Chapters Octavia Philharmonica and Vinyl Scratch — known to her fans as DJ PON-3 — had been dating for three years and today was their anniversary. Though not normally a particularly romantic marefriend, Vinyl had spared no expense for this occasion. The interior of their loft was immaculate, candlelit, and precisely the right temperature that her finicky lover constantly complained about.
“Vinnnnnnnyllllllll… I’m hooooooot…”
Vinyl snorted back to consciousness and canted her head to meet Octavia’s pleading purple gaze. She couldn’t pinpoint the precise moment when she became the stallion in the relationship, but she was a good sport and took it in stride. She rolled off their bed and half-stumbled, half-cantered out of the bedroom and to the thermostat in the living room. Her horn illuminated the dark as her magic manipulated the switch. After mucking with it a bit, the apathetic unicorn returned and collapsed against her marefriend, who kissed her appreciatively and tried to get comfortable knowing that she’d soon be nice and cool.
Octavia spent the following evening in Ponyville General with an IV in her hip, suffering from heat cramps. Vinyl was emphatically apologetic but also quick to remind her that one shouldn’t ask a unicorn to use magic when they’re partially asleep.
Tonight would be different, however. Perfect in every sense of the word. Vinyl had set aside her trademark glasses, brushed her mane, practically bathed in shampoo and conditioner, and awaited Octavia’s return from recital, sitting on the floor on a bed of scattered rose pedals.
A series of widely spaced thumps against the exterior staircase alerted Vinyl that it was time for the show to begin. She picked up a long-stem rose with her teeth and fell back into an alluring supine position; a moment later, the door was bucked open, and an aggravated and dead-tired Octavia dragged her rugged cello case into the apartment. She collapsed onto her back and for a few moments, only the sound of her own ragged breathing could be heard.
She then became aware of the state of her apartment and that she was laying on something crunchy. She pulled one of the objects out from underneath her flank and examined it with a crooked eyebrow, then looked back, noticing her marefriend a few feet behind her. Vinyl was in a similarly compromising position and looking very much amused by the whole situation.
“Vinyl?”
“Yeeeeeeeeees?”
“Why is there foliage on our carpet?”
Vinyl sighed through a smile. If there was one thing that could take her mind off of a bad day, it was the sound of Octavia’s sophisticated Britmane accent, but being that she had been absolutely elated from dawn until now, her mind was carried in an entirely too lewd direction.
Vinyl waggled her eyebrows but the still distracted and tired Octavia didn’t put the pieces together in her mind. It was only after she also noticed the rose clutched between Vinyl’s teeth and the steaming flatware on the living room table did the proverbial light bulb click.
“OH MY CELESTIA, IT’S OUR ANNIVERSARY!”
“And the last pony crosses the finish line,” Vinyl chuckled.
Octavia rolled over and scooped her lover into a hug, who happily reciprocated. “I forgot! Oh Vinyl, what you must think of me!”
“I think you’re sexy,” Vinyl quipped, licking Octavia’s muzzle. “And that you’ve had a rough day. I can tell by the scuff marks on your case and that tic in your left eye. You always get that when you’re stressed.”
On cue, Octavia’s eye involuntarily twitched and she groused. She didn’t enjoy being mocked or having her flaws “put on blast” as her cosmopolitan lover would say, but Vinyl knew she was the only one who could not just get away with it, but spin it in such a way that the evening would end with them in the throes of passion.
“You don’t have to worry about a thing. I’ve cleaned, I’ve cooked, and I even bathed. I know how much you like it when I do that.”
Octavia rolled her eyes. “It is a sorry state of affairs when you consider personal hygiene a ‘special occasion’.”
“You’ve stopped flipping out. Does that mean you’re going to sit down and celebrate with me?”
Despite how utterly foalish she felt, Octavia nodded and kissed her lover on the cheek. The two mares walked hoof-in-hoof and sat opposite one another in the living room. They did not own a proper dining table, so they typically ate their meals on the couch and in front of the television. Tonight, however, Vinyl had moved the furniture and set up two cushions, perfectly placed so the two could stare longingly into one another’s eyes.
“Vinyl… this is all too much. Why is this year so special? On our last anniversary you took me to Chuck E. Cheese’s and spent half of the evening in the arcade.”
Vinyl’s magic secured both her and Octavia’s napkin around their necks, though her previously chipper demeanor fell a bit. “Yeah, I know I did and… I feel like an idiot too. I know you like romantic things and I’ve been droppin’ the ball something fierce. I’m gonna try to make it up too you, starting tonight.”
The silver dome covering Octavia’s dish levitated away, Vinyl’s following closely thereafter. “But I am not mad about that, if that is what you think. I will admit that, at first, I was a bit…”
“Angry? Annoyed? Pissed off?” Vinyl helpfully contributed.
“Put off,” Octavia finished. “But I love you, Vinyl. You don’t have to change on my account.”
“Well, maybe I like doing fancy crap every once in awhile,” she grinned. “Speaking of fancy but light on the crap—” Vinyl’s hoof swept across Octavia’s food, presenting it for her eating pleasure. “Steamed vegetables in… er…” Vinyl fumbled around under the table until hastily grabbing hold of her strategically placed cheat sheet, which her magenta eyes scanned. “Manure sauce.”
Octavia threw her head back and laughed heartily. She pounded the table twice before wiping a tear away and beckoning her lover in for a kiss. “That’s ‘meuniere’, love.”
“Too damn fancy…” Vinyl grumbled sunk back into her seat, kicking the paper back from whence it came. “Bah-hoo-tah corn salad,” which Vinyl helpfully pointed out. Octavia decided not to correct her this time, smiling throughout the presentation. “And sweet potato fries with… this stuff.” Vinyl removed the lid from a small dish filled with a yellow dipping oil. “I just know it’s spicy.”
“It looks delicious,” Octavia smiled and took a bite, which Vinyl carefully observed, looking for any sign of dislike or revulsion. Instead her marefriend exhaled happily and took another bite. “And it tastes even better! Everything is cooked to perfection.” A pause. “Now who made it?”
“Plum Bistro,” she replied, taking a bite herself. “But I put it on the plates.”
“And a wonderful job you did,” Octavia ate another fork-full. “Dare I ask how much it cost?”
Vinyl coughed and looked away. “Y’know, you’re better off just thinking of it as a ‘gift’,” the last word was punctuated by air quotations, made by Vinyl’s forehooves bending twice before returning to the underside of the table.
Silence. Cold, oppressive silence. Normally Octavia was wonderful dinner company; she was social, outgoing, and possessed a wealth of information from everything ranging to musical theory to trigonometry, and though one could say that she might be a tad too educated for casual conversation, no pony could say she was boring. Vinyl looked up and expected to see a quiet mare enjoying her meal. Instead she saw a grey pony with a brow furrowed so far it appeared that she would eat it instead of the salad.
“Um… Octy?”
“What. Was. That?” Each word was careful, deliberate, and filled with enough venom to poison a snake.
“W-What was what?”
“That motion. What was it?”
“Motion?” Vinyl was well and truly confused now, and more than a little bit afraid. Octavia was very slow to anger and she’d only successfully accomplished getting her marefriend to not speak to her once, and it had only lasted an hour, after which they had shared some of the best sex of their relationship. “What motion? I’ve just been sitting here.”
“Before that!” Octavia snapped. “You did it when you said ‘gift’.”
The hamster in Vinyl’s head hopped back on the wheel long enough to give it one good spin before tripping and chipping its tooth. “The… the air quotes? This?” Vinyl’s hooves lifted, in preparation to do it again.
“STOP!” Octavia reached over the spread, grabbed Vinyl’s right hoof, and slammed it down on the oak tabletop. Vinyl winced and backed away from her suddenly insane lover, cradling her sore limb against her chest.
“Octy! What the hay?! You just smashed my hoof over mother-buckin’ air quotes!”
“It is infuriating! I can understand the context of your words by the inflection! I don’t need an insipid visual aid!”
“Really?” Vinyl once had a hair-trigger temper, but since she and Octavia had begun dating, she liked to think the posh mare suppressed that, and for the better. But the sheer absurdity of this conversation on top of being accosted was rapidly drawing out her long-lost ire. “We’re fighting over this? Not the time I nearly killed you with the thermostat, or hollowed out the couch so I could make a fort? Air quotes ?”
“I have told you before how much I dislike air quotes, but you do it anyway! You are mocking me!”
“You’ve told me a lot of things I don’t remember Octy, but I think I would have remembered if you told me you got violent over air quotes!”
“… I didn’t tell you?”
“NO, you didn’t tell me!”
Octavia sat back on her haunches and looked at her lover with fear and worry. “I-I-I’m sorry Vinyl, I thought I brought it u—”
“I would have remembered that! If only to laugh at. I certainly would have told Pinkie that the mare I loved was crazy-neurotic over the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen!”
“Vinyl, please. Let’s talk about this over dinner.”
“Eat it yourself! I’ll be in the bathroom putting ice on my hoof.”
Vinyl kicked the table leg as she stormed off, eliciting another round of swearing and limping. From a quadruped that needed all four limbs to walk, Vinyl looked quite silly trying to angrily walk away on only two.
But Octavia couldn’t bring herself to laugh. She had just ruined the best relationship she’d ever had over an admittedly ridiculous pet peeve. Some of her childhood friends knew of her disdain for air quotations, as did her parents, so that she had never told her marefriend made her feel both silly and immensely regretful. If she lost Vinyl over this, she would undoubtedly become the recluse her family always jokingly said she would.
She sat in silence for a few minutes before pulling off the napkin and gingerly crept toward the bathroom, which she found to be locked. Octavia saw the light under the frame and heard indistinct sounds coming from inside, which she hoped were Vinyl simply venting a bit of steam and not struggling with a legitimate injury.
“V-Vinyl?”
No reply.
“Vinyl, please. Let me apologize.”
“You already did,” came a gruff response.
“I can do better.” The sensuality and compassion was evident. Vinyl might have been in the dark about a few of Octavia’s foibles, but she knew everything there was to know about the town DJ.
After a few tense seconds, she heard the door unlock. She opened it to see a basin full of cold water and a miserable white unicorn sitting on the toilet. Her hoof wasn’t so much as bruised, but knowing her outburst hadn’t actually harmed Vinyl did little to ease her mind from the fact that she had lashed out in the first place. She took a seat on the floor and looked up at her, desperate for a reconciliation.
“What I did,” Octavia began, her eyes misting over almost immediately. “Was inexcusable. I never considered that a… homosexual couple… could be subject to abuse but… I-I was wrong. It is my eternal shame knowing that I laid a hoof on you in anger, my love.”
Vinyl said nothing throughout, merely focused on Octavia’s eyes, as if searching for even the barest glimmer of insincerity.
“I don’t expect you to forgive me right away… if ever. If you want me to leave I understand completely.” She choked on the last words, but was quickly consoled by her equally teary-eyed partner.
“I don’t want you to leave. I forgive you.”
“I don’t deserve it,” Octavia hiccupped and buried her face into Vinyl’s withers.
“I’ve done enough boneheaded things to know when a little bit of forgiveness is needed. Let’s just… not bring it up again, okay? It never happened.”
“We cannot just ignore it, Vinyl!” Octavia’s countenance hardened and she glanced around the bathroom, as if suspecting somepony of eavesdropping. Her next words were whispered and oozed clandestine. “They’re still out there.”
“… You’re not seriously talking about air quotes, are you?”
“Yes! And don’t you poke fun, Vinyl Winifred Scratch! This is serious! The fact that I accosted you is evidence of that enough!”
“Octy…” Vinyl stopped herself and sighed, rubbing her hooves in a circular pattern around her suddenly exhausted and exasperated temples. “I’ll never use air quotes again. I promise. If you have some other completely bullshit, crazy, borderline autistic head-problem, please let me know now and I’ll never do that thing either.”
“That is not good enough! I have had to tolerate the tyrannical regime of air quotes my entire life! On the subway, or just walking down the street! I had a business brunch at The Happy Cow last week and some… uncouth scoundrel used air quotes not thirty feet from my table!” Octavia scoffed and visibly shuttered, thinking back to that day. “It took every ounce of willpower I had to not crush his windpipe.”
Usually the joker of the two, Vinyl was well and truly at a loss for words for how utterly unpredictable this evening had been. She expected dinner, pleasant small talk, and then sweaty, neighbor-enraging sex, not a relationship-breaking neurosis over maybe the most ignorable and forgettable gesture known to ponykind. Octavia was, however, staring at her now, shaking Vinyl out of her stupor and demanding that she say something to appease her lover. She was clearly distressed, after all.
“… Let’s go kill air quotes.”
Now it was Octavia’s turn to look confused. “Excuse me, what?”
“Air quotes. Let’s kill ‘em dead. I’ll sit on air quote’s chest and you swing your cello at its head or something.”
“Vinyl, as much as I appreciate the sentiment, air quotes are not a physical thing.”
She shrugged, clearly undeterred. “They had to begin somewhere, right? Some inconsiderate asshole invented air quotes and now the plague has afflicted my marefriend. Octy—” Vinyl grasped Octavia’s hooves in her own and sat on the ground with her, a fire alight behind those magenta orbs comparable only to the glee she saw when Vinyl mixed a new track. It was infectious and Octavia was beginning to believe in this completely irrational scenario. “—I vow you will never live another day in fear of air quotes.”
Octavia was unsure of how to reply. After all, discussing how one would murder a concept was even sillier than becoming violent over that concept in the first place. Still, she smiled and kissed her lover, endlessly appreciative not just of the pony who was surely her soul mate, but how easily she was swayed to assist with such a complicated problem.
“All right, let’s do it. Let’s kill air quotations.”
“That’s the spirit, Octy! And I can think of no better place to start than Twilight’s library!”
“In the morning. First, we have food to finish, lest it get cold.”
“And then?” Vinyl’s eyebrows danced, earning a giggle.
“And then I’ll show you just how sorry I can be.”
After an evening of make-up sex that rivaled the infamous “refrigerator door boogie board” incident, Vinyl Scratch and Octavia awoke as they normally did: One with nary a hair out of place and positively radiant, and the other choking on her marefriend’s bowtie. Practiced hooves plucked the article of clothing from Vinyl’s throat and set it on the nightstand.
“Gaaah-hak, aaaaaahck-blarg. Sniiiiiiiiiiiiiif… thanks Octy.”
“You’re welcome, Vinyl.”
Neither spoke throughout breakfast; they didn’t have too. They knew what today’s mission was and what was at stake: Octavia’s sanity. Dramatic close-ups and sharp movements cued to a theme of legendary importance accompanied each scrub of a dish, the placement of Vinyl’s shades on the bridge of her muzzle, Octavia tying her bowtie, and two swipes of a jar of matte camouflage paint on either of Vinyl’s cheeks.
“… Vinyl, where did you get that from?”
“Oh, Rarity has a basement full of the stuff.”
“… All right then.”
They stopped in front of the door, one hoof on the knob. They shared an intense moment of focus as Vinyl made a silent vow to protect her very special somepony from the horrors of air quotations, while Octavia could only see her reflection in Vinyl’s purple rave glasses. It weakened the moment, to be sure.
“Destination?”
“Twilight’s library,” Octavia replied.
“Mission?”
“The utter annihilation of air quotations without quarter or compassion.”
“Hey, that was a nice touch, Octy.”
“Oh, heh heh, thanks. I love watching old Vietneigh films.”
“Armaments?”
“Four fragmentation grenades, sixteen belts of five point five six milli— Wait, what?”
“The guns, Octy! How are we gonna fill air quotes with lead if we don’t have any lead?”
“Vinyl, we do not own a firearm.”
“… Well that’s dumb. Two mares living alone in a dangerous neighborhood, all squishy and vulnerable?”
“Ponyville is a dangerous neighborhood?”
“Octy, this place gets attacked by rogue gods on a weekly basis. Don’t you think it would be smart to have some kind of defense?”
“I will not harbor a firearm under this roof Vinyl, and that is final.”
Vinyl sighed and opened the door. “Fine. When we get mugged or sent to the moon, you’ll just have to smash their hooves against tables.”
“HEY!”
Ponyville was not a particularly large town. Vinyl and Octavia’s loft was only a block away from the market, which connected to the central thoroughfare and to pretty much anywhere in town you might want to go. They passed Sugarcube Corner and Roseluck’s newly opened floral shop and could immediately see the library. It was a very large tree, after all, second only to city hall in size.
“This is convenient,” Vinyl mused as they trotted toward the library. “I needed to get my synthesizer back from Spike anyway.”
“You loaned Spike your synthesizer?” Octavia asked incredulously. Vinyl was very possessive of her disc jockeying equipment. What shift in the stars occurred that she would loan it to a baby dragon?
“Heh, yeah. He snuck into the club the other night and made it make fart noises. He promised to show me how if I let him borrow it for a few days.”
“And I’m sure you told Twilight about his abuse of curfew, like a responsible adult?”
“No pony likes a snitch, Octy.”
Twilight tended to numerous boiling beakers, culturing petri dishes, popping electrodes, and a long-dead pony carcass strapped to a reclining metal table. For whatever reason, it was strapped in. She wore a pair of tinted welders glasses and a white laboratory coat with her cutie mark emblazoned on the back. Spike was just outside of the makeshift perimeter of science-y stuff, sitting behind Vinyl’s synthesizer.
Whenever Twilight would take a step, a ponderous tuba was played. If she reached for a beaker to observe how the fluids were mixing, she would hear wind chimes. Spike was even observant enough to note her teeth grinding in anger at his antics, which he punctuated with the sound of a saw cutting wood.
“SPIKE! I will ground you for a month, I swear to Faust!”
“No idea what you’re talking about, ‘Twi,” he chuckled, his claw hovering over a particular key that he knew Twilight loathed with every purple fiber of her being.
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what, ‘Twi?”
“Spike, you know what I’m talking about and I’m ord—”
Fart.
“THAT’S IT!”
Before Twilight could vaporize the keyboard with a sparkly pink laser courtesy of her weaponized horn, the door flew open and Vinyl Scratch slid in on her knees. “GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD MOOOOOOOOOOOOORNIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING TWIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIILIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT!”
Octavia strolled in behind her shortly thereafter. “Hello.”
Twilight’s attention diverted from her still laughing assistant and her magical fire dissipated. “Ah, good morning you two!” She trotted over and accepted life-sustaining nuzzles from her two friends. “What brings you by?” She leaned in close to Vinyl’s ear and whispered with urgency: “Take back your devil machine!”
Vinyl grinned and nodded. “I needed it back anyway. We’re actually here for something else, though.”
Twilight closed the door behind the ponies and they followed her into the library. Octavia walked behind their host to view her science project with a mixture of fascination and confusion, and then mute horror when she saw the deceased and unnecessarily immobilized stallion. Vinyl and Spike giggled like idiots as he demonstrated the holy fart noise key.
“And what might that be?” Twilight inquired, stirring a frothing green liquid with a spoon that incinerated upon removal. She cast it into an impressive pile of handles at her hooves.
Octavia and Vinyl stared at one another for a moment, neither willing to voice their purpose. Vinyl didn’t want to betray her marefriend’s trust in case she wasn’t yet comfortable with the idea of all of Ponyville knowing about her craziness. Octavia was too ashamed to speak up.
“Well… Octy has a bit of a problem.”
“Oooh, what kind of problem? I bet I can help! After all, if I can raise the dead, I can surely help the living!” With an unnerving giggle, Twilight clipped a pair of electrodes to the dead pony’s partially decomposed ears and flipped the switch on her portable generator.
“You are going to bring this poor stallion back to life?” Octavia asked, handling the situation perhaps a bit too easily. “Isn’t that a tad… inappropriate?”
“Well, if he didn’t want to be my ticket to immortality, he shouldn’t have died so close to my shovel.”
“Now Octy, we’re not here to judge…”
The sensible, non-homicidal maniac side of Octavia wanted to argue the point, but she just sighed and nodded. “No, we are not. Twilight, I have a… problem , as Vinyl said. My problem is with something that you are probably going to find humorous. I am extending the olive branch of peace now in warning that if you do this thing, I will not be held accountable for my actions.”
“Yes you will,” Vinyl grumped, the former evening’s events still fresh in her mind.
“And… what is this thing that bothers you so much?”
Octavia scuffed her hoof on the ground once or twice, receiving a few silent urges of encouragement from her marefriend. Spike’s claw was likewise ready to push the key most appropriate for the situation. “I… I hate air quotations. Violently so.”
Twilight stared at her quietly for a second before chuckling. “No, seriously.”
“I am being serious!”
“She beat me with a paddle last night,” Vinyl chimed in, a coy smile on her lips.
“That had nothing to do with air q— SHUT UP VINYL!”
Everypony turned her head toward the sound of a rimshot, which Spike helpfully provided.
Twilight, to her credit, didn’t burst into laughter. Instead, she looked confused, like somepony was playing a prank on her. When she saw the serious expression on Octavia’s face if not on Vinyl’s, she scoffed. “Yeah, that’s… really weird. But!” She all but shouted, noting Octavia’s quickly falling face. “I can help! This sounds like a psychological problem and I have just been itching to use this book!”
Twilight cantered away, her lab coat and goggles vanishing in a plume of fire, courtesy of her horn. She walked to a wheeled cart of books not yet reordered and levitated a particularly large volume out from under a pile of primarily children’s literature. “Here we go: Psychology for Complete Idiots .”
She walked back to the group, already searching the index for applicable symptoms and their corresponding disorders.
“Let’s see here. Adult antisocial behavior? No. Impulse control disorder? No. Exhibitionism?” Twilight looked at every stark naked pony or dragon present and flipped the page. “Hm… ah! Here we go. Generalized anxiety disorder. Irrational worry about an everyday thing which can lead to violence. Well, I’m not sure if that’s spot-on or not, but it’s probably the closest we’re going to get!” Twilight slammed the book shut and levitated it back to the cart.
Vinyl and Octavia exchanged glances then looked back at Twilight. “Sooooo… what do we do about it?”
Twilight snorted and turned the knob on her generator up to eleven. “I have no idea! I’m not a psychologist. Do you know what kind of damage I could cause if I even attempted to treat Octavia?”
Octavia facehoofed. “Well, can you recommend one?!”
“Oh, sure.” Twilight grabbed the junk drawer out of her kitchenette and rummaged through it for a moment before passing a crumpled business card to her guests. “I apologize for being rude but I do want to finish my little project.”
Vinyl snatched the card, passing it to Octavia, then retrieved her synthesizer from Spike, who dangled off of it before falling to the ground and pouted.
The ponies exchanged goodbyes before leaving. The last sound they heard before shutting the library’s door was a loud ZAP and a sound not too dissimilar to a watermelon exploding. “Aw, ponyfeathers.”
They stood on Twilight’s porch for a moment before Octavia held up the business card and read what was written, in elegant vivaldi script, no less. Vinyl peered over her shoulder and chuckled at the revelation.
“Fluttershy, Ph.D.”
As the two mares walked away, three heads poked out of the neatly trimmed hedge encircling the library. They waited until Vinyl and Octavia were out of earshot before giggling amongst themselves.
“You heard what Twilight said, right?” Scootaloo said excitedly. “This is exactly what we’ve been waiting for!”
“Yeah! We’re gonna get our cutie marks for sure this time!” Said Applebloom, practically bouncing out of the bush with anticipation.
“THE FUN COMMENCES IMMEDIATELY!” Intoned Sweetie Belle, certain that her fun capacitors wouldn’t be able to contain the amount of fun that would result from this endeavor.
“FUN FROLLICKING FILLY FUC—”
“Applebloom! We said we settled on ‘Cutie Mark Crusaders’!”
“Ugh. Fiiiiiiiiine . Killjoys.”
The three fillies took off in hot pursuit of their prey, ducking behind plants, scaffolding, and any other obstacle, each silently thankful that they had already attempted to earn cutie marks in covert infiltration. Sweetie Belle kept her mouth open the entire time, however, quietly playing a theme most appropriate for this activity .
Chapter 3: Flashbacks are Magic
The Fun Frolicking Filly Fu — Er… I mean, the Cutie Mark Crusaders had erected a perimeter around Fluttershy’s cottage. Vinyl Scratch and her marefriend Octavia had already gone inside, oblivious to the three mischievous children who had been shadowing them for the better part of an hour. While Scootaloo and Apple Bloom had initially suggested sneaking a peek from the living room window, Sweetie Belle had projected a digital overlay onto a flat patch of land which provided several helpful suggestions for covert observation.
The first of which was not to ask how Sweetie Belle did that — literally, it was the first bullet point. The second was finding cover, which the nearby shrubbery was excellent for. They were to keep their heads low, look only when the mark wasn’t , and assign each other code names. This rule was underlined for emphasis.
“Aunt Flo to Cousin Red. Cousin Red, come in, over.”
Scootaloo held a hoof up to her ear and made a squelching noise. “Cousin Red reporting. How about you, Sally? Do you read me? Over.”
“SALLY ACKNOWLEDGES YOUR MAKE-BELIEVE RADIO TRANSMISSION.”
Apple Bloom and Scootaloo both turned to their friend, eyes wide and hoofs gesturing. After a moment, Sweetie Belle made an “O” shape with her mouth and finished with: “OVER.”
“All right, gang. We’re gonna find out what Miss Octavia and Scratch are doin’. Our findin’s will definitely get us our cutie marks!”
“CUTIE MARK COVERT OP—”
All three hurriedly ducked back behind the cover of their bush and hushed each other, then finished their chant at a much lower volume: “Cutie mark covert operatives yay!”
“Yay!” Fluttershy clapped her hooves together as she served her guests a fresh pot of tea. “Oh, I never get to use my degree! I was beginning to think I took all those night courses for nothing!”
Vinyl and Octavia exchanged glances. “Um… you’ve never practiced before?”
“Oh, no. I don’t have the funds to open up a psychiatric practice. The licenses alone would bury me in debt, and I already have several thousand bits in student loans to pay off, not to mention all the costs of operating my own animal shelter, veterinary hospital, and farm.”
Vinyl took a sip of her tea, gagged, and surreptitiously poured it into a nearby potted fern.
“Um, Fluttershy,” Octavia wrung her hooves around her teacup nervously. Fluttershy was a very good friend, a beautiful pony inside and out, and always put herself before others. The last thing Octavia wanted to do was upset her, but seeing as how her sanity was at stake, she felt it important to ask a few questions. “I do not mean to be rude but… besides convenience, why should I trust your services over any pony else’s?”
“Um… well… I can think of two reasons.” Fluttershy took a seat on a cushion adjacent to her guests. “The first is that I’m the only pony in town with a psychiatric degree. Ponyville doesn’t even have a dentist, after all, unless you count that blue-maned quack who operates out of the alley behind Al Capony’s Loaded Loans.”
Vinyl and Octavia both shuttered. “Colgate” was not a mare often discussed in polite company. She was a shady character who was rumored to have dealings with the mafia. Specifically, evil dental hygiene.
“The second is that the seat your sitting in reclines.”
Octavia looked down at her cushion and, sure enough, saw a lever. She pulled it and did indeed recline — meaning it ejected a spring from the base that shot Octavia half-way across the room and onto a sofa.
“Rainbow Dash got that for me as a birthday present one year. She thought it would be funny.”
“Hilarious,” Octavia grumbled and adjusted her position on Futtershy’s couch. To her credit, it was a comfortable couch. It almost made up for the whiplash she had just suffered.
“Now, you said Twilight diagnosed you as having ‘generalized anxiety disorder’. What is your anxiety specifically, Octavia?” On his owner’s command, Angel Bunny hopped over and settled into Fluttershy’s lap, holding a notepad and an ink pen and ready to dictate.
“This is my favorite part,” Vinyl quipped, shrinking away from the subsequent glare Octavia threw at her.
Octavia took a deep breath and released it slowly. Unlike her marefriend, she didn’t enjoy having to explain her problem, as it always resulted in odd looks or laughter. She knew she was in reliable company, but that did little to steady her nerves. “I hate air quotations, Fluttershy. Whenever I see a pony use them, I envision crushing their skulls betwixt my hooves.”
Fluttershy and Angel exchanged looks. Fluttershy was thoroughly confused. Angel Bunny began laughing, though it was less about the sound (which was nonexistent) and more his rolling on the floor and pounding the floorboards with his tiny fists.
“Um… air quotations? You mean th—”
“NO!” Fluttershy was tackled to the ground by a guided Vinyl missile. The canary pegasus yelped but stopped struggling the moment Vinyl manually directed her head toward Octavia, who was visibly shaking with barely suppressed rage. All three mares relaxed shortly thereafter and returned to their seats, and only Angel Bunny seemed to be holding a grudge. He caught Vinyl’s gaze after a few moments of frantic waving and dragged his thumb across his neck, to which the DJ returned a venomous stare… from behind her glasses.
If Angel could see it, he would have been terrified.
“Yes. Those .” Octavia seethed, the mere thought of air quotations sending tremors up her body.
“That’s… really weird,” came Fluttershy’s professional opinion.
“Hey, Twilight said the same thing!”
“SHUT UP VINYL!”
“Anywhoozle,” Vinyl’s one-track mind easily brushed aside Octavia’s outburst. “Can you help her, doc?”
Fluttershy beamed at being addressed as such and nodded emphatically. “Oh, yes! I believe I have just the thing. Angel, get mommy’s pocket watch, please.”
Angel broke eye contact first, which caused a muted whoop of celebration from Vinyl. He glared daggers at her before hopping away and returning a short time after holding a silver pocket watch attached to a long chain.
“Now, I’m going to hypnotize you.”
“That seems unprofessional after ten minutes of evaluation…”
“Who’s the doctor here, me or you?!”
Octavia couldn’t really argue that so she laid back as instructed. Fluttershy sat on the edge of the couch, positioned herself eye-level with her patient, and began to swing the watch back and forth at a steady, rhythmic pace.
Octavia could hear nothing but the sound of her own breathing and the quiet ticking of Fluttershy’s watch for nearly a minute, before the somewhat bashful psychiatrist cleared her throat. “Um… do you feel sleepy yet?”
“Not particularly, no.”
“Oh. Um…” Fluttershy began digging through memories of her schooling, particularly to that one class that she was ten minutes late for and received a D on her mid-term.
“All right class. Today we will be talking about the very contentious topic of hypnosis. Can anypony tell me what hypnosis is?”
A young stallion in the front of the class raised his forehoof. When acknowledged, he began speaking. “It’s a method of using suggestion to lull a patient into a state of pseudo-awareness where they’re capable of recalling memories with greater clarity.”
“Very good, Pennywise! And do you know how often this technique is utilized in modern psychiatry?”
“Um… frequently, sir?”
“Quite the opposite, in fact. Hypnosis is a tool used by stage magicians and hacks. There is no evidence suggesting it works in even the slimmest sense, and at the broadest, is considered reckless and stupid. Today’s class is not about hypnosis. I just wanted to begin by telling you all how worthless it is and how quickly you would be laughed out of business for attempting it. Now, let’s get back to the fascinating world of trepanation!”
Fluttershy returned to the present and looked down at Octavia and then at the watch swinging back and forth in her hoof. “Um… you’re feeling veeeeeerrrrrrrry sleeeeeeeeepyyyyyyyyy…”
“I’m wide awake.”
“Your eyelids are getting heaaaaaaaavyyyyyyyy…”
“Fluttershy, this is not work—”
“NOW ANGEL!”
With all the skill and grace of a ninja, her pet bunny had snuck up behind Octavia, climbed on the armrest of the sofa, and brought a mallet down upon her head. Octavia made an indignant sound akin to a cross between a yelp and a helium balloon deflating and fell backward, her tongue lolling out and her eyes rolling backward.
“Now how sleepy do you feel?”
Octavia did not respond.
“Wonderful!”
“Um…” Vinyl hadn’t moved to stop Angel. She followed his every movement from the closet (which was emanating a rather rancid odor) to the couch. Figuring it was at least initially a part of Octavia’s treatment, she refrained from offering any sort of inexperienced commentary. Now she was beginning to feel conflicted. “Is that normally how hypnosis works?”
Fluttershy hemmed and hawed for a few moments before looking to Angel for advice. He nodded emphatically. “Yes. Yes it is.”
“Oh. All righty then.”
“Octavia! Octavia Worcestershire Philharmonica, are you listening to me?!”
Octavia’s eyes snapped open. She immediately recognized the room she was in: her parent’s dining room. On her left was her mother, Buffy, and on her right was her father, Standing Ovation. Their butler, Shakes, was also present. In his venerable years, he had finally begun to live up to his name.
“Um… yes, father.”
Octavia’s voice was higher. She was still a filly in this dream, at the overprotective, stuffy mercy of her family.
“Good. Now tell me about class today. Did you finally manage to stick the B-minor in the allegro of Beethooven’s number twenty-nine?” Her father punctuated “twenty-nine” with air quotes.
Before little Octavia could answer, she heard a sound not unlike gravel chipping from her mother. Turning, she saw the haggard gray mare grinding her teeth, which were already ruined stubs. However, she did not make a move to stop her father’s infuriating gesture.
“Y-Yes… I did. Mister Jazz even congratulated me and put a gold star sticker on my music sheet.”
“That’s wonderful!” Ovation exclaimed, clapping his hooves together and taking a sip of the chowder set before him. “You’re a rising star in the music world, Octavia, and I know you’ll make your mother and I proud.”
This time the air quotes accompanied the words “your mother and I”, to which Buffy began to shake like she was suffering from a seizure.
Little Octavia picked up on the source of her mother’s distress this time. “Um, father, may I ask why you keep making that gesture? I think it is upsetting mother.”
Ovation looked up from his meal, quirked an eyebrow, then looked across the table to his wife. “Darling, are you all right?”
That was apparently all Buffy needed to unleashed years of repressed anguish. “NO I AM NOT ALRIGHT YOU BLITHERING IDIOT! Look at me!” She waved her hooves across her ruined teeth, the bags under her eyes, and her frazzled, once vibrant violet mane. “You did this to me! Twenty years of air quotes attached to words for no reason at all has driven me mad! I can’t take it anymore! I WANT A DIVORCE!”
A stunned filly sat in mute horror before tears began to well up in her eyes. She ran from the table sobbing, retreating behind her perfectly coifed mane and refusing to come out from underneath her bed for the rest of the evening. Shakes refreshed Ovation’s wine glass. “How is the soup, sir?”
Octavia awoke screaming. The bag of ice that had been placed on her head fell off, and she quickly returned to her prone position, groaning and delicately nursing the lump on her head.
“Octy! What’s up, babe? Did Fluttershy’s hypnosis work?”
Fluttershy was nearby, both she and Angel anxious to hear if her treatment had been successful. Though Octavia was loath to admit that a concussion had given her the answers she sought, she nodded. “It was… my father. He always used air quotes to emphasize completely nonsensical words and phrases, things that did not even need emphasis!” Octavia began to cry and rolled over into Vinyl’s lap, who stroked her mane comfortingly. “Oh Vinyl, it was horrible! He used air quotations for nouns! NOUNS! In the name of Celestia’s holy teats, it was so ridiculous that my mother divorced him over it!”
“Wow. That sucks.” Vinyl was about to cut off her insightful comment there, but after a moment, added: “Hey, I’ve met your mom. She seemed so cool and down-to-earth.”
“Well, she and father and been separated for some years prior to that. She has had time to… adjust.”
“Never met him,” Vinyl mused, still petting her considerably more becalmed lover.
“Oh, I never told you? He passed away shortly thereafter. Mother suspects foul play, but I think it was just ill luck.”
“Oh yeah? What was the cause of death?”
“A flute was shoved down his throat.”
Vinyl hadn’t expected that. She thought the answer would be something mundane like a carriage crash or a dragon attack. Come to think of it…
“Octy. Your mother is a musician too, right?”
“Yes she is.”
“And she plays...?”
“Wind instruments. Primarily flutes. Why do you ask?”
“… No reason.”
Fluttershy cleared her throat, getting the attention of the group. “Well, I’m glad you were able to have this breakthrough, Octavia. If you’d like, I can schedule another time when you can come in and we can continue. We still need to cure you of your aggression for air quotes.”
Octavia sat up, sniffed, and looked at Vinyl, who removed her glasses. Octavia knew what that meant, for she only took off her trademark accessory when the rave filly left and the serious schemer entered. Octavia saw intent in those cerise eyes, and without a word, they simultaneously nodded and rose from the sofa.
“Thank you for your help Fluttershy, but we will no longer be needing your services.” Octavia looked to Vinyl for support, and she received it.
“Yeah, the only thing that can help Octy now is some good ol’ fashioned iron justice.”
Fluttershy wilted under the intensity of her guests. “Wh-what are you two going to do?”
“What we set out to do from the start,” Octavia explained, heading for the door. “We are going to kill air quotations.”
“B-But air quotes aren’t something that you can touch! It’s a gesture; a concept!”
“Which means we gotta go to the only pony around who has enough power to kill a concept, right Octy?”
“That is correct, Vinyl. We have to see Princess Celestia.”
