Amidst the relentless, pouring rain shone a solitary cigarette, its smoke mocking the charred and smouldering remnants of The Square Wave and the two ponies sat that out front. As the rain continued to fall, Vinyl shook her head to get rid of clinging water drops, some of which may have been tears and took a final, slow drag before exhaling into the damp night air. She raised her head and started to watch the drops emerging from the night’s sky; after a moment the silence was finally broken with a long sigh.
‘Buck it…’
‘Look Scratchie, what happened, happened and there’s nothing I or anypony else can do about it’, spluttered Radley.
‘Cut it Boo...’
As Vinyl got up from the path and turned back towards the club, Radley started to get more worried and agitated.
‘But I didn’t know what it going on! I swear!’
Vinyl’s jaws clenched as whipped her head towards Radley, ‘Didn’t know!? Are you actually trying to tell me Boo, that all of this happened without your knowledge?’. All Radley could do was stare at his accuser. Vinyl scoffed and then started to frown. ‘You were supposed to be me bucking agent, you were supposed t- no! – you were hired to watch out for my best interests and all you did was saddle me up and take me for ride’. At this point there was mere millimetres between the two, both bodies heaving with anger. Radley then looked down at his hooves and looked back up at Scratch under his eyebrows.
‘Saddle you up?’
‘Yeah, a saddle…’
‘You’d look good in a saddle…’, Radley murmured, then he smiled in apprehension.
‘I’d look awesome in a saddle…’ she mumbled. ‘Hey Boo?’
‘Yeah?’
‘You’re fired. Stay the hell away from me and maybe I can rebuild what you took and ruined.’
With this, Vinyl began to make her way home, leaving one “Boo” Radley on his own. She laughed at the irony…
When Vinyl finally arrived home, her mane was stuck to her body, she was shivering, and everything hurt. The moon was throwing shadows all over the room, making it only seem colder and emptier and a quick glance around the empty apartment sent a deserved pang of loneliness through the drenched mare that forced Vinyl to catch her breath. She wasn’t ready for this, everything she’d dreamed of as a blissfully ignorant filly had somehow miraculously manifested itself after years of work and now, as a result of others who she once trusted, everything has imploded upon itself and she was left with nothing but shadows.
After some deliberation, she wondered if she should call ‘Tavi after what happened… Even though she had a classical composer’s temperament, Vinyl was scared of what she might say. She allowed herself a slight giggle when the image of a raging mare holding a cello above her head came to mind. Affording herself one more glance around her empty moonlit apartment, she decided that she desperately needed someone. With great apprehension, Vinyl called ‘Tavi’s apartment.
‘What? Hello? I’m dreadfully sorry but it’s three in the morning, who is this?’, Octavia asked sleepily.
‘ t-‘Tavi?’
‘…Scratch?’.
A moment of silence passed as tears started to gently slide down Vinyl’s face; she then sniffed and whispered: ‘It’s all gone ‘Tavi, I’m so sor- ’
‘I’ll be right over’
With this, a feeling of great warmth entered the apartment as Vinyl realised that there was still hope left.
