Vinyl sat by herself at a table in the performers' tent, near the back where the light was nice and dim. Her sunglasses and headphones sat on the table, next to her dinner plate. The purse with her passport and money was tucked low over her belly, its strap clipped around her back.
The tomato soup wasn't great, and the bread in the grilled cheese sandwich tasted like sawdust from a timberwolf's abortion, but the Earth beer was really, really good. One of the humans had said Portland was famous for beer, and Vinyl hadn't yet found one that wasn't good. Beer had probably made up fifty percent of her calories over the last three days, and she wasn't necessarily immune to alcohol, she admitted. The entire tent seemed to be a few degrees off level. Better drink more until gravity was pointing straight down again.
She needed some protein, so she waved down one of the servers and pointed to the fish tacos on the menu.
"Fish tacos? You... want fish?"
Vinyl nodded and signed thank you. 'Thank you' was identical in both Equestrian and American Sign Languages: right hoof in front of mouth, lower hand toward the pony (person) being thanked.
"I thought you all could talk?"
Vinyl gesticulated angrily, frowning and signing something her mother would not have approved of.
The maître d' appeared. "Dominik, the esteemed Miss Scratch communicates via sign language."
"Oh! I'm so sorry!"
Vinyl rolled her eyes, made an it's fine hoof wave as the waiter disappeared, and levitated her beer back to her lips. Luna, that was good stuff. Very hoppy.
She closed her eyes and rubbed her head. Even with the headphones protecting her ears, her set had been louder than she liked. Human sound systems were more powerful than Equestrian. Vinyl flicked her tail. The set had been good and the crowd loved it. The ones in the crowd who weren't stoned off their odd bipedally articulated asses, anyway.
She wrinkled her nose. The coat of her muzzle was still sticky with sugar from the bowl of Coke she snorted, and she still didn't understand why Paul Oakenfold had made fun of her. She thought DJs on Earth snorted Coke? Stupid high-fructose corn syrup, that shit was illegal in Equestria.
A human carried a chair over and sat down next to her.
She glared at him, having wanted privacy.
"Hey," he said. "I liked your set. You've got some wicked bass."
She signed thank you.
"Do you go by 'DJ P0N-3' backstage?"
She shook her head no and signed, Vinyl.
"What? I'm sorry—I know a little American Sign Language but not pony."
Crap. Of course not. She levitated a pen from her purse and scribbled her name on a napkin.
"Vinyl? That's a pretty name. Very appropriate, since you still spin physical disks." With some panache, his hand reached up and adjusted the brown fedora hat, pulling it down to a rakish angle over his left eye with a wink. "I'm Bruno Mars, and—"
Vinyl's eyes widened and the beer mug crashed to the floor, spilling the ambrosiac nectar everywhere. The voices in the performers' tent took on an odd timbre as she focused on the voice, the wonderful voice, speaking to her. Dominik-with-a-K showed up with her plate of fish tacos, sizzling and resplendent with butter and salt, as humans will do.
Light blazed bright from Vinyl's horn as she prepared a magical exertion that she had never before attempted in her life. Her forelegs tucked tight to her chest and she leaped from her chair, forelegs extending to tackle him. He was twice Vinyl's size but even a unicorn had far more strength than the average human and her leap knocked him backwards, knocking his chair over, and her horn discharged—
[discontinuity]
—and Vinyl arrived from the first teleport of her life, rolling on top of the human, two full circles before they stopped the roll, having hit the bed in her hotel suite almost a full three-quarter mile of slant range from where they had been sitting.
She signed, Fuck me hard!
"What? Are you having a seizure?"
Vinyl shook her head, stood up on the bed, looming over him as much as she could loom with her much smaller body, and levitated his trousers and boxers down to his ankles.
"Oh, okay, is that what you were just signing? Sex?"
She nodded her head vigorously yes. After a momentary thought about the condoms in her purse, she decided to Tartarus with it, and tossed her purse onto the bedside stand.
Vinyl flagged her tail and lowered herself onto him. The horse is riding you bareback, she signed.
"What? I wasn't trying to talk you into sex, I wanted a partner for a tour of Equestria—"
Vinyl rode him aggressively, driving herself to an ear-trembling climax almost immediately. She signed, Oh sweet Luna I'm cumming! which, in one of those odd cosmic coincidences that humans and ponies were slowly getting inured too, looked exactly like the hand and arm motions of a famous human dance.
"I'm barebacking a horse," he said, "and she's doing 'The Macarena.'"
Vinyl kept riding, pistoning up and down as she climaxed several more times, so amazed that of all the humans at the music festival, the one who sang that song she loved so much, the first song to come through when ponies got the Internet and YouTube, the song that had been everywhere—
Although Vinyl couldn't talk, she could make surprised gasps. She made a surprised gasp as golden yellow magic enveloped her and yanked her up, off of Bruno Mars's cock.
Vinyl flapped all four limbs and she rotated, trapped in the magical aura, and found herself staring at a very angry Lyra Heartstrings. "Vinyl! Are you drunk?"
Vinyl signed, desperately, It's Bruno Mars!
"Where are you on the Berry Punchometer?"
Vinyl thought for a moment, then tapped her hooves together seven times.
"Hey, I didn't get to finish," Bruno Mars was saying as he slid off the bed to stand on the floor.
Lyra delivered a solid two-legged buck to his balls. He went airborne, folded around his middle, and landed on the other side of the bed.
Vinyl was completely entombed in Lyra's magic aura. All Lyra was allowing Vinyl to move were her forelegs and ears, just enough for Equestrian sign language. Hey Lyra, I teleported! Are you proud of me?
"I heard. A teleport's sound is unmistakable. I ran straight up here. Why were you humping Bruno Mars?"
Vinyl replied, He did that song I really like.
"You like 'Uptown Funk?'" Lyra asked, her face twisting in disgust.
Ewww, no! 'Never Gonna Give You Up.'
"That wasn't Bruno Mars, that was Rick Astley." Lyra dropped Vinyl and released her aura.
Bruno Mars was just climbing over the bed, panting as he tried to recover from Lyra's kick to his balls.
Vinyl kicked him in the head, then signed to Lyra, I'm still bad with human names, and they all look so similar. I thought I was having a roll with Rick.
Author's Note
Due to a Discord conversation. I'm sorry.
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