Reconstruction

by Mustang_Blitz

Rating: teen
Tags: Tragedy, Slice of Life, DJ P0N-3, Lyra, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Bon-Bon, Romance, Octavia
Length: 5549

Vinyl and Octavia are a happy couple, and have been for almost five years. But one day, their world comes to a grinding halt...

It's been almost five years since Vinyl Scratch and Octavia Philharmonica first starting dating. They've had their bumps in the road like most couples, but they are very happy together. They've just moved to a small city in the mountains along with their best friends, Lyra and Bon-Bon. Things are looking up in life, but one day something happens that tears everything down, leaving Octavia only pieces with which to build everything back up, starting from scratch...

Published 2022-05-26 23:30:00 UTC
Last updated 2022-05-26 23:30:00 UTC

Prologue

The late morning light was peeking through the curtains as Vinyl Scratch woke up. She didn’t want to get out of her bed, so warm and comfy as it was, but she was meeting a friend for lunch today.

With a groggy grunt, she sat up and blinked a few times before immediately falling to her side, right back onto her bed, letting out a tired sigh. With a large, yawning stretch and a annoyed flick of her tail, she rolled out of bed, looking more like a puppet on strings than a living pony such was the strength of her apathy for getting out of bed; she had been out late last night at a club, not abnormal for Vinyl Scratch.

She wobbled on her hooves for a moment before walking over to the bathroom. It was a short walk, for this was a small apartment, although not below average in size for Manehattan. To Vinyl, however, it felt like it took hours. At the bathroom counter, she stood for a moment before abruptly dropping her head, face-planting into the counter with a solid thud, blue and cyan mane quickly following suit and draping around her head.

A bit more awake, Vinyl raised her head back up and set about starting her morning routine. First things first, she had to shower.

Showering was a quick thing for Vinyl. That isn’t to say she doesn't enjoy long, relaxing showers or baths, but she normally takes rather quick showers, not making much of a fuss when it comes to multi-step mane-care or all-body conditioners that come in three different bottles. ‘In, wash, out’, as she put it.

Next, she had to do her mane. Nothing much to it, really; just a matter of ruffling it with her hooves, shaking it a bit, and ruffling it again. Not quite as simple as shaking her head and her mane poofing into its normal shape as the rumours had always suggested, but still far less work than most mares put into their mane.

Once her mane was under control, albeit still wild, she brushed her teeth and winked at herself in the mirror. Satisfied with the state of both her hygiene and self-confidence (at least one of which was, as usual, far exceeding that of most ponies), she walked out of her bathroom.

With a flash of magic from her horn lighting up the otherwise dim room, she floated her shades over and put them on, donning her usual goofy but unwaveringly confident smile to match. She didn’t bother with breakfast, as it was almost 11:30 and thus close enough to her agreed-upon lunch that any breakfast would spoil her appetite, so she exited her apartment, locked the door, and started down the stairs and towards her destination.

After a quick 20 minute walk in the brisk late-spring Manehattan air, Vinyl’s destination came into view; a small café on the corner of the block. She picked her pace up a bit, excited to see her friend again. After only a few moments, a mint-green unicorn mare with a cyan and white mane and a lyre cutie mark came into view, leaning against the façade of the café as if waiting on someone.

Upon seeing Vinyl, the unicorn quickly pushed off the building and excitedly trotted over to meet Vinyl.

“Vy!” she said with a wide smile on her face as they hugged. “You finally managed to get out of bed before noon, eh?” She asked with a smirk as they walked to the restaurant.

“Hey! It was only a few years ago that I was waking you up for your afternoon lectures.” Vinyl replied with a similar smirk on her face as she opened the door to the café with her magic.

“Pfft! That was only once! And you’re the one who took me out drinking the night before!” Lyra said indignantly as she walked through the doorway, though the playful tone never left her voice.

“Don’t blame me that you way overestimated your tolerance level.” Vinyl bumped Lyra with her flank as she stood next to her, both mares looking at the menu. Once at the order counter, they placed their order. Vinyl ordered a large espresso and a chocolate muffin, and Lyra simply ordered a milkshake.

“What? You know how filling Bon-Bon’s breakfasts are.” The lyrist said after receiving a quizzical look from Vinyl.

“Yeah, true that.” Vinyl replied, mouth practically watering at the thought of having some of Bon-Bon’s banana pancakes. She was quickly snapped out of her reverie by the sound of their names being called, and the two mares levitated their orders over and walked out of the café to sit outside.

Once situated at a table, they began chatting and eating. “How’s Bon-Bon?” Vinyl asked after an energy-infusing sip of her coffee.

Lyra finished a sip of her milkshake before replying, “She’s good. We are both glad the warm weather is finally starting to return, but you know she’s worse with the cold than I am so I’m sure she’s enjoying the outside air again. .”

“Didn’t you get your heater fixed last summer?” Vinyl asked before taking a bite of her muffin, eye’s widening as she fell in love with the small brown piece of heaven she held in her blue magical aura.

“We did, but it’s still not very good. This is Manehattan, after all.” Lyra said with a shrug, before chuckling as she saw the white unicorn beholding the muffin as if it were Celestia herself. “Still got a bit of a sweet tooth, huh?”

Not taking her eyes off the apparently divine muffin, Vinyl replied. “Hey, you haven’t tasted this thing.” Lyra was about to use her magic to rip a small piece off the muffin to try for herself but was interrupted as Vinyl quickly removed the wrapper from the bottom of the muffin and ate the rest of the muffin in one bite, all in one motion.

After a couple of confused blinks, Lyra burst into boisterous laughter. Vinyl momentarily glared at the other mare before grinning, still chewing on the larger-than-expected mouthful of muffin.

After a few moments of laughter, Lyra recovered enough to say, “Never change, Vy.” before settling into a chuckle as the DJ continued to work down the muffin.

With a final gulp and a few sips of her coffee, Vinyl replied, “Me? Hah, the only thing I’m going to change is the underground music scene.” After a moment of silence, she remembered, “So, you said you had a favour to ask of me?”

“Yeah! Do you know Octavia Philharmonica from university?” Lyra asked, figuring it was a bit of a longshot since Lyra had met her in classical music classes, which was far cry from the classes Vinyl had taken.

“That earth pony cellist people were always talking about? I mean I know who she is, but I never met her. What about her?” The DJ asked between two sips of her coffee.

“Well, she and I have stayed in touch since we graduated, and she mentioned recently that she’s coming to Manehattan to try to get a hoofhold in the music scene. I was wondering if you had space for her to stay while she’s here?” Lyra asked, still not entirely sure if this was a good idea.

“Well, as you know, I only have the one bedroom, but my couch folds out into a bed. It’s reasonably comfortable, so yeah I guess so.” Vinyl had her doubts, however. From what she had heard of the cellist, she wasn’t exactly the kind of pony that Vinyl would typically hang out with, nor was Vinyl the cellist’s preferred company, she was sure.

Apparently she let her doubts show on her face despite her shades covering her eyes, as Lyra said “Hey, it’s worth a shot, right?”

“Sure, why not?” Vinyl said, still contemplating that for herself. They continued to chat as they finished their meals. Eventually they said their goodbyes and went their separate ways.

****

Vinyl clenched her eyes shut as a gust from her air conditioning unit briefly parted her curtains, allowing light to enter the room and lay siege on the unicorn’s slumber. Her sleep disturbed, she rolled out of bed and landed on her hooves with a grunt.

Looking at the clock on her nightstand, she noticed it was only ten. I don’t have to be at the train station until eleven thirty, She silently grumbled. The DJ pondered why she would be up so early; she was almost never up this early unless she had a schedule to keep.

She eventually came to the conclusion that, despite having a rather boisterous social life at night, she practically never actually had any house guests, other than Lyra and Bon-Bon of course. And even then, they’ve never stayed at her place overnight; after all, they live not even 30 minutes away. “This is going to be interesting” she grumbled to herself, thinking back to the lunch she had with Lyra a few weeks ago. It was then that she agreed to let a friend of Lyra’s stay with Vinyl while in Manehattan.

‘We don’t have a guest room and our couch doesn’t pull out into a bed,’ Vinyl remembered Lyra’s explanation for why she had asked Vinyl to board her friend. Oh well, shouldn’t be too bad, maybe I’ll even get a drinking buddy out of it, Vinyl mused as she walked to her bathroom and took care of her morning routine.

After eating breakfast, she noticed it was still only half past ten. Bored, she decided to head over to Lyra and Bon-Bon’s apartment instead of meeting them at the train station. Plans made, Vinyl made a quick inspection of her apartment to make sure it was ready for her guest. The couch was folded out into a bed (a rather comfy bed too, as Vinyl had found out while setting it for the guest), apartment uncluttered, and kitchen cleaned.

Everything checking out in her head, Vinyl exited the apartment, descended the four flights of stairs down to the ground floor, and exited her building. Feeling the warmth of the summer sun mixed with a cool breeze, she decided to forego a carriage and walk the route. She had time to kill and enjoyed being outside.

During the walk, the look on Vinyl’s face was one of such nothingness that a pony might have been forgiven for thinking she had managed to fully rid her mind of even the slightest activity. Although Vinyl was indeed exceptionally talented at looking like the walking definition of ‘braindead’, her trademark shades certainly helped, hiding eyes that betrayed a flurry of thoughts in the DJ’s hyperactive mind. Thoughts that ranged from what music she was currently making and mixing to how many jellybeans she could fit in her mouth. However, her thoughts mostly centred around a certain cellist and whether agreeing to house her while she was in Manehattan had been a mistake.

After 20 minutes, Vinyl reached her destination and turned off autopilot, once again looking like she was, in fact, a sentient being. She entered the three story building, climbed the stairs to the third floor, and knocked on a door. With a yawn forcing her eyes closed, Vinyl knocked again after the first knock went unanswered. However, she failed to hear or see the door open. After realising that her hoof was no longer knocking on wood, she forced the yawn to end and looked at where she expected to find a door. Instead, she found an unimpressed Lyra standing in the doorway, her muzzle scrunched from where Vinyl had knocked on it.

“Haha… hey Lyra.” Vinyl chuckled awkwardly, rubbing the back of her neck with a hoof.

The lyrist raised her eyebrow before saying with a smirk and a shake of her head, “Get in here ya idiot.” She stepped aside to let Vinyl in. As she closed the door, she asked “You’re early, I thought we were going to meet at the train station?”

Vinyl simply grunted before plopping down on the couch in the centre of the room with a dismissive shrug. “I woke up earlier than I planned and had time to kill. Besides, it’s been too long since we’ve all had a walk together and the weather is nice today.” She said, grasping her shades in her magical aura and moving them further up on her head and resting them on top of her horn.

“Fair enough.” Lyra said with a shrug, conceding to Vinyl’s arguments, before calling out “Bonnie! Vinyl is here!”

Vinyl heard an audible, prolonged gasp of excitement from another room and the sound of quickly approaching hoofsteps, so she braced for impact. With the practised carelessness that can only be achieved through prolonged friendship, two cream-coloured legs wrapped themselves around Vinyl in a big bear-hug from behind the couch, wisps of dark blue hair occasionally sweeping into view. “VIINYYLLL!” was the exclamation from the cheery, almost foalish voice that belonged to the hooves and hair.

“Hey Bon-Bon!” Vinyl said with a chuckle, embracing the hooves. After a moment, she said in a partially croaked voice “Bonnie, I’d like to breathe now.”

“Oh hush,” Bon-Bon replied, walking around to the front of the sofa, “I haven’t killed you yet!”

“Does that mean you are trying to kill me?” Vinyl asked, getting up off the couch. The question went unanswered for a moment as the two mares embraced again, this time face-to-face and not so one-sided.

The cream coloured mare turned to the kitchen, blue and pink-streaked mane and tail bouncing, her cutie mark of three wrapped candies practically shimmering. “Perhaps with sweets. Want some?” It was a question only in its structure, as she already knew the answer. She calmly walked into the kitchen as a blur of white and blue shot past her. She rolled her eyes and shook her head with a chuckle, “You’re such a foal sometimes.”

Vinyl was bouncing on her hooves in the kitchen expectantly, mouth open and tongue hanging out like an excitable dog. “When it means sweets, I am.” she replied, her voice undulating with the mare’s own hyperactive bounces.

Bon-Bon uncovered a tray of chocolates and, without even looking, tossed one with impressive aim at Vinyl, making a high arc for the white unicorn’s now wide-open mouth. Halfway through its flight, however, the chocolate was enveloped in a mint-green aura. It changed trajectory and flew into Lyra’s mouth, the mint unicorn chewing with a triumphant look on her face. Vinyl glared at the other unicorn, who was now basically the embodiment of all things evil in Vinyl’s opinion.

Suddenly, another chocolate bounced off the top of her muzzle. Temporarily stunned, Vinyl quickly looked down at the chocolate and picked it up with her electric blue magic. “Five second rule!” She said excitedly as she launched the chocolate into her mouth, her brain practically melting at the taste of Bon-Bon’s unbelievably good candy. She momentarily went cross-eyed from the pleasure her tastebuds were now supplying to her brain.

While Lyra had barely been able to stifle her giggles when the chocolate had hit Vinyl’s muzzle, the sight of the DJ going cross-eyed from a simple chocolate had the lyrist in hysterics on the floor. “Like a foal? She’s more like a puppy, Bonnie.” Lyra laughed some more.

Bon-Bon simply rolled her eyes and smiled as the two unicorns simply enjoyed themselves She covered the tray of chocolates and, once Lyra was no longer on the floor, gathered them both in a mighty group bearhug, giving the mint unicorn a peck on the cheek and saying, “I couldn’t be happier to have you two in my life.”

“What’s with the sudden gooeyness, Bonnie?” A confused but happy DJ asked through her squished face. Lyra simply blushed and fidgeted a bit.

With one final squeeze of earth pony proportions, Bon-Bon let go of the two unicorns, who you’d swear were bulging at the seams, and said with a giggle. “Sometimes it's the small things in life that bring a pony the most joy.” She trotted, practically bouncing, over to the front door of the apartment. “If we leave now, we can get to the train station with enough time to get her some flowers before her train arrives.” With that, the three mares, two of whom were still reinflating, exited the apartment and giggled their way onto the busy streets of Manehattan, talking about recent events and all things good in life.

30 minutes later, the group arrived at Manehattan Central Station. A busy place, far more-so than the streets just outside. The station was filled with noise; the sea of countless voices, the incessant beat of thousands of hoofsteps, the piercing sound of a dozen trains arriving and departing, the PA system barely audible as it announced those arrivals and departures, as well as numerous delays.

The three mares of course paid little mind to the noise; they were used to it. Vinyl and Lyra grew up in Manehattan and Bon-Bon had been living there with Lyra for several years. This was all pretty standard fare for them. As such, they also had no trouble navigating the sprawling station, nor were they phased by the task of having to move through the discordant mass of ponies going in a thousand different directions.

Within minutes, they arrived at their destination. At that moment, the PA system announced the arrival of the train from Canterlot. As if it were an actor waiting for their cue, the low rumble of an approaching train made itself audible. Seconds later, an elegant steam train of silver and blue pulled into the station and stopped at the platform. After a brief period of calm, a storm of activity exploded from the carriages as ponies flooded off the train.

The three mares looked around as the coming sea of ponies parted around the waiting group. With a combination of neck craning, tippyhoofing, and repeated jumping, the mares saw their target; a grey earth pony mare with long charcoal hair, violet eyes, and a pink treble clef cutie mark who was just stepping off the third carriage.

Lyra, who of course was the one who was jumping, waved a hoof excitedly upon seeing her friend. Bon-Bon soon followed suit, having taken a bit longer to spot her on her tippyhoofs. She also leaned over to Vinyl and pointed a hoof along the DJ’s line of sight at the arriving mare. After a moment more of neck-craning, the DJ too saw her soon-to-be housemate. She relaxed her neck, now only left to wait for the fourth mare to meet them and for the onslaught of bodies to abate.

WIthin moments, Octavia arrived at the group. She was met with a hug from Lyra and an apparent attempt at strangulation from Bon-Bon, exchanging greetings and pleasantries with both of her friends and thanking Bon-Bon for the flowers.

Lyra then spoke up, “Octavia, this is Vinyl Scratch. Vinyl, this is Octavia” She gestured to the white unicorn. Vinyl smiled and dipped her head in greeting.

Extending a hoof, Octavia politely said, “Nice to meet you, Miss Scratch.”

“Nah, ‘Vinyl’ is fine, no need to be so formal. Nice to meet ya!” Vinyl said, widening her grin and firmly bumping the earth pony’s hoof.

Confusedly rubbing her hoof after the definitely-not-hoofshake, Octavia turned to Lyra, eyebrow raised. “Well, shall we be off?”

“Yeah, we can talk on the way to Vinyl’s place, your new home!” Lyra said in agreement, shrugging off Octavia’s confusion and excitedly turning to lead the mares out of the station. As they walked back through the station, Lyra and Bon-Bon did their own catching up with Octavia, who was gratefully snacking on the flowers. Vinyl quietly observed the cellist, thankful for her shades, silently amending her mental assumptions about the mare and adding new ones as she observed them. One-such new observation, and one she wasn’t particularly expecting, was that Octavia was rather pretty.

****

Vinyl and Octavia had just sat down for dinner. It had been Octavia’s turn to make dinner that night. While Vinyl’s culinary expertise certainly surprised her, they had agreed upon alternating cooking duties as Octavia’s own skill in the kitchen was also worthy of note.

However, since Octavia had moved in, things had been a bit rocky. She wasn’t used to such boisterous company as Vinyl, nor was she really accepting of the DJ’s constant jibing and button-pushing; and a week of tension was coming to a head as they ate their meals.

After a few failed attempts at small talk, Vinyl decided to inquire about Octavia’s music. It wasn’t exactly a genre that thrilled her, but she figured if she was going to start making inroads towards befriending her new housemate, she had to start somewhere. After listening to the cellist’s answer detailing how she felt alive and purposeful when she played, to which the DJ could genuinely relate, Vinyl made an attempt to relate her own similar feelings when she was up on stage playing for masses of dancing ponies.

However, Octavia snorted and began listing all the ways her classical music was superior to the electric noise the white unicorn preferred. Vinyl was rather annoyed at the turn the conversation had taken, and made a quip about how simple and boring classical music was.

The grey earth pony fumed as she made sure she heard the white unicorn correctly, violet eyes burning with intensity. “You could throw a gramophone and a bass drum down the stairs and get the same effect as what you do at your mixing table!” Octavia said, turning her head and snorting indignantly.

It was Vinyl’s turn to huff and puff. “Yeah well- yo-” It took her a moment to form a full sentence, as she did have trouble not laughing as she imagined the sound of a gramophone and bass drum falling down stairs, though that did not detract from how irate she was at the moment. “All you do is waggle a fancy stick around on some strings, you’re no more than a fancy cavepony!”

With that, Octavia felt her eye twitch. She tried to retort, but was unable to form any sort of reasonable sentence structure through her boiling temper, so instead she got up from the table and stormed out of the kitchen. However, given the size of the apartment, she really didn’t have anywhere to storm off to. After a brief moment of stamping her hooves in place, she walked over and sat on her bed with exaggerated force and an even more exaggerated ‘hmph!’

The effect, it seems, was much the same. The white unicorn, who had been left staring down through her unreadable shades and thinking about all the ways she could break a wooden table in half, promptly got up with a loud screech of wooden chair scooting across tile floor, stalked out of the kitchen, through the rear of the living room, which was effectively Octavia’s room, and into her own bedroom, slamming the door behind her.

Neither mare had finished their dinner.

Octavia was left a bit shocked. She and Vinyl hadn’t exactly gotten along in the week since she arrived, but never before had Vinyl gotten very upset, much less enough to storm into her room like that. Up to this point, it was mostly Octavia who had taken issue with one thing or another the DJ had said or done, but this time was different. This time, Octavia thought, she too had crossed the line, and in a different way than Vinyl has thus far.

After a long silence the cellist started to feel very foalish, as she realised she had been the one who insulted Vinyl first. Octavia got up with a resigned sigh, determined to fix her mistake. She walked over to the bedroom door and opened it, thankful the DJ had not locked it. She slowly opened the door and stuck her head inside. She saw Vinyl sitting at her mixing table with her shades and headphones on, mixing with as much enthusiasm as a foal on the way to the dentist. She walked over to Vinyl, eyes glued to the floor.

She stopped next to Vinyl, who at this point wasn’t even trying to feign the act of mixing anymore, all four hooves on the floor, though she looked like she would blow over in a gentle breeze.

Octavia then noticed two damp spots on the carpet. Her gaze shot up to Vinyl’s face, which had a damp streak running down the cheek Octavia could see. Octavia swiftly but gently turned Vinyl’s face directly towards her own, the unicorn making no effort to resist, ears drooped in shame. The other cheek had an identical streak. She removed Vinyl’s headphones and set them on the mix table.

“Vinyl, are you crying?” Octavia asked, almost not believing it herself. Vinyl made no effort to respond, verbally or otherwise. Suddenly hesitant, realising she had never seen the unicorn without her shades on, Octavia moved a hoof up to Vinyl’s face and pushed her shades up and away from her face, revealing her eyes.

Octavia could only stare. Indeed, the DJ, previously unreadable behind her shades, was now crying which Octavia found rather alarming. However Octavia’s focus quickly shifted.

Red

Octavia found herself staring into an ocean. A deep, flowing ocean. A red ocean, brilliant and fierce, that hid within its depths something priceless, something that Octavia felt compelled to protect at all costs.

Entranced, unable to look away, Octavia could only say “Vinyl…” She couldn’t muster the courage to speak anymore. Vinyl’s eyes were more expressive than she could have ever imagined, every emotion inducing some sort of change in structure or shade within her eyes. “Vinyl, your eyes…”

Vinyl’s eyes grew in depth and intensity before being screwed shut as a fresh wave of tears spilled over the brim. Vinyl could only drop her head, sure that her eyes would only bring her pain again. “Do you hate them too?” was the only thing she could say.

Octavia raised the unicorn’s chin back up with a hoof, causing Vinyl to open her eyes again. Staring back into Vinyl’s eyes, she said “Vinyl, they’re gorgeous. Whyever would I hate them?” Vinyl started to cry again, this time sobbing. Instinctively, Octavia wrapped her hooves around the vulnerable unicorn and pulled her into an embrace, which only intensified the sobbing.

After a short while, Vinyl started to push against the embrace with just enough force to indicate she had calmed. When they locked eyes again, Octavia could see such deep sadness within them that she thought she felt her own heart break. She asked again, “Why would I hate your eyes?”

Vinyl faltered and broke eye contact, looking down, tears still occasionally falling off her face. “Other foals at school would always make fun of me for them. Even got called a vampire once, and not for Nightmare Night.” Vinyl laughed humourlessly. The resemblance of her white coat and red eyes to those of a vampire was not lost on her, but she was not in the mood for humour. “They only cause ponies to stare at me and mutter about how strange they are…”

“Vinyl, your eyes are gorgeous.” Octavia said. Even as she did so she could see within the eyes old and forgotten wounds healing over at the compliment. She continued, “Vinyl, I’m sorry for what I said earlier. It was totally out of line and I should have never said it. I don’t know what possessed me to say those things, and now that I’ve seen how they affected you, I worry there’s nothing I can do to make it better.”

Vinyl simply shook her head. When she looked back up, she saw Octavia’s head cocked and a look of confusion started to spread on her face. “That’s not why I’m crying.” Vinyl said softly.

“Then why are you crying?”

“I was afraid that I had lost a friend…”

Not really sure how to respond to such a gesture, Octavia simply shook her head vigorously, partly to hide that she was holding back tears, touched as she was that Vinyl considered her a friend, and hugged her. “Of course not, silly filly. That won’t change over something like this.” Her choked voice poorly concealed that she was crying, even if her headshaking had succeeded in doing so.

Enjoying each other’s comfort for a while, the two mares eventually broke the embrace and looked at each other. “Shall we finish dinner?” Octavia asked. To her relief, that elicited a small smile from Vinyl.

“Yeah” The unicorn replied with a small sniffle, ears perking up and her whole demeanour starting to return to normal.

Friendship fixed and hearts healed, the two mares walked back to the kitchen and finished their dinner, this time with fewer words but a much more pleasant atmosphere.

****

It was early afternoon when Vinyl awoke to the sounds of a cello. Unconsciously smiling, she yawned and stretched before lazily rolling out of bed with relaxed ease. She walked over to her door and opened it. She watched the grey earth pony resonate with the music she was playing, charcoal mane gently swaying as the mare moved with the flow of the melody.

As the music came to a close, Octavia exhaled gently and opened her eyes. She started when she saw Vinyl standing in the bedroom doorway and then blushed as she averted her eyes, suddenly finding the act of packing her cello away to be very interesting.

“Morning,” Vinyl said with a yawn as she turned around and walked towards the bathroom. “What time is it?” She asked as the yawn subsided, opening the bathroom door and wandering inside.

“Just past one.” was the reply from the still slightly flustered Octavia. “Sorry if I woke you.” She said, a bit embarrassed.

Vinyl stuck her head out of the bathroom door mid-toothbrushing and tried to form words past her toothbrush, but failed and was cut off by Octavia raising an eyebrow at her with a smirk. The DJ gave a sheepish chuckle before zipping back inside the bathroom and finishing her morning routine.

Joining Octavia in the main room, she said, “Tavi, you’ve been here for three months and I haven’t once complained about waking up to you playing. What makes ya think I’m gonna mind this time?” Vinyl punctuated her question by brushing her tail against Octavia’s flank before wandering into the kitchen with all of the conviction of a hungry filly, and Octavia thought she saw a playful gleam in the unicorn’s eyes.

Octavia’s cheeks flushed a deep red, and she was thankful the DJ wasn’t looking then. She had to admit Vinyl was right, though. The first week was a bit strained, and very dire at one point, but the two mares eventually got over their differences and grew quite close. She had begun to wake up every morning looking forward to spending time with the raucous white unicorn, rather opposite of what she expected upon first meeting her.

You have no idea how sweet you are, do you Vinyl? She thought to herself with a content smile as she finished putting her cello away before joining her friend in the kitchen, blushing an even deeper shade of red as she realised where on the white unicorn she was staring as she entered the kitchen. Then she stopped, as if someone had hit ‘pause’, as she had a startling thought.

Do I ‘like’ her?!

Author's Note

Welcome to my first fic! My first story at all, really. Last time I pinned a story as an author was probably some mandatory thing in primary school or something. I've never sat down and written a story in my own free time as something I wanted to do. As such, I do very much encourage constructive feedback, suggestions, spelling and grammar corrections, etc. And since this is my first attempt as an author, I am still very much finding my style as an author, so the way things are formatted, laid out, and generally written might be at times inconsistent due to my own lack of confidence in my own personal style. I do very much hope you enjoyed this and that my errors and inconsistencies don't get in the way of that.

Oh, and a note about this prologue. It is just that; a prologue. An introduction and background, a few key moments from before the story. If it were not just a prologue, I would have had a lot more to add here, both to what is already here and just more scenes and information. There are so many things I had to cut out of this prologue because it was already getting rather long, and its just a prologue. It's only here to give you the readers an understanding of the backstory of the characters and their bonds, and perhaps some reasons to bond with the characters yourself before moving into the story proper. If you would like to see this prologue expanded into a full story, let me know!