The sound of a bell chiming signaled Lyra and Vinyl opening the front door to Bon-Bon's bakery. The smell of dozens of delicious and tantalizing pastries filled both their noses as they walked further into the empty store, each of them trying to be subtle about sniffing the air deeply. The sound of somepony working hard could be heard from behind a door that presumably led to the kitchen.

"Bon! I got Vinyl!" Lyra shouted, trotting over towards an empty booth near the corner.

"Just a second!" A voice replied from behind the door.

Vinyl took a curious look around the store, which was surprisingly empty.

"Hey Lyra, where is everyone? Isn't this a pretty popular bakery?"

"Yeah, it is, but Bon decided to close a bit early. You know, to make sure you're not around any of her frequent customers. You know, doesn't want you scaring 'em off with your inevitable rant about the theater." She said with a sly smile.

"Not true!" A voice, that was presumably Bon Bon, called out in protest.

Vinyl slumped over at just the mention of the theater, her forehead hitting the table with a solid thump that she ignored.

"It was so bad though! The mare beside me would not shut up! Constantly asking me 'what I thought about this piece' or 'if I thought it had a hidden meaning' or whatever." Vinyl said with a fairly good imitation of the mare's voice.

Lyra snickered, recalling her own days of being asked the same questions.

"Well," the voice called out before the front of a pastry cart pushed open the kitchen door, "maybe this will cheer you up." Bon Bon said.

She pushed the cart over to the booth and placed a large platter in the center of the table with a loving smile and lifted up the top with a stylish flair to reveal the most appetizing cake Vinyl had ever seen.

"Enjoy; Lyra told me abut your little situation with your landlord and how you have to go to theater for a week, and me and Lyra both know how you feel about doing anything that the upper crust enjoys." She said with a sympathetic look on her face.

Bon Bon was a sweet mare, in both senses; she owned a bakery and was probably the sweetest thing in there. She cared for anyone who was willing to get close enough to her to be her friend with a passion that would be called odd by many, but not that many ponies would protest against such a passion for acceptance.

Vinyl was too busy ogling the cake in front of her to thank Bon Bon properly, until a sharp jab from the green mare beside her gave her enough of a reminder.

"Oh, uh, thanks a bunch Bon." Vinyl said quickly before returning to the cake.

Bon Bon dismissed the praise with a rather girly giggle and quickly got to cutting the cake into fitful slices for each pony; Vinyl with the largest, Lyra with a fair sized one, and Bon Bon with a small slice. Lyra questioned her marefriend on her choice of getting the smallest slice, but Bon Bon shook her head and whispered something into Lyra's ear.

Something that made her blush wildly.

Vinyl watched on with both curiosity and amusement, slowing her chew to a pace where it looked like she was curious to the mischievous couple. Lyra's blush deepened, but Bon Bon just smiled and encouraged Vinyl to simply finish her pie.

Whatever it was that Bon Bon had said must have been quite something, as it kept Lyra's cheeks red and her voice shaky every time she put in her two cents to the topic at hoof. Which, for the record, was extremely spaced out thanks to the minutes that passed with the constant, silent exchange of glances between the two; Lyra fidgeting in place and Bon Bon with a pair of half lidded eyes.

"So..." Vinyl said, at the end of her wits with the constant shifting of glances between the two, "you two are going steady now right?"

"Well- uh." Lyra stammered.

"Yep!" Bon Bon finished, and with confidence at that.

"Well that's good to hear." Vinyl said pushing her cake away from her at the sound of Bon's confidence. It seemed that how nervous Lyra was didn't matter at this point; Bon Bon seemed to be the dominant of this relationship, and honestly that might've be for the best.

"I think I'll leave now, gotta be sure to get a goodnight's sleep for tomorrow." Vinyl said with a bit of disappointment.

Lyra's eyes went wide with a bit of fear, for some reason, at the mention of the white mare leaving.

"Uh, are you sure? We could stay up all night so you could sleep during theater!" She sounded strangely desperate for Vinyl to stay.

Vinyl shook her head with a bit of disappointment.

"Nah, I would try depriving myself of sleep so I could just sleep when I got there, but there are two many risks. You know, me sleeping in and missing the 'curfew', falling asleep in the theater and having that mare catch me and telling Rent. Normally I'd be down for an all-nighter, but just not tonight." Vinyl sighed.

"Ah...o-okay." Lyra said at a near whisper.

"Don't worry Lyra, we can finish off the cake." She sounded happy, but that wasn't the weird part.

The weird part was Lyra's face when she said it: it was doe eyed and she had enough red in her cheeks to make the rest of her body look slightly more pale than usual.

"And I'll take that as my cue to leave." Vinyl said with a knowing smile, her head the only thing sticking inside the door before shutting it all the way and taking her leave.

The room went silent with Vinyl's leave, Bon Bon's cheerful and happy eyes shifting to bedroom eyes and her smile turning to a sly one as she turned to face an absolutely terrified looking Lyra.

"So- uh," Lyra stammered before her eyes found the cake, "wanna f-finish the cake?" She asked, stuttering horribly.

"I'd love to!" Bon Bon said with renewed innocence.

"But I'd like to finish it upstairs...in the bedroom." She said, leaning in and whispering the rest of her sentence into Lyra's ear with a husky sound in her voice.

Lyra might as well have fainted at that point.

Vinyl made it home just as the final glimpse of sunlight disappeared over the horizon, a tired smile gracing her face as she thought of the awkward situation Lyra must have been in by now. Just judging by how Bon Bon kept looking at the mare gave her some pretty good, and creative, ideas.

"Bon Bon may look sweet, but I bet she's gotta sour side too; and I think Lyra just might be finding that right about now." The white unicorn snickered to herself.

"Well well well, look who finally came back home." A familiar, and for Vinyl, sick voice said with glee.

Vinyl turned around to see Rent Out sitting behind the lobby desk with the smuggest smile imaginable for a land lord. Which, for the record, could be pretty smug.

"What do you want Rent?" Vinyl spat with an abnormally venomous tone, but she was pretty sure they could both see how her tone was justified.

"Hey now, calm down, I'm not here to send you back there - though you will be going back tomorrow - but that's not the point." He began.

"But I did come to ask you how it went; you know, see how you liked it and all that, but judging by how you're talking to me I could make my own guesses. So I'll just ask you my other question: How'd you like my choice?" He smiled.

"Your choice?" Vinyl replied, confused at his meaning.

"You know, the mare I picked to supervise you." He elaborated.

"She's an annoying, overly optimistic, happy-go-get-em' lunatic. Now if that's all, I'll be on my way. You know, gotta get my rest for my day of theater." She nearly yelled, her tone getting only more and more dangerous until Rent's face was becoming genuinely concerned.

He intended for this whole little bet to get under her skin, but he didn't want it to start getting him on her bad side. He had seen how bad she had made other ponies lives for getting at her wrong, and he wanted no part of it.

However, he kept the truth about him and Neon's little exchange of words a secret.

"Alright," He sighed, "just get a good nights rest." He said with genuine sympathy.

Vinyl, however, must have mistaken it for a mocking tone as she huffed and stormed over to the elevator, slammed the button and waited with anger. Rent Out never thought that standing still could look so scary until her saw Vinyl do it, and he let out a breath he hadn't realized he had been holding the second the elevator doors closed behind her.

"Jeez..." He sighed before taking a moment to think.

"...maybe I shouldn't have listened to Neon." He finally said.

Upstairs in her room Vinyl collapsed onto her bed and tossing her shades off to the side before letting out a huff blew up tufts of her two toned mane, watching as the floated back down to slightly cover up her now exposed eyes. Her glasses had become more of a second eyelid in a way, she was used to seeing the world in purple and only took off her glasses when going to bed or taking a shower, and sometimes not even then.

"Stupid Rent Out..." She mumbled, getting back up and teetering over to the bathroom.

Her knees nearly buckled when she bent down to get a towel out from under the sink, and she barely had the strength to turn the knob of the shower. The theater and Lyra had done a number on her today.

'And I still have a whole week to go too..." She thought before letting out a sound that vaguely resembled a whimper.

She slide down onto the cold tile floor while she waited for the shower to heat, her hind legs folding up and her head nearly falling down to the floor as well. Luckily her neck kicked in at the last second and managed to save her from the fall.

She was fading on the edge of consciousness as she waited for the water to warm, and the only thing that told her the water was ready was a random, rouge drop that strayed onto her face.

The water didn't help her fatigue, in fact it only encouraged it, and so her shower was a long and lacking one. Her mane hardly got cleaned at all, and that was even by her standards.

As soon as she got out of the shower, and gave herself a very sloppy toweling down, she slipped out of the bathroom door and went right to her bed, not even bothering to pull up the covers as she plopped down. Her last thoughts were about the theater, and how she hated it, and also how she had to go back, but what truly haunted her was the sick sound of that mare's voice.

So disgustingly happy.

Vinyl's eyes creaked open one by one to the sound of a hoof knocking on wood, rather energetically at that. She turned and tried to cover her ears up with her pillow, but the knocking kept on until it drove her to the point where she actually got up, stumbled out of her room and to trudge over to the door. She only bothered to reach a few feet from the door before collapsing and letting the door hold her up.

"Who's there?" She said, the sleepiness easily heard in her voice.

"Who else would it be? Or do you have someone else that takes you to theater?" Lyra's voice snapped back, but she didn't sound angry at all for once.

'Wait, does she sound...happy?' Vinyl thought, her eyes widening enough to be considered half lidded as she reached a hoof up to fumble with the lock on the door.

She eventually got it and pushed away from the door and stumbled over to the couch where she collapsed just as Lyra let herself in with an oddly peppy aura about her. She didn't even pester Vinyl when she tried to go back to sleep on the couch, which she couldn't anyway, and instead just sat beside her on the opposite side of the couch.

Vinyl, tired of being silently watched by the mare, eventually decided to ask about her oddly cheerful mood.

"What's not to be happy about?" She responded.

Vinyl immediately cracked open one eye and stared hard at the mare and, despite her eyesight being slightly blurred, and saw a spark in Lyra's eye that gave her one pretty solid answer.

"You got laid didn't you?" Vinyl asked nonchalantly.

Lyra however, went from happy without a care in the world to nervous and panicky.

"W-wha? N-no! what makes you say that..." She said, the blush forming giving the white mare enough of hint to know that was nothing more than a lie.

"Yeah whatever," Vinyl said as she leaned up from the couch, with a small smile growing at the green mare's defensiveness, and trudged off to the bedroom to get her sunglasses.

"I can tell when you're lying, and also when you got laid apparently." Vinyl said with a snicker.

You bring me any breakfast?" Vinyl said, putting the intervention to a quick and painless end.

"Y-yeah, Bon made you a little something." She said, her voice being muffled as she searched through her saddle bag to pull out a small to-go box with "Bon-Bon's Bakery" printed on the front.

"Man she's nice, you're lucky you caught such a good mare." Vinyl said.

"Yeah, wish the rest of Canterlot could see that..." Lyra said with a bit of sadness as she remembered the current position on Mare on Mare relationships.

"Man who cares?!" Vinyl said a bit louder than necessary, "I don't care who you are, if you're that nice you deserve someone good."  She said, walking from out of her bedroom and into the bathroom where she picked up a wash cloth and began running under the water.

"Heh, well at least you seem to get it." Lyra said thankfully.

"Meh, everyone's just too stuck up with their little traditions and looks to realize where all the happiness is at." Vinyl replied, patting her mane down and shaking it dry before coming out to meet Lyra with her hunger on her mind as she eyed the to-go box.

"So what's she got for me; I'm starved." Vinyl said anxiously, but Lyra had other plans.

"You can eat on the way, you've got about ten minutes til you're considered officially 'late' so we might wanna get moving." She said, heading towards the door.

Vinyl simply sighed as she walked behind her.

Bon Bon had made a small stack of pancakes, one of Vinyl's acclaimed favorites, but really anything from Bon's bakery was her 'favorite.' It proved a bit difficult to both open and pour the syrup from the small packets provided and then eat them all while walking through the increasingly large crowds of ponies on their ways to work.

A sudden thought popped into Vinyl's mind.

"Hey, Lyra, why are we going so early to day when I went later yesterday?"

"Simple," She began, her cheeriness having returned to her voice, "the theater's hours differ from day to day thanks to numerous reasons. Some days are shorter than normal, others longer; so the theater is sometimes open from around lunch to six."

She hesitated before she continued.

"And others are open all day...like today." She cringed, and rightfully so.

Vinyl nearly chocked on her last bite as the words came from Lyra's mouth, the syrup not going out so well and hanging on her bottom lip.

"So I'm gonna be there...how long?" She said with hesitance as she licked the dollop of syrup from her lip.

"From now - about 10:30 - until about 7 at night." Lyra said, bracing as she finished the sentence.

But it never came, Vinyl surprisingly just sighed sadly and continued walking towards the theater which was now nearing only a block away. Lyra hesitated and pondered on it for a second before she herself trotted to catch up, her mind drawing a blank on why Vinyl wouldn't pop at the news.

"Meh, it's just now worth it anymore..." She sighed.

"Poor gal..." Lyra said, knowing it took a lot to make Vinyl stop complaining about things because they just 'weren't worth it.'

The rest of the walk went by in a haze of sympathy and sorrow, Vinyl trotting on with her ears down and Lyra with a concerned look on her face. The green mare was also internally debating on whether or not to tell Vinyl about the whole reason she was doing this was because of Neon's influence, but eventually decided to wait til Vinyl was in a better mood; better to be a buzz-kill than one to add insult to injury.

'What do I know? Maybe it won't even be that much of a buzz-kill to her...' She thought hopefully as she noticed the theater coming into view.

'Shame there's no way she's getting out of this whole theater thing though...'

"Alright," Vinyl spoke up, shaking Lyra from her train of thought, "you coming later too or you gonna be busy." The way Vinyl said 'busy' made Lyra think it had some other meaning behind it, but she shook it off nonetheless.

"Yeah, I'll meet you at about 7. See you then." She said, saying her final goodbye before turning and walking away, trying her hardest not to look back.

Meanwhile, Vinyl gave herself some metal preparation.

"Come on. Day 2. This isn't that bad, and I'm already a day in!" She said, her hopes raising a little.

The desk mare was sitting in the same spot as yesterday, though this time instead of being asleep she had her head propped up on her hoof with a bored look on her face. In her other hoof was the pen used to sign in and, judging by the odd motions her hoof was scrawling in, she was doodling on the paper.

She perked up once the white mare came into view, feverishly trying to scribble over the drawing but ultimately failing and giving up.

"Didn't really expect to see you here again." Se said, sounding confused at Vinyl's presence while at the same time offering the pen to her.

"Well I'm not exactly here by choice." Vinyl said with a chuckle, taking the pen and turning the sheet around to jot down her name on the next open slot. She took a glance at the other signatures, counting them up to see how many others were here today.

There were particularly few; about eighteen to be exact.

Though Vinyl didn't choose to, she also took a quick glance at the mare's doodle - a small cartoon version of herself fighting off what looked like a dragon - and smirked.

"Cool drawing." She said, the honesty in her tone being picked up by the mare ad bringing a smile to the previously barren face.

"Thanks..." She said, blushing a bit at the praise.

"Oh, Miss Vinyl! Glad to see you here today!" The shrill and bubbly voice of Tip Top piercing ears of both mares, and consequentially making them both cringe in sync.

Vinyl turned to see the mare trotting over from a side hall to greet the two, and quickly turned back to the desk mare.

"Hey," She began, leaning in close and speaking a something barely above a whisper, "she's my problem so I'll go ahead into the theater; at least she isn't loud in there." She said with a quick smile to the mare, who responded with a friendly nod, before heading into the main theater.

"Oh! Eager for the first performance! Me too!" Tip Top said, quickly following Vinyl.

She turned the corner just in time to see Vinyl take her seat and put on one of her creepy smiles before totting over and taking a seat in the chair besides her.

"I'm surprised at you personally Vinyl, I wasn't expecting you to show up today considering how you were hardly awake last time. I'm impressed." She said in a mocking earnest.

"I aim to please..." Vinyl huffed.

"Well, let's make the best of these next few days shall we? Better to have a good time than a bad one right?" She asked, Vinyl only half listening at this point.

Vinyl could only sigh, her attention turning to the stage to catch a lone stallion in mid-stride heading towards the microphone with a piece of paper in hoof. She was in for a treat this time now that she knew the mare beside her was a bit more keen on her antics.

As usual, most of the little performances that the ponies at the theater put on were abstract and a bit too complicated for someone as simple as Vinyl, who eventually just stuck in her earphones at about an hour and a half in. The only reason she hadn't done it soon being because of the mare beside her, but she eventually stopped being so interested in Vinyl and got more into the performances.

The others performances went by a bit more enjoyably - relatively speaking of course - thanks to Vinyl getting some entertainment out of matching some of the performances up to some of her own music instead of their own. She was able to easily to get her music loud enough to block out the theater's, but also keeping it quiet enough to not alert the mare beside her.

Until one certain performer came on stage.

It was a grey mare with a large case strapped over her back, Vinyl at first thought it was a guitar case but soon dashed the idea when she inspected the shape more closely.

Out of the case the mare popped out a cello, or something like that, and set it up. She propped herself up against it, while also having it propped up against herself; it must have required some amount of balance and skill to be able to do something like that. Vinyl also took notice that the mare was an earth pony, quiet the oddity from someone who plays a stringed instrument.

She took grace in lining up the bow to the strings, calming herself and taking a few deep breaths before lowering her head and closing her eyes.

Vinyl smirked as she lined up a perfect track for someone on a stringed instrument and prepared to sicker.

But as soon as the mare pulled the bow across the strings - Vinyl also pressing play on her track - something went wrong.

She could still hear the strings.

They were somehow managing to cut through the earphones and their music and still reach Vinyl's eardrums. Surprise was what hit Vinyl first, but after a few minutes of continued, mashed up, playing; that emotion soon turned into agitation. Not to mention the select genre - classical - was Vinyl's least favorite.

"Stupid classical music, can't even hear my own music through that old, out dated, slop. About time that genre got dropped from music and got put into a section in a museum." Vinyl began to rant silently in her seat, her intended target being herself, but it seemed like another was hearing it too.

Tip Top heard the silent mumbles and looked over to Vinyl. She was used to Vinyl being silent and just trying to sleep through every performance, and she also enjoyed seeing her try and hide her ear phones from her, but actually seeing her complain gave her a devious idea.

The piece soon ended and the grey mare dropped down, packed up her cello, and trotted off stage to the applause of the few ponies in the audience and behind stage. Literally every pony, except Vinyl, had given her cheer.

With the grey mare's leave,  Tip Top got up from beside Vinyl and scooted past her with a growing smile. Vinyl gave her an odd look at first, but eventually just shrugged as she watched the smiling mare trot down the isle of the theater and towards a door on the far side of the stage.

"Wonder where she's off too..." Vinyl mumbled, wondering briefly on some possibilities of where, but eventually just smiling as she could now listen to her music with more comfort now that she was gone.

"Whatever," She said with a smile, "the longer she's gone the better." She finished before raising the volume of her earphones and taking a quick look at the clock on the theater wall.

"I only got three more hours anyways..." Next Chapter: Meeting the Maker Estimated time remaining: 1 Hour, 21 Minutes