Learning Love

It felt like it was just an average night at Horsia's. But for Vahkii, a fine and mature colt unicorn, that night changed everything around. He had no idea what he was about to get into. Just a lone stallion, with few friends, drinking by himself at the bar. The few friends he has are all mares, so he has no colt friends to bring to the bar. All his mare friends are already here, but are elsewhere with other ponies.

Being the most popular bar in Ponyville, he frequents Horsia's for partying and drinking. A small stage has his best mare, Vinyl Scratch, up playing music in front of a giant mass of ponies, all dancing and going crazy. They have been friends ever since Cherilee was their teacher back as young fillies in grade school, before either of them had made music, or even had their cutie marks. Both have lived in Ponyville a long while, and are now inseparable friends. They even style their mane the same way. A sit up bar is on the other side of the room, where the ponies order their drinks and make small talk. The rest of the bar is filled with tables where ponies can sit, and eat or converse and enjoy themselves with others. Doesn't matter whether you come with friends or not, you could come to meet strangers and make new friends. Not uncommon at all, it just depends on your plans.

Since he and Vinyl discovered their cutie marks together, they both are into music like noponies' business. Vahkii makes the songs for her, and she remixes and plays them for crowds around Ponyville as a local DJ. Vahkii's cutie mark is two clef notes mirrored to shape a heart, while Vinyl has her eigth note.

However, Vahkii had a different reason to be at Horsia's that night. Usually, the fact that he loves how good Vinyl can DJ is what brings him to there almost every night. Recently, the crush of his dreams has shown up at Horsia's with her friends. Vahkii can spot her over half the times he's been there the past week or two.

Rarity was sitting at a table with Fluttershy and Twilight Sparkle, all just talking to each other. Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie were there too, but they were too busy going into the crowd and buying more vodka. Vahkii has seen her everywhere else before, and now she's been going to his favorite bar. The only catch on his excitement, is that she's never noticed him, or even caught his glance. All he wants is to be noticed by Rarity, just once.

Obviously Vahkii is easily attracted to her physical qualities. And of course, that group of six friends is famous throughout all of equestria, so it's not too hard to ask what their personalities are like. And after asking around he fell into a complete "Love at first sight" emotional state. Both of them are into fashion, and have a love of cleanliness, classiness, detail, and having tons of attention on them at a time. He can only think to himself about how much he would love to call her his marefriend, and she probably doesn't even know his name or face.

So, recently, he has tried to find out more about what Rarity likes. Trying to find out all he can. He has to find something he can do to impress her. From the ponies he's asked, she likes chivalrous stallions; ones who like the spotlight, but can share it; gentlecolts that show class, cheesey things like that. If what they said is right, it shouldn't be too hard to capture her heart, should it?

His job is getting paid to help Vinyl mix new songs, remixes, and anything she can do while performing. Due to this, he happens to have a lot of money and a lot of spare time. Using his spare time, he came up with the ultimate plan to get Rarity's attention by the end of the night. Loving the feeling of the spotlight on himself, and hoping that Rarity does too, he can do really outgoing things without the least bit of stage-fright or nervousness. He's going to get on that tiny stage with Vinyl,  ...and start singing and dancing.

Only recently had he started to make songs for Vinyl with lyrics. Only reason being that they only use those songs for their records. The shows they do at bars use only their lyric-less songs. As Vahkii climbs up to meet his best friend, she turns her head, raising an eyebrow to silently say she's wondering what he's up to.

He just stands there and smiles, waiting for the song to end. Vinyl plays it through and fades out the end. The ponies in the crowd sigh in dissapointment, as they think she is ending the show early. As Vahkii tells her to play one of their other songs, the ponies regain their excitement from before, and increase it further knowing something new is about to happen.

Looking over at Rarity, just to check, he notices that she is, in fact, looking straight AT him, and their eyes meet for the first time. He smiles to her and starts blushing cherry red. She smiles back, giving an almost seductive look to her face.

"Why is she looking at me like that? What can that mean? She can't be trying to... no, that can't be right. But at least she's seen me now. That's a step higher than before, right? Plan seems to be going fine and I havn't even started yet."

The first lyrical song he ever made for Vinyl starts playing, and he starts dancing by himself on the stage, breaking his eye contact with Rarity,.. for now. Vinyl is next to him, getting into her rhythm. The crowd in front of him starts cheering, growing louder as he grabs for the microphone on Vinyl's mixtable.

He starts singing for them, not having to think for the lyrics. He wrote the song, and he took too much time detailing the words. The song was about his compassion for music, his yearn for romance, and the sophistication of going from a no one to somepony, no matter the time interval between them.

The meaning behind his lyrics is that he loves Rarity, but yet they don't even know each other. He loves music as well, so he wants to use that to help show his love for Rarity, and change that they don't know each other. and help him add some romance in his life. He doesn't care about how long it takes, he wants to prove he is Rarity's significant other, and learn what love is with her.

If you didn't know that Vahkii was in love, you wouldn't be able to tell unless you really tried to look for the hints. The song ended and the ponies went absolutely crazy. They were happy to come see Vinyl play every night, and retained their energy to party. But after that song, with Vahkii singing and dancing, they went through the roof.

He looked back again at Rarity. She was leaning on the table, resting her chin on both hooves, watching him with her top eyelids half closed, and half a smile started on her face. Twilight and Fluttershy investigated what she was looking at, and caught eyes with Vahkii as well. Fluttershy smiled and backed her face behind her bangs. Twilight smiled, then she winked and twitched her head towards Rarity, like she was trying to tell Vahkii something.

“What could that even mean? Is she trying to tell me to come talk? That Rarity likes me? I've never dealt with this before! What do I do?.. I'll just...close the show singing, and see what happens next, maybe? Should I?”

He looked over at Vinyl and nodded for her to play another. This one was his favorite. He wrote it as a secret love note to her. It was kind of childish, as he doesn't really have feelings for her. Just kind of a friendly-type thing, right? The words he sowed into that song were real, but now he realized they weren't right for him to give to Vinyl. But, rather, now to Rarity.

When the next verse was all about his love to the reciever of the lyrics, he looked straight into Rarity's eyes. At the moment, she wasn't looking. But as she heard what the lyrics were saying, she slowly turned her head to him, blushing as she turned. Their eyes met once again and hers got wider as she paid attention.

“Yes! She thinks the lyrics are directed at her! Wonderful! Now focus on the song Vahkii, you can do this!”

Twilight was nudging Rarity as Vahkii continued singing. After a minute or so she got up from their table and walked towards the crowd of ponies in front of the stage. She was kind of wobbly and her head was turned down and to the side. She was obviously nervous for what she was about to do.

She started pushing her way into the crowd, slowly but surely getting into the middle. Soon enough, the ponies moved over for her automatically. It almost seemed planned the way it happened. Rarity was now in the front row of the crowd with a small circle of room around her. Vahkii's second song ended and Vinyl faded it out.

This time she started up a lyric-less song she had Vahkii remix about a week before. Vahkii moved the microphone back onto the mix table, and motioned for Rarity to join him on the stage. She was already blushing, but after this notion her cheeks must have been on fire. Vahkii put his hooves off as if he were to pull her up against her will.

But she grabbed his hooves and climbed onto the tiny stage with him. It wasn't really meant for three people and a DJ table, but they had a little room left. As the beat built itself up, the ponies were smiling at them, but continued dancing. Vahkii looked over at Twilight, and she winked again. He looked back straight into Rarity's eyes. Their snouts were nearly touching, they had little room to move around. But he said, in a rather high volume due to being so close to the speakers,

“May I have this dance with you?”

And she replied with a simple nod, closing her eyes. When she re-opened them, he turned his body to face the crowd, as Rarity had been that time, and started dancing slowly. She started moving back, matching his dance. The song kept going for what felt like half an hour. He's been to enough of Vinyl's shows to know how long she drags songs out, and that caps at ten minutes. She likes to keep things fresh, moving, changing.

“I must be losing my sense of time, but feeling her coat against mine, and dancing just feels amazing. Is this euphoria? Could this be what love feels like? Whatever it is, I like it. Please Vinyl, just keep this going!”

And it did. They kept dancing, getting more and more into it as time went by. The crowd didn't seem to care, they kept it going too. Rubbing against each other was enough to excite Vahkii. He kept feeling as if he was blushing the entire time, but he didn't care. Rarity was only slightly pink now, more taken by dancing with him and being in front of all these ponies.

Rarity took a second and stopped dancing. Vahkii opened his eyes for the first time in a few minutes. He looked over and she had a slightly sad face on her. It was fake, but she was hinting at something again.

“I can never figure out what these hints mean. I hang around mares enough to see this thing but I've never been the victim. How do I go along with this?”

She then broke his train of thought as she pulled his hoof, like she wanted to climb off the stage. The music started fading. He panicked, looking over at Vinyl now. She had her glasses up, so her eyes were showing for once. She winked at him and nodded, telling Vahkii he should go with Rarity. He looked back over at her. She was on the dance floor again, reaching her hoof up onto the stage for him. He swung down, hoof attached to hers. They made their way out of the crowd. Then she pulled him past the tables, past the bar, and towards the door.

“Where is she taking me? What's going on? Am I prepared for this!?”

He ran up and opened the door for her, and followed her outside when she was through, and shut the door behind him.

“Where are you taking me?” Vahkii asked quietly, now away from the loud music.

“Well,” she responded “I just wanted to start with saying that you're a good singer, and you're fun to dance with. You wanna, maybe, leave this place and go have some fun?”

“What kind of fun is she talking about? Go where? What's happening? What do I say?”

“Umm...where did you have in mind? And what kind of fun?” Vahkii asked, having to take a few pauses and breaths before completing the two questions.

Rarity gave him that seductive look once again, and with a voice to match, asked him “Why don't we go to my place for the night? And I can show you the answer to that other question much easier than just telling you, you know.” And with that she ended with a wink, and turned towards the path to her Boutique.

“Umm, okay. I'll just follow you then?” Vahkii's voice cracked as he said it, slowly talking quieter with each sentence.

Rarity didn't say anything back this time, but started walking. Vahkii quickened his pace to stay right next to her, but still leaving half a hoof of space between them.

The streets of Ponyville were dark, and barely lit. At this time of night, nopony had any lights on, and all the stores were closed. It wasn't really that far of a walk to Rarity's place, but it was still a distance. Euphoria was still working on him, and he liked it. Vahkii was only half excited as they walked up towards her house. He didn't know what to really expect, how he should handle it, or if she was serious about what she said.

No lights were on, but Rarity still left the door open for Vahkii to follow her. He did, and shut the door quietly behind him. She didn't bother to light the place up at all, and she walked upstairs. Not knowing what else he could do, Vahkii silently followed her. Upstairs, she went down a hallway and into the second door on the right.

Inside, was a rather big, circular room, with little furniture. The main feature, was just how big her bed was. If you tried to have a competition for most ponies on one bed, you could get this bed to ten or twelve, with no overlapping ponies. It was just ridiculous, he tried to imagine one pony sleeping alone on this bed and he just couldn't.

“This is my room, and that was my shop downstairs. Make yourself at home, I'll be just a minute. You can lay down on the bed and get comfy if you wish. Just, don't move the sheets around too much please.” Rarity said, and then looked away from him and walked over to a mirror near her sidetable.

He had to nearly jump to get onto the bed without using his haunches. He walked over to the pillows and laid down sideways across them. He did, in fact, make himself very comfy. So comfy, he closed his eyes for a second, and opened them to Rarity laying across from him, mirrored together. Inbetween them was a bottle of wine, and two glasses. She used her magic to fill them, seeing that he was awake now, eyes opened.

“You do like wine, right?”

“Sure,” he replied “drinking fancy every now and then is very enjoyable.”

“Oh it is simply divine if you don't over do it. I'm sorry we didn't talk much before coming here, and I know we just met. That place was too loud for conversations, my ears are still ringing. That and my friends would have been all over me. But, I did enjoy going up there with you. How did you go up there and sing without getting kicked off?”

“Well...to reply to all of that in order. We don't need to talk if you don't want to, but I would like to get to know you a bit. I go there all the time so my ears are used to it. Your friends seemed all over you just by getting you to come up there with me. My best friend is Vinyl Scratch and I write most of her music, so I can do that whenever I want, I just hadn't done it before. We've never played a song with my lyrics at a small show like that.” Vahkii was talking pretty fast, trying to say something for each thing she had said, without losing his thoughts or forgetting.

“Well. If you mean that part, about not talking, we could umm, skip to that fun part I was talking about.”

“You seem quieter and more humble now. Is something wrong? Did I say something bad?”

“No, no honey you're fine. That burst of euphoria is gone. But the bit of it that stays with you for awhile, and this wine, is here at the moment. Plus, this place is quieter than the bar.”

After finishing her sentence, she lifted the wine and glasses over to that sidetable. Then she stood up for a second, just to walk over and lay across his side, facing the same way he was. She bent her head around and rested her snout on the side of his face. He could feel her breath on his cheek and neck. Her whole body was warm, pressing against his.

“Is there something you're trying to hint at, Rarity?”

Her head rose up off of him and she had a surprised look on her face. “Oh! My gosh! I was waiting for you to ask for my name, but you already know it! And I don't even know yours!”

“It's okay, my name is Vahkii. And I-”

“Vahkii, that's a unique name, I must say. But how do you know mine, if I may ask?”

“Well,” He was blushing again already, starting to wonder how he wasn't with a mare laying on top of his side. “I,.. I've kind of, had a crush on you,.. from a distance. And you finally noticed me tonight.”

“Oh, my! I'm so sorry, I didn't realize that! I must have been so caught up with either my friends or my busy schedule!” She put on that seductive face and voice a third time. “Is there, anyway this mare could make it up to you?”

“Well,.. umm,.. you're kind of,.. embarassing me,.. I've never been this close to anypony before. Not even Vinyl, and I'v-”

His sentence was ended short as his lips were covered by Rarity's own.

“I just met her, she didn't even know my name until just now. And she's...kissing me? What have I been missing this whole time?”

She turned him over onto his back, and she climbed onto his chest, not breaking the kiss just yet. He didn't know what emotions he was feeling right now. Warmth was running through his whole body, just to be met by Rarity's warmth, burning much hotter than his own. His heart beat faster every second, and he was tensing up everywhere. His head started to spin, and he fainted, right there on her bed , still kissing.

--

He woke up. He didn't want to open his eyes. He didn't know what happened. All he knew was that he was freezing, head to hoof. He felt a very cold breeze come from a window. But he was laying down in a familiar bed. Not the one he fainted in. He still had some of that feeling of tension in him, but he was shivering, so it kind of ruined it for him.

“How many times do I have to nudge you before you get up you lazy colt! Get out of bed, you're later than you said you'd be!”

“But that's...Vinyl's voice...”

He opened his eyes in shock. He was in his room, the window was open. Some snow had landed on the floor next to his bed. The tension and whatever euphoria he had was gone, and he lost himself in thought.

“Did I...just dream all of that? No...please...be real...that was too good to make it all have been fake..”

“Would you cut it out? I mean I don't care that you're late, it s'all good Vahkii, but could you at least recognize that I'm here? Or are you asleep with your eyes open again?”

“No, sorry Vinyl. I just had the most realistic dream...never had anything like it before. What time is it?”

“Only a little before noon. Like I said, s'all good. I just want to get this going for tonight. What was that dream you said?”

“Nothing, I'll tell you later. Just give me a minute to collect my thoughts. I'll meet you downstairs?”

“Okay. Good morning, by the way.”

“Yeah, good morning.”

“That can't have been fake. Rarity must have dragged me back onto my bed...right?...Please?...”

As he rolled over and fell off of his bed to wake himself up a bit, a parchment rolled off of him stomach.

“That was just a dream, Vahkii. But, I can make it real, if you do certain things correctly. Signed, Princess Luna.”

--