "Friends call me Vinyl, best friends call me Scratch," she replied, laughing again. Octavia could see even in the dim light that she was absolutely exhausted; she was flushed red and sweating, and half her mane was matted to her head.

   "Oh. Um, anyway, I just wanted to tell you that... that was beautiful. It truly was. Fantastic work. I'm still not sure what it is, but I loved every second of it." Octavia smiled as affably as she could for how tired she was.

   Vinyl Scratch beamed proudly. "Why thank you, miss..."

   "Octavia."

   "Right. Well, Octavia, I'll have to tell you all about the wide world of electronica. Here," she said, snatching a newspaper and levitating a pencil out of her ear. "Here's my address. Send me a letter if you get the chance."

   "Thanks. I will." Octavia accepted the paper and stuck it quickly in her cello case before Vinyl interrupted her.

   "You're gonna have to show me how you play that cello, too," she said, tapping what was left of the newspaper.

   "Oh, of course. I live in Ponyville, though, so it might be a little travel..."

   "Woah!" Vinyl nearly shouted. "No way! I live, like, just on the edge of Ponyville! Tonight was my only scheduled Smooth Club date in two weeks!"

   Octavia smiled. "What a coincidence, then. Anyways, I'll mail you when I have time. You have to show me how to use those machines."

   "Of course, madam," Vinyl joked, bowing lowly and hammily.

   Octavia was too tired to be offended. Instead, she just giggled like a schoolfilly, threw her case over her shoulder and walked briskly out into the chill night air in the dark city streets. Her head was calm enough that she was able to leave the city with relative ease.

   Her dreams that night were filled with the sounds of music.

Chapter 2 - Mezzopiano

Disclaimer: Please don't sue me.

   "...So, she'd been trying to get at my equipment for the past - I don't know - hour, before I finally had to call security. She was hot, though. I was sad to see her go."

   The navy-blue stallion chuckled and raised the bottle to his lips, trying not to let the vibrations running through it cause an accident. The cream-white stallion nearby laughed above the deep, thumping music.

   "Yeah, that sounds like you, Josh. Always after the next piece of flank -"

   "Can it, Shaun."

   He laughed again. "What're you gonna do, O Soft One? Synth me to death?"

   "Oi, right. Look at Rus' over here," he retorted, leaning back against the table and throwing a hoof over the cherry-red stallion with the cropped mane nearby.

   "I've never needed bass, mate." He grabbed the bottle from Josh's hoof and leaned back, laughing with the others as Josh tried reaching for it desperately.

   He paused and sighed angrily, watching Chris polish off the last of his whiskey. He chuckled. "Yeah, you're just so hardcore with your keyboard and colours and six pairs of sunglasses that you don't need real music."

   "Not my fault."

   "No, it's the weed's fault, isn't it?" Vinyl interjected, stepping out of the cold night and through the neon curtains. "How's it goin', guys?"

   "Ah, look, the mare's late. Again. Where you been, girl?" Shaun asked, grinning.

   "It's a free country, P," she snorted, and walked over to the to the small, lopsided oval of ponies loosely grouped around one of the 'enthusiastic' pink and green tables. She sat down next to a light green mare and sighed happily, feeling the slow kick of the music pounding from the front of the room.

   "Yo, Sy. This is Koda, right?" she asked the mare.

   "Hmm?"

   "Playing right now." She already knew the answer, of course. Every musician has their own special spice to add to the metaphorical music soup. She could recognize Koda's special 2-step reverb beat from a block away on a crowded street in New Yoke.

   "Yeah. He's been going nonstop for three hours." A fluttering sigh came from behind her loose mask. "What stamina."

   "Nice try. He's taken. Been tied down to - what's her name - Violet for months now." Syrenas groaned, making Vinyl laugh. "Refresh my memory; who's up next?" she asked.

   "That'd be me. Been working on a liquid drum-and-bass for a while now, trying it out tonight. You playing?"

   "One more time? Sometimes, I swear, it's like your accent's got a mind of its own."

   Syrenas snorted. "Are you playing?" she repeated, louder, before muttering to herself angrily.

   "Nah, I'm just here to take Koda home. I have to talk to him about something." There was a pause in the conversation as she chuckled quietly to herself. "You think he has stamina. Half the time I have to practically carry him back."

   Syrenas clicked her tongue. "Oh. That's too bad, I hear you're one of the best."

   Vinyl laughed. "You're kidding, right? I've never even been published before. Unlike all the guys back here." She turned her head to the silhouetted stage, closing her eyes behind her glasses. "Mmm. I come here every so often just to listen, not to play." She turned back to Syrenas. "How do you keep your mask on?"

   "What?"

   "Just popped into my mind. I've been wondering for forever."

   "It - it just sort of stays on by itself -"

   "No, I mean, how can you bear to keep it on? It's always so hot in here."

   Syrenas snorted, barely audibly. "You comin' onto me, Scratch?"

   Vinyl sighed impatiently, leaning on the table against her hoof. "How many times do I have to tell everypony? 'Bi' does not equal 'wants everypony'."

   "Just checkin'. Makin' sure. Positive?" she teased, winking.

   "Oh, buck off, Sy."

   The track suddenly drained away with a warble, the low announcer's voice crackled over the PA, "That was a no-nonsense cut from Koda7. Next up, I need Syrenas Voice up here. Sy?"

   As the lime-green unicorn stood and walked away from the table with a friendly little wave, Vinyl shook her head and groaned, stretching her forelegs back. It smelled like alcohol and smoke all of a sudden; either somepony just attempted to mix a blue blazer and had failed horribly, or her nose had finally picked up on the smokers hanging round outside the club.

   She coughed twice and stood, making her way through the crowd to the off-ramp leading from the stage. An absolutely exhausted-looking silhouette of her friend came bleeding from the shadows, his equipment cart in tow.

   Vinyl scoffed as he passed her. "What the hay happened to you?"

   Koda coughed. "I put the - put the wrong oscillator on the wrong side. It screwed everything up. I was basically running back and forth and back and forth. Celestia, it is smoky in here."

   "Trust me, I checked," Vinyl chuckled, walking up alongside him. "Nopony's on fire."

   "I gotta get out of here," he almost whispered, coughing again.

   "Yeah. Because you have asthma," Vinyl snorted.

   "I do!"

   "Oh, right," she laughed, patting Koda playfully on the back. "We should get going anyways."

   She waved as she passed the group of stallions, her other hoof still on Koda's back. Reactions were immediate: Shaun giggled and Chris let out a sharp wolf whistle.

   "Threesome," Josh coughed.

   "Yo, shut it, Josh."

   The city was also so peaceful at night. There wasn't much of a sound besides the monotonous clicking of two sets of hooves on the cobblestone. Some street-lamps flickered, others outshone those around them, bathing the street in a dull golden glow.

   Vinyl inhaled deeply, feeling the coolness of the night fill her head. Her mediation was cut short by Koda's still-exhausted voice. "Thanks for helping me home again, Vinyl."

   Vinyl chuckled softly. "I don't do much."

   "No, but it's nice to have somepony to talk to," he replied in the same tone. "The world is quiet when you alone inhabit it."

   Vinyl stared at her friend from behind her glasses. "... I think your collabs with the Spacehorse have gotten a bit out of hoof. That's some deep stuff right there."

   Koda laughed shortly, his dual chuckle bouncing off the sides of the now-towering buildings to their right and left. They weren't far at all from his apartment. Almost forgot.

   "Speaking of having somepony to talk to, I noticed you chatting it up with somepony I totally didn't recognize last week," he commented.

   Vinyl laughed loudly, before realizing where she was. She stopped herself short. "I was, like, just about to ask you about that!" she said, pulling a bent-up piece of parchment out from her saddlebag with her magic. "Look. She sent me a letter, quick-delivery.

Dear Ms. Vinyl Scratch,

I came upon your address today while tidying up my work area, and memories of the night I was introduced to your genre of music came flooding back to me.

I must say, these memories sparked my interest, and I've decided to try to contact you. Maybe we could meet sometime to discuss our own individual music? You live, surprisingly, very close to me -

   -and blah dee blah dee blah, but the point is, it looks like she's asking me out," she finished, sounding worried. "What do I do? Do I just - just walk up to her house and start talking, or do-"

   "Vinyl, calm down!" Koda interrupted. "Oh, and stop, we're here." He turned to open the door, but Vinyl stopped him with a hoof on the shoulder.

   "Wait, Koda, what do I do?" she asked frantically.

   Koda thought for a moment. "... Don't take the words of strangers for face value. Delve into the depths of their intent first." With this (and a terribly confused look from Vinyl), Koda walked with a bit of a swagger into his apartment.

   Vinyl stared at the door for a moment, before pounding it with a hoof and nearly yelling, "You're an existential bastard, Koda!"

   She only stayed long enough to hear his teasing comeback. "I know you are, but what am I?"

   The music echoed hrough her skull, vibrating her chest, sending chills down her spine. Just the way she liked it.

   The headphones were doing their job. She could feel the bass echo through them, reverberating through her. The tables spread out in front of her were lit up with orange and green, the only light filling the room. Everything she'd done so far was perfect for garage. But that wasn't what she wanted.

   She sighed, tapping her hoof on the table restlessly. Suddenly, while she was glancing at the shape editor, an idea hit her. If she blended the right 404 with the right shape, it could reinvent the sound. It could throw the entire track out of garage and into full-blown dubstep.

   She grinned, and her hoof hovered over the button. She stared at the dull orange glow, blinking, breathing deeply. Suddenly, the glow became a visual white noise. She could feel her eyelids growing heavier by the second. Thoughts of all kinds flooded her mind, all vying for the position as subject for the first dream.

   One unexpected thought reached in and grabbed Vinyl by the concentration. She gasped herself awake, and leapt out of her seat, trotting into the kitchen.

   She threw a mess of papers off the top of the fridge, levitating record after pamphlet after bill down to eye level, shaking her head each time she examined something. Finally, her magic sensed something slightly heavier, and she brought it down to her with relief. Still there. Still there.

   She smiled and grabbed a bottle of... something from the counter, popping off the cap and pouring a half-glass for herself before turning and walking back into the living room.

   The book between Vinyl's hooves was literally covered with a fine layer of dust. She shifted around a bit on the couch, kicking a sock and a fork off the end and getting comfortable before wiping it off gently.

   The pages flipped by, one by one, each bringing new colour to the dark room. She finally came to a page she remembered far too well. Page 57. She ran a hoof over the picture softly.

   She raised the glass of golden liquid to her lips and took a slow sip. Tonight, she wasn't drinking to get drunk. Just to drink.

   She didn't bother going to bed. She merely reached out with a finger of turquoise magic and flicked off the light, holding the book tightly to her chest as she felt sleep take her in its warm grasp.

   "I've never forgotten you, Octavia."