The morning was bleak, and so was the lousy broadcast. Waking up to the ill sounds of military marches was Octavia’s greatest nightmare, which she had to relive six days a week, save Sundays when the radio was off all day, for the sake of her sanity. Six days a week, though, Monday to Saturday, the radio blared with brass at six a.m. precisely, waking her up so she could wake up her marefriend Vinyl Scratch.
The marefriend in question was snoring disgracefully on the couch, to which she'd been sent the previous night for getting home drunk and disrupting Octavia's peaceful slumber. Leaning over the couch, Octavia mused whether to set off an alarm clock or just kiss the white mare awake. She settled on the latter, brushing her lips against Vinyl's cheek.
"Mmmyes?" Vinyl replied, her eyes still blissfully closed, her nose breathing heavily. The sun peeked into the room through the blinds, making her nose itch.
"Wake up, sunshine~" Octavia cooed, proceeding to her cello in the corner and tugging at the strings. Still in tune.
Finally, Vinyl woke up with a sneeze, while her cellist made her way to the kitchen. "Morning, Tavi," she called out, scratching her belly with a yawn. Telekinetically, she tugged at her player, drowning out the military music that seemed to have grown tired, of the war, and the fake cheerfulness, and the sickly propaganda posters everywhere, and the fear, the fear, the fear.
"Daisy salad?" Octavia's voice reached the mare's ears from the kitchen.
"Sure!" Vinyl replied with a little more enthusiasm than she felt. At last, she got up, running her hoof through her wild, spiky mane, and walked on to the kitchen, humming to the beat.
"Do you want to talk about how you came home intoxicated yet again?" Octavia wondered, cutting the pale-looking lettuce in the middle of their overly-spacious kitchen that made the table for four look painfully meagre.
"Nah, not really." Vinyl took a glance at the vegetables and winced. With all this money that we have, we still can't have good food because there is no good food anywhere. "Besides, I was merely drunk, not intox- whatever."
"Don't tell me," Octavia continued sternly, slicing the potatoes, holding the knife with her hooves awkwardly, "that you've also been taking those party... substances."
"Of course not!" Vinyl protested heatedly as she sat down at the table, levitating a fork towards her. "You know I only do booze, I don't even try that stuff."
"Good to know," Octavia nodded primly, sitting herself to breakfast as well. "Eat up - you don't want to miss your train."
"I don't wanna go to Manehattan again," Vinyl lamented, chewing the daisies from the salad. "They make me have boring conversations and what-not. I'm a DJ, not a... conversationalist," she finished lamely. "I just want to play music."
"But ponies listen to your broadcasts, dear," Octavia reasoned, wiping her mouth with a napkin. "They look up to you. They want their DJ Pon-3. They look forward to listening to your broadcasts."
"I was just thinking," Vinyl countered, "that since we make so much money but have no way to spend it - why not just quit? We could get a villa by the seaside."
"We can't, dear," Octavia said softly, putting down the utensils. "Even if I quit, you can't. There must always be a DJ Pon-3."
"Well," Vinyl concluded as she rose from behind the table audibly, "let someone else be DJ Pon-3." She sighed and rubbed her eyes with a hoof. "All right, time to catch that train."
With a kiss from the grey mare, Vinyl departed, not without casting a glance at their fairy-talish house in the middle of Ponyville. Before the war, it looked as if it were made of biscuits and chocolate. Now it looked like rust and mud.
Octavia closed the door and took a deep breath. No concert tonight, and no practice till the weekend. She looked around the quaint, sunlit indoors, watching in calm awe as little specks of dust danced slowly, ever so slowly about the room. With a tiny smile, she danced about the living room, humming the distorted military march. Her usual war-induced depression was weaving away with each circle she drew with her hooves on the old wooden floor.
As she came to a rest, she took yet another deep breath and decided that, yes, it was a great summer day, a wonderful day for a walk.
***
After the walk, Octavia was ready to take back her words about it being a great summer day. It was hot, way too hot, and the goddamn music followed her even on the forest paths that she roamed, broadcast by the omnipresent sprite-bots. The posters had grown even more ridiculous ("Join the United Cleaners! Smashing the dirt with a mighty hoof!" was the last straw), and, as Octavia neared the town square, she decided that she'd just buy some apples and call it a day.
She remembered the pretty vendor from before the war, an orange earth pony mare who sold apples and everything connected to apples, now a Ministry Mare. She sometimes had a little sister with her, a cute adolescent filly who sure could push a bargain - now a prospering businessmare; and almost always the muscular cart-puller, the hero Big Macintosh. How quickly everything changes, Octavia mused, trotting up to the new vendor, a mare whose coat was as grimly sick with green as her apples. A farmer turned politician, a farmer turned soldier, a farmer turned entrepreneur. At a pace like this, we'll soon run out of farmers altogether. "Nice day, isn't it?" Octavia poked at a friendly conversation, observing the poor choice of half-rotting fruit.
"Jes' buy yer apples," the old mare creaked, snoring as she coughed in her hoof: "ye dirty fillyfooler."
Octavia raised her brow. "I beg your pardon?"
"Apples," the vendor screeched. "Buy yer apples and git."
Octavia very seriously considered getting into an argument, but, with the judging looks she was getting, she decided on dropping the subject altogether. "Thank you," she hissed venomously, "I'd rather buy some pears." With that, she turned her back on the vendor, gliding away to the pear stand.
"Yer loss!" the old mare yelled.
"Ye know," the big, fat, kindly-looking stallion whose cutie mark was a glass of what seemed like beer but must have been cider, advised, "there ain't nothin' wrong with ye mares sleepin' together but, uh, Ponyville's a family town." He placed an extra pear in the bag, nodding away the extra bit. "All I'm sayin', limit yer exposure. Fer the best of ye, Ah mean." He smiled warmly, "Jes' friendly advice."
Octavia's eye twitched for a split second, but she quickly collected her composure and even managed a fake smile. "Thanks for the advice."
She took the bag and walked, slowly, towards her house, her hooves painfully clear in the dim. The sprite-bot floated up and roared with an upbeat tune.
***
"We need to move."
Vinyl blinked, diverting her attention from the roast potatoes. "Come again?"
Octavia didn't hurry to dinner, just looking out of the window, watching the first stars mark the sky. "Just today, I - once again - was called a dirty fillyfooler behind my back. And," she followed with a dry chuckle, "I got some friendly advice. You know what friendly advice?"
Vinyl shook her head, feeling greatly at unease. "...No?" She took an onion, peeling it roughly.
"Limit your exposure, he said. Ponyville's a family town, he said," Octavia hissed bitterly, shutting the blinds. "We need to move someplace more... liberal. Someplace more accepting. Not Ponyville. Not Canterlot."
"Los Pegasus?" Vinyl suggested, knowing better than to argue with her mare when the mare in question was on edge. "We can afford it."
"Too far and too hot," was Octavia's reply. The grey mare finally sat down at the table and eyed her meal. "Besides, there's been severe food shortages there."
"We can always move to Manehattan," Vinyl suggested cautiously. "I-I know your parents live there, and you don't want to see them but... but it's a nice city." Her voice was growing more confident. "I work there, and, well... we don't have much of a choice."
"And why is that?" Octavia forked her potatoes.
"I was asked to run the late-night broadcast," Vinyl confessed bashfully. "That way, I'll be able to do more music and less talking." She shrugged lightly. "So I was just going to ask you to move."
"Well," Octavia drawled, even though her heart was racing. "Since we have no other choice..."
Now Vinyl's breathing became ragged, her mouth drying. "S-so?"
Finally, Octavia smiled widely. "I'd love to go to Manehattan with you."
"Great!" Vinyl rose excitedly, leaving her meal. "I'll get down to packing."
Octavia blinked. "So soon?"
"We can't be late to my first late-night," Vinyl called out from the bedroom. "And that's tonight."
"Tonight?!" Octavia shrieked, jumping in place. "But- ugh!" She looked around in exasperation, trying to find something to pour her irritation on.
Suddenly, calling it a day was no longer an option.
***
"Room service or downstairs?"
Octavia sighed, rolling over in the Princess-sized bed. "How about a flat?" she called out irritably to her marefriend, who was humming a tune in the living room. "I'm tired of hotel food."
Vinyl emerged, still humming, a stick of celery in her telekinetic grip. "Well, our presidential suite has a kitchen. You can cook if you want to."
"You know exactly what I'm talking about here, Vinyl." Octavia sat in bed, eyeing the spacious bedroom with hints of disgust. "It doesn't look like home." She grabbed a pillow, giving it a squeeze. "It doesn't feel like home. It all looks fake."
"Well," Vinyl furrowed her brow, munching on the celery, "I'm trying to find options. The market isn't exactly booming with real property." She sighed, plopping herself on the bed next to Octavia. "It kinda sucks, having all this money and no way to spend it. And the parties-" she continued. "The parties used to be a gig for young mares and stallions to dance and have fun and be free. How can they feel free when there are soldiers everywhere, when I have to spill pro-war crap on the radio, when DJ Pon-3 is a source of lies." She looked at Octavia with tears in her eyes. "DJ Pon-3 should bring the truth. No matter how bad it hurts."
For a while, Octavia just held her DJ in her hooves, the white face on grey fur. "You know," she observed aloud. "Somehow, the war doesn't make me feel patriotic. It just hurts."
***
"This is the best Hearth Warming ever!"
Vinyl clapped her hooves together gleefully, rushing to and fro inside the living room. Octavia merely observed her with a calm, indulgent smile. "Not only have we bought ourselves a flat, now I'm eli- eligi- fit for a place in a Stable!" She stopped at her cellist's laugh. "I'm a VIP, you know? A Very." She tapped her chest. "Important. Pony."
"Oh you are important." Octavia grabbed her DJ, dragging the mare into a kiss. "You are the most important pony. To me." She kissed the goofy-smiled unicorn once more.
"Eee..." Vinyl grinned happily. "What about your reply? If they don't give you a VIP room, I am sure we can arrange something with Stable-Tec."
"Oh, you know." Octavia waved her hoof in the air dismissively. "The mail's late. Besides," she reasoned, "it's not like we'll ever need those Stables. I mean, nopony is crazy enough to actually blow up the world."
"Nah," Vinyl agreed. "Of course not."
***
"What do you mean, you didn't get in?"
Octavia shrugged, holding the torn envelope in her hooves. "It's a rejection letter," she repeated. "I didn't get in."
"Why, they slacky grimy- ugh!" Vinyl stomped her hoof against the carpeted floor. "What are they thinking, rejecting the best cellist in-"
"Vinyl," Octavia urged, patting the space on the bed next to her. "Calm down." Vinyl sat grudgingly. "Again, it's no big deal. We won't need the Stables after all." She shrugged again.
"I don't know, Tavi," Vinyl said carefully, leaning on her marefriend's shoulder. "The war's taken a drastic turn. It seems like it no longer is about resources. It seems like everypony has gone crazy with war effort. And every zebra," she added quietly.
The night was falling on the skyscraper-littered city of Manehattan. Ill winds blew in from the East, the dark lands of myth and magic, where potions brewed and where coal came from. Octavia got up and closed the window. The stars were pumping the sky with flickering light. The stars will aid her escape. The stars were beautiful, mesmerising, dangerous. They gave off a certain feeling of serendipity, a touch of fate, a glimpse of determinism. The cellist got back to the bed, sitting on it next to her marefriend.
"I'm gonna hit Stable-Tec." Vinyl paused. "Well, not literally at first. But I'm gonna get you to the Stable as my plus-one. Or else," she growled menacingly.
Octavia sighed quietly, knowing better than to argue with her lover when she was in one of her moods. "It's cold," was all she said. "Don't forget your scarf."
***
“What the hell do you mean, I can’t take her as a plus-one?!”
Vinyl stomped her hoof against the floor angrily, glaring daggers at the pretty receptionist mare. The DJ took a deep breath and looked around the Stable-Tec office that looked both steely and colourful, and that was making the furious mare sick.
“T-there are no familial ties between you two,” the visibly scared manager responded in a stutter. “If she were your sister-”
“She is my marefriend!” Vinyl roared. “I’ve chosen to devote my whole life to her, and so did she. We can’t get separated because of some stupid corporate policy!”
“I am very sorry, ma’am,” the mare uttered weakly, almost hiding behind her counter. “But you are not legally bound by marriage, so-”
“Well it’s your fucking fault that same-sex marriage is not legal!” Vinyl spat back, looming over the receptionist, but then gave up with a sigh. “Yeah. But of course it’s not your fault. It’s the government, always the government.” Wary of being listened to, she stopped with the seditious talk, taking a deep, deep breath. “There really is nothing I can do, eh?”
The manager’s face radiated with fifty shades of apology. “Again, I am very sorry. The Stable has-”
“I don’t give a flying damn about what the Stable has,” Vinyl murmured, heading for the exit, glancing about. A pristine coffee mug rested on the table in the corner, two armchairs empty for a waiting customer. The ever-present filing cabinets along the walls. A sickly cheerful poster showing a family, father and mother and two foals, living in a Stable underground. Building a better tomorrow, underground! Vinyl winced, heading out.
Who the fuck needs a better tomorrow, she thought bitterly, when we never have a better today?
***
“Honey, calm down, it’s not that bad.”
“Not that bad?!” Vinyl roared, tossing about pillows in a telekinetic rage. “Tavi, they are separating us! They are pulling us apart!” She ruptured one of the pillows with her horn. “They are dividing and conquering!”
“Honey, I am sure they don’t mean to do that,” Octavia tried to reason, but reasoning with the furious unicorn was providing no result.
“I don’t give a bloody fuck what they mean, Tavi!” Vinyl shouted, her Manehattan intonation showing, as it had always appeared in fits of rage or embarrassment. “I get a VIP room and they don’t even give me an opportunity to get you with me! Why should I live in a Stable and let my marefriend-”
“Vinyl,” Octavia interrupted finally, placing a hoof against her DJ’s mouth. She patted the bed next to her, and Vinyl sat there reluctantly. “Please listen. When I said it wasn’t that bad, I meant it. I…” The cellist smiled softly at her marefriend. “I have a place in a stable too.”
Vinyl took some time to process that information. “But… I think you got… rejected?” She blinked at the grey mare in confusion. “Didn’t you-”
“I didn’t get into Stable 29,” Octavia said with a touch of concern. “But I did get into Stable 101. It’s one of the newest, and, well, it is meant for earth ponies with skill and talent.” She beamed proudly. “Of which I am part.”
“That…” Vinyl paused. “That is actually very good news. But, uh.” She blinked again, trying to gear up her wits. “That means… We’ll get stuck in different stables when the bombs fall.” A sinking feeling in her chest appeared, crashing her with misery.
“If the bombs fall,” Octavia corrected gently, rubbing Vinyl’s shoulders. “It’s a ridiculous possibility. There’s no way it’s going to happen, so we’ll just keep on living here together, in Manehattan.” She smiled. “I’ve grown to like the city.”
“But,” Vinyl tried, only to be interrupted at once:
“Vinyl. Listen to me.” Octavia placed her hoof around Vinyl’s shoulders, leaning in and letting their cheeks touch. “You are chasing ghosts in a dark room, black ghosts in a dark room, which, by the way, are not even there.”
“I think the saying goes otherwise,” Vinyl remarked, gradually calming.
“It’s all just huge production, for money. Stable-Tec is a company, they need to make money, and what’s better than playing on the fears of the population. Hell, I’m not even sure zebras have megaspells. How would they cast them without unicorns?”
On the one hoof, Vinyl found herself persuaded by Octavia’s smooth, gentle voice, by her assuring intonation, by the things she was saying with such certainty. But on the other hoof, she paid heed to the nagging feeling in her chest that told her that, maybe, just maybe, building Stables wasn’t so much a profit-making business as… She stood up, shaking her head slightly. “Want some tea?” she asked, focusing on the mundane.
“Sure,” Octavia replied with a content nod. “That would be lovely.”
***
“I can’t believe this is a good-bye.”
Vinyl Scratch stood at the station, watching ponies load onto the train. Some of them were gleeful, earth pony families with foals. Some were sombre, musing over something only they could tell. Some were lost, disoriented, as if the very ground beneath their hooves had been torn free, and they were now in a state of constant freefall. And then there was Octavia, beautiful as ever, smiling at her, concern written all over her face.
“Don’t worry, sweetie,” Octavia assured her mare, “it’s not for long.”
“How can you tell?” Vinyl protested, waving a hoof around the grim, grey surroundings that seemed to have replaced the cheery colourful Equestria ever since the first months of the war. “The sirens are going off, and they are ushering us into the Stables, and oh Celestia, how can we really believe that it’s just a test run?”
Octavia’s hoof found its way on Vinyl’s shoulder reassuringly. “Because it’s just a test run. It lets us grow accustomed to the stables wh- if the bombs fall.” She dragged the white mare into a kiss right there at the station - something she so rarely did. “I’ll see you by the end of next week, I’m sure.”
“Why are they sealing us up in advance?” Vinyl lamented. “Wouldn’t it make more sense-”
“Nothing makes sense, Vinyl,” said Octavia, “when you think about it too deeply. So don’t. They’ll seal us, and just as well unseal us once the test run is over. And then we’ll go on living our life together, and you hear that we’ve almost won the war?” She smiled.
How can you be so gullible, Vinyl thought, looking over her unwavering marefriend. Or, rather, why did you choose to be so gullible. Aloud, she said, “Of course. Just a test run.” She gulped, kissing Octavia goodbye and watching her mount the train.
She did not walk away up until the train became a flickering dot on the horizon. Slowly, she turned away and walked, her head low. “Just a test run,” she said to herself.
As she braved the streets of Manehattan, slowly pacing towards her Stable, she gulped down unwanted tears. “A test run. And then a long, happy life.” She looked up and around. “For all of us.”
***
It was just a test run, Octavia told herself over and over as she was led among the narrow corridors of the Stable. The halls were pristine, the glass was sparkling with cleanliness, and bright, colourful banners were on almost every non-windowed wall. Hard Work is Happy Work, one proclaimed. Trust Your Doctor, another boasted from the clinic’s wall.
“Isn’t it just lovely?” Harpo Parish Nadermane, or just Harpo to friends (including Octavia), chirped as he walked, a spring in his step, towards the Atrium. “Just look at all these decorations! The music room! By Celestia, we have two grand pianos here so Frederic can compete with…” the pony trailed off.
Octavia looked, and looked, and couldn’t find a single reason why the whole place seemed so cold, so alien to her. No, she did know the reason; it was the white, magenta-eyed, wild-maned reason that was the single reason behind her whole existence. Just a test run. And then a life, together. As meant to be.
Why, then, was her gut wretched at the idea of this test run being weeks, maybe months? A year, tops? How much time should pass for her to… get acquainted..?
“...say that it’s just lovely!” Harpo exclaimed once again, this time touching Octavia’s shoulder. He blinked, tilting his head towards the cellist. “I mean. Isn’t it lovely, Octavia?”
"Sure," Octavia replied with a polite smile that didn't hide the rusty feeling in her throat. "It is lovely."
***
“So this is Stable 29.” Vinyl licked her upper lip, deep in thought. “The residents are not supposed to know this, but I hear there won’t be any governance? A Stable run entirely by Stable-Tec.”
“Of course not, silly!” Pinkie Pie bounced up and down with youthful vigour that certainly did not match her candy-cane greying mane. “How can Stable-Tec run the Stable when everypony- oh wait, no, I’m not supposed to know it yet!” She fell silent, then made a movement of zipping her mouth and throwing away the garbled sentence.
“O-kaaay.” Vinyl shrugged. Throughout the years she’d known Pinkie, she’d got used to her random attitude. Stable-Tec or not, she didn’t care. As she stepped into her room - her new home, alone, she could only think about Her.
“Don’t you think the mattresses are super-comfy?” Pinkie pranced about gleefully. “Yours is the superest-comfiest, on my direct orders!”
“Yes, Pinkie,” Vinyl replied slowly, running her hoof against the silk of the mattress cover. A cover she would never share with Octavia, ever again. No, she corrected herself. Just a test run. A test-fucking-run. Then why was she feeling so hopeless?
“And the sound system, it just rocks!” the pink pony carried on, visibly unconcerned by the DJ’s inner lamentations. “Remember I told you about the Sealing party?! Well, I won’t be there but it’s gonna be so COOL!” Suddenly, she stopped right in the middle of the room. Vinyl was patting the drawer absent-mindedly. “Don’t you think it’s cool, Scratchie?”
"Yes, Pinkie," Vinyl said tiredly, looking over her new home. "It's cool." Exhausted, she placed herself on the bed and closed her eyes, which were heavy with tears. "It's all cool."
***
It was only matter of time before the Stables sealed, never to reopen. Wasn’t a test run after all. Vinyl Scratch kept on making music in the safe confines of her Stable, and Octavia played the cello in hers. Vinyl threw parties and Octavia performed in a chamber ensemble. But their music was no longer joyful, no longer cheerful, no longer alive. Even the critics who tuned into the Stable broadcasts Up Above noticed that the thrill was long gone from Vinyl's turntablism, from Octavia's strings. No longer together, they just waited out their lives, counting the hours they were awake, aching for death - not to do them part, but to unite them once again. The Above mourned the end of Music from the two celebrities, mourned deeply, putting on old records and pretending nothing was amiss.
But then the bombs fell, and it didn't really matter anymore.
Moscow, 2015
