Musical Love.

As I sit there in my little booth closed off from the rest of the world I let out a long exhausted sigh. My head throbs as I squint and struggle to see the room through my purple tinted shades. “I need to stop doing more than two all-nighters in a row.” I mumble to myself as I take another sip from my drink. I glance around the bar, checking to see if there’s anypony I recognize. Out of the corner of my eye I spot a light grey mare in a pink bowtie sipping crimson liquid from a wine glass in the corner. “Hey wait, I think I know her.” I think to myself. “Yeah she’s that cellist for the Canterlot Orchestra right? What was her name?”

After pondering on the thought for a few minutes I can’t recall the mare’s name, or really anything about her besides her job. “This is going to bother me for the rest of the night if I don’t remember her name.” I say inwardly. “Screw it.” I mumble. “I’ll just go ask her, what's the worst that could happen.” I finish off the little bit of bourbon left in my glass and stand up, a little unevenly. I get out of my booth and start to make my way over to the grey mare. I’ve been drinking for a long time so I can still walk mostly straight once I stand up.

“Hey!” I say, with a little more energy than I meant to as I approach the grey mare's table.

“Um, hey?” The mare replies cautiously, giving me a once over with her eyes.

“Sorry to bother you, but aren’t you that cellist from the Canterlot Orchestra?”

The mare lets out a suppressed sigh before responding. “Yes, that’s me.”

“Thought so.” I say more to myself than to her. “You see I’ve been sitting over at my table for about five minutes trying to remember your name and I can’t for the life of me figure it out. Do you mind telling me, it’s going to bother me the rest of the night if I can’t remember it.”

A small smile appears on the grey mare's lips and she puts a hoof over it to try and hide it. “Yeah sure, it’s Octavia, Octavia Melody.” she give me another look and the expression on her face changes,

“Oh right.” I say, the thought finally coming back to me. “How could I forget such a pretty name?” A faint red hue appears on Octavia’s face but I’m too busy mentally kicking myself to notice. “Thanks, I really appreciate you entertaining my drunk mission.” I turn to start walking away when a voice stops me.

“Hey.” Octavia says. “You’re Vinyl Scratch right.”

“Um, yeah.” I let out, a little surprised. “But most people don’t know me by that name, most people just know my stage name.” Now I was curious. "Have we met before? How does she know my real name?" I wonder to myself.

“Yeah but DJ Pon-3 just sounds so weird to say in a normal conversation.”

“I suppose you have a point.” I reply, absentmindedly taking a seat across from Octavia in her booth. “But that still doesn’t answer where you learned it.”

“Oh that. I actually went to one of your shows a couple weeks ago, you were hitting on this stallion at the bar and told him your real name. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but to be fair you were shouting rather loudly.”

My hear drops in my chest. "The time lines seems right." I think to myself before asking. “Oh Celestia. Was that at the Lights and Liquor Club?”

“Yeah I think so, it was a Saturday.”

“Yeah I was afraid of that.” I put my head in my hooves and sigh. “That was one of my lowest points. That week I had been up for eight days with six hours of sleep. I was in the hospital for two days due to exhaustion after that night. I promised myself I’d stop pulling so many gigs so close together.”

“I don’t know how you do it. I’ve only been up for two days and I’m so tired that I almost visibly cringed when you came up and I thought I’d have to sign another autograph.”

“Honestly I didn’t even know orchestra members needed to sign autographs aside from at their actual shows.” I say with a chuckle.

“They’re rare, but every now and then someone will recognize me and approach asking for one.” Octavia says waving at the bartender to come bring over another bottle of wine. “But I have to say, I think you’re the first pony to approach me because you weren’t sure who I was.”

“Yeah, I still feel kind of bad about forgetting your name. Although I have to say I’m surprised we haven’t talked before, we both work in the music industry.” I finish, as the bartender places the new bottle on the table along with a second wine glass.

“True, but we do work in very different fields.” Octavia uncorks the battle and fills both the glasses. She fills the first glass up a little more than I think a wine glass is supposed to be and the second with a more normal amount. As Octavia slides the second one over to me my brain finally catches up to what’s going on.

“I’ve never really had someone to drink with before.” I think as I take the glass from Octavia’s hoof. “I guess you have a point, but I still feel like we would have hit it off if we’d met at an event before.” I say, taking my first sip of wine.

“I’m not so sure.” Octavia states taking a large gulp from her glass. “This is much more relaxed than I usually am at events. If you met me out in a more public setting, chances are my formalness would cause you to get bored really quickly.”

“I don’t know. You have a really soft soothing voice, I feel like I wouldn’t really care what you said, I’d just like listening to you talk.” Another deeper blush flashes across Octavia's muzzle and this time I notice. “Hey you okay?”

“Y-you really are d-drunk.” Octavia says, raising her hoof to cover her face.

“Hey.” I say drunkenly, swatting my hoof in Octavia’s direction. “Don’t hide your pretty eyes, it’s a waste.” my brain freezes for a minute as it processes what I just said and thinks back to some of my other comments. “Oh I see.” I glance up to look Octavia in the eye. “I really am drunk.” I giggle to myself at the mistake. “Sorry, I get like this when I have a buzz going”

“Don’t worry about it.” Octavia assures me. “I just…” Octavia pauses for a long moment seemingly lost in thought. “I don’t take compliments well.”

“Really?” I ask, a bit confused. “But don't you have fans and stuff?”

“Th-that’s different.” Octavia defends. “I work really hard to play music so I take pride in those compliments. But when it’s about my appearance I feel like I didn’t earn those compliments.”

“What?” I ask. “Do you really expect me to believe that you look like this with NO effort?”

“Well, I guess not.” Octavia lets out a small chuckle. “Thanks Vinyl, I think I actually needed to hear that.”

“Don’t mention it, you deserve to have at least one pony recognize the work you put into everything you do.” I glance around the bar at the decreasing number of patrons. “You wanna get out of here?”

Octavia jerks in her chair, spilling a bit of wine on the table and a deep red blush comes over her face. “WHAT!?”

I tilt my head to the side and give Octavia a puzzled look. “Uhh… this place is starting to die down. I wasn’t sure if you wanted to go somewhere else to keep talking?”

“Oh…” Octavia lets out. “O-okay. Yeah, let's find somewhere else to go and talk.”

I stand up and hold my hoof out and offer it to Octavia. “Well then, shall we?”

“Alright.” Octavia says, a faint pink glow burning in her cheeks.

As I walk out the door, Octavian's foreleg hooked around mine I feel the cold breeze hit my face instantly helping me sober up. “So, where do you want to go?”

As Octavia thinks I see a brief spark of mischief in her eyes, but can’t quite place why. “My Apartment isn’t far from here, maybe a three minute walk. I don’t have any alcohol there, but I can make us some tea.”

“Yeah, that sounds nice.” I say, a small smile crawling across my lips at the thought of a nice quiet night inside talking.

“Really?” Octavia asks curiously.

“You offered, didn't you?” I ask in a playful tone.

“Y-yes of course.” Octavia corrects herself. “I just wasn’t sure you would accept, you don’t really seem like the tea drinking type, no offense.”

“None taken.” I assure her. “And you’re not completely wrong, I really don’t drink tea very often. But the reason behind that is more ‘I don’t have time.’ than ‘I don’t like it.’ I do enjoy a nice cup of tea or coffee on a slow quiet night like this.”

“Well then.” Octavia starts, jerking her head in the direction up the street and tugging on my arm. “Shall we?” She asks with a playful giggle.

“Yes. let's go.”