Her bow slid across the strings of the cello, causing a low rumble to reverberate throughout the concert hall. Its sound bounced off the arched ceiling above the stage and blended seamlessly into the harmony of the orchestra around her, filling the empty practice hall.

The symphony rose in intensity as the tone of their song changed. As it approached its apex, she flourished her bow across the strings, adding a delicate, yet deep ring into the mix. The cellists around her quickly followed suit, most having realized they were a quarter-note behind.

Following the climax of the song, Octavia could now relax. She closed her eyes and her hooves still continued working, plucking the C string with the consistency of a metronome. The rest of the orchestra brought their instruments to a low hum as the song faded. When the last chord was played, one hundred and thirteen bows lowered. To finish, their conductor flourished his baton before setting it on his podium.

Octavia smiled as she rested her back on her chair. Practice had become routine in the past few weeks, which was a welcome change of pace to what she was used to.

She looked around at her now familiar environment, cellists all around her. After nailing her callback, she’d been given the tenth chair and despite being impressive in it’s own right, Octavia still felt a little disappointed. She knew that securing first chair would be near impossible, despite that being the position that had initially opened up, but it still didn’t stop a latent feeling of failure to weasel into her success.

Octavia knew not to dwell on it for long, however. Instead, she took the what-might-have-been situation and used it to motivate her. Between her raw talent and proclivity for practicing, one day she knew she would secure first chair.

“All right everypony, that was… decent,” the conductor addressed them. “Let’s take a short respite before we continue. Ten minutes.”

Before the last word slipped past his lips, everypony was up and moving. Octavia set her cello against her seat, mirroring the ponies around her and left her bow by her sheet music. Her fellow cellists were already stretching and walking around, most opting to chat with each other.

In contrast, Octavia remained mute. She had barely been on the orchestra long enough to know anypony beyond an acquaintance level and didn’t have enough free time now to try and rectify that. Instead, she chose to stretch her legs and walk around the stage.

The noise of everypony else faded into the background as she traversed down into the mass of seats. Darkness bled into her path, as nopony on the orchestra wanted to waste money to light the entire concert hall for their practices. Seeing wasn’t a problem though, as she stuck close enough to the stage to see ahead of her and she didn’t plan to walk too deep into the audience.

She started humming the infectious tune they had been playing under her breath, eyes staying firmly glued to the path ahead. At the edge of the row, she prepared to turn back around and make her way back.

“Hey.”

Octavia froze, struck with the familiarity of the voice. She turned, and found herself facing a pony she hadn’t seen in months: Vinyl Scratch.

For a moment, she wasn’t able to speak. Vinyl hadn’t changed at all since the last time she saw her.

She was sitting two rows up, leaning forward. Her spiky mane was pushed back by the purple shades that rested on her horn, and her mouth was creased in a tight-lipped smile. She also bore a faded pink scar on her cheek, a souvenir from one of the worst experiences of both their lives.

“H-hello, Vinyl.”

“Practice sounded pretty good,” Vinyl said, tapping the back of the seat.

Octavia blinked, surprised that her ex-roommate was attempting to make small talk. Almost like she was ignoring… well, everything. “Thanks,” she finally managed.

Vinyl’s smile showed her teeth, but Octavia could tell it was forced. “So uh… how’s life going for you?”

“Pretty good.” Octavia cleared her throat. Now that her surprise had faded, she was ready to address the elephant in the room. “What are you doing here, Vinyl?”

“You mean in Manehattan, or here specifically?”

“Vinyl.”

She pushed out a laugh. “Okay, okay… I, uh… I came here to talk to you. Assuming you no longer want to stab me that is.”

Octavia gave a cursory glance around. “I think that feeling has passed. Besides, there’s nothing sharp enough around here to do the job.”

Vinyl laughed genuinely this time. “Cool… anyway, I…” Her head sunk. “Damn this is hard.”

“What?”

“I’ve been trying to think of the right way to apologize for the past two months, Tavi. I thought maybe seeing you would help, but my mind’s still blank.”

“Well I suppose you can’t blame it; that is it’s natural state after all.”

“Ha ha.” Vinyl smiled. “Manehattan hasn’t changed you one bit, Tavi.”

“That’s nice to hear. So… about that apology.”

“Right, right… guess I gotta wing it.” Vinyl inhaled deeply. “I bucked up.”

Octavia snorted. “That much is obvious.”

“Save all snarkiness until the end, please.”

“Fine.”

Vinyl inhaled again. “I never meant to hurt you, Tavi, I just… I got really scared. And when I’m scared I tend to do stupid stuff.”

“Really? Just when you’re scared?”

“Hey, what’d I say about that snark?”

Octavia held up a hoof in mock surrender. “Apologies, please continue.”

“Yeah, so… I saw your callback and… panicked. I knew it was wrong to hide it from you Tavi, but… I didn’t want to lose you, y’know? Pretty ironic, considering what happened.” Vinyl covered her face with her hoof. “Celestia, I suck at this.”

“I’m not letting you off the hook just yet; keep going.”

“Right well… not much left to say besides I’m sorry, I guess. And I am sorry. Incredibly sorry. Doesn’t excuse the fact that I treated you like shit.”

“No it doesn’t,” Octavia said bluntly. Vinyl’s head sunk further. “But… I guess I’m not really all that angry at you anymore.”

Vinyl’s head snapped back up. “What? Really?”

Octavia looked back to the stage. “Well, I got into the Philharmonics, didn’t I? And honestly, my anger sort of… fizzled after that happened.”

Vinyl’s jaw slammed down. “Seriously?” Octavia nodded. “But… why didn’t you tell me? I’ve thought you were pissed at me for weeks!”

Octavia rolled her eyes. “Well, just because I wasn’t angry doesn’t mean I wanted to talk to you, Vinyl. Angry or not, you betrayed my trust; I had yet to forgive you for that.”

“Oh…” Vinyl bit her lip. “Makes sense I guess…”

“But it’s not like your life turned out too bad without me around. You have Club Stirrup and Rarity.”

Vinyl’s eyes drifted to the right. “Yeeeeeeeaaaaaaahhh…”

“Oh Celestia, what did you do?”

“In regards to Club Stirrup, or Rarity?”

Octavia narrowed her eyes. “Both.”

“Yeesh. ‘Kay, why don’t I get the hard to explain one out of the way first: Rarity.”

Octavia sighed. “Please tell me you didn’t just have a one-night stand with her and end it there.”

“I said this was hard to explain, Tavi.” Vinyl chuckled slightly. “Actually, sex never was the problem, seeing as how we never got around to it.”

“Wait, what?” Octavia’s eyes bulged. “You didn’t get around to having sex? Did I hear that right?”

“Yup.”

“Okay, who are you and when did you switch bodies with Vinyl?”

They both laughed at that one before Vinyl continued. “I am serious, though. Rarity kinda had a pole up her plot about that stuff and… well… I decided she might be worth the wait.”

“Really now?”

“Yeah, crazy I know. That wasn’t the reason things didn’t work out between us though.”

“Then what was?”

A half-grin spread along her face. “You.”

Octavia did a double-take. “Me?”

Vinyl snorted. “Yeah, you. You see I never actually got around to telling her about the body swapping stuff, mostly cause I thought she might freak out, so I just lied through my teeth about the whole thing and took her out to dinner. The entire time I was myself and she was… a little put off by it. I think she kept expecting me to act like you.”

“So what you're saying is…”

“Rares totally had the hots for you, she just didn’t know it.”

Octavia felt weak in the knees. “Oh, Celestia…”

Viny laughed again. “Yeah, pretty crazy, I know. And seeing as how neither of you would’ve been up for a three-way, or anything freaky like that, I had to break it off with her. Shame too, she was pretty nice.”

She braced herself against a chair, having stopped listening. “Rarity… liked me?” Her stomach flopped uncomfortably at the idea.

“Crazy, huh? Just imagine if she knew about the swap.”

“I’d rather not.”

“Heh, she might’ve even built you a little shrine.”

“Stop.” Octavia gripped herself, still coming to terms with the fact that her friend could’ve been enamored with her. “That’s ridiculous, Vinyl; I can’t picture Rarity building a shrine for anypony, let alone me.”

“It would be hilarious, though.”

“It would be disturbing, you mean.”

With a roll of her eyes, Vinyl snickered. “Whatever.”

“Why don’t we switch topics. You mentioned something about Club Stirrup?”

“Huh? Oh yeah, I don’t work there anymore.”

Resisting the urge to facehoof, Octavia sighed. “You got fired, didn’t you?”

“Nope, I quit,” Vinyl happily amended.

“Why?” Octavia asked incredulously. What reason could Vinyl have for wanting to leave a perfectly good job?

“Some big shot from The Pasture saw my skills and offered me a new gig.”

Octavia blinked in surprise. The Pasture was one of the largest, loudest, and raunchiest nightclubs in all of Manehattan. “Really? You don’t say.”

“I do say.” Vinyl grinned wildly. “I got a shift for Wednesdays and Thursdays. Pays something like a hundred bits an hour too.”

“That’s… impressive. Though, given that you’re barely working in the week that’s not too great.”

“Yeah.” Vinyl’s smile faltered. “I’m still trying to get a few more nights in the week, but they gave me that spiel about paying my dues and blah blah blah.”

“I got the same thing, actually.” Octavia tilted her head toward the orchestra.

“Aw that sucks. Guess Manehattanites are just blind to the super-talented, am I right?”

She couldn’t suppress a laugh. “Right.”

Vinyl gave a light smile, and stood up. “Well, it was great to catch up, Tavi, but I should probably split before your break ends.”

“I suppose so.” She shot a glance back at the stage and noted that ponies were already heading back to their instruments.

“I’m uh… glad everything’s cool between us.” Vinyl lightly bumped her shoulder. “I guess I’ll see ya around then.”

“I dunno… it’s a pretty big city. And given my practice schedule…”

Vinyl’s ears drooped. “Oh yeah… well goodbye then. I guess.” She slid her sunglasses over her eyes in an effort to conceal her disappointment.

Octavia watched as she walked away. Her teeth caught her lip and bit down. As she watched Vinyl walk away her stomach flopped. She hadn’t realized it, but in the past two months, she had really missed the stupid wit of Vinyl Scratch and all the asinine fun that came with it. Her surprise visit had helped her remember it and made her not want to lose it again.

I can’t believe I’m about to do this.

“Vinyl, wait!” She ran, catching her friend after a few seconds.

“Yeah, what?” Vinyl turned, eyebrow arching over her shades.

Octavia took in a breath. “You know, the rent in Manehattan is just awful. Would you, maybe... want to share an apartment?”

Vinyl paused for a moment, and then smiled.