The Last-Minute Masterpiece

Chapters

The Weather Outside Is Frightful
But, My Love, You're So Delightful
And Since We've No Place To Go
Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow!

The Weather Outside Is Frightful

Usually, Octavia didn’t have very much to say about the weather.

That wasn’t to say that she didn’t enjoy it in its many forms. Some nights she’d stay up while the rain poured outside, after the last rumbles of thunder faded away. Those evenings she’d lie awake and listen in rapture as the rhapsody of raindrops beat a staccato against her roof to the tune of whatever melody she’d been practicing, or, what was becoming more commonly the case, whatever song Vinyl had gotten stuck in her head.

And she could certainly appreciate the days with a perfect partial cloud cover: just warm enough to make the shade feel pleasant, and neither too hot nor too chilly to distract from whatever she’d set out to do that day. Barring stressful days where she’d rush to the train station then onward to wherever she was set to perform, they were her favorite sort of days to spend with Vinyl.

It wasn’t that Octavia didn’t like weather, in general. She just didn’t feel the explicit need to discuss it much with other ponies. There were far more interesting things to bring to a conversation, and it was Octavia’s opinion that once the topic had devolved to postulating if it was going to be windy the next day, the true heart of the conversation had, in fact, long since sputtered out and died from neglect, and it was best to remove oneself from the corpse of the discussion before it started to smell.

Today, however, was different. Today, Octavia had a great many strong words about the weather, and it was all she could do to keep them to herself.

It wasn’t even the words themselves that she fought to hold back, for once. While most other ponies would be shocked at the vocabulary she was struggling to keep silent, Vinyl knew her better than most, and wasn’t the sort to question whether or not a proper mare from Upper Canterlot should even know what those swear words meant, let alone be able to string them together when her frustration levels grew too high.

Vinyl was very much a go-with-the-flow sort of marefriend, and that often suited Octavia just fine. It meant that, in private moments away from judgemental ears, she could truly speak her mind without fear of social or personal repercussions.

Unfortunately, there occasionally arose an odd situation where Octavia couldn’t tell Vinyl what she was thinking. Like today, when they were snowed in on Hearth’s Warming Eve because of the moon-sent blizzard.

… In retrospect, she considered as she stared out at the snow piled up nearly withers-height outside her window, perhaps it would benefit her to occasionally discuss the weather with other ponies. At the very least, a snowstorm would be less likely to ruin her plans.

Not that she’d had any perfect plans, but she’d had the vague notion of a brilliant idea forming in her head. Vinyl, after all, didn’t need more stuff. Neither of them truly did, in fact. Their house was already starting to feel crowded with knick-knacks lovingly tucked away in each available nook, and there were only so many more shelves their walls could support.

It was the price they’d paid for understanding each other’s interests (and a few odd finds besides), and it was only with a begrudging whisper of common sense that she’d acknowledged that Vinyl didn’t need - nay, didn’t deserve - some common gift. If it was going to take up more space, it would need to earn it. It had to be perfect, after all, to be worthy of Vinyl, even if Vinyl was the sort of mare who’d love anything that Octavia gifted her, simply because it came from somepony who loved her.

Octavia’s original plan had been to badger some of her more modernly-sensible coworkers with connections to get a few tickets for one of the Deadmare concerts that Vinyl had been talking nearly nonstop about. Perhaps she could make a romantic trip out of it, and they could visit a restaurant or spend the night in a hotel overlooking Canterlot Castle itself. Why, just getting out of Ponyville for a well-earned trip together would make a wonderful gift! The more she thought about it, the more it felt like it was coming together.

How dare the snow ruin that satisfaction? She doubted she could even get to the Friendship Express with enough time to spare to reach out to her orchestral friends and get back home, and that was assuming it was even able to run! If the train station had gotten the same amount of snowfall as their house did, she’d wager they’d simply close down for the night.

Of course… perhaps the snow wasn’t truly that bad! Perhaps it had simply drifted around their house, and the actual layer was a few measly inches thick near the train! Grinning, Octavia scooped up a scarf and raced to the front door. Why, it could even look far worse than it was, and she’d take plodding through ankle-deep snow over an impossibility any day of the year!

She struggled into her snow boots, giving hopeful glances at the doorknob as she pulled the laces taunt. If her friends didn’t have connections to that particular concert, perhaps she could ask around and see where else Deadmare was playing! Celestia herself couldn’t predict the whimsical nature of influential musician’s tour schedules, and Octavia was willing to bet that she could find some sort of information on the next big gig they’d booked. She had connections, and it would sort itself out when she got there.

Beaming, Octavia opened the door. The snow was up to her neck, and it paid no mind to the withering glares she gave it. That wasn’t particularly kind of it, being that high, but she reminded herself that it was, most likely, just a drift, and would slope off to something far more manageable just a few mere body lengths away.

Gingerly, she pressed a hoof against the snowdrift, calculating her initial steps. Her boots weren’t nearly long enough to protect her legs above the knee, but she reminded herself that she wouldn’t be cold for long. Soon, she’d be able to cozy up on the train to Canterlot, and this would all be an amusing anecdote to share with Vinyl later.

She stepped forward.

The snow, realizing that it now had space to move and the physics to make it happen, collapsed into the house, onto the doormat, and directly into Octavia’s other boots.

Her eye twitched as she examined the heap of slowly-melting slush, then the still-clearly-withers-high depths outside. No. No, she was not going to lose it. Not on the day before Hearth’s Warming. Not when Vinyl would come to see what she was so vigorously and creatively detailing in what agonizing manner the snow should be sent to a certain celestial body. She hadn’t quite determined which would be a better punishment, but if it weren’t for the spirit of Hearth’s Warming surprises, she’d have gone all-out.

She knocked the worst of the snow off the tops of her boots and cautiously stepped into the drift, sinking down to about knee length as she moved beyond the threshold of her home. She could try to wade through it, certainly. She might make it to the train station, if the snow sloped more to the ground than it looked. It, like Vinyl, could be deceptively deep at times, so logically it could also be shallower than it appeared to be, right?

A few more steps forward was all it took before her hooves begged her to reconsider. The snow at the bottom of her boots was beginning to melt, and a horrifying mental image of getting stuck outside and somehow freezing to the dreadfully peaceful landscape was enough to convince her to pause.

Perhaps she didn’t need to walk there herself! Maybe she could flag down a passing pegasus and-

She looked up. The skies churned with soft-looking clouds, and the few flakes that danced from them were the only things visible in the sky.

Ponyfeathers. She’d need to regroup and replan. Preferably indoors, where it was warm, and where she could remove her boots to dry her chilling hooves. She stumbled backwards, retracing her deep hoofprints as best as she could.

The cascaded snowbank in the entryway would have to go before she could close the door. For what must’ve been the millionth time, Octavia wished for a pair of wings, or a unicorn’s horn. It wasn’t horn envy or whatever else Amethyst Star insisted she had when she’d mentioned it (one of the many reasons she preferred conversations with Vinyl over that with others), but it was something philosophically similar, at least up to the point where said philosopher realized she’d reduced the mighty symbols of the other equine races to their relative values as snow shovels.

Octavia took a deep breath and reached for the broom and a dustpan. It’d be best to clean it up before Vinyl started to wonder why the temperature in their house had plummeted by a decent amount. With a flourish, she scooped up a dustpan of snow and tossed it out, far over where she’d managed to tread, and let her mind wander. Oh, why hadn’t she thought to get the tickets set up sooner than the day before she’d need to give them?

That question didn’t take too long to answer, at least. She’d been busy, and as weak of an excuse as that sounded, it was at least a decent part of the truth. Between finishing the last performances of the Canterlot Orchestra’s Hearth’s Warming Charity Concert and coordinating the rehearsals for the Grand Galloping Gala, she’d been practically buried in work.

Most ponies were busy over the holidays, true, but many of them weren’t providing the entertainment that the hardworking ponies used to relax over the most stressful time of the year. And after that, she’d needed to find inexpensive-yet-tasteful gifts for the other members of the orchestra (and, in turn, received far too many sample-sized bottles of cider and fancy sweets that looked more like a display piece than edible food, as was tradition), and then there was the matter of her parent’s gifts, and the rest of her family and the few she could truly call a close friend...

It’d make no sense to anypony else that she’d saved her marefriend’s gift for last, but there was a simple reason for that. Vinyl was, in theory at least, the easiest mare for her to shop for. She treasured any gift that Octavia put thought and care into (and, indeed, anything that Octavia saw that made her think of her), her interests were specific enough to understand yet broad enough to have some room for improvisation and surprises, and her policy on how much of something counted as a gift was refreshingly simple. If it came from her marefriend, Vinyl was sure to be happy.

Octavia knew this. It made her life easier, and made finding something for the least picky pony in her life a lower immediate priority than the moon-sent chaos of trying to find something that her parents both didn’t have yet and would actually find useful. However, it didn’t mean that Vinyl deserved just anything.

As she swept the last bits of snow into the dustpan and tossed it out over the drifts before giving the reconstructed heap of snow a few firm pats to make sure it held its shape, Octavia vowed she’d find something. The perfect gift was out there somewhere, she had no doubts, but she couldn’t get to it. By Celestia, though, she wouldn’t let that stop her.

If she couldn’t find the perfect gift out there, she’d figure out a way to find or make the perfect gift in here. Whatever that took, she’d be willing to do. Vinyl deserved nothing less.

But, My Love, You're So Delightful

It was with no small amount of frantic panic that Octavia paced in the kitchen, considering her options.

What would make a good gift for Vinyl? It had to be something marvelous, something as unique as the mare herself, and that truly limited her options.

Regifting something was the first thing that crossed her mind, but was just as quickly dismissed. Most of the items in the house that she’d consider worthy of Vinyl were either gifts that Octavia had given her already, or things Vinyl had given her that she treasured. The few remaining things she could think of, like new strings for her bow that her parents had given her early so she could use them for her pre-Hearth's-Warming concerts, weren’t things that Vinyl could put to use.

The obvious answer was to give her something they both loved, and anypony who’d been in Ponyville for more than a week knew their shared interest was music. Perhaps she could write a song for Vinyl? The thought made her pause in her relentless pacing. It’d been persistent in the back of her mind for a while, but she’d initially dismissed it. After all, composition was more Vinyl’s expertise; Octavia played music that other ponies selected, and the few times she’d been asked to improvise were met with a hasty mix-up of other classical themes she’d hoped few in her audience would recognize. Vinyl deserved better than whatever few notes she’d be able to put together. No, there had to be a better idea than that.

She’d have to get creative. What would her friends do, if faced with a similar dilemma? Bon-Bon would recommend that she cook Vinyl something, and certainly if the house smelled of fresh-baked cookies or a delicious dinner, that would be a gift in and of itself. Usually, it smelled of whichever candle Octavia kept burning in the main room, to keep the lingering scents of whatever party Vinyl had last attended at bay.

The biggest issue with that was the (minorly embarrassing) fact that neither Vinyl nor Octavia could truly cook. The results of Vinyl’s best attempts to make dinner were a few edible bowls of instant noodles, and Octavia’s forays into the wonderful world of cooking had left four pans burnt beyond repair before she’d admitted defeat.

Still, it had to be worth a shot. Octavia hooved through the pantry, trying to see if they had anything that’d make for a decent gift. A few cans of soup stared remorsefully back at her from the front. That wouldn’t do! While it was their usual sort of meal, and what they’d planned for Hearth’s Warming supper, it didn’t quite count as cooking. She dug through the back. Maybe they still had something that somehow hadn’t withered into dust?

The only thing her search revealed was a box of pasta so old she could’ve sworn it had come with the house when they’d moved in a few years back. Octavia brushed the dust off the top of the box, sneezed, opened it, and hesitantly gave it a few sniffs. Could pasta go bad? She wasn’t sure, but Vinyl might not appreciate homemade food poisoning as part of her gift.

She threw the box of questionable pasta away and turned her attention to the countertop. There were a few boxes of plain Sugarcube Corner gingerbread ponies and a few peppermint twists left from Bon-Bon’s shop, but unless Vinyl’s definition of creative baking included the stacking of one atop the other, there wasn’t too much she could do. Baking them again wouldn’t do much more than burn them, and the ashen remains of what once were cookies wouldn’t make for a good present.

Unless… perhaps she could frost the gingerbread ponies with the peppermint sweets? Octavia racked her memory. What was it Pinkie Pie had said? Frosting was just sugar and milk, right? Why, she had cream for her tea in the fridge (one of the few things they kept in there that wasn’t leftovers or sandwich materials), and there was both sugar *and* the peppermint twists to use! Surely a few of the peppermints could be sacrificed for the cause?

She picked up a few peppermint sweets and set them in a bowl. Frosted treats might not be the best possible gift, but maybe they’d be part of the best possible gift, given the circumstances. Cautiously, she took a spoon and smacked it firmly against the peppermint candy. It made a dull thwack, but didn’t split into conveniently small pieces like she’d hoped. She’d need more force.

Well, she was an earth pony. If a spoon wouldn’t cut it, her hooves certainly could - with appropriate sanitary measures, of course. Octavia wrapped one of her front hooves in a bag, giggling to herself. Oh, this would be simple, and it’d be such a surprise for Vinyl. Setting the bowl on the floor, she reared up and stomped down on the candy inside with a good amount of her weight.

The bowl, not being quite as strong as the average apple tree, shattered. The candy inside was not quite as lucky, and exploded in a puff of pulverized peppermint powder.

Fantastic. Simply wonderful. It was a miracle that Vinyl hadn’t come in to check on the noise. For the second time that day, Octavia reached for the dustpan. The candy dust had stuck to her fur, giving it a red and white speckled look around her hooves as she swept up the shards of the bowl. Cooking was a terrible idea. It was probably best if she quit whilst only slightly worse off and things could still be salvaged. Nothing had caught fire, and only one bowl was smashed, so it was a better outcome than some of her others, so she should be happy it went so well.

At least, that was what she’d told herself as she threw away the bits of ceramic bowl.

Rarity would most likely create some sort of outfit for Vinyl if she were in her horseshoes, but even if Octavia had the materials necessary, Vinyl had a particular sort of style that Octavia couldn’t really predict. It wasn’t quite avant-garde nor exactly modern, neither rebellious nor conservative. If Rarity were here to consult, she’d struggle for a few minutes to find the proper combinations of terms for it, but Octavia suspected that Vinyl wore whatever she decided at the moment was interesting. It made her a wonderful pony to shop with, but extremely difficult to shop for.

Still, perhaps it was worth a look. She raced to her closet, leaving behind a trail of peppermint-scented dust as she dug through the few articles of clothing she rarely wore. There were a few mismatched bows (gifts from fellow musicians who’d fallen over with laughter at the mental image of her wearing something as horrifying as purple-striped plaid in public), a few hats from Vinyl she couldn’t bear to part with, and a horrendous old sweater that her aunt had insisted was hoof-knitted and asked about with just enough regularity to make her feel guilty enough to keep it.

Nothing there (minus the hats from Vinyl) was something she’d been upset to part with, but she couldn’t think of any possible way she could combine them and create something that Vinyl had a chance to appreciate. If Rarity had been there, perhaps she’d be able to work her usual magic, but there wasn’t anything she could think of doing that would somehow make the horrible items even remotely passable as a present.

Lyra would tell her to write some sort of romantic poem or verse, something heartfelt and maybe rhythmic, like one of the beats in Vinyl’s songs. While it was true that the music Vinyl adored had a tempo that stuck with Octavia long after she’d wandered out of earshot, she wasn’t quite certain that it’d be the best gift for Vinyl. While her marefriend insisted that she had a way with words, she suspected that her attempts to rhyme things cohesively would be met with barely-suppressed giggles and a loving smooch for her effort.

The thought of a theoretical kiss made Octavia smile slightly. Maybe her effort would be enough, and Vinyl would appreciate her attempt at poetry, and-

-and then she remembered she didn’t know of anything that rhymes with Vinyl. Nothing romantic, anyway. Spinal? That wouldn’t do, and while her marefriend was forgiving, if Octavia wrote a poem about how much she loved her spine, she’d never live it down.

It was no use. There wasn’t anything she could create that Vinyl would love, nothing that was both meaningful and doable with the limited resources she had.

Nothing… except, she remembered with no small amount of weary acceptance, to compose a piece of music at the last possible minute.

It wouldn’t be perfect.

It might not even be good.

However, Octavia was out of options and rapidly running out of time, so it would have to do.

And Since We've No Place To Go

Composing a piece of music should be relatively straightforward, she’d told herself when she first sat down, quill in hoof, cello case next to her desk for when the moment of inspiration inevitably hit her. She’d played music all her life, she’d taken classes in musical theory, and almost nopony knew Beethooven better than her. Music was her passion as much as her special talent, and nopony could take that away from her! She’d pressed the quill down on the first bar of the blank sheet of music paper.

It’d been three hours at the very least, judging by the way the sunset shadows creeped against the snowdrifts outside, and the sheet of music was still blank.

Nothing. She couldn’t even select a key to play in. There wasn’t a single movement by Moozart that she’d been unable to get through after the initial sight-read, and yet she had absolutely no clue how to begin the piece. Her head, usually full of half-remembered conciertos, was absolutely empty of anything in the vague realm of original. Her cello sat next to her, case still unopened, looking for all the world as though it was judging her for her lack of creative vision.

Perhaps… perhaps that was the problem! Maybe she’d just needed to play, and the music would come to her effortlessly, like she’d seen Vinyl do when inspiration struck. She propped up her cello against her shoulder, closed her eyes, rested her bow lightly against the strings, and…

Still nothing. How in Equestria did Vinyl create sheer masterpieces out of nowhere? She’d always looked so carefree, like the music spoke to her, but Octavia had never thought to ask exactly how she’d made it happen. She was usually too busy letting the music - or, on the rare romantic occasion, Vinyl herself - sweep her off her hooves in a frenzy of rhythm and harmonies.

She played a few scales, with a vague hope that it would set alight some hidden creative ability that she’d been somehow neglecting, but even they sounded flat and lifeless. If Vinyl were here, she’d add a beat behind the sad, lonely notes, and accompany her pathetic attempts with a synthesizer that almost clashed with the hummed tones of her cello. Almost, but not quite, and in a way, the sound fit together all the better because of it.

It was just like the both of them, when she thought about it. They were two very different sides of the same melodic coin, but it was their differences that made their collaborations work.

Maybe she’d write a duet, but she couldn’t even seem to manage a solo.

A memory flickered in the back of her mind, one she’d pushed back many a time. Thoughts of before. There had, after all, been a period in her life when she hadn’t met Vinyl yet, when she’d scoffed at the first sour notes of anything that wasn’t her type of music, her flawless lifestyle, her way. It was Octavia’s way and Octavia’s way alone, when she was single, and even when she dated the few other ponies that’d initially impressed her enough to merit the experiment.

Vinyl hadn’t been anything like the ponies she’d been with before. She was different. Flawed, yet thriving in spite of it. Unbreakable, unflappable, and undeniably charming, she’d introduced Octavia to a new way of experiencing the world. It had been hard, at first, to let go of anything she’d taken for granted, but the strange, comical, and often absolutely wild experiences they’d shared had been worth far more than anything she’d left behind for good.

Truth be told, Octavia hadn’t managed all that well as a solo act. She felt much more alive with Vinyl, in every way she could be. They completed each other, complemented each other, and filled in most of each other’s weak spots. That wasn’t to say that there was no Octavia without her Vinyl Scratch, or no Vinyl without her ‘Tavi,’ but without the other there’d always be a sensation of something missing.

And when they were together? Why, it was something entirely beautiful and all their own. A fierce love, at times, yet peaceful. Two sides of the coin, they were a living duet and a masterpiece that nopony could ignore.

She began playing, not truly paying much mind as the first few notes filled her room, but there, yes, that sounded almost like she felt when they were together, and then, there! It sounded like the first time they’d spoken, the happiest happenstance she’d ever experienced. It was by chance that Vinyl had booked the same venue for an upcoming performance, and stranger chance still that they’d managed to book the same room at the same time. The argument, embarrassingly one-sided on Octavia’s part, led to an apology over a coffee at the nearest cafe after they’d rescheduled, and it was there that they’d realized what precious little they had in common.

The climbing notes - a faint memory of waking up next to Vinyl after they’d crashed on the couch, a whirlwind trip that’d gone poorly leaving nothing but a faint soreness in their legs by the morning, the sunlight’s glare waking Vinyl first- then, a note held a beat longer than expected, the moment when Octavia opened her eyes to find Vinyl watching her, shades set aside, smiling as though she’d seen the most beautiful sunrise in all of Equestria.

A lower note, a few vibrating tones set to a beat that she knew Vinyl would remember - the first time she’d been to the San Fransiscolt Music Festival and they’d danced underneath the light-strung trees, full of cheap cider and half-forgotten melodies that neither needed to hum aloud for the other to hear.

Building again, faster tempo but with a slight hesitation, a triplet almost out of place - when they’d decided to live together, despite Octavia having practically moved in already. Vinyl’s parents were, she recalled with a shudder against the strings, less than thrilled. It’d been the tipping point of a long-coming storm, the point where Vinyl had gone too far, being with somepony they for some reason couldn’t approve of, but Vinyl stuck by her decision, and still refused any apologies Octavia could give, and it was the one time Octavia had ever seen Vinyl truly furious. She’d do anything to keep her from feeling that way again.

Then, at the height of the noise, a quiet note. Then, another. Rebuilding what was left after the storm died down. Figuring where the loose ends were, and making them work or disregarding them altogether. Coordinating to make ends meet when money was tight and their success not a guarantee (for to be an artist, one had to take risks, whether it was by following the music or creating one’s own).

A sigh, a pause, then a building melody, a reprise of the beginning but with different emphasis, more feeling. They’d stuck together, because that was where they belonged. They were two separate instruments, functional on their own but better when in harmony.

Octavia held her breath as she pulled her bow away from the strings, letting the sound drift away. Something like that would work. It might not be perfect, but it was personal, and Vinyl was sure to love it when she played it for her tomorrow.

Wait. Something about that thought made Octavia pause in her mental celebration. Tomorrow… she’d play it again…. Oh, sweet Luna, she’d have to play it again! How was she going to remember any of that on Hearth’s Warming? She set down her cello with a bit more force than she’d usually insist on before rushing to the desk. Grabbing a piece of paper and a quill, she began to notate down what little she could recall of the beginning.

Did it start with a C? G#? Her hoof ached for her bow to sound it out, but if she started playing she’d forget what she’d already played! She’d have to guess it and continue on. Already, a few pieces of it were starting to fade from her memory. No! She couldn’t let that happen! She ran through the sections one more time, and jotted them down as quickly as she could. They were a bit disjointed, but she couldn’t let herself forget them. She’d put them in the right spot later.

She hummed a few bars of the next part, but it didn’t sound right. It was close, but not perfect. Octavia tried again. Still not correct. Was it the rhythm? Was there an extra note there? Maybe it was a bit higher, that part.

No, no, the next bit wasn’t right. Was it louder? Even when she thought it through in her head, adding volume didn’t add the emotion she’d played. Maybe it wasn’t volume that she was supposed to add? She noted it down anyway. It was close enough, and perhaps she’d remember when she got there.

Why did her eyes hurt? She tore her eyes away from the mussed-up sheets of music. When had it gotten so dark?

Turning on a light, she rubbed the worst of the ache away from her eyes. She couldn’t afford to stop. Stopping meant forgetting, and she couldn’t afford to forget. Vinyl was counting on her.

Oh, how did that initial melody go? Did she change key? She must’ve, but which was it? G major? She scratched out the line and continued beneath it.

Was there supposed to be a rest here? Did it make sense for there to be a rest here, or should the note be held longer? For a second, Octavia wondered if she could do both at once, but after a few gestures to mimic the motions required, she deemed it impossible.

At some point, she realized she’d started writing over a line she’d already written. Blearily, she reached for a fresh sheet, and her head leaned against her foreleg. It was soft, and her eyes hurt. She closed them, just for a moment, to make sure the ache went away so she could keep writing.

Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow!

Octavia woke with her face against her desk and a blanket around her shoulders.

There had not been a blanket around her shoulders when she’d been working, she thought. Or, maybe there had, and she’d been too out of it to realize she’d grabbed one. Octavia wrapped it tighter around herself. Smelled like Vinyl.

Vinyl… Hearth’s Warming! She jolted up, a piece of sheet music sticking to her cheek as adrenaline coursed through her. The composition!

She peeled the music sheet off her face before squinting at it with tired incomprehension. This… no, this didn’t make any sense! There wasn’t a melody here! It looked like a jumble of notes had been generously sprinkled on the page! A few weren’t anywhere near any of the bars.

Quickly, she reached for the other papers. Surely she’d gotten some of the piece down, right? She’d been writing for hours, so she must’ve at least gotten a few pieces of melody!

There wasn’t anything that made sense on each page she spared a glance. Where was it? The song she’d been filled with, it had to be somewhere in there! She pawed through the haphazard stack, faster and faster. It must be there, the song had to be somewhere, she’d written it down and-

RIIIIIIP

For a few seconds, there was silence as Octavia comprehended the torn pieces of paper. Then, slowly, she pressed a few matching pieces together, holding her breath. Was this where the melody was?

No. There was nothing. There was no melody, there was no song, this was her last-second present and it had been perfect and it didn’t even exist anymore and she had nothing to give to Vinyl for Hearth’s Warming. She crumpled up the torn pages in her hoof and marched out the door. Stupid pages. She’d throw them out in the snow for all they’d-

“Haaaaaappy Hearth’s Warming, ‘Tavi!” Chirped a familiar voice seconds before Octavia found herself trapped in a snow-white hug. “You slept in for once, filly! Must’ve been tired! Hey, I made ya some tea. Not sure if it’s cooled down too much, by now, but hey. It’s tea. Heals the soul.”

Vinyl pulled away from the hug to levitate a mug over to the kitchen table before practically bouncing over to her record table. Octavia looked down at her still-clenched hoof and the few shreds of paper she’d brought along with her.

Gingerly, as though she were setting down a newborn rabbit, she released the scraps of sheet music on the table before taking her seat. Tea. Tea wouldn’t fix the issue, but Vinyl had made it for her, and it was easier to face than anything else she’d brought upon herself.

It was notably lukewarm, but it bought her a few precious seconds to comprehend her situation. Maybe she could say she lost her gift, or that her gift was coming later? No, no, she wouldn’t lie to Vinyl. What if Vinyl found out? She’d feel betrayed that Octavia felt the need to lie to her, and the last thing she wanted to give Vinyl for Hearth’s Warming was a broken heart.

She could give her the ruined sheet music, maybe, but that wouldn’t be any sort of present, and certainly not the sort that her marefriend deserved. There wasn’t any time left, and she didn’t have a present for the most important pony in her life, and she’d failed herself, sure, but mostly she’d failed Vinyl, and that was something she couldn’t bear.

“Hey,” Vinyl said, finally noticing the tense silence in the air. “You alright?” When Octavia looked over to her, Vinyl’s brow creased with sudden concern. “Hey. Hey, it’s gonna be alright, I’m here for ya. What’s wrong?”

“I don’t have anything, Vinyl. I- oh, Celestia, I’m so sorry.” Tears streaked down Octavia’s face, but she couldn’t stop them, and she couldn’t stop the words that came pouring out with them. “I didn’t forget about you at all, I promise. I just got caught up with the gifts for ponies I know less well that I saved yours until the last minute, and then the snowstorm happened, and I had a plan, I swear it, darling, but-”

“‘Tavi,” said Vinyl quietly.

“But I couldn’t very well get to the train with all that snow, and believe me, I tried, but it was up to my shoulders, and even with the boots I could’ve gotten stranded! I’d tried to make you a gift but nothing was working and then I wrote you this song,” Octavia held up the shreds of sheet music, proof of her downfall. “But when I tried to write it down, it didn’t work, and-”

“Tavi,” she said again, pressing a hoof against Octavia’s shoulder insistently.

The gentle pressure broke Octavia from her blubbered explanation long enough for her to see her marefriend’s concerned gaze. “Yes, Vinyl?”

“Was that song you were playing the gift for me?” There was no judgement, no anger in Vinyl’s eyes.

Octavia hesitantly nodded, unable to blink away from her lover’s tender gaze. She must’ve heard some of it already, she realized. It made sense, of course, Vinyl must’ve heard something while she’d been playing. If Octavia could hear the bass of Vinyl’s music from her room, then she must’ve been able to hear some of her own playing back.

“It sounded nice,” continued Vinyl soothingly, standing up and walking towards her turntable.

“I’m glad you liked it,” Octavia sniffled, “But I can’t repeat it. That’s my problem, that’s why it’s not a present like it was meant to be, I played it but it’s gone and I can’t remember it. I wrote a song about us, and I can’t even play it the same way again, and I wanted to play it for you, Vinyl, and watch you as you listened to it, and then you’d know how much you mean to me, and you wouldn’t ever have to worry about the future because that’s my job, it’s my job, Vinyl, and I love you and thought I’d surprise you but it’s all gone.”

She didn’t notice that she’d started crying again until Vinyl’s hoof tenderly wiped a few tears from her cheek. “It’s not gone, ‘Tavi,” she murmured, floating a record gently in front of her. “It’s right here. Or, most of it. This version’s… altered.”

Octavia’s mind screeched to a halt like a runaway carriage that’d just discovered it had brakes all along. “Altered?” She blurted, more of an echo than anything as her mind stalled. How could the song not be gone? Vinyl must’ve recorded it somehow, but however had she managed that?

“Oh,” whispered Vinyl, her eyes widening with a panic that looked so foreign to Octavia on her marefriend’s face. “Oh sweet filly, I didn’t- I didn’t mean to take your present away. I’d just heard it, and it felt like us and I thought-”

“No, dearest!” Octavia waved a hoof in the air, the other pushing her seat back from the table. “I’m not upset, I’m just surprised, I don’t know how you managed to record it, but if you liked it that much, I don’t care what you’ve done with it.”

Vinyl looked almost near-tears herself, and Octavia took the silence that stretched between them to reconsider her choice in words. Ponyfeathers. That wasn’t quite what she’d meant, but just as she’d opened her mouth to reword it, Vinyl spoke up again.

“I didn’t mean to ruin your gift, ‘Tavi,” she said haltingly. “I have a recording of it by itself, if you don’t like this, but I thought…” Vinyl trailed off thoughtfully, her gaze wandering somewhere around the ceiling behind Octavia before it centered back on her. Her expression was unguarded, more vulnerable than she’d seen Vinyl in a long time.

“You inspire me, Octavia,” she said at last, fidgeting with one of the dials on the record player. “Whenever I make music, it’s all you. It’s us, put into song. When I heard you playing, I realized that I hadn’t heard that piece before, and so I’d started to record it, because you’ve never minded when I keep samples of your playing to use in my mixes before. After a bit, it just… hit me, that you were playing us just like I play us, but it’s your own version this time. It’s different, it’s something I wouldn’t have come up with, and I heard it and-”

“And?” whispered Octavia breathlessly.

Vinyl cleared her throat as she set the record back down on its player. “It felt like I was falling in love with you all over again. So… I played how I felt back. Because we’re a duet, ‘Tavi. We always have been. And I know it’s not as much of a surprise as your gift was gonna be by itself, but if you’d like to hear it...” She trailed off, looking as shy as the day she’d first asked Octavia out on a date.

“I’d love to hear it.” Octavia sat down next to her marefriend as she gingerly set the needle on the record. Vinyl leaned her head against her shoulder, and Octavia rested her chin against Vinyl’s head as it began to play.

The first thing she noticed was how little, at the beginning, that Vinyl had changed. She could hear every note, every piece of her original melody. It sounded, by itself, far more imperfect than what she thought she’d been playing.

But then in came a drum with a rhythm like a heartbeat, and an intricate melody from a synthesizer faded in, keeping up with Octavia’s irregular tempo. It didn’t overshadow it, but it wasn’t drowned out by the cello either. It was an interesting harmony. It didn’t quite clash, but it wasn’t content to simply follow what had been done.

It was, in other words, exactly the sort of song that Octavia wanted to give to Vinyl.

In each pause, as Octavia had searched for the next thought she’d want to turn into music, Vinyl had added her own flairs, each one conjuring up her own memories, judging by the way her cheeks lifted into a grin against Octavia’s shoulder as they listened. It was profoundly personal, something she’d have to ask Vinyl about for details later on. She had the feeling they’d both be sharing stories late into the night.

The heartbeat quickened and slowed, keeping time with the music as it shifted from the highs of their relationship to their lowest points, but always it continued. Here and there, the synthesizer split off from the harmony, playing its own motifs against fragments of hers, but then returning to the melody, bringing more to the song than either mare could have ever written alone.

After all, she may have written her own memories into the music, but their relationship was never meant to be a solo piece.

When the final melody swelled to its finale, Octavia could have sworn she saw a few tears shining in Vinyl’s eyes, through the blur of those in her own. It was imperfect, and it was beautiful in its imperfection, harmonious despite (and because of) its differences.

Just like them.

“So,” said Vinyl about a minute after the last note faded into a serene silence. “I’d had something else planned for presents, but it always felt like it was missing something, so I hope this works. What’d you think? I mean, I can dig the other stuff I got you out of my closet, but I haven’t wrapped some of it yet, and-”

That was as far as she got before Octavia silenced her with a kiss. “It’s perfect,” she whispered against her marefriend’s lips before pulling her into a hug. It was better than perfect, somehow, but she doubted she could find the right words to describe it.

“Oh. Good. Great!” Vinyl’s voice carried with it a twinge of relief. “Because I think I got the wrong size for your other gifts, and I just realized you were probably being sarcastic about loving flannel. Probably.”

Octavia chuckled over her shoulder, and reached around her marefriend to play the record again. “We can sort that out later, dearest. For now, I’d like just to sit here for a moment more. Being with you truly is the best gift I could ask for.”

Vinyl smiled against Octavia’s neck, burying her face into the mess of her marefriend’s mane as they held each other, swaying in time to the music they’d created. Just as it reached its peak, Octavia could’ve sworn she heard her marefriend mumble something incoherent into her mane.

“Sorry, I didn’t quite catch that,” said Octavia, pulling back far enough to see the warning glint of mischief in Vinyl’s eyes.

“You smell like peppermint, ‘Tavi. Like, a lot. Did you try cooking something with the peppermint twists?” The carefree smirk returned as Vinyl mimed something exploding, complete with exaggerated sound effects.

Octavia giggled. “Honestly, yesterday was quite an adventure of its own. If you’d like, we could heat some soup up while I tell you about it?”

“Sure thing, filly,” Vinyl purred, already halfway to the stove. “Oh, and ‘Tavi? Happy Hearth’s Warming.”

Octavia smiled as she headed towards the few unburnt pots, hearing the stove flare to life behind her. Perfectly in sync. “Happy Hearth’s Warming, Vinyl.”

Outside, the snow drifted down from the overcast sky above, settling around the house like a comforting blanket to the muffled melody of a harmonious pair.