For the next two weeks, the flow of money into their household was steady, plentiful. Octavia was free to hire a foalsitter to watch the child so that she could return to orchestra rehearsals. And during the nights that they had together, Octavia and Vinyl discussed a name for this young foal. Discussed was the polite term for their arguments; the money had increased but Vinyl had become irritable, tired and her once shinning white coat had lost its lustre. Octavia put it down to exhaustion, for all her faults Vinyl was an excessive worker. The air between the two mares was still tense though, the knowledge that the only real thing that had kept them together was this child on their doorstep, Octavia wondered if people would start talking. Surely by now the news had spread that she and the raucous DJ had taken in a young filly. What would they say?

It was early, the cold wind bit into her fur no matter how tightly Octavia wrapped herself in her clothes. So she resolved herself to finding the nearest Cafe and finding some solace within its walls. It was with that thought in mind that she turned to the Ponyville Corner Cafe. She had never really been there before, so when she opened the doors, letting the cold wind in with her, the regular patrons gave her a look of mild surprise. However they were more concerned with the cold that was hurling itself through the opens doors. The scene was far less friendly than Octavia had anticipated, she wondered if she should greet the other patrons; offer up a friendly greetings. But someone beat her to it, except it wasn't a greeting, or friendly.

“Wood in hole!” Came one upset voice. Octavia turned her head to face its source, confusion touching her eyes.

“Pardon me?” She was really doing her best to be civil, but the cold air had muffled her senses.

“Close the door!” Came the annoyed response, Octavia felt her cheeks grow hot as she blushed furiously and turned to shut the door, only to find that another pony had shut it for her. This pony had a light green coat with slight tinges of white in her mane and a lyre as a cutie mark.

Odd, thought Octavia as curiosity seeped into her thoughts. This was a musical pony it seemed, but she had not seen her at any of orchestral rehearsals, and she had certainly not seen this pony at any of the musicians meetings held in the auditorium. Suddenly Octavia felt as thought eyes were staring into her, she shook herself from her thoughts and realised that the mare was looking at her, waiting for a response most likely. Octavia's blush seemed to grow more intense.

“I'm sorry, I just. Thank you.” Oh Luna I sound like a fool. Octavia's thoughts were yelling at her at this point. She was an intelligent mare who excelled at social events and here she was, unable to stammer through a single sentence. The mare didn't seem to mind at all however, she offered Octavia a smile.

“I'm Lyra.” There was a song in the mare's voice, something wonderful, something that warmed Octavia's very soul.

“Octavia.” Octavia's voice took on its usual air of formality as she put out her hoof to shake. Instead the other mare lifted her own hoof and tapped it against Octavia's and then turned away, walking towards a table. Octavia had very little idea of what was going on, she turned her head from side to side, wondering which direction to sit, where there any availible seats, it appeared-

“Well are you going to sit there until Nightmare Night or are you going to sit here?” Lyra's voice drifted over the chatter and talk of the patrons who had returned to their meals and seemed to draw Octavia towards it. She turned and led a slow walk towards the table where Lyra had made herself comfortable. She was sitting on a chair, but she was sitting strangely, in the most undignified manner. With her backside planted right on the chair, her back hooves going down towards the floor and her front hooves on the table. Octavia took this, rebellious and unorthodox way of sitting to mind. She wondered if she should say anything about it, but quickly decided against it. Instead she sat herself down opposite Lyra, sitting like a self respecting mare should.

“Now that seems much better than you standing in the middle of the doorway. It is cold out there.”
Lyra mused.

“I must admit I'm still in bed at this hour, so I'm not sued to the morning chills.”

Lyra laughed.

“You're new to Ponyville right?”

Octavia tilted her head slightly.

“That I am.”

Lyra gave her a nod and waved for the waiter.

“Around this time of the year it's always cold. You had better get used to it before the snow comes in.”

Octavia's ears dropped.

“Oh greatest of joys” The sarcasm was etched into every slice of the sentence.

“No need to get antsy, there are ways to deal with it. Two hot chocolates” She swapped from talking to Octavia to giving instructions to the waiter so quickly Octavia barely had time to register the change, and suddenly Lyra was walking again, so friendly, so bold. It was charming.

“Warm food and the right clothing works fine. See, the clothes you're wearing are far too thin. You need wool jackets here if you plan to make it through the winter.”

Octavia looked down at her clothing, as warm and as expensive as they were, it just wasn't enough here.

“Where do you suggest I buy these?” Octavia used her most... democratic voice.

Lyra caught on and burst out laughing with ferocious force.

“Just ask around, Carousel Boutique is your best bet, but you could always borrow some of mine.”

“Oh I couldn't, we're not in the poorhouse if I may say. We can afford it.” Octavia didn't want to sound like a snob, but she hated hand outs. It seemed, sad, pathetic. Lyra's eyes showed the slightest tinge of disappointment, mixed with understanding.

“Oh really?” Her voice became playful. “So what do you do for a living?” Something told Octavia Lyra already knew.

“I'm in the Ponyville Symphony. First Cello part.” Octavia said with a measure of pride. Lyra's eyes may have rolled slightly.

“Ah, that. Is that all?” Now Octavia knew, Lyra knew exactly what was going on with Octavia.

“Yes.” She kept her tone civil. “My roommate is a DJ in the nightclub just outside of Ponyville.”

Lyra's eyes tweaked with excitement, she had all the ammo she needed.

“Oh you mean Vinyl? I go down to the club sometimes, not really my style of music but I've gotta appreciate her skills” Lyra was off like a cannon, her mouth, gums, tongue and lips working up a storm as she spoke, the floodgates were open. “She's looking quite tired if you see her around town though, maybe it's all the extra hours she does there. Like this one time she told us she was done with the set, she got off and suddenly she came back on, wearing those purple shades of hers and told us she was staying on a few more hours. I expect it's because of the foal. It must be hard for two parents to have to look after it and work at the same time”

Ah. There is was.

“Well” Octavia began. “We aren't really the child's parents, we adopted her.”

Lyra laughed. “Well of course, two mares can't make a baby. No matter how much they may want to.”

Octavia was stammering now. “Um, yes well, you see. Vinyl and I are just friends.”

Lyra stopped, then her lips tweaked into a sly smile. “Oh of course you are.” She leaned in closer. “No one will judge you for it, in Ponyville we're very accepting.”

Octavia couldn't help but lean in closer to Lyra as well. “No, no no. We are literally just room mates. We moved in together to pay the rent and someone left a foal on our doorstep. In fact Vinyl and I don't get along at all, we just want to look after the foal.” Octavia, for some reason, felt like she could trust Lyra. She didn't know why, but she liked Lyra.

“If you couldn't look after the child why don't you send it to the orphanage?” Lyra asked as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. Octavia shook her head.

“Vinyl wouldn't have it. She put her hoof down. Either we keep the foal together or she would look after it herself. This option seemed best for the foal.”

Lyra stood up, their hot chocolates arriving, she drained hers in one gulp, Octavia flinched, how that must have hurt the other mare's throat going down. But Lyra didn't seem concerned.

“Well Octavia I have to go, but we should really do this again. And, I think that Vinyl and that foal are really lucky to have you with them.” She touched Octavia's shoulder with her hoof, smiled, turned and left. Octavia closed her eyes and breathed in deeply.

Back at their home, Vinyl woke from a nightmare. A scream left her lips as she shot from her bed, falling off it and whacking her head on the floor. She sat up and rubbed her head and looked into the mirror. She was a horror movie incarnate. Her electric mane had lost it's shape, her coat was covered in bruises and sores. There were bite marks all over her neck, three of her teeth her missing and both her eyes had gone various shades of black red and blue. She didn't want to remember the last night, or the night before that, or the night before that. Every single night was the same and it was getting worse. All because of that sleezy git. And sleezy wasn't an exaggeration. Sleezy was his actual name. Vinyl wondered if his parents had known what a monster he would be.

“I wonder if my parents had know what a failure I would be?” Vinyl wondered. Then she stifled a slight tear as it dripped from her blood soaked right eye. Her parents didn't think about her. Because they didn't give a damn about her or her future. In Vinyl's whole life there was one mare who paid Vinyl the slightest bit of attention. It wasn't anyone at the orphanage where she grew up, it wasn't any of the so called friends she had. No, it was the old lady who lived opposite them. That grandmare was always so kind to them all. Vinyl turned towards the cot where the foal was sleeping. She knew what she wanted to name the foal, but she was scared. Octavia had shot down all her name suggestions so far. Vinyl didn't want this name, the name of such a great mare to be insulted. Vinyl walked slowly over to the cot and looked down at the sleeping filly.

“I would name you Evaline. If I could.” Vinyl told the filly softly.

“That's a wonderful name Vinyl.” Octavia's voice came from the door behind them, Vinyl shot up, surprised. Octavia shouldn't be back already, Vinyl was still a mess, she couldn't find out. She turned towards her bed, her shades were there, but she tripped over the cot, waking up the newly named Evaline, who proceeded to scream and cry at the top of her voice. Vinyl went down, whacking her head on the floor for the second time this morning; and Octavia saw everything.

“Mother of Cadence Vinyl... What happened to you?”

Vinyl looked up at Octavia with tears in her eyes as the cries saturated and consumed the room.

Author's Notes:

Wotcher!

I am so glad to be back and writing again. Especially with regards to Evaline. Oddly enough I expected this to do the worst of all my stories. But I am glad to see that it's picking up. There is a change as you can see, with each chapter now sitting at 2000 words. The same will apply for the rest of my stories. So, please enjoy.