The City

Chapter 5

Despite her current predicament – or perhaps because of it – Octavia couldn’t help but notice the beauty around her. To her one side stretched a vast, nebulous expanse of ocean. It was calm now, the storm that had ravaged it nothing but a distant memory of which the only trace was a lingering humidity in the night air. To her other side was a dense forest of palms, their unfamiliar leaves rustling in a cool breeze. Above her, a crystal-clear sky – unmarred by the pollution of the city lights to which she was accustomed – stretched vast and limitless, stars painted across it in thick, milky swaths. They were mesmerizing, but if she gazed upward for too long she began to feel dizzy and nauseous, and the horror of reality would come crashing back down on her.

The already delicate mare was deprived of sleep and food, wandering the coast of some unknown land mass in a search for any signs of life. She’d considered heading inland, but the thick, alien-looking trees rose dark and foreboding in the starlight. She’d given up on finding Beatrix – or any other survivors of the ill-fated ship, for that matter – hours ago. Octavia still did not understand why the severe griffoness had gone to such lengths to save her life, and was sure she never would; Beatrix was almost certainly dead, the only remnant of her existence being a few black feathers the tide had carried to shore. Regardless of the griffon’s motivations, if Octavia was unable to find help – or at least something edible – very soon, her efforts would be rendered inconsequential. The strange flora that encroached on the beach were looking increasingly appetizing with each passing minute, but though she was no botanist, Octavia knew that eating the wrong plant could result in a death infinitely more painful than starvation.

The weary trudge continued as the gray mare searched for a place where the palms might thin out, but found none. Though the indeterminate amount of time she’d spent unconscious on the shore had afforded her some rest, it did little to compensate for the fact that she had just gone through what was unquestionably the most traumatic ordeal of her life, and all on an empty stomach. Still, it was so serene here. The air was cool, but the lingering tropical moisture of the storm kept it far from frigid, and the waves that gently lapped at her hooves seemed almost welcoming as her knees buckled and she sank into the sand. A warmth spread through her chest as she lay down. Her stomach was so very empty, but that discomfort was dampened by the pleasant fuzziness that clouded her mind as her eyelids grew ever-heavier, the whispering tide beckoning her to sleep.

But in the back of her mind, the tiny part of Octavia that had not yet succumbed to shock began screaming.

If you go to sleep now, it told her frantically, you will not wake up again.

“I know,” she whispered back with calm resignation, cracking her eyes open to give the voice a view of the scenery, “but I can’t imagine a more beautiful place for such a thing…”

I can think of one.

Octavia sighed piteously. For the briefest moment, her muscles tensed, yet she could not rise half an inch; she’d taxed herself beyond what she even believed to be possible, and her body had ceased to even so much as acknowledge her will.

“There’s nothing left,” she breathed to herself, “nothing.” Tears streamed down her cheeks when she said her next words, “Vinyl will be alright. She will find somepony else to make her happy…I know she will.”

No you don’t, and what if she doesn’t?

“There’s nothing left,” she protested weakly, “I can’t walk another step.”

Then crawl.

When Octavia awoke, Vinyl wasn’t there. It only took a moment before she realized both why this was the case and why she had been jarred from sleep. The sound of violent retching and coughing met her ears, and she dashed out the bedroom door and into the bathroom, where she found the aforementioned unicorn emptying her stomach contents into the toilet. She knew from many years of experience that there was little she could do on nights like this but offer a little bit of comfort, and so she placed a hoof on her partner’s back and gently rubbed the knotted muscles. She felt a shudder with each purge, and the clammy dampness of a cold sweat began to mat the alabaster coat where she touched it.

“Just let it all out, love.”

Soon it was obvious that there was nothing left to expel, but that didn’t stop Vinyl’s insides from heaving and contracting in a desperate attempt to rid itself of the poison that had already made its way into her bloodstream. With a pitiful, strangled yelp she fell to the floor, clutching her stomach, teeth clenched. Each exhale came as a hiss, each inhale choked by a sob. Octavia stroked her cheek, whispering quiet reassurances. She’d watched this treacherous dance of misery many, many times. When she was younger, she would sometimes beg Vinyl to stop drinking, especially on those most painful of mornings after. When they were younger, sometimes Vinyl would vow of her own volition to never touch liquor again. But this was a battle they had both lost.

As the DJ’s slowing breath signaled her return to unconsciousness, Octavia debated taking her back to bed, but figured that could be counterproductive considering she might very well be sick again. Instead, the gray mare retrieved the comforter from the next room and placed it over the incapacitated unicorn. She lay down on top of it, resting her head on Vinyl’s chest, listening to her breathing. It was a bit labored, but nothing life-threatening. Morning would be a miserable affair for many reasons, but the both of them would live to fight another day.

Dawn came, and Octavia greeted it with bloodshot eyes and a growling stomach. As the rising sun bathed the horizon in a wash of crimson and yellow, something caught her attention: the glint of metal in the distance, coming from a shape that looked too smooth to be a natural formation. She could not run, but she managed to speed up to a trot, both fatigue and the feeling of sand beneath her hooves contributing to her very uneven gait.

The barrel was battered, but it did not have the sun-bleached quality that might suggest it had been here for a long time. Whether it had come from the shipwreck or somewhere else entirely Octavia didn’t know; she was, at this point, miles away from the spot where the little remains of the vessel there were – as well as she herself – had washed up on shore, but considering how violent the storm had been, it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that something had been carried this far. Opening the barrel would be no easy task for an earth pony, even if she were rested and had the proper tools available. It had in fact been the glint of one of the reinforcing steel bands that encircled the container which had caught her eye from a distance. Still, there could be food in it, and the thought of coming all this way only to be defeated by an inch of wood felt profoundly silly. Groaning with the effort, Octavia nudged the barrel up the beach and toward the line of trees. By the time she had pushed it to the base of one of the sturdier-looking palms, her legs were wobbling and she felt ill. She knew if she lost her momentum now it was over, and so she stood it up against the tree, turning around and delivering a weak kick in an attempt to break it open. It barely gave. On the second kick, she felt the wood flex, but it came nowhere near close to breaking. The third kick was wild and poorly directed, and her hooves glanced off its surface; she landed hard on her belly, coughing and spluttering miserably. Refusing to let unconsciousness take her, Octavia stood, reflecting with no small amount of apprehension that her survival was completely dependent on this barrel containing food of some sort – if it didn’t, she would not have the strength to go on.

Her next kick was met by a sharp report as some part of the vessel cracked. Octavia’s stomach growled viciously, prompting to deliver another blow that heralded her triumph with the sound of splintering wood. She turned around with the frantic eagerness of a starving pony about to eat.

The barrel was empty.

Octavia collapsed, despair and exhaustion finally taking her.

“I’m sorry, Vinyl,” she whispered as her tearing eyes closed for what she was sure would be the last time. She felt a terrible inadequacy and profound guilt; not only did her death render Beatrix’s sacrifice meaningless, it felt like a terrible betrayal of her beloved Vinyl. They would never see each other again, and it wasn’t because she’d been murdered or held captive, it was simply because she was too weak. She had nothing left to give. Even the voice in the back of Octavia’s mind was silent, knowing that there was not a single ounce of strength left to be coaxed out. As she slipped into oblivion she could hear a soft padding in the sand behind her – the steps of the reaper pony coming to claim her.

“I’m ready,” she sighed, “take me.”

“Oh, we will,” said a voice that did not sound at all like death.

Octavia did not quite fully comprehend just how drunk she had been until she rose from a reasonably adequate night’s sleep. Her body ached terribly, and a dull throbbing behind her eyes forced her to squint lest she provoke a full-blown migraine. It took her a minute or two to remember why she was on the bathroom floor instead of in bed. Vinyl was not there, nor was she in the bedroom when Octavia went there to return the comforter to its rightful place. It was a rare occasion that the cellist was the last to wake up, but it had been known to happen. For some reason she felt vaguely apprehensive, but couldn’t quite put her hoof on why. Cursing groggily under her breath, she went to go brush her teeth.

Looking down into the basin, Octavia suddenly felt the amnesiac haze of her hangover violently torn away as the sight before her threw the previous night’s events into sharp relief. A damp cloth, stained red, sat at the bottom of the sink. Heart now pounding, she wondered where Vinyl was, and how far away she might be. Had she fled after what she’d seen? It didn’t seem unlikely. Forgetting all about brushing her teeth or fixing her hair, Octavia anxiously trotted down to the ground floor and into the kitchen, figuring that it would do her no good to tackle this catastrophe before eating breakfast.

As she traversed the dining room, the odor of something burnt reached her nostrils, and it wasn’t tobacco. When she entered the kitchen, she found Vinyl at the table, her head covered by a towel. Next to her rested a bottle of cider and a plate of what looked like an attempt at scrambled eggs. Octavia grimaced; it was a rare morning that Vinyl was in such a state of delirium that she forgot she couldn’t cook to save her life. Wasting no time, the gray mare retrieved a few simple ingredients from the refrigerator and set to work making a proper breakfast, half-hoping that the slumbering DJ would remain asleep long enough for her to try and think of a way to explain herself.

She was not so lucky.

The scent of a legitimate culinary endeavor roused Vinyl from unconsciousness, and she regarded Octavia with a bleary, unfocused gaze.

“Tavi…”

Octavia did not know what to say. What could she say? What she’d done was unforgivable and arguably psychopathic. She could not hope to explain it, let alone justify it.

“…hurry up, that smells delicious.”

She blinked a few times before hastily shutting off the stove. The omelet was done, and in her shock and confusion she’d nearly sent it the way of everything Vinyl had ever tried to prepare. There was an audible thump as the DJ’s head reacquainted itself with the table, followed by an anguished moan.

“Vinyl…?” she prompted as she set the food down.

“Urng,” was the only response she received.

“How do you feel, my love?”

“I would hang myself if it wasn’t so much effort,” Vinyl grumbled.

“How…what’s the last thing you remember?”

Vinyl massaged her temples for a moment before raising her head with a groan and greedily gulping down the rest of her cider.

“Probably being a jerk to Neon,” she sighed, “as soon as I can walk straight I’m gonna go apologize to him.”

“Do you remember the bar?” Octavia asked breathlessly.

“We went to a bar?” the unicorn countered with unaffected incredulity as she dug into the proffered meal, the strain of lifting her fork with magic visible. “No wonder I feel so terrible. Ugh…did I do something stupid?”

“No.”

“Oh,” the surprise in her voice was very genuine, “so…why are you all freaked out?”

Octavia was taken aback. Granted, her guard was down because of the hangover, but moreover she’d forgotten just how very adept Vinyl was at reading ponies, especially her.

“Vinyl,” she began with deliberation, “are you telling me you don’t remember anything?”

“Tavi, please just tell me what I did…”

“You didn’t do anything wrong, love, we just had a bit of a disagreement with somepony is all.”

“Ugh…did I start a fight?”

“No, dear heart. There wasn’t anything that I would call a fight.”

Vinyl’s mane smelled of blueberries. Even after all these years, she was still using the same conditioner – something which Octavia had practically forced on her in college. She was so beholden to habit that it was nearly impossible to shoehorn something into her routine, but once it was done, such things tended to stick.

Octavia clutched the spiky blue hair to her chest. After breakfast they had retired to the couch, seeing as neither she nor Vinyl were in any condition for activities other than lying down or going back to sleep, respectively. She stared at the ceiling, watching the dancing shadows of trees swaying in the midday breeze filter in through the sliding doors that occupied the back wall of the room, and listening to the soft snoring of the pony who had fallen asleep on top of her.

Octavia was somewhat shocked. She’d savagely beaten four ponies within an inch of their lives, and not only did it seem that none of them had gone to the authorities, Vinyl was none the wiser. Was this monumental indiscretion simply going to go away? Was fortune simply going to throw her a bone this time? It seemed so, but she refused to let herself slip into a false sense of security, even for a moment; why, after years upon years of grinding her into the dirt, should luck suddenly choose to smile on her now? No, such recklessness had to have consequences, they simply hadn’t manifested yet. She was not so very worried about the possibility of assault charges – despite having exacted utterly disproportionate retribution on her assailants, she was fairly confident that everything she’d done fell under the nebulous umbrella of “self defense”. Neither did she feel an ounce of remorse. Had it not been for her partner’s intervention on the matter, Low Ball would be a corpse right now, as well as his goons; rule number one of crushing any threat was to leave no potential revenge-seekers in the equation. No, what worried her was that if Vinyl found out what happened – or, just as likely, suddenly recalled it – her actions would require explanation, and she could not give an adequate explanation without recounting more than a little of what she’d been doing for the past twelve years, which was something she’d not quite figured out how to frame yet, and she had to admit that by “frame” she essentially meant exactly how much she was going to lie. It pained her to consider not telling Vinyl the whole truth, but she knew if she did, there was a chance of losing her. It was a “necessary evil”, which, while it was a nice phrase, Octavia had learned long ago was no different than any evil, other than that you could live with perpetrating it.

When the increasing philosophical complexity of her stream of consciousness threatened to give Octavia a headache, she reached for the still-mostly-full, still-relatively-cold bottle of cider that her fillyfriend had opened before falling back asleep. She made a mental note to drink less, not so much for health reasons but rather because she figured there should be at least one relatively-sober person between the two of them, and she was most certainly the only candidate for that position. Part of her was more than a little astonished at just how well Vinyl had held up all these years, especially if Neon was to be believed…and as previously asserted, there was no reason he shouldn’t be. While Vinyl Scratch was the only alcoholic she had ever known with any degree of intimacy, a good friend of hers – namely Bon Bon, the earth pony half of the only other “reserved earth pony and crazy unicorn” lesbian outfit she was familiar with – had lost her mother to drink, and as such had always been very blunt and forward about telling Octavia exactly what was going to happen if she didn’t force Vinyl into some type of treatment. Organ failure and dementia had always been two of her biggest selling points. And yet, while the past twelve years had ravaged Octavia’s body, it was Vinyl’s soul and mind that had been traumatized. She looked absolutely fine on the outside, but she wasn’t the same. This was why they needed each other now more than ever, because it was possible that if they took all the pieces of themselves that still worked and put them together, there might be enough to make one whole, undamaged person. That is, if the broken parts didn’t kill them first.

There was food. It wasn’t much, but Octavia attacked the stale chunk of bread with abandon, as well as the glass of water that sat next to it. Only after licking every last crumb from her plate did she even begin to take stock of her surroundings. The room was small and unadorned, and the slate gray of its walls was so similar to her own coat color that she wondered if she was even visible in the dim light. Glancing about her, she jumped when she realized she was not alone. On a cot in the far corner was another pony, a mare like herself.

“Hello, miss?” she prompted, her voice still weak as the paltry sustenance she’d ingested was only just beginning to revitalize her.

This pony had a dark pink coat and lighter pink mane that was streaked with yellow. She lifted her head and opened her eyes, which were a bright sapphire blue. It was only upon seeing her face that Octavia was struck by the ghastly gauntness of her figure. She looked starved and ill, and the dullness in her eyes spoke of a prolonged lack of nourishment.

“Where did you come from?” the strange mare asked with drawling lethargy, as though she didn’t care in the slightest what the answer to her question was. Her accent, though thin, placed her origin from somewhere in the vicinity of Manehattan.

“I was on a ship,” Octavia explained, “it got wrecked in the storm…where am I?”

“Shipwreck, huh?” the pink pony chuckled mirthlessly, “well aren’t you a lucky one?”

“I did survive.”

“Yeah, you did, and that’s the worst mistake you ever made.”

“Where am I?” Octavia asked again, a slight hint of demand creeping into her voice.

“The City.”

“But which city?”

“The only one,” the mare replied ominously, “and the last one you’ll ever see.”

“Alright,” the cellist rolled her eyes, “let’s start smaller. What is this building I’m in right now?”

“This?” the other pony laughed, and this time it was not only humorless but hollow and bitter, “this is everyone’s favorite place. They come here for drinks and sex.”

“Well, I could use the former, I’ll pass on the latter.”

“Well, too bad, because that’s exactly the opposite of what you’re going to get.”

“Just what are you implying?” Octavia demanded incredulously.

“Don’t play stupid,” the nameless pony spat, “you’re our newest ‘coworker’. They might give you a day to perk up, but after that you’d better learn to shut your mouth and spread ‘em, because that’s what you’re going to be doing for the rest of your short and miserable life.”

Oh no…oh no no no no no, Octavia begged whatever powers might be listening, please, please don’t let this be true. How. How could she be so supremely unfortunate as to climb out of the frying pan and land straight in the fire. Surely this mare was mad or delirious. Surely she had not escaped captivity only to wind up right back in it, and at the mercy of even more evil creatures.

“I…I have to get out of here,” she breathed, panic rising in her breast, “how do I get out of here?”

“If there was a way out, do you really think I’d be lounging around and talking to you? Even if you got out of here, where are you going to go?”

“To the authorities. Whatever country we’re in must have some sort of guard or police…”

The mare sighed, shaking her head slowly and giving a genuinely sympathetic look, as though at some point long ago she’d had these same thoughts.

“We’re not in a country, kid, we’re in The City, and there’s nothing else.”

Octavia returned to consciousness through sheer force of will, having no desire to relive the rest of this particular memory. She pulled Vinyl just a little closer with one hoof, and reached for a drink of cider with the other. There were only a small number of moments in her life where she had felt that sinking emptiness that accompanies the loss of something that can never be taken back.

Octavia’s single life – which, to be perfectly honest, had been a relatively short amount of time – had always been characterized by a fairly apathetic attitude toward sex. As a teenager, she’d never had the desire to engage in such an intimate act just for the sake of it when her own hoof would suffice. In her first year of college, the same remained true, the only difference being the addition of a glass of wine to the equation. When the other young mares were all squealing about their first kiss, she was practicing her cello. When they were all going on their first dates, she was practicing her cello. When they were all whispering excitedly – or in some cases, sobbing miserably – about losing their virginities, she was practicing her cello. It wasn’t that she was averse to companionship and intimacy, it was simply that she did not consider those things to be a rite of passage as mainstream female social hierarchy would have her believe. It was not until she met Vinyl that she’d ever felt a strong desire for sexual contact, and it wasn’t because some switch had suddenly been flipped in her brain, it was out of a wish to express her love for someone who had so completely changed her life for the better, a way to say something that even a mare as well-spoken as herself could not express with words. Her first sexual experience had been with Vinyl, and as it had become apparent that they were going to spend the rest of their lives together, she’d been perfectly happy with – even proud of – the idea that the only soul who would ever know her in that way was her one true love.

And then they’d taken that away from her…again, and again, and again. No matter how much she told herself it was of no consequence, no matter how much she told herself that the only thing that really counted was what she felt in her heart, she knew it wasn’t so. Old rooms could be dusted and beds remade, the wild garden could be tamed. Friendships could be rekindled and vows of love renewed, but innocence, once lost, could not be reclaimed.

And that made the world look just a little bit uglier.

Octavia awoke from a mercifully dreamless sleep to find herself alone on the couch. It was dark outside, and she felt that pang of irrational guilt that always bothered the back of her mind when she wasted a day, even if there was little chance she could’ve accomplished anything productive. She stretched, a few audible pops issuing from her spine and various joints. At the very least, all the sleep had more or less alleviated her hangover and made her feel almost refreshed. If she hadn’t been so drunk the previous night, she probably would’ve felt better than she had in years.

Vinyl’s whereabouts were no mystery; all the lights leading to and within the kitchen were on, because Vinyl had just never quite been able to grasp that the unholy amount of money they paid for utilities each month was largely owed to the fact that she only seemed to be able to flip a light switch one way. When Octavia entered the kitchen, the DJ was sitting at the table, surrounded by takeout containers and empty beer bottles, and staring very intently at a piece of parchment. After a moment she lifted a pen with her aura and made a few short scribbles on it. Curious, the gray mare trotted over and sat down opposite her. What she saw when she looked across the table astonished her: a hastily-scrawled staff populated by sloppily-scribbled notes. This was not in and of itself anything remarkable, of course, but what took her aback was the complexity of it. The writing was miniscule and crowded, but even looking at it upside down and a couple feet away, she could see that it would be no easy task to play, no matter what the instrument. Moreover, there was an alarming amount of notation that she was not at all familiar with, despite being classically trained and thinking herself very well-studied in the field of Vinyl’s chicken scratch.

“One sec,” the unicorn muttered under her breath, dotting out twenty or so more notes in rapid succession, pausing for a few seconds, and then scribbling down a last few before laying down the double bars that signaled the end of the piece, not only on the last line, but the one above it, and the one above that, and so on. It took Octavia a moment to realize she was looking at eight different instruments, reaching all the way up to the top of what had to be a four-foot roll of parchment. “Well, that’s another one down…two more to go, and that’s the album.”

“May I?” Octavia asked without demand.

“Sure.”

The sheaf was magicked into her hooves, and she unrolled as much of it as the length of her appendages would allow. It was music, there was no doubt about that – she could read the notes just fine, apart from the sloppy hornwriting – but scrawled in every available margin were all kinds of symbols, and in some cases entire diagrams consisting of knobs and faders that she would only barely understand the functions of were she looking at the hardware. In this shorthand, however, they were utterly indecipherable.

Out of the two of them, Vinyl had always much been the producer while she was the writer and – according to Vinyl – the better player. But what Octavia saw before her now indicated a mastery over every aspect of the musical process from the inception of the melody to the mixing of each track. In fact she was probably holding instructions on creating a radio-worthy song from start to finish, if only she could read them. More than likely, nobody but Vinyl could.

“What’s this one?” she asked, pointing to one particular set of notes. Unlike the other instruments, it was just a repeating set of whole note chords. Vinyl craned her neck across the table and squinted, clearly already a little tipsy.

“Oh, that’s an arpeggiator. I know it looks boring, but this” – she tapped an illegible diagram in the margin – “is the program. I can show you how it all works sometime.”

“Well, I may not understand that, but the arrangement itself looks enchanting. How long have you been working on this, Vinyl?”

“Uh…” the DJ glanced at the clock, “since I ordered the pizza…so like four hours.”

“No,” Octavia chuckled, “I mean this whole song, when did you start it?”

Vinyl cocked her head slightly. “I told you, right after I ordered the pizza.”

“Vinyl, please.”

“What?”

“Vinyl Scratch, are you lying to me?” Octavia demanded, slamming her hoof on the table, her stare suddenly withering and accusatory.

“I…Tavi, no, I would never lie to you…and if I did, why would it be about something so dumb?”

It was the absolute truth. Vinyl never lied because she simply did not possess the necessary cognitive filters to be able to do so. Whatever she thought just came straight out of her mouth. But even if she could, she wouldn’t lie, especially about something so trivial, and Octavia knew it. Could she say the same about herself? Lies of omission were still lies.

“I’m sorry,” the cellist sighed, shaking her head to dispel her current train of thought and looking for anything else to latch onto, “I mean, it’s just…well, how do you expect to do this?” she redirected both their attentions to a staff littered with sixty-fourth notes arranged in arpeggios, “I don’t care what the instrument, that’s impossible.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Vinyl shrugged. It was a very obvious copout, but Octavia had no right to say anything when she’d just jumped down her throat for telling the truth. As usual, Octavia wanted to wonder why she was feeling the way she felt, but she didn’t need to. Hanging her head with no small amount of frustration, but an infinitely larger helping of shame, she rose from her seat and sat down next to Vinyl, resting her head on the DJ’s shoulder.

“I’m so sorry, love…that’s two times I’ve lost my temper with you now, isn’t it?”

“Tavi,” Vinyl put a hoof on her shoulder with an amount of caution that set off alarm bells in Octavia’s head, “It’s o–”

“Don’t! Don’t say it’s okay; it isn’t. I need…I need to learn to control myself…”

“Tavi, you’ve been through stuff I can’t even imagine…”

“Don’t trivialize your own struggles.”

“…so I get it if you get a little…angry sometimes. Just talk to me.” Vinyl’s touch was so gentle, her voice so soft and holding such compassion that for the briefest of moments, Octavia just wanted to collapse into her embrace and cry, but she knew she couldn’t. Her beloved was so fragile right now, and she could be the strong one for as long as she needed to be. She owed Vinyl that, and infinitely more, including an explanation for her outburst.

“I’m jealous, Vinyl. I’m terribly, terribly jealous. When we played the other night, I could already tell you’d surpassed me even at my best. I should’ve known you’d done the same in composition as well.”

“Tavi…”

“I always imagined…well, I imagined things would just be like they were when we were young, for the rest of our lives. We’d just keep pushing each other to greater heights and honing these skills together. I know life had other plans for us, and I suppose it was foolish of me, but in the back of my mind I always assumed we could pick that back up where we left off. The way you put that session together was captivating, but I realized right then that I’d been left very, very far behind. And if you can do that,” she indicated the ink-covered parchment, “while I’m having a nap, then I can’t help but think I’m not much of an asset to this supposed ‘duo’, now am I?”

“Octavia,” Vinyl grabbed her face rather roughly, cerise eyes peering intently into her lavender ones, “don’t ever say that.”

“I’m just saying what I feel, Vinyl.”

“Yeah, well stop feeling crazy things!” the unicorn all but shouted in her face, “we’re not some ‘band’ that’s gonna break up. We’re not even a ‘duo’, we’re us! This?” Vinyl grabbed the parchment in her aura and shredded it into confetti, to Octavia’s utter horror, “it’s trash. I’ve written a thousand just like it, I can write a thousand more, and they would all suck.”

“V-Vinyl…” the gray mare stammered in shock, watching the ruined scraps of paper fall to floor like ink-stained snowflakes.

“No, don’t. Whatever spiel you’ve got about how I’m just as good at writing as you, don’t even start with it.” Vinyl buried her face in her hooves, slumping in her chair and sighing raggedly. “I’ve been churning out the same simplistic, poppy, overproduced schlock for an eternity and I’m dying. Yeah, okay, sure, sometimes I have good ideas, but you were always the composer; I wasn’t meant to carry a career like this by myself. I just started doing this to keep myself occupied, and I wanted to stop a long time ago, but it’s all I know how to do. You wonder why I can write so fast? You could too if you’d been making the same fucking song over and over again for the past decade. That’s why I didn’t want you to listen to any of my stuff…it’s all just terrible. That’s why I feel so indebted to my fans – I owe them because I never gave them anything in the first place. So don’t you dare say there’s no part for you to play anymore, because I need you. I used to love music, and I need you to help me remember why.” There was a sharp sniffle as she tried and failed not to cry.

Octavia, for her part, was struck dumb. By her initial assessment, Vinyl seemed to have everything the two of them had always wanted: money, fame, recognition, and most importantly, technical mastery of their craft…and yet of all the confessions she’d heard since her return, she found this one to be the most heartbreaking. She didn’t even have words of comfort. The idea of no longer enjoying making music unsettled her in a very profound way; even after all this time, it was still a defining feature of her identity. Yet, after a moment, she realized there was only one thing that needed to be said.

“I won’t let you down, love.”

Before Octavia could even wonder if her words had done any good, she was wrapped in a tight embrace, closing her eyes as she felt soft lips and the wetness of tears press against the side of her face. Vinyl laughed, and though it had a desperate, slightly unhinged touch to it, there was also relief, giddiness, and genuine mirth in the sound. “We both think way, way too much,” the DJ sniffled, finally finding her voice, adding with a hoarse chuckle, “not to mention talk too much.”

“Yes, we do, so shush.”

There was a long silence, but there was no discomfort in it, only a great degree of uncertainty, and in that pause something dawned on Octavia. Ever since she’d laid eyes on Equestrian shores, she’d believed that her trials had finally drawn to a close – that now she could rest – but it wasn’t so; this was not the end, but beginning of the second act. As Neon had laid out for her quite plainly, Vinyl needed to be fixed. She herself needed to be fixed, and despite her weariness, she was the only one with the strength to do it. She wasn’t sure how she would manage it, but her realization from a few nights prior came to the forefront of her mind, a sentiment which Vinyl had echoed just moments prior: they needed to stop speaking so much with their mouths, and do so more with their hearts.

“Vinyl?” she prompted at length.

“Yeah?”

“What is an arpeggiator, anyway?”

“Oh, it’s a type of note sequencer,” the DJ began, not missing beat even though her voice sounded a bit strained, “basically it takes any chord an–”

“No,” Octavia giggled, extricating herself from the vicelike hug Vinyl had her in and looking into those shimmering cerise eyes, “don’t tell me, show me.”