Don't Let Go
Written by Silverness
Fully Edited by Setokaiva
“Please someone, help!”
“Don’t worry Octavia, I got you!”
Wood cracked underneath the two ponies, rapidly charring and weakening from the fire raging just below. One, a gray mare, was hanging by a thread, holding onto the other for dear life. The white unicorn was already exhausted from making her way up to the roof via the burning stairs and had almost met her fate after part of the floor collapsed. She tried using her magic, but this proved futile. The wood began cracking even louder now, the unicorn feeling her body slowly slip from the roof they were hanging off of. Below them, a team of unicorns, pegasi and earth ponies shouted to each other above the blaze as they desperately tried to put the flames out, but it was simply too hot; more flames would quickly rise up in their place.
“I can’t pull you up, you’re too heavy!” the white unicorn cried out, using all her strength to pick up the gray earth pony.
“Are you calling me fat at a time like this?” the mare shouted, glaring angrily at the unicorn, who only grinned. Sighing, she looked up at her lover. “I guess I really outdid myself, didn’t I?”
“No kidding,” the unicorn grunted in response. She cracked a smile as she felt the gray pony beneath her slowly rise to her efforts.
At that moment, the wood made a splintering sound, sending a sharp chill up her spine. Before she could react, the floor beneath them finally gave way and sent the two plummeting to the ground. Octavia screamed, closing her eyes and kept a firm grip on her friend’s hoof. She waited for the fires to burn through her skin and ravage her body till she died. Except nothing of the sort happened. Confused, she opened her eyes, traced the length of her foreleg -- and gasped.
The white unicorn was holding onto both her and part of the roof, her hoof barely hanging onto pieces of the shingles. It was a miracle they hadn’t fallen already. Octavia looked at her lover with hope, smiling that they might make it out of this alive. Instead, the wood began cracking again, the unicorn gritting her teeth as her hoof slowly lost its grip. This time, there would be nothing to hold onto, only a straight drop towards a quick and painful death.
The unicorn placed a tighter grip on the roof, vainly hoping that would help. She bit off a curse as she realized there was no chance of climbing back up with only one hoof, and the other clinging to the fetlock of her lover. The roof faltered again, and she felt her grip slide once more. One more crack and that would be the end.
Clenching her teeth, she winced at the pain in her limbs as she desperately tried to hang on; it felt like she was being pulled apart. Taking a deep breath, miraculously avoiding any smoke inhalation, she looked down at Octavia, who was staring back with purple eyes filled with -- No. She couldn’t see that. She shut her eyes and sighed in defeat; the only thing now was to wait for the now-familiar crack of the roof to finally give way...
“Let go.”
The unicorn quickly opened her eyes, looking down at Octavia, who had a grim, serious look on her face.
“What?” she asked, hoping she hadn’t heard right.
“I said ‘Let go.’ I don’t want you dying with me,” the gray mare responded.
The alabaster unicorn blinked. She couldn’t possibly -- ‘No!!’ She mentally screamed as she tightened her grip. “Very funny Octavia, like I’m going to let you go. If we fall, we fall together,” she announced, giving a small laugh to lighten the mood.
The laugh did nothing to change the gray mare’s expression. She only continued staring with grim resolve into her lover’s eyes, and slowly began loosening her grip. “No. You’re not going to die with me. You still have a chance, so just let me go,” she said, hoping the unicorn would understand.
“Not happening... I can’t let you go, Octy,” she replied, more serious this time. She almost completely lost her grip as the wood started cracking again, but managed to save it -- barely.
Sighing, Octavia looked up at her lover, tears stinging her cheeks. “Then I’ll have to do it for us,” she said with a clear lack of emotion as her grasp steadily slipped. The white mare’s magenta eyes widened in fear as she desperately tried to hold on, shaking her head in a silent wish for her not to let go.
Through her own stinging eyes, Octavia stared up into her lover’s familiar orbs, and noticed for the first time the tears slipping away down her cheeks -- eyes that had once known only joy and determination were now choked with uncertainty and despair. Unable to bear it any longer, she tore her gaze away and squeezed her own lids shut.
“Goodbye, my dear friend... Vinyl Scratch,” Octavia uttered out, her grip finally giving way as she began plummeting towards the ground, her eyes still firmly closed.
“NO!! Octavia!!!” Vinyl screamed, forced to watch as her lover slipped away. Her remaining breath came out in ragged sobs even before she heard the sickening splat that signified her lover was gone.
Her senses became meaningless as despair flooded her being. She could hear the frantic sounds of ponies running to and fro, the blazing roar of the fire, the cracking and crashing of blackened wooden beams. None of that mattered to her, though. She slammed her eyes shut and shook her head in denial as her entire body heaved with sobs, her hoof still extended out to empty space pleadingly.
She barely even noticed when the roof cracked again, and finally gave away beneath her, spilling her into the fiery void. Instinct took over as a pit rose in her gut and a rush of hot air assaulted her already-stinging face, and she screamed in terror before she met the floor.
“No!!"
Vinyl’s eyes shot open in an instant. Her entire body was aching from tension, and a scratchy ache at the back of her throat answered her desperate requests for air. Something about this felt... off, in relation to her memory of recent events. With her brain still in startup mode, her senses set to work collecting information from the new environment.
The results were a contradictory mess. She should be staring at the bottom of a burning building, at the body of her lover. Instead what she saw was a cyan-colored wall with no burn marks or obvious blemishes, and below that, a streak of white. Lowering her eyes a bit, and with a bit of extra information from Touch, she identified it as a bed. A feathered one, at that. Back above that she could see an end table, on top of which sat a small rectangular object: a picture frame. Now curious, she beseeched Sight to gather additional details; the picture showed a white unicorn and a gray earth pony mare. The unicorn was wearing a rather wild pair of glasses and grinning almost from ear to ear, whilst the other pony was simply looking at her with a distinctly confused expression.
Vinyl blinked. She recognized that picture. She had always kept that as a reminder of her friendship with -- no. No, that other pony died in the fire, didn’t she...?
But if there was a fire, then why didn’t she smell any smoke? She remembered coughing on the acrid, burning stuff just moments ago, and yet all Scent was telling her now, and quite insistently, was that all she could smell was cotton and feathers, mixed with the unpleasant tang of sweat. With that her thoughts drifted back to the bed Sight and Touch had informed her of earlier; it was confirmed now. She was lying on a bed, and what’s more, she recognized it as her bed.
There was still one more contradiction; the gray mare that she had seen die. Despite the fact that she was here, now, it still didn’t make any--
“Vinyl...?”
A chill went down her spine, though it felt somewhat different from her earlier near-death experience. She slowly turned over in the bed, feeling the soft rustle of the sheets, questing fervently after the source of that unmistakable voice.
She stared into the purple eyes of the pony lying next to her, who was watching the unicorn with a look of confusion and concern on her face.
“What’s wr--”
Before she could finish, Vinyl launched forward in a blur of white fur and sheets and wrapped herself around the gray mare, wailing like a lost child. Octavia gasped for breath, trying to fight against Vinyl’s strong, crushing hold. It proved ineffective, but she tried again only to receive the same results. She failed to understand why her lover would suddenly jump on top of her and begin crying like a baby. That didn’t sound like the strong, upbeat unicorn that she knew.
Slowly, her deathgrip began to slacken, though the unicorn continued to sob helplessly. Now with some more control over the situation, the gray mare took Vinyl’s head in her hooves and drew her close, to which she responded by burying her muzzle into her lover’s chest and weeping her heart out -- which was more or less what Octavia had in mind, except for the obnoxious horn which she had to work around on her own.
“Shh,” she said soothingly to the unicorn, brushing her disheveled mane. “It’s all right. I’m right here.”
“I-I...auuhh-h...” Vinyl tried to force words out, but her voice was strained and barely coherent. “I...auh...”
“Shhh,” Octavia whispered again. “I’m right here. Take your time.”
They remained that way for a few minutes, the unicorn still plastered to the barrel of the gray mare who continued to gently run a hoof along her back. Every now and then she would attempt to say something, only to be silenced insistently. Gradually Vinyl began to settle down, her sobs giving way to heavy, yet controlled breaths.
“I-It’s r-really you, right?” She stuttered out with difficulty, though it was a definite improvement over earlier. Without waiting for an answer, she continued. “This isn’t just another sick d-dream, right?”
Octavia shook her head as a no, a concerned look still plastered on her face. The faintest hint of a relieved sigh could be heard through her long breaths. She noticed the gray mare’s expression, looking into the purple orbs that stared right back at her. This all felt so real: Octavia’s warmth, her soothing voice and concerned look, yet that nightmare had the same elements.
Any minute now Vinyl expected something to happen, and every second it didn’t she became more and more tense, her breathing slowing down more for anxiety than relief. Any moment now and the bed might be engulfed in a fiery chasm, or Octavia might turn into some horrible monster, or... or...
“Vinyl, it’s okay. Everything will be alright,” Octavia whispered softly. She pulled Vinyl forward into another hug, gripping her tightly. “Just let it all out.”
She was tired. Tired of the fog of powerful, conflicting emotions. She had already poured her heart out once when Octavia had fal-- No, she stopped herself. That was a dream. Octavia was still here, safe and sound, and so was she. She didn’t really care if it was a dream or not anymore. After all that she had just been through, there was only one thing she could give any real energy for right now.
The alabaster unicorn pressed forward against her lover, nearly smothering herself against the smooth gray fur, and started sobbing again, her eyes stinging with little else to give. Her sleepy body continued to bother her, yet she maintained herself until those magenta orbs finally closed themselves, her cries ceasing to exist.
All the while, Octavia was cradling the white mare to her barrel, running a tender hoof along her back with a warm, knowing smile on her face. She listened for a while longer as Vinyl’s breathing slowly calmed down, her chest rising and falling steadily, signifying that she was asleep.
She withdrew from the embrace a moment to look down at her companion. For once, her face was not screwed into a painful, sad grimace; her eyes were firmly but gently closed, her cheeks stung red with tears, and her mouth hung slightly open, a small puddle of drool beginning to accumulate beneath her. Giggling slightly, Octavia gently wiped away the offending trail with her forehoof, then drew herself in close again -- Oh, that dumb horn, she groaned inwardly as she was thwarted by Vinyl’s forgotten trait.
Sighing in resignation, she instead leaned in and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek, eliciting a sleepy murmur from the unicorn, but she didn’t wake up. Smiling, Octavia laid her head on the sheets, nearly touching that of her partner, and closed her eyes in turn.
Sounds assailed her ears once again, but not the nightmarish cracking of wood or the roaring of an inferno. It was the gentle noise of crickets and the night breeze floating in from the bedroom window, mingled with something else: snoring.
Slowly, Vinyl opened her eyes. The gray mare whom she remembered was still right there, facing her with a look of pure contentment marking her delicate features. With a wan smile, the unicorn considered how she herself must look; like a disheveled animal come in out of a storm, no doubt. But Octavia didn’t care about any of that, not even when she had completely broken down and cried into her beautiful coat for close to twenty minutes. She didn’t care--
…No, she corrected herself. She did care.
Belatedly -- and somewhat inanely -- she remembered that she wasn’t usually the one to wake up first. She drew back a bit from her lover, carefully lighting her horn to telekinetically bring the sheets over them both, as smooth as if they had just been made. She then gingerly snuggled back in next to Octavia; she had an advantage here, as her side of the bed faced away from the windows. It won’t be me getting a full dose of Celestia’s rays when I wake up, she thought wryly with a smirk.
She then nearly let out a startled cry as Octavia abruptly pressed forward, one forehoof gripping her tightly by the withers and her head buried into the white fur of her neck. “Tavi, wha--”
“No...d-don’t... don... let....” She muttered with a somewhat frantic undertone, and Vinyl quickly realized she was still asleep.
“Don’t let... let go... don... please... no...” Understanding dawned on the unicorn, and she extended her own forehoof around to caress her back and neck reassuringly.
“Yeah, right,” she whispered with a healthy touch of her usual devil-may-care attitude. “Like I’m going to let you go.”
Vinyl leaned in closer and gave a short, light chuckle. “We’re in this together, remember? I’m not letting you go. No matter what.”
Octavia’s breathing slowly began to calm down in response to the unicorn’s assurances, and she simply lay there, not saying another word. In an impressive show of stealth, Vinyl returned the embrace in full, laying her chin on the head of the mare beneath her before magically bringing the sheets up once again, virtually cocooning them both. Her partner never even stirred.
Smiling -- she had missed that feeling, even though it had only been one rough night -- she closed her magenta eyes and sank into bliss.
Author's Note
Editing credits go to Setokaiva for doing an amazing job on helping me with this. Thanks to my friend, who created this amazing piece of artwork that is now the cover art. I'd like to thank the readers for taking their time to read this and greatly appreciate feedback and such.
