Things That Dance in the Night
It was a warm evening in Ponyville, and two ponies in particular were taking full advantage of this. The unicorn and the earth pony walked side-by-side, closer than just friends would be but not quite as close as lovers.
Not yet, anyway. Vinyl Scratch smiled as she glanced at Octavia. It may have been late evening, with Luna’s moon shining above, but somehow Octavia looked just as good as she always did. Her mane and tail were still perfectly brushed, her collar was starched and her bow tie was smartly tied. The violin she carried was strapped securely on her back. She always seemed to have at least one instrument on her pony, which Vinyl had to admit was one of the benefits of analog music (if she’d tried carrying her speakers everywhere, she probably would have wound up swaybacked by now).
In fact, Octavia’s profound love of music was one of the many things that had attracted her to the earth pony.
Such a special pony.
Her eyes flicked briefly to her saddlebags. She breathed in through her nose and held it for a moment, and then exhaled slowly. It’d be better to start early, for purely logical reasons.
And also if she put it off any longer, it might not happen tonight, and she really, really wanted it to.
So, with this in mind, she bumped Octavia lightly with her hips, and then nodded at the sky.
“It is a beautiful night,” Octavia agreed. They’d been friends for so long, Vinyl was able to communicate in little movements and motions that most ponies wouldn’t even recognize as communication.
Vinyl bumped her a little harder.
“You flatterer, you,” Octavia said, a little smile playing at her lips. “Keep that up and I'll think you come out with me because you want to tease me, and not because you enjoy quiet walks in the forest.”
Vinyl shrugged easily.
“I think this is the part where I poke fun at you for having such a quiet hobby along with your loud one.”
Vinyl snorted, a smile playing at one side of her mouth.
“I would not put you to sleep,” Octavia said defensively, feigning offense. “There are intricacies in my music that you’d remain fully awake to enjoy, I’m sure of it.”
Vinyl cocked her head.
“Cheeky,” Octavia said with a shake of her head, but she said it affectionately, and Vinyl loved it.
Together, they walked until they came to the edge of a park near the Everfree Forest. Octavia gestured with her head towards a bench, and Vinyl nodded, accepting the opportunity for a quick break. Together, they sat, not needing to say anything.
Though one pony certainly wanted to.
Vinyl reached towards her saddlebags. She didn’t think she’d get a better opportunity than this, so she’d better do it now. She inhaled, steeled herself, and pulled out the envelope, the one that held only a simple mouth-written message (as was traditional), but somehow felt like it weighed a ton. She looked at it, exhaled slowly, and then looked over at Octavia.
But Octavia was looking away, her ears pricked.
Vinyl hesitated. What was it?
“Do you hear that?” Octavia asked, her ears swiveling to pinpoint the sound.
Vinyl smiled wryly and shook her head. Years of listening to loud music meant her acute hearing left something to be desired.
But now that she was focusing her ears in the same direction, she could barely hear something. Quiet strains of rapid violin music came wafting through the trees. Her smile turned pained. While she was glad that somepony else was enjoying the night, she was slightly bothered that that somepony had ruined her moment, even if unintentionally.
She turned back to Octavia, intent on trying anyway; but the bench was now empty. She looked over and caught sight of her tail as she walked towards the music.
Vinyl stamped her hoof on the bench seat and squeaked out a protest.
“Don't worry, I'll be back,” Octavia said quickly. “I shan't be long. I just... I think I know this song!” She trotted off urgently.
Vinyl grit her teeth and stuffed the envelope back in her saddlebag, silently cursing this strange nocturnal musician for ruining her plans.
Delaying, she corrected herself. She wasn’t going to drop this, not when she’d gotten so close.
Vinyl followed Octavia through the field and into the forest. The music grew louder as they grew closer, and she grew irritated. She wished she could call out to Octavia, bring her back. It was just some silly pony playing in the forest! It wasn’t like Octavia had never been seized by the urge to make music in the middle of the night. Hay, Vinyl herself had-
Vinyl was suddenly yanked to a stop, and a hoof was pressed tightly over her mouth. Her eyes widened in horror, but in that split second, she recognized Octavia's scent. She looked over, silently pleading for an explanation.
But Octavia didn't seem willing to provide one. In fact, she didn’t seem to be paying much attention to Vinyl at all. Instead, she was glaring out into the clearing with a quiet fury Vinyl had never seen her display before.
Nervously, Vinyl followed her eyes.
There in the clearing was another mare, playing a violin. Her coat looked like a light olive in the moonlight, and she wore a white hat over her blue mane and tail, which were long like Octavia’s. Vinyl didn't see what was so wrong with that. She was playing, ponies were dancing; everything seemed pretty innocuous.
And then she looked at them closer.
Her eyes widened in horror. She would have screamed if she had been able. She certainly tried to, anyway.
She could see through them! They were skeletal, and their bodies were rotting away!
The clearing was full of zombie ponies!
But rather than being afraid, Octavia seemed more angry than anything else. “How dare she?” she whispered, a deep scowl darkening her brow.
There were certainly more appropriate words coming to Vinyl’s mind. There was also a lot of incoherent screaming.
Octavia finally seemed to remember that she was still holding Vinyl, and gently released her. “Look, I shall explain everything later, I promise,” Octavia whispered, taking her friend by the shoulders. “But right now, you need to go home.”
Vinyl shook her head. Leave her here, with the strange mare and the zombie ponies? Not a chance!
“Go,” she urged. “I’ll catch up shortly.”
But Vinyl shook her head harder. She wasn’t leaving Octavia behind.
Octavia looked back and forth between them, gritting her teeth, clearly torn, but her anger finally won out. “Very well, but stay out of sight,” she hissed, and she stepped out into the clearing. “Oi!” she called angrily. “You havin’ a giggle?”
The mare turned to face her, eyes narrowed. “I’m sorry, sweetheart,” she said in a gentle accent, though she sounded very much the opposite of sorry, “could you speak Ponish? Not sure I’m understanding you.”
“Oh, I think you’re understanding me just fine, you half-baked twit,” Octavia snapped. “This is my territory, so naff off, eh?”
Her territory? Vinyl wondered.
“Was your territory, sweetheart,” the other mare said daintily, not stopping her playing. Instead, she switched up her melody a bit, and the dancing zombie ponies twirled in response.
Vinyl noticed that most of them stopped with their hindquarters towards Octavia, still shaking in time with the music.
Octavia’s ears pricked, and she let out a little indignant snort. Apparently she noticed, too.
The other mare smirked. “Haven’t heard your song played in a week of Sundays, sweetheart. No stake, no claim. Them’s the rules.”
“I’ve been busy!” Octavia said defensively, and Vinyl thought she saw her cheeks flush slightly.
“You’ve been replaced, sweetheart.” She narrowed her eyes. “So be a good little blix and scamper off to someplace less crowded.”
Octavia reached for the violin on her back, pulled it to her front, and opened the case.
“Don’t try it, sweetheart,” the other mare called, but with a hint of urgency in her voice. She played a little faster, and the zombie ponies turned around and began running at her, hooves outstretched.
Octavia seized the violin and the bow. She kicked the nearest zombie pony away as she tightened the bow brusquely with her teeth, not at all like her usual delicate movements. “Please still be in tune!” she whispered as she lifted the violin to her chin and played a short string of notes.
It came out clear and pure. But more surprising than the sound was the fact that the zombies recoiled at the sound, and the closest ones dropped lifeless to the ground, and the nearest even sank back into the ground.
The other pony snarled.
Vinyl stared. How…?
Octavia smirked. She rolled the bow once over her hoof, brought it up to the strings, and then started playing a similar melody. As she did, she let the music flow through her; she bounced in place, light on her rear hooves, as the undead began to sink back into the ground in an expanding radius.
The other pony let out a soft growl and pulled up her violin and began playing, fighting back.
It was a magic battle, but nothing like Vinyl had ever seen before. It was all done through music. Though neither could possibly have known the same song, they played off each other, reusing certain melodies, modifying, and at times even playing the same notes in tune. The undead seemed to be wavering, being alternatively pulled up and pushed down by the conflicting magic.
Octavia got even deeper into it, eyes closed, spinning on the tip of a hind hoof as the bodies hit the floor, never missing a note.
But the other mare was giving as good as she got. She was lively on her rear hooves, bouncing in time, closing her eyes and playing more intensely.
And then she opened her eyes, and her music came to a sudden stop. She quickly spun around, but Octavia was gone, having taken advantage of her concentration to make her escape.
She bared her teeth and stomped on the ground, drawing her bow hard across a string. Hooves burst out of the ground as the zombie ponies heeded her call.
Vinyl tried to protest, but Octavia paid her no heed. She dragged her back through the forest and across the field, desperately rushing back to Ponyville. In her other hoof, she carried the violin with the newly-broken bow that had required their sudden departure. She’d tightened it much too hard, and it had snapped under the strain.
Octavia seemed to be muttering to herself. “No rules against switching instruments,” she said, as if trying to convince herself of something. “She hasn’t won yet. Needs to be decisive. At least she’s not a vocalist, oh, the horror that would be…”
They burst through the front door of their house, and Octavia sprinted up the stairs. Though she was winded, Vinyl doggedly followed her up, silently cursing Octavia’s earth pony stamina.
“I’m sorry,” Octavia said, retrieving the violin from under her bed, the one with the beautiful cherry-red finish, the one she only used for special performances, the one she’d warned Vinyl to never even breathe on let alone look at without her presence, the one paired with the bow that Vinyl was 99% sure was strung using her own tail hair. “I swear, I’ll explain everything, but I need to take care of this right now.” She played a quick scale, to assure herself that it was still in tune, and then nodded to herself. She turned back to Vinyl. “I suppose it’s too much to ask for you to stay here?”
Vinyl nodded. It had been the weirdest night ever, but she’d come this far, so she might as well see this to the end.
Octavia sighed. “Just… please stay back,” she said as she headed down the stairs.
The other mare walked slowly down the street, balancing expertly on her hind legs, still playing her violin, looking around everywhere to find Octavia. The group of zombie ponies circled around, as if in a show of force, but their fine motor control seemed to be lacking. It was more of a shuffle than a dance. One a little further away tripped over their own hooves, hit the ground, and collapsed in a pile of bones.
Not that it mattered to the townsponies, though. At the first suggestion of a zombie invasion, they had all hid, leaving the streets deserted.
And then Octavia leaped off a roof and played a rapid string of notes on her violin. Skeletons of house mice and other rodents burst out of the ground and out of the house walls, and they quickly climbed on top of each other, stacking tall to form a living(?) ramp. Tiny paws held up her hooves as she delicately descended to the ground, like a princess descending a macabre staircase. As soon as her hooves touched solid ground again, they circled around and lined up in front of her, and began dancing along in perfect synchrony to the music she was playing.
With a triumphant smile, the other mare focused her attention on Octavia. The circling ponies galloped to the front, mirroring the rats as they danced in unison, but many of the dancers furthest from her dropped, seemingly released from her control.
Octavia skipped in a circle, facing the other mare, the mice following behind. She leaped over one of the fallen ponies, who jumped up and joined her line.
The other mare tried to cut her off with one of her own zombies, but Octavia danced around it and pulled it over to her side, discarding a few of her mice to enthrall it.
The other mare scowled. She played harder, and one of the zombies that had previously dropped rose from the ground and rejoined her side.
But Octavia was giving as good as she got. She picked up another two zombie ponies, dropping control of the mice to do so, and then turned to face her. Never missing a note, she started dancing in place, spinning, and the zombie ponies danced behind her.
Now it was the other mare’s turn to have zombie pony flanks shaken at her.
She let out a growl audible over the music and made her own dancers stomp in time, adding a pounding beat.
Eyes narrowed, Octavia stepped forward, and the other mare stepped forward to meet her. They circled around each other, playing aggressively.
Vinyl watched, fascinated, as the two mares battled. The other mare’s hat had gone askew, her mane was now splayed across her face, her bandana had loosened, and her wet shirt clung to her barrel. Octavia’s own tie had fallen off somewhere, her collar was hanging on loosely, and her mane was drenched with sweat as she played with an intensity Vinyl had never seen.
And it was really, really hot.
For a brief moment, it seemed like the two mares would be locked in hot, sweaty combat until sunrise.
But Octavia hadn’t relinquished control of all the mice.
One mouse climbed up on the other mare’s head and grabbed her hat.
This distracted her enough that she didn’t notice the other mouse leaping onto the bridge of her violin, mouth open wide.
She saw it just in time. With a quick string of notes, she wrested control of the mouse back from Octavia, but it was too late to stop its momentum. The mouse’s teeth clipped the A string, and it snapped. It hit the ground, crashing into a pile of bones, but the damage had been done.
With the string broken, she couldn’t play along with the higher, rapid notes Octavia was using; the jump between D and E was just too far. She switched to playing notes in a lower counterpoint, but it wasn’t enough. She couldn’t play the thicker strings fast enough to keep up with Octavia.
And Octavia used this to her full advantage. She played a rapid high melody that she couldn’t replicate, and pulled over another zombie pony on her side, and then another.
The psychological effect of the broken string and the loss of the zombies was slowly but surely getting to her. The moon and fear shone in her wide eyes as she desperately tried to continue playing, but even Vinyl could see that it was already over.
Octavia stepped forward sprightly, and all the zombies followed her.
The other mare took a few haltering steps backwards, her eyes flicking between Octavia and her dancers, and she tripped over one of the zombies and landed flat on her back. She managed to keep her violin from hitting the ground, but that was where her good luck ended.
Octavia advanced, still playing rapidly, and at her command, the zombies piled on her. As she played, barely giving her a second glance, they sank into the ground, dragging her down with them. Her hooves scrabbled desperately for purchase against the rocky ground, but Octavia’s music was relentless, and the zombies sank lower.
And then, Octavia suddenly stopped playing. She looked down. “As I’m quite certain I’ve said before: this is my territory, sweetheart,” she said coldly. She let that hang in the air for a few moments. Then, with an almost careless slide of her hoof down the board, she played a small string of notes, and the zombies disappeared into the earth, but releasing the other mare from the ground first. She gasped desperately for air.
With a little smirk, Octavia tucked her violin under her foreleg and bowed, as if she’d just performed a first chair solo, and then she turned and trotted away.
Vinyl looked between the two mares, and then quickly followed Octavia.
As soon as she was far enough that she was sure the other mare was out of sight, Octavia let out a low sigh and slumped against the wall, panting heavily. Her violin dropped, almost touching the ground, and a decent portion of the hair on her bow now flapped loosely, having snapped from the force of her playing.
Vinyl hesitated, then leaned forward and gently nosed her cheek.
“Yes, I’m fine, thank you,” Octavia said. She was still breathing hard, but she forced a small smile. “It’s just… been a bit since I’ve had such an intense Duel, that’s all.”
Vinyl licked her lips. Alright. Octavia was ok. That was good. Her ears flicked.
So that meant Octavia could answer the numerous questions Vinyl had.
“Yes,” Octavia conceded, sounding thoroughly exhausted and not just from her playing. “I dare say I owe you quite the explanation.” She wearily pushed herself up. “But not here,” she amended, stumbling. “Let’s find someplace more private. And someplace I can sit down,” she added.
Octavia’s place of choice was one of the late night donut shops. She shuttled them to the booth in the back corner, and after they’d ordered from the mare who only looked half-awake herself, she took a steadying breath. “I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but I’ve always found it particularly amusing when ponies say your music is loud enough to wake the dead…”
Octavia looked down at her mug, now filled with cooled hot chocolate. She hadn’t met Vinyl’s eyes for most of this conversation. “So that's… what a viviblix does,” she finished lamely.
Vinyl nodded weakly. This was definitely not how she'd planned this night to go at all. Meeting a monster in the woods would have been crazy just by itself. Realizing that your best friend was also a monster was even crazier. She licked her lips and cocked her head.
“Cont- No, Vinyl! It's certainly not contagious. There's no way you could become one. Not unless you, too, were born under a full moon at midnight.”
Vinyl expelled air out her muzzle and shook her head. She made a quick motion with her hoof and tapped her chin with the other.
Octavia’s eyes widened. “Your poor mother,” she whispered.
Vinyl cracked a half-smile.
“I am sorry you had to see that,” Octavia continued, and her cheeks reddened. “The vast majority of blixes are rather territorial, and, as you could see, it’s a difficult instinct to suppress. I do hope this doesn’t… change anything between us?” she finished with a hint of hopefulness.
Vinyl quickly shook her head and gave her a comforting smile.
Relieved, Octavia smiled a real smile, and finally took a drink, and then winced. “Not quite as good cold,” she murmured, but she took another drink anyway.
Vinyl glanced back at her saddlebag, the one with the envelope safely inside.
And that’s where it would stay for now.
She pulled on a smile and turned back to Octavia, and gave her a slight upward nod.
“Another donut? Certainly. I’d say you’ve earned it and then some,” Octavia said, getting up to go get it for her.
Vinyl watched her go. Her smile faded ever so slightly.
This night really hadn’t gone anything like she’d planned at all.
Author's Note
Inspired by this song.
Also, possibly relevant.
