The Musicians Of Manehattanby MxGoatChaptersPrologueChapter 1Chapter 2Chapter 3Chapter 4Chapter 5PrologueAt the edge of Manehattan, there is a wide stretching landscape with gentle hills and a chilly breeze that had once brought great promise and joy to the few folks who lived there. It was a peaceful community: Farmers tilled and harvested their crops, sheared their sheep, and milked their cows. Those who could lift much weight carried the products of the farms to a marketplace where the merchants would sell it for a reasonable price and return a reasonable amount of pay to the farm laborers. Because of this, the community was happy and economically independent of the big businesses that occupied big cities—something that the residents still take pride in to this day. However, this was not what had brought the small community to the greatest of collective joys. If there was one thing that this community once prided itself in the most, it was its musicians. Music brought the people together, made them smile, made them cry, and made them ready to take on a brand new day every day. As fond of music, as everypony was, many did not have enough time to invest in perfecting the art, or even pick up an instrument for that matter; they were busy farming to keep their family fed and maintain their land. Despite this, there were still ponies of these plains who dabbled in the arts. Not many of them, however, were as beloved among the farmers for her music as Octavia once was. When the residents saw her on stage, they always roared with abundant enthusiasm, cheer, and love. Her music touched their hearts more than anything, not because it played with their emotions but because it brought them the entertainment they so desperately craved for on a daily basis to supplement their mundane, farming-filled lives. When they heard the rubbing of bow against string, the often calm body of water that was the ocean of ponies became a very rippled sea, indeed. For it was her music they loved so much. When a pony clip-clopped near the house of so great a mare, if the pony was lucky, he or she could hear the concentrated and artistically purposeful imprecise notes of the well-loved cello as the savant filly perfected her craft. Anypony lucky enough to have such an experience in his or her lifetime was considered enormously blessed. Not all was well in the village, though. One day, this musician—this talent—this prodigy of a cellist—had vanished, taking with her the music that had once given so much joy and relief to the ponies of the plains beyond Manehattan. A long year had passed and still there was no trace of the musician anywhere. She seemed to have completely disappeared from the face of the planet, leaving behind little to no trace as to where she had gone, and no notes of comfort, reassurance, or explanation either. What had once been a busy, alive, and cheerful village disintegrated into a crippled, lifeless shell; a dreary, tired and detached Hoofington, whose residents’ hearts were crushed by betrayal and dissatisfaction. With the disappearance of such a pony came the initial panic. Search parties were sent, only to return with nopony but an occasional cross-eyed mailmare in a bush, tree, or patch of flowers of somepony’s backyard garden. The frantic searching eventually ceased, leaving the Philharmonica and Melody families devastated and hopeless. Author's Note It's here! It's here! Oh, the joy! It begins now! This story is going to be my first seriously written piece of fiction in a long time. Chapter 1In an alleyway outside of a pub, on her haunches, with her front hooves buried in her face, was a young earth-pony. She had a coat of gray and a head of charcoal mane that gave her a posh and refined air regardless of how muddied she was—and muddied she was indeed, for she had not partaken in the common ritual of cleansing in presumably a year. Her mane was messy and tangled, and filled with filth, similar her fur which had also been filled with grime and chewing gum, and smelled of a foul odor similar to the decomposition of flesh. Even more, this filly’s rib cage could be easily seen from behind the messy fur and flesh of her underbelly and her sides, from where an occasional growl would rudely emit. A sob wracked the alleyway, but to the young filly, nopony had heard her—at least that is what seemed to be true to her, but perception can be deceiving. The earth-pony did have an onlooker: a white-coated, white-maned and tailed, very clean unicorn filly, who had curiously looked with her red eyes down the grey and orange alleyway at the darker-colored pony. She tilted her head, and her lips pulled down subtly to reveal a troubling pout. As she opened her mouth, about to say something, however, she was interrupted by the older, more sophisticated, pink-maned and similarly white-coated unicorn beside her. “Vincenza Scratch! What have I told you before about associating with lowlifes?!” the younger unicorn’s mother seethed. Her words were spoken with an edge, and her nose had filled with wrinkles caused by the inward tilting of her brows. “Come along now, dear.” Both the white and gray ponies looked up at her, the sobbing pausing for a moment as the white filly, pulling her lips and eyebrows up into a mock smile, trotted beside her mother. “Yes, mother,” replied Vincenza with a scratchy, but not unpleasant, voice. “Would you like a doughnut, dear?” “Yes, mother.” The two disappeared into the bustling streets of Manehattan, presumably towards a donut shop or bakery. The quiet, shameful crying of a young, malnourished filly once again continued to occupy the alleyway. *** As the grandfather clock rung for the twelfth time since noon, the door of a white unicorn filly’s room opened, revealing the hooded Vincenza herself. Her eyes scanned the hallway warily before she took a step forward into the moonlight. As she slowly inched down the long corridor and towards the front door with a wax-covered bag in her mouth, she reminded herself of where she needed to go. Foal’s Place, she thought. She quietly chuckled underneath her breath. What an ironic name for a pub. A red-colored magical field wrapped itself around the doorknob and the front door opened, a river of cold air sending a freezing shiver up Vincenza’s spinal cord, covering her body in goosebumps, which could not be seen, but could still be felt from underneath her fur. She shut the door behind her and galloped down the driveway and into the now near empty streets of Manehattan. The night sky shone brilliantly with the sparkling of stars and the modest crescent moon overhead. It had to be one of the clearest nights of Manehattan ever in Equestrian history. Yes, Luna would have been proud of her sister. Vincenza easily lost herself in the sky’s magnificence. She stared at each and every white speck which had stood up against the deep, navy-black backdrop of the midnight sky. For a moment, she completely forgot why she was walking until she passed the familiar pub and alleyway. Vincenza took a few steps back and looked towards the familiar gray pony of the alleyway from yesterday. She was sleeping in a quite uncomfortable manner, restlessly, as time after time she turned from the hunger pangs and the shivering cold temperatures of the night air. She carefully and quietly padded over to the malnourished pony and unzipped her grey hooded sweatshirt and laid it atop the freezing child’s body like a blanket, causing her to open her eyes and murmur, “H-huh…?” She looked towards the white unicorn and sat up. “Who are you?” she asked. She squinted as she scanned the recesses of her short-term memory. “Wait one minute…you are the filly from before.” The unicorn simply nodded. She safely levitated the wax-paper bag out from her mouth and to the ground in front of the filly. “Yeah. My name’s Vincenza Scratch, but you can just call me Vinyl Scratch or just Vinyl for short. The bag’s for you, by the way. Go ahead; open it.”—Vinyl motioned towards the bag and grinned—“It isn’t gonna eat itself, you know.” Taking a moment to process what she had just said, the filly’s mulberry eyes widened. Food! Glorious, wonderful, life-giving food! She ripped open the paper bag and gazed inside, being greeted by a charming, half-eaten jelly filled donut. A single tear rolled down her cheek as her face pulled up into a brilliant, yet plaque-filled smile. She wrapped her front hooves around the unicorn and squeaked, “Oh thank you! Thank you!” More tears spilled from her sockets until there were two steady streams of fluid running down her face. When she finally let go of the unicorn, she quickly dug a hoof into the bag and pulled out the doughnut, taking a bite and indulging in its sweet and doughy taste. Vinyl Scratch chuckled, “Hey, no problem.” She paused, and then sat down next to the gray filly. “So…what’s your name?” She finally looked at the walls of the alleyway, only to notice sheet music covering some of their surface areas. Weird, she thought. “My name…is Octavia,” the earth-pony said reluctantly. “No last name, huh. …Well then, Tavi, where did you come from?” Vinyl asked, tilting her head towards her. “…I am from Hoofington.” Octavia said, looking down at the ground. “I did not really like it there…so I ran away.”—she rubbed her hoof on the ground before continuing—“Actually, it was not the village I disliked…but I would rather not talk about why I left.” Looking around, she awkwardly dragged her eyes across the alleyway before fixing on Vinyl’s. She decided to change the subject before the prying began. “…Thank you for the food and the jacket. Not to be rude, though, but why are you not asleep right now?” After blinking a few times, the Vinyl giggled, “C’mon, you’ve got to be kidding me! Sleep? That’s boring! Do I look like a grandmother to you?” She chuckled for a moment. Her focus returned to the music covered wall of the alley, and as she followed the notes across the paper, her eyes widened. “It would not be too hard a look to pull off since you do have a white mane and—” “You wrote this?” Vinyl Scratch asked, her eyes sparkling at the sheet music as she ran her hoof underneath the scribbled notes on the worn pages. “It’s beautiful…. Never seen or heard anything like it.” As she continued to skim her eyes over the paper, she noticed an abrupt stop in the composition. There was no satisfying ending; there was no conclusion, only a halt. Octavia blushed. “Well…yes. Yes, I did. It is a work in progress, though. I have not even finished writing the draft; I ran away from home before I finished it.” The young, almost depressingly gray Octavia looked down at the ground. “It has been like that for what seems like more than a year,” she grumbled. She paused for a moment, and her head tilted quizzically as she asked “Wait…Miss Scratch, do you know what it sounds like? Can you tell what music sounds like just by looking at its sheet music?” Vinyl nodded, “I’ve got a good idea of how it sounds, yeah.” She stared, with an eyebrow raised, at Octavia. “Why? Is it a big deal or something? And please, just call me Vinyl.” “Of course, it’s a big deal, Miss—!” Octavia stopped herself before she could say ‘Scratch,’ “…sorry…, Vinyl.” A few seconds passed and she gently, quietly sighed before she spoke again, “Of course it is a big deal. Something like that requires a lot of talent. Even I cannot do that, and I have been composing for years.” “Yeah, well, you compose pretty good,” Vinyl complimented. “…If only I weren't an idiot. That piece would have been finished by now.” Octavia sighed again and smiled gloomily at the unicorn beside her, “If only I still had my cello. Then I could finally hear it again and maybe even finish it. It is such a poor, neglected, under-appreciated little song.” “Kinda like you?” Vinyl joked, grinning at the wall. She was still admiring the composer’s work. Her stare was broken however by the sounds of sniffing beside her. Octavia was crying again. She laid a hoof on her shoulder. Before she could apologize, though, her hoof was pushed away. “…I am not poor.” “You live in an alleyway.” “Y—Yes, well…I am not under-appreciated!” “If you aren’t under-appreciated, why don’t you have paper and ink to finish your composition? If you were well appreciated, somepony would’ve at least spared you those things. Why didn’t I see more ponies helping you earlier? Why are you freezing? Why were you crying alone? Why are you rotting away in an alley?” Octavia cried even more. Rivers once again covered her face. This time, however, the rivers were laden with misery. She began to speak again—“I am n-not neglect—!”—but she was interrupted. “Octy, when did you last eat? When did you last take a bath or a shower?” “I-I…—” “Tell me, Octavia.” There was no response. “Please, Octy.” “I—I’m…not sure. …I think it has been weeks since I last ate, and I believe it has been around a year since I last took a bath,” Octavia admitted, her ears and eyes drooping in shame. There was a long, awkward moment of near silence between the two fillies. Vinyl moved in and hugged her, stroking Octavia’s mane as she did so. Octavia’s crying eventually calmed as she slowly melted into the embrace. “Sorry,” Vinyl Scratch mumbled meekly. “Huh?” “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you like that.” “It is fine Vinyl.” “It’s not—” “It is. Really Vinyl, it is fine,” Octavia stated reassuringly. She wrapped her own hoof around the unicorn who had been hugging her so warmly. She smiled at Vinyl. To reinforce her point, she stated, “You do not know me, and I do not know you. Yet, despite being a total stranger, you decide to give me your sweatshirt and a doughnut, and now you are hugging me and trying to comfort me. Thank you, Vinyl Scratch.” “Hey, I just wanted to help,” Vinyl responded. “You have done quite a lot of that tonight.” The two ponies sat in silence for a few moments in each other’s embrace. When the long-lasting hug eventually broke, the two ponies took some time to stare at the other. Finally, puzzled, Octavia raised her question. “…Why?” “I don’t know.” Author's Note For those of you who found my use of em dashes amusing when I wrote She began to speak again—“I am n-not neglect—!”—but she was interrupted. I considered adding another clause, but decided it would be unnecessary and would take away from the immersion. If I had included this clause, it would have looked like this: She began to speak again—“I am n-not neglect—!”—but she was interrupted; she was interrupted similarly to how she interrupted the very abused narrator. I really crack myself up at times. I'll see you all next chapter. Chapter 2Yet again, Vinyl Scratch had found herself trotting down the empty moonlit streets of Manehattan. Like the streets, she too was beamed upon by the giant orb in the sky, and so she glowed like an angel ascending from heaven. As if the moonlight was not enough, there was a slight bounce in her step, and, like a spotlight, her face had also been shining at the very thought of what she was going to do. Next to her her, levitating within a glowing red field of magic, was a black case, a bright white quill, a lamp, another paper bag, a carafe halfway filled with black fluid, which sloshed around with each and every step, and some paper. Purple-tinted window after purple-tinted window fell behind her as she led herself to the modest pub from before. When she approached the red brick building—complete with wooden sign, windows, and two floors—she turned a sharp right. Vinyl entered the familiar alleyway, where she was greeted with a nod and a pair of magnificent violet pupils standing out against a silhouette. She stepped towards the figure and gave her own, more verbal acknowledgement. “Hey, Octy,” she said. She sat down next to her, set down the quill, lamp, carafe, and paper, and she grinned as she removed a biscuit and some cheddar cheese from the paper bag. She levitated the biscuit alongside a helping of the cheese to Octavia. Lifting her hooves to grab the cheese and the piece of bread, Octavia nodded her thanks and gratefully said: “Thank you, Vinyl.” As saliva built up in her mouth, she lifted the biscuit up to her muzzle and took a bite. Afterwards, she sampled the cheese in her other hoof. She slowly melted from the glorious taste of the two foodstuffs in her mouth. “Mm…so good….” Vinyl, amused by Octavia’s sudden and seemingly exaggerated expression of pleasure, chuckled. She grabbed the black case beside her, opened it, and wrapped her magic around the instrument inside to raise the well-polished violin. For a second, she merely stared at the musical instrument as it reflected moonbeams off its hard surface. She plucked the strings of the device with her magic and adjusted the knobs at the end of the violin accordingly. “What are you doing?” Octavia asked, her ears perked up at the sound. “Tuning my violin.” “Oh…,” the earth-pony sighed and looked down at the concrete. “Okay.” When Vinyl Scratch was finally satisfied with the adjustments she had made to her violin, she levitated a bow out of her case, looked up at the music covered brick wall, and began to play. Note after note flew off of the paper to take their proper forms, the rhythm making Vincenza’s hindquarters tremble with the need to dance alongside the beautifully crafted tune. Octavia noticed what Vinyl was playing and smiled. She had never thought that she ever would get the chance to hear her song again in her life, yet now she was finally listening to it once again. It sounded different because it was played on a violin rather than a cello, but it was still as lovely as ever to her. In her mind, Vinyl had given her a gift that she could never hope to repay. Eventually, Vinyl reached the song’s abrupt halt. She laid the violin back in its case and, looking back at Octavia, she grinned at her. “So, how’d you like that?” she asked. “I loved it. Thank you, Vincenza,” Octavia said. “Well, don’t thank me just yet. The night isn’t even over!” “Oh?” Octavia searched her mind for an explanation of what Vinyl could have possibly meant by that but returned from the trip with empty hooves. “…What do you mean?” Vinyl pointed a hoof in the direction of the ground-bound paper, white quill, and ink-filled carafe. Upon closer inspection, one would notice that the paper had many black lines streaming across it, revealing that it was sheet music paper. Octavia’s eyes slowly fixated on the objects, and they both bulged to the size of a frying pan when she realized what the objects were. “Vinyl...you are not implying that…—” Vinyl’s grin grew wider every passing millisecond until it was, seemingly, as wide as her head. “Yep,” she said. Octavia could not believe it—she truly could not. Here, not only had Vinyl given her food, something to keep her warm, and reunited her with her child—her song, but now she was giving her writing utensils and paper and allowing her to not only finish her song but write new ones. This was too much for her to just take. “Vincenza…I cannot. You have been far too generous to me already. I refuse to leech off of you,” she stated. “Leech? Octy, you’re not leeching. I’m willingly giving this to you.” “Like I said, you have already given me so much. I cannot take any more from you.” “Tavi…?” “Yes, Vinyl?” “Take it,” Vincenza demanded. She stared at Octavia with her pleading red eyes. Octavia could not say no to them even if she tried her hardest. They spoke of sadness and, for some reason, helplessness, and the oddly burning desire to help this random, homeless filly. “Okay,” Octavia acquiesced. She raised the quill and dipped it in the ink, then placed the tip upon the paper and began to write. Vinyl let out a sigh of relief. Any tension that once had been in her body was suddenly expelled by Octavia’s decision. “Thank you, Octy.” Hours upon hours were spent inscribing Octavia’s inner thoughts into sequences of notes until, eventually, the candlelight of the lamp slowly died and she could no longer see well enough to continue. When she looked up from her paper, her eyelids drooping, her gaze fell to the bricks and stone of the alley’s wall. She turned her head and panicked when she did not see a trace of Vinyl. It was only when she heard a light snore that she realized she was looking in the wrong places. Vinyl Scratch was sleeping on the ground. She was evidently uncomfortable: her eyebrows and nose were scrunched, her lips were strained, she was shivering violently, and every few minutes she would roll across the concrete, onto her side, into a new position. Octavia smiled. Might as well keep her company, she thought. She joined her newly found friend on the ground and embraced her in a warm hug. Soon, Vinyl settled, as her face pulled upwards into an expression of internal tranquility. “Thank you, Vinyl, for everything,” Octavia whispered. She slowly descended into the realm of dreams. Author's Note See? I told you it was only on hiatus. I hate unfinished stories! Chapter 3Octavia woke to the feeling of blistering sunlight hitting her grimy fur, heating the layers of filth embedded underneath and cooking her alive. She opened her eyes to gaze upon an ocean of clean, white fur. She turned her head to look around. She was in an alleyway with a familiar sleeping unicorn wrapped around her midsection. Octavia rose to her hooves, her friend’s forelegs sliding off of her barrel as she did so. “Vinyl, it is morning,” she said. Vinyl groaned. “Just…five more minutes, Mom.” After a brief sigh, Octavia tapped Vinyl’s ribcage with a hoof, and, because she got no response, she tapped again, and again, and again, causing her friend to eventually stir from her sleep. “…Oh, uh, hey…Octy. What’s up?” she asked. She rose to her own hooves, and, noticing the grey and orange music-covered brick walls of the passageway, she mumbled: “Why am I in an alley?” After a double take, she noticed the sheets of paper, the ink, the quill, and the lantern that she had brought to Octavia last night. She then noticed three cans of white spray paint alongside a small leather bag angled against one of the walls of the alley—things which she had not seen earlier. I wonder what those are for, she thought. “You fell asleep while I was composing last night, Vinyl.” “Oh. “Oh no.” Vinyl started frantically pacing around the alley, causing Octavia’s eyebrow to rise. “What am I gonna do? What am I gonna do?! Mom’s gonna be so pissed at me!” she cried. Hyperventilating and shaking, she hurriedly assessed her options. She could return home and face the consequences of an angry mother, or she could avoid her as much as possible for as long as conceivable and deal with her later. “Octy, I gotta go.” “Oh. Okay.” “I’ll cya later, Tavi!” “You too, Vinyl.” With that, Vinyl left Octavia alone in the alley once again. *** “Mother, I’m home!” Vincenza called as she stepped through the front door of her house. The house was grey, much like the rest of the houses of her neighborhood, for some odd reason. “Vincenza?! Where the hell have you been?!” “Heh…”—Vincenza shrugged sheepishly—“Sorry Mom. …At least I’m here now, right?” “…Yes. That does not answer my question though. Where were you?” Vincenza’s mother asked. “…Um…—” Vincenza’s gaze shifted nervously around the room. She was doomed. Vincenza spoke of her nighttime visits with Octavia, but resisted spilling information of her location, much to her own relief. “So you’ve been seeing a homeless filly at night, without my permission, with complete disregard for what I’ve told you?” Vincenza’s mother repeated. “Where is she?” She asked, firmly. “I’m sorry, Mother. I can’t tell you that.” “And why not?!” she exclaimed. Vincenza paused. She had no response for her. A gust of wind hit her face, causing her to stare out an open window. What the hay? she thought. Soon, the window slammed shut. A storm was brewing. *** There was so much rain. It was cold and the whistling wind was merciless against those unfortunate enough to occupy the streets of Manehattan. Large, thunderous roars boomed overhead as bolt after bolt of lightning struck the ground with the intent to kill the concrete beneath it. Everything was grey: The sky was grey, the buildings were grey, and the streets were grey. The only color which truly stood out against this grey was the gray of a composer as she searched for shelter from underneath her grey sweatshirt. Earlier that day, Octavia had decided to go on a pleasant walk. Yes, a joyful, refreshing walk along the busy, pony-filled sidewalks of the city. She was quickly displeased with the landing of a giant dollop of liquid water on her muzzle and the sudden cold air and empty streets. “Blast those weatherponies,” she groaned. Just like that, she was drenched. At least it is washing off all of this gum and dirt, she thought sarcastically. Usually she was grateful for rain, but this day was no such day. Today the sky was a screaming titan. This was a storm—a living hell for the homeless. That is, if hell had frozen over. House after house flew across her vision as she galloped down the pavement of the small neighborhood. Oh look! Grey houses! How nice! How absolutely wonderful! To her unknowing luck, she passed by a nice grey house with a grey picket fence and a grey porch and grey-filled windows, with the exception of one window, which had a speck of white behind it. As she passed by that window, she heard a thump on the glass, and a squeaky swinging of a hinge. A scratchy voice called for her, the red-eyed unicorn motioning for her to come inside. Octavia stopped, stupefied. She blinked, and then she pinched herself. When she finally had a good enough confirmation that she was indeed not dreaming or seeing a mirage, her whole face peeled into a giant, goofy grin. “Come on, Octy! You’re gonna freeze to death out there!” Octavia’s stupor was broken and she remembered she was sitting out in the oppressively cold, windy streets instead of a possibly warm inside next to a warm filly and possibly good times. She trotted down the driveway and up to the grey door, where the white filly greeted her. She nodded and stepped inside the doorway. After the door shut behind her she momentarily hugged the familiar unicorn. “Thank you, Vinyl. You really are a lifesaver,” Octavia said. “Hey, no biggie. Make yourself at home. I gotta talk to my mom about this. Just don’t sit on any furniture yet until we get you a bath,” Vinyl teased. She helped Octavia out of her sweatshirt and then left her, walking down a hallway to the back of the house. Octavia settled down in the living room, sitting on the warm cedar floor in front of a blazing, but welcoming fireplace. It is nice here, she thought. I almost forgot what this was like. It is rather soothing…. Yes, I like it here. Octavia sighed contentedly as the warmth of the fireside slowly wore away the cold, liquid barrier that the storm had constructed around her body. When she heard the sounds of muffled yells, however, the chills returned and she was left shivering once again. When the yelling paused, Octavia heard the stomping of Vinyl from the hallway. She looked towards her and motioned for her to stand up and follow her. “C’mon. It’s about time you get yourself cleaned up,” Vinyl said. “Don’t mind my mother.” *** Octavia slipped further into the warm, soapy water. Soon, every part of her but her head was enveloped in the liquid and bubbles. She contemplated upon how quickly her life had improved. One week ago, she was alone, starving on the streets, with nothing to do or say, and no way to record her thoughts. Now, while she was still living on the streets, she got to eat much more frequently than she used to over the last couple of days, she could write her thoughts down, albeit as music, not words, which was just fine with her—she preferred it that way, in fact—and she finally had somepony to talk to on occasion. It was wonderful. Now, here she was, soaking in a bathtub, feeling all the disgusting filth that had previously caked her fur run off of her body and pollute the water, bringing it closer and closer to its eventual demise down the drain. It would only be a matter of time before she would be finally free of all that grime, and she could finally see her clean coat once again. It was too bad that she would eventually lose it to the streets again. Octavia shook her head. She was grateful for what Vinyl has done for her. She was lucky to have met her. She would not let one stupid thought prevent her from enjoying every second of this that she had, and she would not let Vinyl’s actions be for naught. She was clearly trying to make life easier for her, and she intended to let her do so. She floated in the bath for a while longer before finally pulling the plug and letting all the dirt that she had accumulated from at least a year of street life slip down the drain. She lifted herself out of the tub and planted her hooves on a bathmat, reached for a towel and dried herself off, and then progressed onwards towards the living room to join Vinyl by the hearth. When she reached the living room, Octavia was met with an expected, yet surprising—however much of an oxymoron that may be—appearance. Beside Vinyl Scratch, on the sofa, was the pink-maned, white-coated unicorn from before. Upon a closer glance, she noticed her emerald-green eyes, which shone sinisterly as firelight hit them, and several wrinkles, presumably formed from aging, adorning her face. She didn’t look old, but she didn’t appear to be young either. One could say that she appeared middle-aged. “Hey, Octy! Did’ja have a good bath?” Vinyl asked. “Yes. Thank you for that, by the way, Vinyl. It was wonderful.” “That’s great!” Vinyl’s gaze shifted towards the unicorn next to her, then back to Octavia. She pointed a hoof towards her. “Oh, uh…Octy, this is my mother, Arpeggio. Mom, this is Octavia,” she explained. “Nice to meet you, Arpeggio.” “The pleasure is all mine. Now, let us cut to the chase: why have you, a complete stranger and a homeless pony, been meeting with my daughter in the middle of the night, and why was she missing this morning?” Wow. How straightforward of her, Octavia thought. Author's Note Yay! Chapter 3 is out! Chapter 4“Say…Octavia, for a homeless pony, you seem rather refined. Why are you living on the streets of all places?” Arpeggio inquired. She had been occasionally and awkwardly dialoguing with Octavia over the past two hours or so, and while it took awhile for her to warm up to the filly, she had eventually reached the point where she could look at her without internally cringing. Octavia stared at Arpeggio for a moment. She was wordless. She didn’t want to drag others into her issues, regardless of whether they were her best friends, her sworn enemies, merely her accomplices, or ponies who only tolerated her because they had to do so. In her mind, they were only her issues to deal with, and she felt that dragging others into them was selfish and unladylike. Eventually, she settled for the same response she gave Vinyl earlier: “I did not enjoy life at home, so I left,” she said, simply. ‘That would have to suffice.’ “So, let me get this straight. You did not like living there, so you decided living on the streets would be better?” ‘She has to be hiding something,’ Arpeggio mused. ‘Fillies do not simply run away from home because they do not like living there.’ “…Under the specific circumstances, yes; I say living on the streets is much preferred.” ‘Ah, yes. There is certainly something.’ Arpeggio raised an eyebrow. “And why is that?” Vinyl stopped her mother from going any further. “Octy doesn’t wanna talk about it, Mom.” “Yes. I am afraid that it is a personal thing, misses Scratch.” For some reason, Arpeggio flinched when Octavia said that. “…Well, alright then.” ‘Bless that Vinyl,’ Octavia thought. A minute passed, then a couple of minutes, and then the fifth, sixth, and seventh all flew by soon after. The three ponies once again had run out of things to say, and thus they had returned to their average, casual, yet paradoxically awkward silence. It was within this set of moments that Octavia had decided that she had stayed long enough and had climbed to her four hooves to announce her leave. “I believe I have taken up enough of your time, Vinyl, Arpeggio. Thank you for the hospitality,” she said. Just as she began walking towards the door, Vinyl reached out and placed a hoof atop her shoulder, stopping her in her tracks. “Octy, stay the night.” Octavia turned to face her friend. “Huh?” “Stay the night,” Vinyl repeated. “It’s freezing cold out there. You’ll get hypothermia. I’d rather have you in here than in that stupid alleyway.” Arpeggio interjected: “Vincenza, she is an absolute stranger! I will not have strangers spending the night! Letting her come inside was already a stretch!” “Mother, she’s not a stranger.” “Then what is she?!” Vinyl’s scowled at her mother. “She’s a friend!” she yelled. She pulled her voice down to more…reasonable levels before continuing. “…She’s a friend, Mom.” “You have known her for less than a month, Vincenza.” Octavia winced at the blatant red herring. Vinyl stamped a hoof into the flooring with a smack. “Friendship has nothing to do with time!” “Oh? Then please, go ahead and elaborate upon how one becomes friends within the timeframe of a week.” Vinyl stared at Arpeggio tautly, flatly, as if she had been sending a kind of non-verbal ‘Seriously?’ in her direction. “How we became friends doesn’t matter. She’s a friend.” Arpeggio paused. She knew how stubborn her daughter could be about certain things. This seemed to be one of those cases, so, reluctantly, she admitted her defeat: “…I see. I suppose she can stay the night. However, if she exhibits even the slightest smidgen of peculiar conduct, she is being booted.” “Thanks, Mom.” Octavia noted that she would have to be cautious around Arpeggio in regards to her behavior. She seemed to be a rather observant and critical mare, and she did not want to leave a negative first impression. She was Vinyl’s mother, after all. If she botched this up, she might never get a chance to see Vinyl Scratch again! She juddered at the idea of lost company but ultimately shook herself back into reality before her mind could dive deeper into the well of virtual loneliness that had pursued and enveloped her. Octavia briefly nodded. “Yes. Thank you, Arpeggio.” The rest of the night had gone by rather well and quickly for Octavia. After Vinyl’s somewhat brief argument with her mother, and several games of chess, checkers, and Monopony, she had dragged her excitedly into her room, mumbling something about not having a guest bedroom or something along those lines. Octavia had already painted a mental picture of what Vinyl’s bedroom could’ve looked like, but that picture had been highly inaccurate when in comparison to the real thing—nearly everything she thought it would be was wrong. She had mused that Vinyl’s room would probably be very organized and clean, much like her actual person, but it had turned out that while there were no crumbs, spilled liquids, half-eaten pizzas, or anything foodstuff-like for that matter, the floor was littered in a highly chaotic but somehow organized collection of papers, books, pencils, and erasers and two or three seemingly unrelated articles of clothing. Vinyl leaped onto her bed, belly first, sending a purple blanket flying as the mattress previously underneath absorbed her weight. She sighed and smiled as she let the muscles in her body relax. “Bed, sweet bed,” she said, causing Octavia to giggle in response to her antics. Octavia could remember the last time she had lain on a bed. It had been a very pleasant experience, and comparably more enjoyable than sleeping on cold, hard pavement. She yawned. “Getting tired, Octy?” “Yes. Sorry, Vinyl, but I do not have much more ‘juice’ in me, as they say.” “That’s fine, Tavs. I should probably get some rest too, actually.” Vinyl leapt off the bed and returned the blanket, which had been lying on the floor, to its rightful place atop the mattress, then lifted a corner of the fabric and motioned her hoof inside. “After you, Madam.” “…What?” “Remember, we don’t have a guest bedroom, so you’ll be sleeping with me. Hope that doesn’t bug you too much.” “Oh…um…thank you,” Octavia said. She crawled underneath the bedsheets, vanishing from sight for a moment before popping her head out from underneath the blanket and laid it atop a pillow. Vinyl switched off the lights and crawled in next to her friend. “Night, Tavi,” she said. “Goodnight, Vinyl.” Author's Note M.T., are you sure this isn't filler? It isn't filler. Chapter 5Not wanting to wake Octavia—she looked so peaceful that she just couldn’t bring herself to do it—Vinyl slid out of bed as quietly as she could and silently walked to the opened door, slipping into the grey hallway beyond. Passing through the passageway, she made her way down the stairs and into the kitchen. She stepped towards a row of cabinets, opening them with a magic glow and obtaining from them a bowl, a spoon, and a box of cereal. Closing the cabinets and taking a carton of milk from the refrigerator, she sat down, across from her mother, at the dining room table and poured the milk and cereal into the bowl. Waiting no longer, she plunged her spoon into the mixture and then lifted it up to her muzzle and took a bite. It was sweet. She chewed and then swallowed. “Morning.” Arpeggio looked up from the newspaper previously in front of her, towards Vinyl, and said: “Oh…, good morning to you too, Vincenza.” Vinyl nodded. After ingesting several more spoonful’s of cereal, Vinyl deposited her now empty bowl near the kitchen sink and was about to tread out of the room when her mother snarled, sending the same newspaper that she’d been reading earlier smashing into the wooden planking of the dining room floor. When she saw the headline of the offending article, Vinyl galloped away. She was not going to be around to see Arpeggio explode like that again. Back up the stairs and into the bathroom she went, her hooves loudly pounding against the ground underneath her, which, when combined with the angry shrieking of her mother, elicited a small moan from her bedroom. She reached for her toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste and began cleaning her teeth, spreading the unpleasant taste of the paste throughout her mouth, causing her to cringe. After around two minutes of this, she spat the toothpaste into the sink and lifted a paper towel to her mouth, removing any of the excess paste from her white fur and lips. “Hello, Vinyl.” Vinyl spun her head to see a ball of gray fluff staring directly at her with its purple eyes. She struggled not to laugh. Octavia’s mane and fur coat stood up in all directions, randomly knotting and forming the occasional kink. “G-good morning, Octy! How was the sleep?” Octavia grinned. “Oh, it was wonderful, Vinyl. I have not slept like that in ages. “By the way, you seem to have a minor case of bed-head.” “Hey, you should look at yourself some time,” Vinyl chuckled. “At this rate, I’ll have to give you a full-on grooming session.” She winked at her friend. Octavia blushed and her tail tucked between her hind legs. “V-Vinyl!” “Hey, hey, I’m just kidding, Tavi.”—Vinyl smirked—“…Unless you want me to.” Self-grooming, for the typical earth-pony, has always been difficult. Without magic, it’s nearly impossible for one to brush his or her own back. Because of this, non-unicorns often seek out assistance from a friend or family member in regards to getting cleaned. After a long moment of consideration, Octavia’s blush darkened. “…P-please.” Vinyl stared at Octavia for a second before briefly nodding and lifting a brush out of a drawer underneath the bathroom sink. She then dragged the brush through Octavia’s charcoal-colored mane, undoing knots as she did so. Octavia smiled gently. “Thank you, Vinyl.” “Yep.” After cleaning themselves up, the two ponies went back downstairs to be greeted with a far-more-mellow Arpeggio sitting on a leather couch, taking a sip of an alcoholic beverage, specifically hard apple cider, from a large, glass mug, of which she soon, afterwards, set down on the wooden coffee table in front of her. Vinyl stared at her mother for a moment, then glared at the mug of cider on the table and slowly shook her head. She looked back up at Arpeggio. “Don’t drink too much, this time, okay, Ma?” “Do not fret, Vincenza. I will be fine.” “Whatever you say, Mom,” Vinyl said skeptically. Arpeggio’s drinking habits have rarely ever been consistent, but one behavior, as Vinyl Scratch recalled, has been, for years and years, set in stone: She never drinks hard cider except in ‘special circumstances,’ this being one of those situations. Often, when Arpeggio would drink cider, though, she’d get incredibly drunk, sometimes to the point of near-delirium, and Vinyl would have to get her to a hospital somehow in case of alcohol poisoning. Arpeggio released a modest hiccup before speaking again: “And you,”—she pointed at Octavia—“Octavia, be a good friend for my daughter. She’s always needed one.” “…I promise, Arpeggio.” Three hours had passed until, finally, Arpeggio drifted into a slumber. Over this time, Octavia did not have much time to contemplate about what Arpeggio had said earlier, but now that she was sleeping, she finally had a chance to do so—a chance that she took. ‘Be a good friend for my daughter.’ ‘She’s always needed one.’ ‘She’s always needed one.’ ‘She’s always needed one.’ Octavia mulled. Was it possible that Vinyl had few friends or maybe even no friends at all? How could a pony so generous and so seemingly friendly have been…friendless? It seemed impossible! She decided to ask Vinyl about it later. Soon, Vinyl burst down the stairs, droplets of water flying off of her sopping, white mane and coat and onto the walls, ceiling, and floor of the living room, illuminated, in mid-air, by a nearby lamp. She sat down on the couch and stared at Octavia directly in the eyes, her pupils shaking alongside their surrounding pools of red as if she already knew what she was thinking at the moment. 'Be a good friend for my daughter.' “Excuse me Vinyl, but about what Arpeggio said…—” “Not now, Octavia.” Octavia blinked. “But—” “Not now, …please,” Vinyl begged. “I don’t wanna talk about it.” “…Okay,” she sighed. The two stared at each other for a long moment, speechlessly, enveloped in a status of near-absolute awkwardness, of which could not be penetrated by anything but a diversion from it, and thus the change-of-topic technique was born, and it was— Vinyl Scratch’s eyes darted from left to right before she finally asked: “So…wanna get a milkshake?” Sitting on the tip of Octavia’s tongue, between her lips, was a long, plastic straw. At the end of this straw was a tall glass filled with sweet, pink, strawberry-flavored milkshake. She couldn’t remember the last time she had a milkshake. ‘Was it five—maybe six years ago?’ she wondered. ‘Seven years, perhaps. It’s somewhere in that range.’ She decided that how long ago she last had a milkshake was irrelevant and focused on the sweet taste of the drink instead. Across from her sat Vinyl Scratch. Unlike her, Vinyl was not savoring her drink, but rather gulping down her large chocolate malt from its metal bucket. For a moment, Octavia stared in amusement, before bringing herself to remark: “Vinyl, you are going to give yourself a stomach-ache.” “…Huh? …Oh. Octy, this is chocolate malt we’re talking about here! Chocolate malt! The stomach-ache is totally worth it! I mean, c’mon, who doesn’t like a good malt?” “You will have less time to enjoy it, though, because you are too busy inhaling it to actually taste it.” “But I do savor it, just a bit faster than you do.” “You taste it for a split second and then it’s gone. How is that, in any way, savoring?” “Jeez, I don’t know, Octavia. Maybe it’s magic?” “Milkshakes and malt are not magical, Vinyl.” “Blasphemy! Everyone run! Tavi’s a blasphemer!” Vinyl clowned, raising her hooves above her head and putting on an expression of mock horror. Donut Joe’s was almost entirely empty, aside from the two fillies, so Vinyl’s warnings were not heard by anypony in particular, other than Octavia, of course. Octavia smirked. “Nothing is sacred. Not even chocolate malt.” “Heresy!” Vinyl giggled. The cellist simply shook her head. “…Vinyl?” “Yeah?” “You are insufferable.” Vinyl grinned. “It’s what I do best, Tavi.” Soon, the two fillies emerged from the empty Donut Joe’s, stomachs filled with milkshake, malt, and good vibes, and, not long after, were back in the comforts of Vinyl’s home, which, at the moment, housed a particular couch with a particular drunken, passed-out, pink-maned mare: Arpeggio. Towering high above the coffee table, right next to the glass mug from earlier, were three completely empty beer-bottles. Vinyl’s right hoof met her face in what could only be seen as the pony-equivalent of a face-palm: a face-hoof. “I told you not to drink so much and you did it anyways,” she groaned. “Go figure.” “Is she often like this?” Octavia asked. Vinyl sighed and toddled up to her mother. “No; she’s usually pretty good about this. When she isn’t, though, things can get a little…out of hoof.” She placed a hoof on Arpeggio’s barrel and gently shook her awake. “C’mon, Ma. Let’s get you into bed.” Arpeggio didn’t budge and instead weakly moaned as a form of slurred protest against the harsh injustices her daughter was threatening to bring upon her poor soul. “Mom, couches aren’t meant to be slept on—especially not this one. Now, c’mon, it’s time to go to bed.” Arpeggio slowly, groggily stood up, only to lazily sway back and forth from her dizziness as she struggled to move forward. Vinyl leaned up against her mother to support her, and with her help, Arpeggio gradually made her way to the steps. “Hey, Tavia, go ahead and make yourself at home. I’ll be back down in a bit; I just gotta put Mom in bed, first,” Vinyl stated as she lead her mother up the stairs. Octavia nodded. “Thank you, Vinyl.” Vinyl and Arpeggio finished making their way up the staircase, leaving Octavia alone to roam the living room by herself. Octavia looked back at the coffee table to notice a sheet of crumpled newspaper pinned underneath the glass mug and green beer-bottles from before. She read the title aloud to herself: “Svengallop Co. Makes a Comeback.” She raised an eyebrow curiously, sat herself down on the couch, and began to read. The article was short and to the point: Some record label named Svengallop Co. had been struggling to get by, but then, recently, a new artist, somepony named Sapphire Shores, became huge, and the company profited from that. It mentioned a pony named Svengallop as well, but didn’t go much into who he actually was, so Octavia assumed that he was the one who owned the label. Vinyl trotted back down the stairs and joined Octavia on the couch. “Hey, I’m back. What’re you up”—she noticed what Octavia was holding and stared at the paper for a moment before glancing back up to her friend—“…to?” Octavia turned her head towards Vinyl to look her in the eyes and smile. “I am reading.” Vinyl moved her gaze back to the paper, then towards Octavia, then back to the paper, and then back at Octavia. “Vinyl, do you know who this Svengallop fellow is?” Vinyl slowly nodded her head. “Oh? What do you know about him?” Vinyl sighed. “Alright, I’ll tell you about him. Just…please don’t tell Mom I said anything about this. She’d kill me.” Octavia raised an eyebrow at that but agreed nonetheless. “Okay, I will not speak a word about this,” she promised. “…Okay, …so, Svengallop’s my father.” Octavia had certainly not expected a statement like that from Vinyl, but it wasn’t unbelievable, just unanticipated. “Oh? What is he like?” “Dunno. I’ve never met him before. Ma said he was lazy bum and always refused to get a job when he was living with her.” “What happened?” “She kicked him out. Something about being ‘sick of his shit’ or something like that.” Octavia blinked. “Wow." “Yeah.” Author's Note I do apologize for my absence. I've been binge-watching Doctor Who and dealing with writer's block recently.
PrologueAt the edge of Manehattan, there is a wide stretching landscape with gentle hills and a chilly breeze that had once brought great promise and joy to the few folks who lived there. It was a peaceful community: Farmers tilled and harvested their crops, sheared their sheep, and milked their cows. Those who could lift much weight carried the products of the farms to a marketplace where the merchants would sell it for a reasonable price and return a reasonable amount of pay to the farm laborers. Because of this, the community was happy and economically independent of the big businesses that occupied big cities—something that the residents still take pride in to this day. However, this was not what had brought the small community to the greatest of collective joys. If there was one thing that this community once prided itself in the most, it was its musicians. Music brought the people together, made them smile, made them cry, and made them ready to take on a brand new day every day. As fond of music, as everypony was, many did not have enough time to invest in perfecting the art, or even pick up an instrument for that matter; they were busy farming to keep their family fed and maintain their land. Despite this, there were still ponies of these plains who dabbled in the arts. Not many of them, however, were as beloved among the farmers for her music as Octavia once was. When the residents saw her on stage, they always roared with abundant enthusiasm, cheer, and love. Her music touched their hearts more than anything, not because it played with their emotions but because it brought them the entertainment they so desperately craved for on a daily basis to supplement their mundane, farming-filled lives. When they heard the rubbing of bow against string, the often calm body of water that was the ocean of ponies became a very rippled sea, indeed. For it was her music they loved so much. When a pony clip-clopped near the house of so great a mare, if the pony was lucky, he or she could hear the concentrated and artistically purposeful imprecise notes of the well-loved cello as the savant filly perfected her craft. Anypony lucky enough to have such an experience in his or her lifetime was considered enormously blessed. Not all was well in the village, though. One day, this musician—this talent—this prodigy of a cellist—had vanished, taking with her the music that had once given so much joy and relief to the ponies of the plains beyond Manehattan. A long year had passed and still there was no trace of the musician anywhere. She seemed to have completely disappeared from the face of the planet, leaving behind little to no trace as to where she had gone, and no notes of comfort, reassurance, or explanation either. What had once been a busy, alive, and cheerful village disintegrated into a crippled, lifeless shell; a dreary, tired and detached Hoofington, whose residents’ hearts were crushed by betrayal and dissatisfaction. With the disappearance of such a pony came the initial panic. Search parties were sent, only to return with nopony but an occasional cross-eyed mailmare in a bush, tree, or patch of flowers of somepony’s backyard garden. The frantic searching eventually ceased, leaving the Philharmonica and Melody families devastated and hopeless. Author's Note It's here! It's here! Oh, the joy! It begins now! This story is going to be my first seriously written piece of fiction in a long time.
Chapter 1In an alleyway outside of a pub, on her haunches, with her front hooves buried in her face, was a young earth-pony. She had a coat of gray and a head of charcoal mane that gave her a posh and refined air regardless of how muddied she was—and muddied she was indeed, for she had not partaken in the common ritual of cleansing in presumably a year. Her mane was messy and tangled, and filled with filth, similar her fur which had also been filled with grime and chewing gum, and smelled of a foul odor similar to the decomposition of flesh. Even more, this filly’s rib cage could be easily seen from behind the messy fur and flesh of her underbelly and her sides, from where an occasional growl would rudely emit. A sob wracked the alleyway, but to the young filly, nopony had heard her—at least that is what seemed to be true to her, but perception can be deceiving. The earth-pony did have an onlooker: a white-coated, white-maned and tailed, very clean unicorn filly, who had curiously looked with her red eyes down the grey and orange alleyway at the darker-colored pony. She tilted her head, and her lips pulled down subtly to reveal a troubling pout. As she opened her mouth, about to say something, however, she was interrupted by the older, more sophisticated, pink-maned and similarly white-coated unicorn beside her. “Vincenza Scratch! What have I told you before about associating with lowlifes?!” the younger unicorn’s mother seethed. Her words were spoken with an edge, and her nose had filled with wrinkles caused by the inward tilting of her brows. “Come along now, dear.” Both the white and gray ponies looked up at her, the sobbing pausing for a moment as the white filly, pulling her lips and eyebrows up into a mock smile, trotted beside her mother. “Yes, mother,” replied Vincenza with a scratchy, but not unpleasant, voice. “Would you like a doughnut, dear?” “Yes, mother.” The two disappeared into the bustling streets of Manehattan, presumably towards a donut shop or bakery. The quiet, shameful crying of a young, malnourished filly once again continued to occupy the alleyway. *** As the grandfather clock rung for the twelfth time since noon, the door of a white unicorn filly’s room opened, revealing the hooded Vincenza herself. Her eyes scanned the hallway warily before she took a step forward into the moonlight. As she slowly inched down the long corridor and towards the front door with a wax-covered bag in her mouth, she reminded herself of where she needed to go. Foal’s Place, she thought. She quietly chuckled underneath her breath. What an ironic name for a pub. A red-colored magical field wrapped itself around the doorknob and the front door opened, a river of cold air sending a freezing shiver up Vincenza’s spinal cord, covering her body in goosebumps, which could not be seen, but could still be felt from underneath her fur. She shut the door behind her and galloped down the driveway and into the now near empty streets of Manehattan. The night sky shone brilliantly with the sparkling of stars and the modest crescent moon overhead. It had to be one of the clearest nights of Manehattan ever in Equestrian history. Yes, Luna would have been proud of her sister. Vincenza easily lost herself in the sky’s magnificence. She stared at each and every white speck which had stood up against the deep, navy-black backdrop of the midnight sky. For a moment, she completely forgot why she was walking until she passed the familiar pub and alleyway. Vincenza took a few steps back and looked towards the familiar gray pony of the alleyway from yesterday. She was sleeping in a quite uncomfortable manner, restlessly, as time after time she turned from the hunger pangs and the shivering cold temperatures of the night air. She carefully and quietly padded over to the malnourished pony and unzipped her grey hooded sweatshirt and laid it atop the freezing child’s body like a blanket, causing her to open her eyes and murmur, “H-huh…?” She looked towards the white unicorn and sat up. “Who are you?” she asked. She squinted as she scanned the recesses of her short-term memory. “Wait one minute…you are the filly from before.” The unicorn simply nodded. She safely levitated the wax-paper bag out from her mouth and to the ground in front of the filly. “Yeah. My name’s Vincenza Scratch, but you can just call me Vinyl Scratch or just Vinyl for short. The bag’s for you, by the way. Go ahead; open it.”—Vinyl motioned towards the bag and grinned—“It isn’t gonna eat itself, you know.” Taking a moment to process what she had just said, the filly’s mulberry eyes widened. Food! Glorious, wonderful, life-giving food! She ripped open the paper bag and gazed inside, being greeted by a charming, half-eaten jelly filled donut. A single tear rolled down her cheek as her face pulled up into a brilliant, yet plaque-filled smile. She wrapped her front hooves around the unicorn and squeaked, “Oh thank you! Thank you!” More tears spilled from her sockets until there were two steady streams of fluid running down her face. When she finally let go of the unicorn, she quickly dug a hoof into the bag and pulled out the doughnut, taking a bite and indulging in its sweet and doughy taste. Vinyl Scratch chuckled, “Hey, no problem.” She paused, and then sat down next to the gray filly. “So…what’s your name?” She finally looked at the walls of the alleyway, only to notice sheet music covering some of their surface areas. Weird, she thought. “My name…is Octavia,” the earth-pony said reluctantly. “No last name, huh. …Well then, Tavi, where did you come from?” Vinyl asked, tilting her head towards her. “…I am from Hoofington.” Octavia said, looking down at the ground. “I did not really like it there…so I ran away.”—she rubbed her hoof on the ground before continuing—“Actually, it was not the village I disliked…but I would rather not talk about why I left.” Looking around, she awkwardly dragged her eyes across the alleyway before fixing on Vinyl’s. She decided to change the subject before the prying began. “…Thank you for the food and the jacket. Not to be rude, though, but why are you not asleep right now?” After blinking a few times, the Vinyl giggled, “C’mon, you’ve got to be kidding me! Sleep? That’s boring! Do I look like a grandmother to you?” She chuckled for a moment. Her focus returned to the music covered wall of the alley, and as she followed the notes across the paper, her eyes widened. “It would not be too hard a look to pull off since you do have a white mane and—” “You wrote this?” Vinyl Scratch asked, her eyes sparkling at the sheet music as she ran her hoof underneath the scribbled notes on the worn pages. “It’s beautiful…. Never seen or heard anything like it.” As she continued to skim her eyes over the paper, she noticed an abrupt stop in the composition. There was no satisfying ending; there was no conclusion, only a halt. Octavia blushed. “Well…yes. Yes, I did. It is a work in progress, though. I have not even finished writing the draft; I ran away from home before I finished it.” The young, almost depressingly gray Octavia looked down at the ground. “It has been like that for what seems like more than a year,” she grumbled. She paused for a moment, and her head tilted quizzically as she asked “Wait…Miss Scratch, do you know what it sounds like? Can you tell what music sounds like just by looking at its sheet music?” Vinyl nodded, “I’ve got a good idea of how it sounds, yeah.” She stared, with an eyebrow raised, at Octavia. “Why? Is it a big deal or something? And please, just call me Vinyl.” “Of course, it’s a big deal, Miss—!” Octavia stopped herself before she could say ‘Scratch,’ “…sorry…, Vinyl.” A few seconds passed and she gently, quietly sighed before she spoke again, “Of course it is a big deal. Something like that requires a lot of talent. Even I cannot do that, and I have been composing for years.” “Yeah, well, you compose pretty good,” Vinyl complimented. “…If only I weren't an idiot. That piece would have been finished by now.” Octavia sighed again and smiled gloomily at the unicorn beside her, “If only I still had my cello. Then I could finally hear it again and maybe even finish it. It is such a poor, neglected, under-appreciated little song.” “Kinda like you?” Vinyl joked, grinning at the wall. She was still admiring the composer’s work. Her stare was broken however by the sounds of sniffing beside her. Octavia was crying again. She laid a hoof on her shoulder. Before she could apologize, though, her hoof was pushed away. “…I am not poor.” “You live in an alleyway.” “Y—Yes, well…I am not under-appreciated!” “If you aren’t under-appreciated, why don’t you have paper and ink to finish your composition? If you were well appreciated, somepony would’ve at least spared you those things. Why didn’t I see more ponies helping you earlier? Why are you freezing? Why were you crying alone? Why are you rotting away in an alley?” Octavia cried even more. Rivers once again covered her face. This time, however, the rivers were laden with misery. She began to speak again—“I am n-not neglect—!”—but she was interrupted. “Octy, when did you last eat? When did you last take a bath or a shower?” “I-I…—” “Tell me, Octavia.” There was no response. “Please, Octy.” “I—I’m…not sure. …I think it has been weeks since I last ate, and I believe it has been around a year since I last took a bath,” Octavia admitted, her ears and eyes drooping in shame. There was a long, awkward moment of near silence between the two fillies. Vinyl moved in and hugged her, stroking Octavia’s mane as she did so. Octavia’s crying eventually calmed as she slowly melted into the embrace. “Sorry,” Vinyl Scratch mumbled meekly. “Huh?” “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you like that.” “It is fine Vinyl.” “It’s not—” “It is. Really Vinyl, it is fine,” Octavia stated reassuringly. She wrapped her own hoof around the unicorn who had been hugging her so warmly. She smiled at Vinyl. To reinforce her point, she stated, “You do not know me, and I do not know you. Yet, despite being a total stranger, you decide to give me your sweatshirt and a doughnut, and now you are hugging me and trying to comfort me. Thank you, Vinyl Scratch.” “Hey, I just wanted to help,” Vinyl responded. “You have done quite a lot of that tonight.” The two ponies sat in silence for a few moments in each other’s embrace. When the long-lasting hug eventually broke, the two ponies took some time to stare at the other. Finally, puzzled, Octavia raised her question. “…Why?” “I don’t know.” Author's Note For those of you who found my use of em dashes amusing when I wrote She began to speak again—“I am n-not neglect—!”—but she was interrupted. I considered adding another clause, but decided it would be unnecessary and would take away from the immersion. If I had included this clause, it would have looked like this: She began to speak again—“I am n-not neglect—!”—but she was interrupted; she was interrupted similarly to how she interrupted the very abused narrator. I really crack myself up at times. I'll see you all next chapter.
Chapter 2Yet again, Vinyl Scratch had found herself trotting down the empty moonlit streets of Manehattan. Like the streets, she too was beamed upon by the giant orb in the sky, and so she glowed like an angel ascending from heaven. As if the moonlight was not enough, there was a slight bounce in her step, and, like a spotlight, her face had also been shining at the very thought of what she was going to do. Next to her her, levitating within a glowing red field of magic, was a black case, a bright white quill, a lamp, another paper bag, a carafe halfway filled with black fluid, which sloshed around with each and every step, and some paper. Purple-tinted window after purple-tinted window fell behind her as she led herself to the modest pub from before. When she approached the red brick building—complete with wooden sign, windows, and two floors—she turned a sharp right. Vinyl entered the familiar alleyway, where she was greeted with a nod and a pair of magnificent violet pupils standing out against a silhouette. She stepped towards the figure and gave her own, more verbal acknowledgement. “Hey, Octy,” she said. She sat down next to her, set down the quill, lamp, carafe, and paper, and she grinned as she removed a biscuit and some cheddar cheese from the paper bag. She levitated the biscuit alongside a helping of the cheese to Octavia. Lifting her hooves to grab the cheese and the piece of bread, Octavia nodded her thanks and gratefully said: “Thank you, Vinyl.” As saliva built up in her mouth, she lifted the biscuit up to her muzzle and took a bite. Afterwards, she sampled the cheese in her other hoof. She slowly melted from the glorious taste of the two foodstuffs in her mouth. “Mm…so good….” Vinyl, amused by Octavia’s sudden and seemingly exaggerated expression of pleasure, chuckled. She grabbed the black case beside her, opened it, and wrapped her magic around the instrument inside to raise the well-polished violin. For a second, she merely stared at the musical instrument as it reflected moonbeams off its hard surface. She plucked the strings of the device with her magic and adjusted the knobs at the end of the violin accordingly. “What are you doing?” Octavia asked, her ears perked up at the sound. “Tuning my violin.” “Oh…,” the earth-pony sighed and looked down at the concrete. “Okay.” When Vinyl Scratch was finally satisfied with the adjustments she had made to her violin, she levitated a bow out of her case, looked up at the music covered brick wall, and began to play. Note after note flew off of the paper to take their proper forms, the rhythm making Vincenza’s hindquarters tremble with the need to dance alongside the beautifully crafted tune. Octavia noticed what Vinyl was playing and smiled. She had never thought that she ever would get the chance to hear her song again in her life, yet now she was finally listening to it once again. It sounded different because it was played on a violin rather than a cello, but it was still as lovely as ever to her. In her mind, Vinyl had given her a gift that she could never hope to repay. Eventually, Vinyl reached the song’s abrupt halt. She laid the violin back in its case and, looking back at Octavia, she grinned at her. “So, how’d you like that?” she asked. “I loved it. Thank you, Vincenza,” Octavia said. “Well, don’t thank me just yet. The night isn’t even over!” “Oh?” Octavia searched her mind for an explanation of what Vinyl could have possibly meant by that but returned from the trip with empty hooves. “…What do you mean?” Vinyl pointed a hoof in the direction of the ground-bound paper, white quill, and ink-filled carafe. Upon closer inspection, one would notice that the paper had many black lines streaming across it, revealing that it was sheet music paper. Octavia’s eyes slowly fixated on the objects, and they both bulged to the size of a frying pan when she realized what the objects were. “Vinyl...you are not implying that…—” Vinyl’s grin grew wider every passing millisecond until it was, seemingly, as wide as her head. “Yep,” she said. Octavia could not believe it—she truly could not. Here, not only had Vinyl given her food, something to keep her warm, and reunited her with her child—her song, but now she was giving her writing utensils and paper and allowing her to not only finish her song but write new ones. This was too much for her to just take. “Vincenza…I cannot. You have been far too generous to me already. I refuse to leech off of you,” she stated. “Leech? Octy, you’re not leeching. I’m willingly giving this to you.” “Like I said, you have already given me so much. I cannot take any more from you.” “Tavi…?” “Yes, Vinyl?” “Take it,” Vincenza demanded. She stared at Octavia with her pleading red eyes. Octavia could not say no to them even if she tried her hardest. They spoke of sadness and, for some reason, helplessness, and the oddly burning desire to help this random, homeless filly. “Okay,” Octavia acquiesced. She raised the quill and dipped it in the ink, then placed the tip upon the paper and began to write. Vinyl let out a sigh of relief. Any tension that once had been in her body was suddenly expelled by Octavia’s decision. “Thank you, Octy.” Hours upon hours were spent inscribing Octavia’s inner thoughts into sequences of notes until, eventually, the candlelight of the lamp slowly died and she could no longer see well enough to continue. When she looked up from her paper, her eyelids drooping, her gaze fell to the bricks and stone of the alley’s wall. She turned her head and panicked when she did not see a trace of Vinyl. It was only when she heard a light snore that she realized she was looking in the wrong places. Vinyl Scratch was sleeping on the ground. She was evidently uncomfortable: her eyebrows and nose were scrunched, her lips were strained, she was shivering violently, and every few minutes she would roll across the concrete, onto her side, into a new position. Octavia smiled. Might as well keep her company, she thought. She joined her newly found friend on the ground and embraced her in a warm hug. Soon, Vinyl settled, as her face pulled upwards into an expression of internal tranquility. “Thank you, Vinyl, for everything,” Octavia whispered. She slowly descended into the realm of dreams. Author's Note See? I told you it was only on hiatus. I hate unfinished stories!
Chapter 3Octavia woke to the feeling of blistering sunlight hitting her grimy fur, heating the layers of filth embedded underneath and cooking her alive. She opened her eyes to gaze upon an ocean of clean, white fur. She turned her head to look around. She was in an alleyway with a familiar sleeping unicorn wrapped around her midsection. Octavia rose to her hooves, her friend’s forelegs sliding off of her barrel as she did so. “Vinyl, it is morning,” she said. Vinyl groaned. “Just…five more minutes, Mom.” After a brief sigh, Octavia tapped Vinyl’s ribcage with a hoof, and, because she got no response, she tapped again, and again, and again, causing her friend to eventually stir from her sleep. “…Oh, uh, hey…Octy. What’s up?” she asked. She rose to her own hooves, and, noticing the grey and orange music-covered brick walls of the passageway, she mumbled: “Why am I in an alley?” After a double take, she noticed the sheets of paper, the ink, the quill, and the lantern that she had brought to Octavia last night. She then noticed three cans of white spray paint alongside a small leather bag angled against one of the walls of the alley—things which she had not seen earlier. I wonder what those are for, she thought. “You fell asleep while I was composing last night, Vinyl.” “Oh. “Oh no.” Vinyl started frantically pacing around the alley, causing Octavia’s eyebrow to rise. “What am I gonna do? What am I gonna do?! Mom’s gonna be so pissed at me!” she cried. Hyperventilating and shaking, she hurriedly assessed her options. She could return home and face the consequences of an angry mother, or she could avoid her as much as possible for as long as conceivable and deal with her later. “Octy, I gotta go.” “Oh. Okay.” “I’ll cya later, Tavi!” “You too, Vinyl.” With that, Vinyl left Octavia alone in the alley once again. *** “Mother, I’m home!” Vincenza called as she stepped through the front door of her house. The house was grey, much like the rest of the houses of her neighborhood, for some odd reason. “Vincenza?! Where the hell have you been?!” “Heh…”—Vincenza shrugged sheepishly—“Sorry Mom. …At least I’m here now, right?” “…Yes. That does not answer my question though. Where were you?” Vincenza’s mother asked. “…Um…—” Vincenza’s gaze shifted nervously around the room. She was doomed. Vincenza spoke of her nighttime visits with Octavia, but resisted spilling information of her location, much to her own relief. “So you’ve been seeing a homeless filly at night, without my permission, with complete disregard for what I’ve told you?” Vincenza’s mother repeated. “Where is she?” She asked, firmly. “I’m sorry, Mother. I can’t tell you that.” “And why not?!” she exclaimed. Vincenza paused. She had no response for her. A gust of wind hit her face, causing her to stare out an open window. What the hay? she thought. Soon, the window slammed shut. A storm was brewing. *** There was so much rain. It was cold and the whistling wind was merciless against those unfortunate enough to occupy the streets of Manehattan. Large, thunderous roars boomed overhead as bolt after bolt of lightning struck the ground with the intent to kill the concrete beneath it. Everything was grey: The sky was grey, the buildings were grey, and the streets were grey. The only color which truly stood out against this grey was the gray of a composer as she searched for shelter from underneath her grey sweatshirt. Earlier that day, Octavia had decided to go on a pleasant walk. Yes, a joyful, refreshing walk along the busy, pony-filled sidewalks of the city. She was quickly displeased with the landing of a giant dollop of liquid water on her muzzle and the sudden cold air and empty streets. “Blast those weatherponies,” she groaned. Just like that, she was drenched. At least it is washing off all of this gum and dirt, she thought sarcastically. Usually she was grateful for rain, but this day was no such day. Today the sky was a screaming titan. This was a storm—a living hell for the homeless. That is, if hell had frozen over. House after house flew across her vision as she galloped down the pavement of the small neighborhood. Oh look! Grey houses! How nice! How absolutely wonderful! To her unknowing luck, she passed by a nice grey house with a grey picket fence and a grey porch and grey-filled windows, with the exception of one window, which had a speck of white behind it. As she passed by that window, she heard a thump on the glass, and a squeaky swinging of a hinge. A scratchy voice called for her, the red-eyed unicorn motioning for her to come inside. Octavia stopped, stupefied. She blinked, and then she pinched herself. When she finally had a good enough confirmation that she was indeed not dreaming or seeing a mirage, her whole face peeled into a giant, goofy grin. “Come on, Octy! You’re gonna freeze to death out there!” Octavia’s stupor was broken and she remembered she was sitting out in the oppressively cold, windy streets instead of a possibly warm inside next to a warm filly and possibly good times. She trotted down the driveway and up to the grey door, where the white filly greeted her. She nodded and stepped inside the doorway. After the door shut behind her she momentarily hugged the familiar unicorn. “Thank you, Vinyl. You really are a lifesaver,” Octavia said. “Hey, no biggie. Make yourself at home. I gotta talk to my mom about this. Just don’t sit on any furniture yet until we get you a bath,” Vinyl teased. She helped Octavia out of her sweatshirt and then left her, walking down a hallway to the back of the house. Octavia settled down in the living room, sitting on the warm cedar floor in front of a blazing, but welcoming fireplace. It is nice here, she thought. I almost forgot what this was like. It is rather soothing…. Yes, I like it here. Octavia sighed contentedly as the warmth of the fireside slowly wore away the cold, liquid barrier that the storm had constructed around her body. When she heard the sounds of muffled yells, however, the chills returned and she was left shivering once again. When the yelling paused, Octavia heard the stomping of Vinyl from the hallway. She looked towards her and motioned for her to stand up and follow her. “C’mon. It’s about time you get yourself cleaned up,” Vinyl said. “Don’t mind my mother.” *** Octavia slipped further into the warm, soapy water. Soon, every part of her but her head was enveloped in the liquid and bubbles. She contemplated upon how quickly her life had improved. One week ago, she was alone, starving on the streets, with nothing to do or say, and no way to record her thoughts. Now, while she was still living on the streets, she got to eat much more frequently than she used to over the last couple of days, she could write her thoughts down, albeit as music, not words, which was just fine with her—she preferred it that way, in fact—and she finally had somepony to talk to on occasion. It was wonderful. Now, here she was, soaking in a bathtub, feeling all the disgusting filth that had previously caked her fur run off of her body and pollute the water, bringing it closer and closer to its eventual demise down the drain. It would only be a matter of time before she would be finally free of all that grime, and she could finally see her clean coat once again. It was too bad that she would eventually lose it to the streets again. Octavia shook her head. She was grateful for what Vinyl has done for her. She was lucky to have met her. She would not let one stupid thought prevent her from enjoying every second of this that she had, and she would not let Vinyl’s actions be for naught. She was clearly trying to make life easier for her, and she intended to let her do so. She floated in the bath for a while longer before finally pulling the plug and letting all the dirt that she had accumulated from at least a year of street life slip down the drain. She lifted herself out of the tub and planted her hooves on a bathmat, reached for a towel and dried herself off, and then progressed onwards towards the living room to join Vinyl by the hearth. When she reached the living room, Octavia was met with an expected, yet surprising—however much of an oxymoron that may be—appearance. Beside Vinyl Scratch, on the sofa, was the pink-maned, white-coated unicorn from before. Upon a closer glance, she noticed her emerald-green eyes, which shone sinisterly as firelight hit them, and several wrinkles, presumably formed from aging, adorning her face. She didn’t look old, but she didn’t appear to be young either. One could say that she appeared middle-aged. “Hey, Octy! Did’ja have a good bath?” Vinyl asked. “Yes. Thank you for that, by the way, Vinyl. It was wonderful.” “That’s great!” Vinyl’s gaze shifted towards the unicorn next to her, then back to Octavia. She pointed a hoof towards her. “Oh, uh…Octy, this is my mother, Arpeggio. Mom, this is Octavia,” she explained. “Nice to meet you, Arpeggio.” “The pleasure is all mine. Now, let us cut to the chase: why have you, a complete stranger and a homeless pony, been meeting with my daughter in the middle of the night, and why was she missing this morning?” Wow. How straightforward of her, Octavia thought. Author's Note Yay! Chapter 3 is out!
Chapter 4“Say…Octavia, for a homeless pony, you seem rather refined. Why are you living on the streets of all places?” Arpeggio inquired. She had been occasionally and awkwardly dialoguing with Octavia over the past two hours or so, and while it took awhile for her to warm up to the filly, she had eventually reached the point where she could look at her without internally cringing. Octavia stared at Arpeggio for a moment. She was wordless. She didn’t want to drag others into her issues, regardless of whether they were her best friends, her sworn enemies, merely her accomplices, or ponies who only tolerated her because they had to do so. In her mind, they were only her issues to deal with, and she felt that dragging others into them was selfish and unladylike. Eventually, she settled for the same response she gave Vinyl earlier: “I did not enjoy life at home, so I left,” she said, simply. ‘That would have to suffice.’ “So, let me get this straight. You did not like living there, so you decided living on the streets would be better?” ‘She has to be hiding something,’ Arpeggio mused. ‘Fillies do not simply run away from home because they do not like living there.’ “…Under the specific circumstances, yes; I say living on the streets is much preferred.” ‘Ah, yes. There is certainly something.’ Arpeggio raised an eyebrow. “And why is that?” Vinyl stopped her mother from going any further. “Octy doesn’t wanna talk about it, Mom.” “Yes. I am afraid that it is a personal thing, misses Scratch.” For some reason, Arpeggio flinched when Octavia said that. “…Well, alright then.” ‘Bless that Vinyl,’ Octavia thought. A minute passed, then a couple of minutes, and then the fifth, sixth, and seventh all flew by soon after. The three ponies once again had run out of things to say, and thus they had returned to their average, casual, yet paradoxically awkward silence. It was within this set of moments that Octavia had decided that she had stayed long enough and had climbed to her four hooves to announce her leave. “I believe I have taken up enough of your time, Vinyl, Arpeggio. Thank you for the hospitality,” she said. Just as she began walking towards the door, Vinyl reached out and placed a hoof atop her shoulder, stopping her in her tracks. “Octy, stay the night.” Octavia turned to face her friend. “Huh?” “Stay the night,” Vinyl repeated. “It’s freezing cold out there. You’ll get hypothermia. I’d rather have you in here than in that stupid alleyway.” Arpeggio interjected: “Vincenza, she is an absolute stranger! I will not have strangers spending the night! Letting her come inside was already a stretch!” “Mother, she’s not a stranger.” “Then what is she?!” Vinyl’s scowled at her mother. “She’s a friend!” she yelled. She pulled her voice down to more…reasonable levels before continuing. “…She’s a friend, Mom.” “You have known her for less than a month, Vincenza.” Octavia winced at the blatant red herring. Vinyl stamped a hoof into the flooring with a smack. “Friendship has nothing to do with time!” “Oh? Then please, go ahead and elaborate upon how one becomes friends within the timeframe of a week.” Vinyl stared at Arpeggio tautly, flatly, as if she had been sending a kind of non-verbal ‘Seriously?’ in her direction. “How we became friends doesn’t matter. She’s a friend.” Arpeggio paused. She knew how stubborn her daughter could be about certain things. This seemed to be one of those cases, so, reluctantly, she admitted her defeat: “…I see. I suppose she can stay the night. However, if she exhibits even the slightest smidgen of peculiar conduct, she is being booted.” “Thanks, Mom.” Octavia noted that she would have to be cautious around Arpeggio in regards to her behavior. She seemed to be a rather observant and critical mare, and she did not want to leave a negative first impression. She was Vinyl’s mother, after all. If she botched this up, she might never get a chance to see Vinyl Scratch again! She juddered at the idea of lost company but ultimately shook herself back into reality before her mind could dive deeper into the well of virtual loneliness that had pursued and enveloped her. Octavia briefly nodded. “Yes. Thank you, Arpeggio.” The rest of the night had gone by rather well and quickly for Octavia. After Vinyl’s somewhat brief argument with her mother, and several games of chess, checkers, and Monopony, she had dragged her excitedly into her room, mumbling something about not having a guest bedroom or something along those lines. Octavia had already painted a mental picture of what Vinyl’s bedroom could’ve looked like, but that picture had been highly inaccurate when in comparison to the real thing—nearly everything she thought it would be was wrong. She had mused that Vinyl’s room would probably be very organized and clean, much like her actual person, but it had turned out that while there were no crumbs, spilled liquids, half-eaten pizzas, or anything foodstuff-like for that matter, the floor was littered in a highly chaotic but somehow organized collection of papers, books, pencils, and erasers and two or three seemingly unrelated articles of clothing. Vinyl leaped onto her bed, belly first, sending a purple blanket flying as the mattress previously underneath absorbed her weight. She sighed and smiled as she let the muscles in her body relax. “Bed, sweet bed,” she said, causing Octavia to giggle in response to her antics. Octavia could remember the last time she had lain on a bed. It had been a very pleasant experience, and comparably more enjoyable than sleeping on cold, hard pavement. She yawned. “Getting tired, Octy?” “Yes. Sorry, Vinyl, but I do not have much more ‘juice’ in me, as they say.” “That’s fine, Tavs. I should probably get some rest too, actually.” Vinyl leapt off the bed and returned the blanket, which had been lying on the floor, to its rightful place atop the mattress, then lifted a corner of the fabric and motioned her hoof inside. “After you, Madam.” “…What?” “Remember, we don’t have a guest bedroom, so you’ll be sleeping with me. Hope that doesn’t bug you too much.” “Oh…um…thank you,” Octavia said. She crawled underneath the bedsheets, vanishing from sight for a moment before popping her head out from underneath the blanket and laid it atop a pillow. Vinyl switched off the lights and crawled in next to her friend. “Night, Tavi,” she said. “Goodnight, Vinyl.” Author's Note M.T., are you sure this isn't filler? It isn't filler.
Chapter 5Not wanting to wake Octavia—she looked so peaceful that she just couldn’t bring herself to do it—Vinyl slid out of bed as quietly as she could and silently walked to the opened door, slipping into the grey hallway beyond. Passing through the passageway, she made her way down the stairs and into the kitchen. She stepped towards a row of cabinets, opening them with a magic glow and obtaining from them a bowl, a spoon, and a box of cereal. Closing the cabinets and taking a carton of milk from the refrigerator, she sat down, across from her mother, at the dining room table and poured the milk and cereal into the bowl. Waiting no longer, she plunged her spoon into the mixture and then lifted it up to her muzzle and took a bite. It was sweet. She chewed and then swallowed. “Morning.” Arpeggio looked up from the newspaper previously in front of her, towards Vinyl, and said: “Oh…, good morning to you too, Vincenza.” Vinyl nodded. After ingesting several more spoonful’s of cereal, Vinyl deposited her now empty bowl near the kitchen sink and was about to tread out of the room when her mother snarled, sending the same newspaper that she’d been reading earlier smashing into the wooden planking of the dining room floor. When she saw the headline of the offending article, Vinyl galloped away. She was not going to be around to see Arpeggio explode like that again. Back up the stairs and into the bathroom she went, her hooves loudly pounding against the ground underneath her, which, when combined with the angry shrieking of her mother, elicited a small moan from her bedroom. She reached for her toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste and began cleaning her teeth, spreading the unpleasant taste of the paste throughout her mouth, causing her to cringe. After around two minutes of this, she spat the toothpaste into the sink and lifted a paper towel to her mouth, removing any of the excess paste from her white fur and lips. “Hello, Vinyl.” Vinyl spun her head to see a ball of gray fluff staring directly at her with its purple eyes. She struggled not to laugh. Octavia’s mane and fur coat stood up in all directions, randomly knotting and forming the occasional kink. “G-good morning, Octy! How was the sleep?” Octavia grinned. “Oh, it was wonderful, Vinyl. I have not slept like that in ages. “By the way, you seem to have a minor case of bed-head.” “Hey, you should look at yourself some time,” Vinyl chuckled. “At this rate, I’ll have to give you a full-on grooming session.” She winked at her friend. Octavia blushed and her tail tucked between her hind legs. “V-Vinyl!” “Hey, hey, I’m just kidding, Tavi.”—Vinyl smirked—“…Unless you want me to.” Self-grooming, for the typical earth-pony, has always been difficult. Without magic, it’s nearly impossible for one to brush his or her own back. Because of this, non-unicorns often seek out assistance from a friend or family member in regards to getting cleaned. After a long moment of consideration, Octavia’s blush darkened. “…P-please.” Vinyl stared at Octavia for a second before briefly nodding and lifting a brush out of a drawer underneath the bathroom sink. She then dragged the brush through Octavia’s charcoal-colored mane, undoing knots as she did so. Octavia smiled gently. “Thank you, Vinyl.” “Yep.” After cleaning themselves up, the two ponies went back downstairs to be greeted with a far-more-mellow Arpeggio sitting on a leather couch, taking a sip of an alcoholic beverage, specifically hard apple cider, from a large, glass mug, of which she soon, afterwards, set down on the wooden coffee table in front of her. Vinyl stared at her mother for a moment, then glared at the mug of cider on the table and slowly shook her head. She looked back up at Arpeggio. “Don’t drink too much, this time, okay, Ma?” “Do not fret, Vincenza. I will be fine.” “Whatever you say, Mom,” Vinyl said skeptically. Arpeggio’s drinking habits have rarely ever been consistent, but one behavior, as Vinyl Scratch recalled, has been, for years and years, set in stone: She never drinks hard cider except in ‘special circumstances,’ this being one of those situations. Often, when Arpeggio would drink cider, though, she’d get incredibly drunk, sometimes to the point of near-delirium, and Vinyl would have to get her to a hospital somehow in case of alcohol poisoning. Arpeggio released a modest hiccup before speaking again: “And you,”—she pointed at Octavia—“Octavia, be a good friend for my daughter. She’s always needed one.” “…I promise, Arpeggio.” Three hours had passed until, finally, Arpeggio drifted into a slumber. Over this time, Octavia did not have much time to contemplate about what Arpeggio had said earlier, but now that she was sleeping, she finally had a chance to do so—a chance that she took. ‘Be a good friend for my daughter.’ ‘She’s always needed one.’ ‘She’s always needed one.’ ‘She’s always needed one.’ Octavia mulled. Was it possible that Vinyl had few friends or maybe even no friends at all? How could a pony so generous and so seemingly friendly have been…friendless? It seemed impossible! She decided to ask Vinyl about it later. Soon, Vinyl burst down the stairs, droplets of water flying off of her sopping, white mane and coat and onto the walls, ceiling, and floor of the living room, illuminated, in mid-air, by a nearby lamp. She sat down on the couch and stared at Octavia directly in the eyes, her pupils shaking alongside their surrounding pools of red as if she already knew what she was thinking at the moment. 'Be a good friend for my daughter.' “Excuse me Vinyl, but about what Arpeggio said…—” “Not now, Octavia.” Octavia blinked. “But—” “Not now, …please,” Vinyl begged. “I don’t wanna talk about it.” “…Okay,” she sighed. The two stared at each other for a long moment, speechlessly, enveloped in a status of near-absolute awkwardness, of which could not be penetrated by anything but a diversion from it, and thus the change-of-topic technique was born, and it was— Vinyl Scratch’s eyes darted from left to right before she finally asked: “So…wanna get a milkshake?” Sitting on the tip of Octavia’s tongue, between her lips, was a long, plastic straw. At the end of this straw was a tall glass filled with sweet, pink, strawberry-flavored milkshake. She couldn’t remember the last time she had a milkshake. ‘Was it five—maybe six years ago?’ she wondered. ‘Seven years, perhaps. It’s somewhere in that range.’ She decided that how long ago she last had a milkshake was irrelevant and focused on the sweet taste of the drink instead. Across from her sat Vinyl Scratch. Unlike her, Vinyl was not savoring her drink, but rather gulping down her large chocolate malt from its metal bucket. For a moment, Octavia stared in amusement, before bringing herself to remark: “Vinyl, you are going to give yourself a stomach-ache.” “…Huh? …Oh. Octy, this is chocolate malt we’re talking about here! Chocolate malt! The stomach-ache is totally worth it! I mean, c’mon, who doesn’t like a good malt?” “You will have less time to enjoy it, though, because you are too busy inhaling it to actually taste it.” “But I do savor it, just a bit faster than you do.” “You taste it for a split second and then it’s gone. How is that, in any way, savoring?” “Jeez, I don’t know, Octavia. Maybe it’s magic?” “Milkshakes and malt are not magical, Vinyl.” “Blasphemy! Everyone run! Tavi’s a blasphemer!” Vinyl clowned, raising her hooves above her head and putting on an expression of mock horror. Donut Joe’s was almost entirely empty, aside from the two fillies, so Vinyl’s warnings were not heard by anypony in particular, other than Octavia, of course. Octavia smirked. “Nothing is sacred. Not even chocolate malt.” “Heresy!” Vinyl giggled. The cellist simply shook her head. “…Vinyl?” “Yeah?” “You are insufferable.” Vinyl grinned. “It’s what I do best, Tavi.” Soon, the two fillies emerged from the empty Donut Joe’s, stomachs filled with milkshake, malt, and good vibes, and, not long after, were back in the comforts of Vinyl’s home, which, at the moment, housed a particular couch with a particular drunken, passed-out, pink-maned mare: Arpeggio. Towering high above the coffee table, right next to the glass mug from earlier, were three completely empty beer-bottles. Vinyl’s right hoof met her face in what could only be seen as the pony-equivalent of a face-palm: a face-hoof. “I told you not to drink so much and you did it anyways,” she groaned. “Go figure.” “Is she often like this?” Octavia asked. Vinyl sighed and toddled up to her mother. “No; she’s usually pretty good about this. When she isn’t, though, things can get a little…out of hoof.” She placed a hoof on Arpeggio’s barrel and gently shook her awake. “C’mon, Ma. Let’s get you into bed.” Arpeggio didn’t budge and instead weakly moaned as a form of slurred protest against the harsh injustices her daughter was threatening to bring upon her poor soul. “Mom, couches aren’t meant to be slept on—especially not this one. Now, c’mon, it’s time to go to bed.” Arpeggio slowly, groggily stood up, only to lazily sway back and forth from her dizziness as she struggled to move forward. Vinyl leaned up against her mother to support her, and with her help, Arpeggio gradually made her way to the steps. “Hey, Tavia, go ahead and make yourself at home. I’ll be back down in a bit; I just gotta put Mom in bed, first,” Vinyl stated as she lead her mother up the stairs. Octavia nodded. “Thank you, Vinyl.” Vinyl and Arpeggio finished making their way up the staircase, leaving Octavia alone to roam the living room by herself. Octavia looked back at the coffee table to notice a sheet of crumpled newspaper pinned underneath the glass mug and green beer-bottles from before. She read the title aloud to herself: “Svengallop Co. Makes a Comeback.” She raised an eyebrow curiously, sat herself down on the couch, and began to read. The article was short and to the point: Some record label named Svengallop Co. had been struggling to get by, but then, recently, a new artist, somepony named Sapphire Shores, became huge, and the company profited from that. It mentioned a pony named Svengallop as well, but didn’t go much into who he actually was, so Octavia assumed that he was the one who owned the label. Vinyl trotted back down the stairs and joined Octavia on the couch. “Hey, I’m back. What’re you up”—she noticed what Octavia was holding and stared at the paper for a moment before glancing back up to her friend—“…to?” Octavia turned her head towards Vinyl to look her in the eyes and smile. “I am reading.” Vinyl moved her gaze back to the paper, then towards Octavia, then back to the paper, and then back at Octavia. “Vinyl, do you know who this Svengallop fellow is?” Vinyl slowly nodded her head. “Oh? What do you know about him?” Vinyl sighed. “Alright, I’ll tell you about him. Just…please don’t tell Mom I said anything about this. She’d kill me.” Octavia raised an eyebrow at that but agreed nonetheless. “Okay, I will not speak a word about this,” she promised. “…Okay, …so, Svengallop’s my father.” Octavia had certainly not expected a statement like that from Vinyl, but it wasn’t unbelievable, just unanticipated. “Oh? What is he like?” “Dunno. I’ve never met him before. Ma said he was lazy bum and always refused to get a job when he was living with her.” “What happened?” “She kicked him out. Something about being ‘sick of his shit’ or something like that.” Octavia blinked. “Wow." “Yeah.” Author's Note I do apologize for my absence. I've been binge-watching Doctor Who and dealing with writer's block recently.
