Soft Tunes and Grand Strings
Vinyl felt the familiar feelings of music pulse through her body. The club was absolutely packed. Many ponies were keeping to themselves, others were hitting on younger mares and stallions. The majority however, were enjoying the light show while they were off their head.
Vinyl had a rush coursing through her from some pills she had taken a few minutes earlier. She turned the music up almost painfully loud. It would surely have been heard from blocks away. Tonight was a special gig. It was the anniversary of receiving her cutie mark. She pushed up the bass until the club was literally shaking.
–
I feel the music course through me, it's taking its place deep inside my soul. I play my heart on the deck. It's not like that night though, now it's crazier. The music is much louder, and I have more experience with mixing. It feels so great to have everypony enjoy my playing. My eyes. my beautiful red eyes almost glow as they look across the crowd.
“You all having fun!?” I scream into the crowd over the microphone. My voice is projected over the music. A chorus of happy cries comes back at me.
I flicker my eyes over to the laser lights, adjusting them to flash across the crowd. The security guards are holding people off the stage. My smile grows as the song slows to an end. “Sweet. Time for me to clock off.” I collect my things from the club's set up and put them in several saddle bags. A few of the security guards come and help me carry my bags outside. There's a pony ready to take me home in his Taxi. I throw my bags inside and get in. Before he can leave a grey-brown mare comes up to me.
“Hold up Speedy.” I tell the driver. (I know him well) She walks forwards gingerly and hands me a bit of paper.
“Can you sign this for me, miss Scratch?” She asks. I'm surprised by her fancy accent.
“Sure thing, who to?”
She blushes under her brown hair. “Octavia...”
I nod and sign the slip of paper. 'To miss Tavi, keep on rockin'. Love, Scratch.
'Tavi' squeals and runs away after thanking me. I watch her run down the street. I'm totally perplexed. “Doesn't she play for the orchestra?”
Soft Tunes and Grand Strings
It had been a couple of months since I had seen that grey pony. She used to pop up in clubs during my shows. Sometimes she looks right into my eyes for a few seconds then looks away. Other times she tries not to look at me.
--
I'm tidying up after my latest performance. I've seduced a few stallions to help me pack my stuff into the taxi out the front. I'm just standing around now barking orders occasionally. Stallions are easy to fool when they're off their heads on god knows what. I hear the familiar sound of Tavi's voice.
I turn around and greet her with a smile.
"Do you want to maybe... get a drink with me?" She asks, nervously.
I think for a moment. I smile at her. "I have nothing else to do. Where at?" I brush back my hair.
"There's a bar down the street. I'll buy, so you don't have to." She looks excited on the inside. I'm beginning to think she's some sort of shy stalker.
"Lead the way then, Tavi." I walk after her as she turns to make her way down the street.
"Why are you going for a drink with a total stranger?" Tavi asks, looking me over.
"Well... you seem like a nice stranger. I've drunk with worse. And some other things."
Tavi goes to ask but she pauses. Realization dawns as she catches on to what I was meaning. She stays silent for about half a minute. "I hope you don't think I-"
"No. It's just a drink. It's cool." I cut in, she nods. "So, is this the place?" I ask as we look up at the bar in front of us. It's a fancy establishment in comparison to the places I was used to. No one smashing glasses or stumbling out of the doors blind drunk.
"So uhh.. what do you want to drink?" Tavi asks, still just standing outside the doors.
"I think we should go inside before ordering, Tavi." I walk in before her, shaking my hair out of my eyes. I slide my glasses over my horn to keep them in place and sit at the counter. My eyes wander around the room. The walls are decorated with various hangings and the bar is polished to the point where I can make out the shape of the glasses on my head. Not bad.
Octavia walks in slowly after me, taking a seat at the bar.
"What's your poison?" The bartender asks, a slender stallion wearing a shirt collar.
"Can I have a glass of red wine? Whatever is cheapest." I ask, going for a cheap, kinda fancy drink. Tavi orders after me with some very particular wording. I tune out as look around the bar.
"Soo..." I ask, my eyes wandering back to the mare next to me. "Why is a fancy pony like you attending my gigs?"
Tavi seemed surprised when I call her fancy. "I just enjoy that sort of thing, that's all. Nothing much to it." Her eyes look away from me for several seconds.
"So are you like... my stalker or something?"
"Stalker?!" Octavia stands up from the bar, her face blushing red with eyes as wide as saucers. A glass nearby falls to the ground and smashes. She steps back a bit and attempts to collect her thoughts. "I am a fan, I guess - if that's not creepy!"
I raise an eyebrow as the peculiar mare seems to have trouble finding words to describe why she's interested in me.
"So you're... not stalking me?"
"No. I mean I'm a fan, I mean I-"
I shake my head and walk over to Octavia while she rambles. I lean forward and kiss her on the cheek as she reddens more. She takes a few steps back and touches her cheek with her hoof.
"Y-You ju- with another mare- its indecent!" She begins to ramble again while hiding her obvious excitement.
"Octavia."
"I mean I'm from Canterlot! what would the sta-"
"Octavia." I repeat trying to get her to slow her words down. Her mouth seems to open and shut quickly, all the while she gently touches where I kissed her cheek.
"They'll take advantage of me if they knew what I had done! It's not like I'm into mares or anything so you can forget about that! I'm a proper lady and I do not-"
"TAVI." I screech at her, loud enough to attract a few looks from around the bar.
"Yes...Vinyl Scratch..?"
I use my magic to pull on her collar gently, leading her outside for some air. When we're outside I look back to her as she stares at the ground, searching for some mystery within the cracks of the pavement.
"Let's start this again."
"Right."
"Tavi, why do you come to my shows all the time? It doesn't seem your style."
After a few more seconds of digging into the concrete underneath with her eyes she mumbles, just audibly: "guilty pleasure."
"Cool. Now there was another part." I say, dipping my neck to look at the mare. She turns around to face me.
"What was tha-" Her mouth stops as I gently leave a kiss on her lips. Nothing intimate, just a gesture.
Her heart seems to explode. Her face turns to fire. "Ahh! Again! On the lips! You did it again, you did it again!"
"Did you enjoy it?" I ask, this time she takes a long time to answer.
Her eyes look away to anywhere but mine as she thinks. As she looks like she is about to talk she goes back to thinking. Finally she mumbles "maybe."
I smile at her. "I maybe enjoyed it too then."
"VINYL! WE HAVE THE STUFF IN THE COACH! HURRY UP!" A voice screeches from behind me. I'm suddenly passively dragged by a group of stallions who packed my coach for me.
Octavia looks rejected.
"I'll see you around grey mare!" I call out as I jump into the coach. She waves goodbye to me as the coach begins to move.
Inside, I'm surrounded by stallions, all fans, all grinning ear to ear. I slide my glasses back on over my horn. "Sorry boys, I'm taken."
Soft Tunes and Grand Strings
It had been several years since that posh mare had met the party animal. Many years to have discovered things about one another, the other pony's life or the other pony's life now.
So inseparable they were that they had found themselves living together. Not as a couple, at least, not that either of them would admit.
Another morning. Another set of wubs, bursting out of Vinyl's supposedly sound proof door and around the house. The cellist had had enough. "Vinyl! Turn that music down while I try and eat!" Octavia screeched, opening the door. Inside was the source of the wubs, one very excited mare doing her usual practice session. At three am.
"Tavi!"
"No Vinyl I don't have the time, since you woke me up I realized I have some very important work-"
"Tavi!" Vinyl turned the music down only a tad, enough to make her voice more coherent. "We should jam, right now!" She used her magic to keep the set going as she ran across the room to Octavia. The whole place was scarcely decorated, putting the various cords running off the blue walls and carpet floors. Across one wall were a whole set of shelves with various broken or separated equipment, things Vinyl continued to tell Tavi were "things she needed to fix" and upon any argument she'd insist "I'll get around to it, like Tuesday maybe.".
The grey mare stepped out of the way of her unicorn friend, who's head was buzzing with the rush of morning energy drink. "I told you to stop drinking red stallion in the morning didn't I?" Octavia sighed as she made her way over to the stacked plugs. She was sure they'd start an electrical fire one day, if the house didn't vibrate to the ground before then.
"But the stuff is meant to give you wings, that's what the label says!" Vinyl laughed, too tired from an early wake and a late bed time to think about what exactly she was saying. "Lyra said it's how Twilight got to be a princess, you know with the new wings thing and everything? That coronation was crazy by the way! I totally got so many fans when we played the after party, wicked fun! Hey what are you doing to the switch?"
Octavia tuned out while her friend was rambling (an easy feat with all the music) and flicked the switch on the wall with her right hoof, an electric shock just enough to make her whole front tingle shot up into her body. The music died off within the next second, and Vinyl looked disappointed.
"No jamming?"
"No jamming." Octavia confirmed, walking out the door and slamming it behind her. She called just before she headed downstairs "And don't start again until it's at least light outside!"
Octavia trotted down the stairs, hiding her happiness because of her morning routine. Waking up to the loud music in her ears really was the best feeling for someone who loved the music of her best friend so dearly. She simply had to keep Vinyl in line and make sure she knew when to tone things down, both for Vinyl and her neighbor's sake.
But alas, this is how almost every morning went, discounting the ones when Vinyl was truly way too wasted to wake up until the afternoon. Octavia had accepted this long ago and even enjoyed her friend's seemingly bad side. Everything was just perfect.
The grey mare walked out of the door. "And don't start again until it's at least light outside!" she called as her hoofsteps disappeared down the steps. Vinyl admitted defeat and began packing up the most essential parts of her set. Her old headphones from when she was young, the same, very rare mp3 player and a few other power cords. She put the headphones, looking down to the small patch of tape she had used and then covered up to fix her headphones when they had been broken at one of her house parties, and then to the scratch at the top of the band where she had thrown it once after an argument with Octavia. Vinyl chose not to cover it up, as a reminder to not let any harm come to herself and Tavi, or to argue with her for any reason again.
Vinyl made her way down the house's steps, looking around the place they had so happily bought together. She looked at the nicks in the walls and the scratches on the floorboards, each one holding a story she had treasured so dearly.
For example, there was one near the front door, a rather noticeable scratch where the mover ponies had dropped one of her amps on the first day she had moved in. She could still clearly see the look of fury on Tavi's face, and remembered watching it fade as the grey Pegasus with a messy yellow mane apologized, backing out of the door and falling over backwards.
She walked past the front door and into the kitchen, where Octavia was making her way through a plate of eggs and muffins. Vinyl spotted a square speaker with a few buttons on the top of it. "I think it's time to clean the dishes."
"Vinyl not now, I told you it's still dark what about the ne-"
Her complaints were cut short as a deafening sound and vibrations moved through the house, emanating from Vinyl's dubstep dishwasher.
"Yeeeaah~!"
"Oh god no..."
Author's Note
Update: I am revamping this story for a school project, which means an edited and improved version will be made available in the next week.
I highly suggest reading it. Ta!
