Vinyl had never fully approved of Canterlot. As the center of the royal government of Equestria, the vast majority of the city’s population was made up of Vinyl often referred to in a snide voice as ‘the elite’; old money families who still lived in the manors their ancestors had built, businesses and banks that had gotten their start back in the days when Nightmare Moon being sealed away was still fresh on everyone’s minds. Yet because of that fact, the music scene had always boomed there, filled with studios that were far more wide reaching than any Manehatten studio and much better funded.

So Vinyl had grudgingly moved. From self-published records, to a small record label out of Manehatten, and now, a massive contract with the biggest record label in Equestria. Vinyl had never dreamed of a Canterlot studio expressing interest in her music, but at the end of the day, an entire generation of ponies had bags full of bits, and Vinyl’s music had the selling power.

Vinyl remembered when she had gotten her first check. She didn’t think numbers went that high. Now, she had bank accounts on top of her bank accounts. Piles of bits, and no clue what to do with them all. She had always lived very frugal; back in her Manehatten days, saving a few bits here and there was the difference between making rent or crashing on someone’s couch for a few weeks. Vinyl supposed she had gotten used to living far under her means.

She didn’t have a mansion, she had a small house. She didn’t have a private carriage, she walked or took a public one. She had, however, purchased a studio for herself; while the label had provided her space to record, it was always on their time. Vinyl had gotten tired of watching her agent fight to get her on the schedule, and she had the bits to spare.

Today however, was a completely different kind of purchase.

The aptly known Talent District in Canterlot was home to far more that just her record companies. The Canterlot School of the Arts, the Royal Canterlot Symphony, Countless stage musical groups, and talent agencies by the boatload. And, the Canterlot Musical Theatre.

It was this last building that had gotten Vinyl out of bed at eight in the morning. The pegasi had scheduled a clear day today, so Vinyl had decided to walk across town. As expected of the musical district, there were plenty of ponies on the streets; some with instruments, others performing various acts.

Vinyl reached her destination, coming to a stop before the imposing structure. She had to admit; it had probably seen better days. Three stories tall, and painted an unobtrusive white color, The Canterlot Musical Theatre had once been a rather popular destination in Canterlot. It had been the original home for the symphony, and held various shows of all kinds in the off-season. Then the symphony had moved, and all its patrons had followed. The acts died off, and the theatre was passed back and forth through a number owners over the years, always winding up back in the hooves of the bank.

It seemed that they had put only the bare minimum of upkeep into it. The archaic lighting was missing quite a few of the original bulbs, one of the spotlights was missing, and the paint was peeling above the first story. The glass cases that had once held posters to display the upcoming acts were either cracked or missing their glass altogether. Well, not all of them. Vinyl was certain that the various glass shards that littered the sidewalk amounted to at least a pane and a half.

As Vinyl looked closer, she saw that whoever had painted the first story had done so without removing the old paint first. It gave the wood a mottled look; bumps and bubbles had formed underneath the most recent layer. Vinyl gave a sigh, before climbing up the marble steps. She noticed with some comfort that the steps were quite solid under her hooves. She halted on the steps, giving a jump.

“Well, these have held up.” Vinyl turned and looked towards the doors. “Those...not so much.”

The grand doors, a span of six double doors that could be held open on popular nights, were in desperate need of new finish. As she gripped the door and gave it a pull, its hinges released a shriek that caused her teeth to rattle. She stepped into the foyer.

Her eyes trailed over the faded carpet. There was a musty smell in the air, but thankfully she didn’t smell any mold. It smelled more ancient than anything else. She saw the missing spotlight had been relocated to the top of the ticket counter. She leaned in, looking at the shattered lens and dented side.

“You would be Vinyl?”

Vinyl turned her gaze from the spotlight, looking at the mare talking from the auditorium doors. “Yep. That’s me. And you are...?”

“Swift Justice. I’m here on behalf of the bank.”

Swift Justice was a rather smart looking earth pony. She wore a suit over her light green coat, and her orange hair swept back in a professional type of poof. She set her briefcase down on the ticket counter, a puff of dust rising up in the still air..

“Would you like a tour before we get down to business?”

“That’d be cool.” Vinyl swept her hoof towards the auditorium. “Lead the way, Swifty.”

==========

Swift certainly lived up to her name. She had guided Vinyl through the theater with ease, pointing out all the features and leaving Vinyl to take in all the flaws that needed no elaboration. The main elevator was locked at the second floor. It seemed solid, but nothing could get it to move up or down. The service elevator rested in the basement, looking slightly squashed.

Everywhere they went, the wallpaper hung in depressed strips, large patches of plain brown wall showing behind faded gold.

“How the buck do you get around this place so easily?” Vinyl growled, as she jumped several steps that had bowed in the middle.

“Third time selling it.” Swift said as she pressed against the wall. “Mind the floor.”

Vinyl noticed with a sigh that the carpet was sagging in the middle. She followed Swift’s path very carefully after that, especially down the stairs. She was certain she heard them cracking under their hooves.

At least the auditorium itself was reasonably maintained.

“Mostly it gets rented out to students at the academy, maybe a stage group who needs rehearsal space.” Swift watched as Vinyl walked up on the stage. “Hey, be careful!”

Vinyl had been giving the stage a few experimental stomps when the floor had simply opened up beneath her. Her hooves scrambled in the air to find placement before she fell into the darkness under the stage, landing with a grunt on a smooth wooden floor before she was suddenly enveloped in a cloud of dust.

There was a stomp and a click from above her, and light shone down as Swift Justice looked at her, leaning down and extending a hoof. “I did try and warn you.”

Vinyl took her hoof, using her other hoof to cover her coughs as she let Swift pull her up. Once she was back on the stage, the trap door swung back up, clicking and locking in place.

“Really?” Vinyl looked at Swift. “That is so cool!”

“The stage has a few of them. Usually used for special effects, the occasional magical act, and so forth.” Swift indicated the spots on the stage, marked with masking tape to form an X. She stomped on one of them, and a few inches from her hoof, the stage floor clicked and fell open before springing back into place.

“The stage has seven of them in total, with a passage that leads through the wall to the higher levels.” She pointed to the third stage balcony. “Some kind of magic act where the pony vanishes and appears behind everypony else.”

“They solid?” Vinyl said, as she reached a hoof over to give a few careful stomps on the trapdoor itself.

“...Most of the time.”

“Most of the time?”

Swift heaved a sigh. She reached a hoof up to her suit, straightening the collar before she turned back towards Vinyl. “I will not try and sugar coat this. This building could use some improvement. Quite a bit of it, in fact. Remodeling has always proven a challenge.That spotlight in there fell from the balcony and destroyed an entire cart of lumber. Through three separate owners, no one has had the patience to remodel it. Something gets fixed, something else goes wrong.”

Vinyl turned and took in the auditorium. From here on the stage, it looked quite grand. She didn’t bother to count the seats, but between the floor seating, the two balconies, and the rows of private boxes along each wall, Vinyl figured it could hold a few hundred ponies at least. Sure, it had more than it’s fair share of problems, but underneath the dust and rotted wood....she tried to imagine what it must have felt like to be on this stage when the theatre was in it’s prime.

“I’ll take it anyway.” Vinyl turned back towards Swift with a wide smile. “I like it.”

Author's Note

This is one of my favorites, and a story that never quite got off the ground. Out of all of the stories posted here, this is the one that is most likely to be turned into its own story at some point.

The premise of the story, in a nutshell, was that Vinyl Scratch buys an old, rundown theatre (as you can see) and finds a shy, quiet, and mostly mute Octavia living inside of it. I always considered the premise to be a rather cute and adorable one, but I never went further than this with it. I already had two OctaScratch fics in progress, and I didn't want to flood my page with them. So this got placed on the back-burner, which was later moved to the "Old Ideas" bin.