“Let’s see if Octavia is awake,” Valeria said before knocking silently and opening the door to the room where the grey mare was resting.

Valeria stepped in, only to freeze as soon as she crossed the threshold. A cute squeak left her muzzle at the sight before her. High Build followed her and found Valeria smiling at the bed.

Vinyl laid on the bed next to Octavia. Her head was buried into the grey mare’s soft chest fur, while Octavia’s muzzle was in Vinyl’s blue mane. Both mares had their hooves wrapped around each other, a peaceful smile on their muzzles. It was quite an adorable view.

“Aww, how cute,” High Build squealed silently.

“Yes, yes they are,” Valeria said back, smiling. “I’m glad Octavia found her. She might not fit Legretto’s standards, but I can tell that my daughter found somepony special.

High Build coughed. “Standards are boring. What shall we do now?”

“No matter how much I hate myself for it, we do have work to do,” Valeria whispered before moving to Vinyl’s side, gently poking her with a hoof. “Vinyl… Vinyl, it’s time to wake up.”

The unicorn groaned, her tail flicked up almost as if she were trying to chase an annoying fly away. “Ten more minutes, Tavi,” she groaned before snuggling back into the soft chest of her marefriend.

“Vinyl, wake up. Dessert is ready,” Valeria basically purred into Vinyl’s ear, followed by a soft blow of air.

“Dessert?!” Vinyl jerked her head up, much to Valeria and High Build’s amusement. Both mares snickered, High Build nearly fell onto the floor from trying to hold her laughter in. “Hey, not funny,” Vinyl pouted as she carefully retracted herself from Octavia. She kissed the grey mare’s muzzle before crawling off the bed. “What’s up?”

“Vinyl, this is High Build. She will be helping us with the restoration of the theater.”

“Really? That’s awesome!” Vinyl chimed before wincing and quickly checking if she had waken Octavia up. “Sorry,” she whispered into her marefriend’s ear.

Thankfully, the grey mare was still deeply asleep, even if the smile from her muzzle had vanished when her source of warmth escaped her grip. A single hoof reached out as if to catch the warmth back and Vinyl couldn’t hold herself in, kissing the sole of said hoof.

“You’re very affectionate towards her, I never expected that,” Valeria said before turning to the door. “Let’s talk more in the cafe, it would be a shame to wake her up.”

Vinyl just nodded. “Everything changed because of her,” she replied before following both mares out of the room and downstairs. “Did you visit him?”

Valeria stopped and looked deeply into Vinyl’s eyes. Vinyl looked ashamed to mention it, until Valeria’s seriousness was replaced with something unexpected: a smile. “Yes. And more than that. The times I stood under his hooves are over.”

“No bucking way!”

“Shhh!” The nearby nurses practically hissed the gesture.

“Sorry, sorry.”

Valeria had to hold back a laugh. “Yes bucking way,” she said, smiling. “I overheard him planning to hurt you two, and I ended it right then and there.”

“Wait… he was planning what?”

“Oh, she’s a fighter,” High Build said with a chuckle.

Vinyl didn’t even notice her, the white unicorn’s eyes were glued on Valeria. “What was he planning to do?” She growled the words.

“Relax, valiant knight, he’s in jail now.”

“Wait… what!?”

“Shhhhh!”

“Oh, shush yourselves! What happened?!”

“I’ll tell you about in the coffee shop,” Valeria replied, giggling a little as she started to walk away with a high-end sway on her hips.

“Celestia, I love that mare,” High Build said as she watched—diligently—Valeria’s hips and the sway of her tail.

“Wait, you and…”

High Build laughed. “It’s amazing what can happen in an afternoon, huh? Come, we’ll tell you all about it.” At that the pegasus flapped her wings and cleared the distance to catch up to Valeria.

Vinyl was left with no choice but to run after them. “This better be one damn good story,” she mumbled, more to herself than anypony in particular..

“Wow…. just wow.”

“She’s cute when she’s speechless,” Valeria said, laughing.

“And we just told her that we love to flirt with each other. Maybe we should’ve spiced it up?” High Build snickered. “Add in some hot mil-”

“STOP!” Vinyl said, her cheeks red. “I don’t need to hear that from you two!”

“Why not?” Valeria asked.

“It’s weird.”

“More weird than knowing you buck my own daughter senseless every now and then?” Valeria asked smugly.

“Uh, yes?”

High Build and Valeria shared a knowing gaze before bursting out in laughter. “You’re almost as bad as we are,” Valeria managed to say between pressed breaths from her laughing.

“Am not!”

High Build grinned, ”Admit it!”

“Nope!”

“Sore loser.”

Vinyl growled. “Hey!”

“Let’s give her a show she’ll never forget. I bet she’s still inexperienced,” High Build snickered.

“Mh, I’ll bet,” Valeria replied, her gaze resting on Vinyl. “It has been a long time, but I still know how to play the game.”

“Okay, stop it, I give up! I give up!” Vinyl squealed.

“But it was about to get interesting!” High Build whined.

“Interesting for you two, maybe,” Vinyl growled back, only to receive a small nudge from Valeria. “You’re evil!”

Valeria just chuckled at that as she turned to High Build. However the wind was taken out of her sails when Vinyl stated, “At least now I know where Tavi gets it from.”

Valeria looked back wide eyed just to see Vinyl snickering with a smirk upon her face.

“Maybe she’s not so inexperienced,” High Build said, laughing.

“Oh you can bet on that,” Vinyl replied, the grin never leaving her face. “Although if you’re anything like what I can look forward to, I’m going to need to sharpen my skills.”

Valeria’s face grew dead serious. “Did you really just make a sex joke about my daughter? To me?”

Vinyl grinned, she held the grin for an admirably long time until it crumbled under Valeria’s withering scowl. The unicorn looked down, guiltily, “Sorry, I di—”

“Gotcha,” Valeria said, breaking her glare and into a fit of laughter.

“Oh Celestia! She just played you!” High Build all but shouted, joining Valeria in her laughter.

“What?! Just WHAT?” Vinyl shrieked before huffing and overtaking Valeria, nose held high.

“It was just a joke, Vinyl.”

“A rather bad one.”

“It was still funny,”

“It was NOT funny,” Vinyl scowled from down the stairs. “I seriously thought I just fucked up with the mother of my fiance!”

“Wait, what?” Valeria asked dumbfounded.

Vinyl blushed. “Well, soon…”

“How soon?” High Build grinned.

“As soon as the theater is done,” Vinyl smiled.

“And you planned to tell me that when?” Valeria frowned at Vinyl.

“Soon?” Vinyl tried with a big, goofy smile.

“Somepony just got herself a new stepdaughter,” High build said, snickering.

Valeria’s gaze went from Vinyl to High Build. She took a second before speaking, trying to figure out just what to say to this sudden, new development. “First the Princess, and now this. This truly is the second greatest day of my life.”

Vinyl looked confused at that, “Wait… does that mean, you’re okay with me asking her to marry me?”

“I would rather know what the best day of her life was,” High Build cut in.

Valeria ignored her. Her gaze stayed upon the table, and then, slowly, with care, it raised up to Vinyl. She looked upon the unicorn with a smile only a mother could give. It carried her pride, her approval, and her love all without saying a word. “Vinyl, I’d be honored to have you part of my family.”

“You mean it?” Vinyl said, smiling back.

“Of course, silly filly. You make my Octavia happy, that alone is enough for me to like you. But the fact that you’re such a big influence on her, and myself, well, as far as I’m concerned you’re already part of my family. This just makes it official.”

“Thank you, that means more to me than I can ever say.”

“But if you ever break her heart, you’ll see a new side of me, one that would make Legretto wet himself in fear.”

“Understood,” Vinyl said and hesitated before adding, “Mom.”

“I like that,” Valeria said.

“That’s all well and good, but what’s number one?” High Build said, unable to keep it in.

“Well, the birth of my little filly, of course,” Valeria smiled sweetly.

“Oh,” High Build replied, looking smartly.

Vinyl and Valeria chuckled at that.

“Well, if you two are done ganging up on me, we should get going to the theater.”

“I thought we were going to talk in the cafe,” Valeria added confused.

“I guess we can,” High replied, grumbling.

“What’s wrong, can dish it out but not take it?” Vinyl asked in a teasing tone.

“Oh I can take it!” High Build replied.

“I’ll be the judge of that,” Valeria said under her breath, soft enough where no pony could hear her, or so she thought.

Her thought was proven wrong when Vinyl and High Build both stared at her in total disbelief. Well, Vinyl was in disbelief, High Build simply blushed.

“Anyways,” High Build coughed before continuing. “I’ve got all the original plans with me. They were old and unsigned, but the princess still had them. We should go over them and decide what we’ll keep and just renovate, or what we’ll discard and rebuild from scrap.”

“That sounds like a lot of work,” Vinyl mumbled.

High Build only smirked. “It’s actually pretty fun! If you lend me free hoof, I can even try and add your personal style, or both yours and Octavia’s.”

“Wait, this can have a touch of us?” Vinyl said in disbelief.

“Of course,” High Build replied, smirking. “From what Valeria told me Octavia’s more of a classy orchestra-type, where you favor more of the modern-techno.”

“And you can mix both?” Valeria asked very surprised.

“I’m not just any architect,” High Build replied. “I’m the youngest architect the princess ever hired. Speaks for my talents, no?”

“How old are you, High Build?” Valeria asked curiously.

High Build stuck her tongue out. “You never ask a lady about her age, especially not if you have plans, my dear Valeria.”

Valeria blushed furiously and opened her mouth a few times, but said nothing and closed it again.

“I think I like you,” Vinyl said, laughing.

“That makes two of us,” Valeria replied. “And yes, I meant for you both to hear that.”

At that, the other two mares started to chuckled at each other. Vinyl used her magic to clear off the table as High started to pull several blueprints out of her bag. She rolled it out and overlaid the existing blueprint with a transparent cover. She pulled out a marker and started to scribble over the transparent cover. “Oh, I already have plans, see if we add a second orchestra pit for your turntable here, we can—” She stopped as Vinyl started at her. “What?”

“Um… that’s not what it looks like anymore.” Vinyl said sheepishly.

“But this is the blueprint, no?” High asked, double checking to make sure she grabbed the right one. “Yeah, it says so right here.”

“You should come see, It’s not quite… up to code…”

“Up to code?”

“I think that’s Vinyl’s way of saying it’s been a little rundown since it was built,” Valeria added, trying to help.

“Well, let's go see it in person then; it can’t be that bad,” High Build said, chipperly.

“Okay, don’t get your hopes up though,” Vinyl replied, her tone contrary to her normal expression.

“What?” High asked as Vinyl cleaned the table and put the scrolls back in High’s bag.

“You’ll see.”

“This… this… this can’t be right,” High said, wide eyed and in total shock as she looked at the state of disrepair the theater was in. “This was the work of the great Quick Nail, how could this have happened?”

“It’s not that bad, is it?” Valeria asked. “I mean… sure, it could be a little better, but…” Trying to be helpful, Valeria raised a hoof to wipe the weeds off one of the alicorn statues in the end of the isle, only for it to crumble to pieces under her touch. “Oh…”

“This is a travesty, I don’t even know where to began,” High Build replied. “How could they let such a magnificent piece of work go to waste like this? I… I… I—”

“Looks like you get to start over,” Vinyl said, smiling.

“Start over?” High looked up in shock at the notion. “You don’t just start over on a ‘Quick Nail’ work! You can’t just rebuild a masterpiece like this! You—”

“You’re right, you can’t. You get to design your own.”

High Build opened her mouth to speak, only for nothing to come out. She shut it. Opened one more time—just to be sure—and when she had the same result, she shut it once more.

“I think that’s why Celestia sent you. Don’t you Valeria?” Vinyl said.

Valeria looked from Vinyl to High Build and then back to Vinyl. When the unicorn winked at her, she nodded in understanding. “Makes sense. She probably knew that this wouldn’t be repairable after all this time, and figured she needed a pony that could make her own mark. Somepony that could take the old, and make it into something new.”

“Hmm, nice parallel there,” Vinyl said with a sexy grin as she looked at her soon to be mother-in-law’s flank.

“Girl’s, that’s a nice thought and all, but I can’t… I mean, I don’t… I…”

“You’re the right mare for the job if I’ve ever seen one,” Valeria said.

“I’d say so,” Vinyl agreed.

“Seems like Celestia knew what she was doing to me,” Valeria added.

“Eeyep,” Vinyl chuckled. With that she pulled out the transparent cover from High’s bag and laid it out in front of her. “So show us what you can do when you’re working with a clean slate. Don’t tell me you don’t already have five different thoughts floating around that head of yours.”

High Build looked from the blank, transparent cover in front of her to Vinyl, and lastly to Valeria. The grey earth pony was staring at her with a look that all but said she believed in her, and that—plus a levitating marker directly in front of her—caused High to smile. “Well, now that you ask, with a blank slate we can…”

Valeria and Vinyl smiled as they watched the pegasus to go work. She spoke a mile a minute, even with the marker in her mouth, and scribbles all over the transparent cover. It took a while, but soon her vision was fully displayed for the two mares, and when it was done, neither of them could stop smiling.

“How… how long will it take to build?” Vinyl asked in awe. Only Octavia walking nearby could have pulled her eyes away from the masterpiece that was drawn upon the mat.

“About six months, three if I send a letter to Celestia and have her pull some strings.”

“Can we really do this?” Vinyl asked.

“What?”

“Doing all this? Having Celestia pull strings,” Vinyl said before turning to Valeria. “Having you pay. I still don’t feel comfortable with it.”

“And I told you that there is no way around it,” Valeria said with a smile. “Besides, I just came into my ex-husband’s fortune, remember?”

“Well, yeah, but I mean, those are your bits…”

“Consider it the start of a life-long apology I owe my daughter. If it takes every bit I have, I want the day the love of her life proposed to her to be the most memorable of her life. And I’d consider them all well spent.”

Vinyl blushed at that. “Thanks.”

“Just wait to see what I’ll do for the actual wedding,” Valeria said, laughing.

“Is it normal that I’m a bit nervous about that?”

“Sure,” High Build snickered before taking a look back at the plans. “I don’t know how much your ex-husband had in bits, but we will need a lot. I want to redo the gem statues, and they will be expensive. Maybe the princess can help with that.”

Valeria cut in, “I can’t ask that. You’re already kind of working for us for free.”

“Well, I can accept other payment,” High Build winked, causing Valeria to blush.

Vinyl coughed. “All nice and fine, but we sure can’t do this alone. We need workers, a lot of workers.”

“Not an issue,” High said as she reached into her bag and pulled out a notepad, “Celestia gave me this list of local builders, some of the best too. I was actually surprise she gave me so many… names…”

“Ha, she did know,” Valeria said, laughing.

“You know what… You’re right,” High mumbled.

Vinyl smiled. “So this shouldn’t be a problem. We’ve got everything we need to make this the best theater in the world. The only problem I have is imagining actually playing here. I’m not exactly the classical kind of mare, you know.”

High Build chuckled. “That’s easy. We can adjust the acoustics of the hall so it’ll fit the classical play nicely, but we can also hide some speakers so it will be also nice for your modern… what was it called again?”

“I’m a DJ,” Vinyl deadpanned.

“Ah, yes, that,” the pegasus waves a hoof dismissively. “I have no real taste in that sort of music, but everypony is just doing what they love.”

“You should’ve seen Tavi at my first performance after my comeback. I think I nearly blasted her out of her fancy dress.”

“I… can imagine,” Valeria smirked, causing Vinyl’s cheeks to heat up once more.

“What?! No! I didn’t mean it like that!” Vinyl groaned.

“I’m sure you didn’t,” Valeria replied before breaking out in hard guffaws along with High Build.

You two are horrible, just horrible,“ Vinyl huffed back.

“Don't be such a grumpy-cat,” High smirked.

“I'm not,” Vinyl glared. “Just because I'm-”

“VINYL SCRATCH. You are a dead mare!”

“What in the...” they all started together before Vinyl shrieked upon seeing a fuming Neon Lights stomping to them.

“Finally found you! Why the buck did you leave me hanging?” Neon asked, growling as he stopped barely an inch from Vinyl away.

“What? I never did!”

“The replacement for Sassaflash?” Neon asked and Vinyl's eyes widened in horror. “You promised to find one for me today. So what now?”

Valeria cut in. “Hold it there, Mister Lights. Vinyl was occupied with her marefriend being in the hospital, so she couldn't possible do anything she had on her list. And I would appreciate if you could stop venting your anger toward her,” she glared.

“Who are you?!”

“That, is Octavia's mother,” Vinyl replied.

“And what the hay does got she to do with this here?!”

“Neon, watch out what you say. She's helping me and Tavi. Now, as for your question. I'm getting you the damn replacement, just not now! I’ve got other things on my mind,” Vinyl said.

“The show is in one week! You’ve better have plans!” Neon shook his head. “Now come with me, we have to prepare for tonight.”

“Really? I have things to do here!” Vinyl whined.

Valeria smiled. “Go. We’ll do everything we can to make this place perfect.”

“And I’ll give you the blueprint first before starting anything!” High added. “I just need something before you go!”

“And what is that?”

“A sketch of your flank.”

“A sketch of what?!” Vinyl asked with wide eyes.

“Oops,” High giggled. “I need to sketch your cutie mark, so I can implement it without looking at your flank all the time.

“Alright...”

“Favourite colours?”

“Blue and grey,” Vinyl answered confused before grinning. “Wait, scratch that. Grey and Blue!”

“Why did I know something like this was coming?” Valeria joked with rolling eyes.

“Oh, shush!” Vinyl replied, blushing.

“Can we go now?” Neon asked with a groan.

“Alright, alright,” High said, laughing before quickly grabbing a parchment and a piece of coal from her bag. “This should only take a minute.”

Neon and Vinyl glared at each other while there was no sound except the scratching of the coal over the parchment. After what seemed like forever, but was really less than a minute, High was finally done. But she did it in her own way.

Vinyl shrieked as her flank was slapped with a wing and a bright grinning High Build sung, “Done!”

“I'm not sharing!” Valeria suddenly growled, causing Vinyl and High Build both to blink. “What? Not a good joke?”

Vinyl was the first that lost her composure and landed on the floor, laughing, with High only a second later.

Valeria just huffed. “Vinyl, you say I’m worse than you, yet you are here now, rolling on the floor laughing at me.”

“Yeah, yeah, fine.”

“Can we go now?” Neon asked again, rolling his eyes.

“Sure, we can go,” Vinyl shrugged before surprising Valeria by stepping up and hugging her. “I trust that you two will do everything to make this place a blast! And that you’ll have an answer for us soon.”

“Promised,” Valeria replied, smiling as they broke, and Vinyl quickly scattered after Neon who quickly left.

“An answer to what?”

“Vinyl asked me if I would like to live with her and Octavia. I haven’t said anything about it yet.”

“Well, sounds like a good idea to me,” High shrugged before looking back at the prints. “I think I have a great idea. Something to implement Octavia and Vinyl’s full potential into the design of this.” The pegasus quickly went into the air and performed a quick roll. “This will be so cool!”

Valeria chuckled before getting as close as she could to High and looking at the prints as well. “I have the feeling, that this will be a new start for all of us.”

Author's Notes:

Aaaand the last chapter.
Epilogue, and we're done!