Head splitting, mouth dry, Tarnished Teapot woke in a strange bed. It took him a moment to realise that it wasn’t his and Maud’s strange new bed in their apartment. No, this was somepony else’s strange bed. He tried to remember the night before. He had a vague, blurry memory of returning to Octavia and Vinyl Scratch’s apartment last night, sometime during the wee hours of the morning.

“What happened last night and why am I here?” Tarnish managed to croak out.

“Go back to sleep,” a sleepy voice replied.

Not Maud’s voice.

Tarnish’s whole body tensed with panic when he realised that was Octavia’s voice. “What happened last night?”

“Nothing, now go back to sleep,” Octavia replied in what was becoming a very grumpy voice. “Nothing happened. You were a perfect gentlepony. Which is why I offered to share my bed with you.”

“Why am I here?” Tarnish asked. He had a hazy recollection of drinking wine at the ball, and then, after coming home with Octavia and Vinyl, there had been something else. He tried to make his aching skull work but all he did was make his head hurt even worse. There was something about forty year old single malt whiskey lurking in his thoughts. He fought back his rising sense of panic, but was too hungover to fight very well. “I gotta go!”

“Tarnish, go back to sleep,” Maud said in a gritty voice that sounded full of gravel.

“Oh crap, what did I do, I’m so sorry—”

“Ugh,” Octavia grunted. “You didn’t do anything except indulge in a quaint Trottingham custom of sharing a bed. Now, go back to sleep.”

Half awake, hung over, Tarnish turned a bleary eye to his amulet. “I can’t go back to sleep… it’s turning purple… danger.”

Maud Pie, smacking her lips, lifted her head. “Both of you are in considerable danger. I need to go and get Tarnish’s special tea.” The earth pony blinked a few times as she tried to rouse herself from her somewhat hungover state.

“Vinyl gets grumpy if she doesn’t get her special tea in the mornings,” Octavia replied in a sleepy voice. “She’s very keen on Lady Grey tea and the Earl Grey doesn’t satisfy her.”

“No.” Maud wiggled next to Tarnish and struggled to get her eyes open. “No, you don’t understand. Tarnish can be dangerous without his tea. He is the living embodiment of poison joke.” Maud’s voice was a raspy, dried out monotone.

“Oh bother.” Octavia yawned, leaned over, and smooched Vinyl. “Vinyl, be a dear and conjure up whatever it is that they need, will you? This sounds serious. I’m going to go and have a wee and then we’ll start breakfast I suppose. I’ll get a kettle on.”

Sipping tea, Tarnish wished that he was just a bit more magical as a unicorn. He didn’t know how Vinyl had pulled the tea tin through the aether, but she had. All he had to do was concentrate on what he needed, touch horns with the sleepy looking mare, and with a poof, the tea tin had appeared upon the kitchen table.

Now, Vinyl was standing next to the stove, cooking breakfast. Tarnish looked at her, then at Maud, and tried to piece together last night. He ached all over and his head thudded in the most awful way.

“I woke up knackered and there was no nookie involved,” Octavia said as she stepped into the kitchen. She walked up and stood between Maud and Tarnish were they where sitting at the small table. She kissed Maud on the cheek and then, surprising Tarnish, she kissed him as well. Smiling, she sat down at the table.

“I wanted to say thank you for being on your best behaviour last night,” Octavia said as she got comfortable. She cleared her throat, her ears perked, and then she sniffed at the delicious aroma in the air. “Last night was lovely and Tarnish, you didn’t ruin it. I really do wish to thank you. Quite a few stallions”—Octavia paused, looked at Tarnish, and gave him a wry smile—“or colts as the case may be, would have said something stupid and boorish, like ‘Hey ladies, let’s make this a foursome’ or my personal favourite, ‘You’re only lesbians because you haven’t had a proper dicking yet.’ I tell you, it is getting harder and harder to trust males.”

Swallowing some tea, Tarnish felt his cheeks grow warm.

“Even just making friends is difficult. Everypony only wants to make friends so they can get something from me.” Octavia shook her head. “Or Vinyl. They want to get a hoof into the music industry. They want fame and fortune by association. And every stallion or colt I’ve ran into recently wants to give me a good rogering in me arse as a conquest. I tell you, the world has become dreadful.”

Maud, holding a teacup between her front hooves, lifted it up and took a sip as Octavia spoke. She said nothing, but did glance at Tarnish. Her ears perked for the merest moment and Maud did her best to convey to Tarnish just how proud she was of him.

“So, uh, what’s up with the bed thing?” Tarnish asked in a low voice.

Pouring a cup of tea, Octavia let out a husky laugh. “We’re all very poor in Trottingham. Well, I was. I grew up in a two bedroom rowhouse, the best thing my father could afford on a steel worker’s wages. We fillies all had a bedroom and one bed. We all slept together. My brothers, the two of them, they slept in the cellar when they got older. I guess it is because of how we grew up, but we Trottingham ponies tend to invite our guests to share our beds with us. Call it a quaint old world custom I suppose.” The grey mare’s brows furrowed. “I rather miss it, to be honest. That sense of togetherness.”

“And I suppose most stallions leap at the chance to take advantage of that,” Tarnish said, feeling just a little ashamed, without understanding why he felt ashamed. “I’m just really glad I didn’t make a fool of myself. The last time I got drunk, I was hung from a tree. It’s how I met Maud, actually.”

“Oh how dreadful, you poor dear.” Octavia’s eyes brimmed with genuine concern. “You poor darling, if somepony was to try and hang you from a tree, I might have to reveal my working class roots to the world at large and curbstomp them. There is a real shortage of gentleponies and that, well, that is quite a shame.”

“I was young and I was stupid.” Tarnish gulped down some hot tea and then stared down into his teacup, feeling a maelstrom of emotions. This was nice, this gathering around the breakfast table. This was pleasant. He suspected that Maud was happy to be making more friends. More than anything, he was relieved that he hadn’t done anything stupid, because something about this morning felt just as important as the ball the night before.

“This really is nice,” Octavia said, repeating her sentiment from earlier. “Vinyl and I just can’t seem to have friends without everything just going wrong. Vinyl especially… she’s… gifted. She’s the reason I’m famous. Vinyl, perhaps because she is mute, is gifted with the most perfect ears. She does more than disk jockey work. She’s a producer and a sound engineer. She takes my extraordinary music and she makes it magical. Everything Vinyl touches, she turns to gold. I don’t know how she does it, but being mute just adds to her mystique.”

“I just want to be a rock star,” Maud deadpanned.

Tittering, Octavia almost dropped her teacup. She let out a most unladylike snort and then set her teacup down upon the table. She looked at Maud, gave the mare a warm smile, and then looked at Tarnish. “She is amazing, isn’t she? That dry sense of humour. It’s like good gin on a cold, rainy day.”

“I love her more than life itself,” Tarnish replied.

“I can see why.” Octavia glanced over at the stove where Vinyl was cooking and her eye lingered on her mate. After a moment, she turned her gaze back to Maud and Tarnish. “I’ve missed this so much. This… what we’re doing right now. No expectations, no nothing, just a nice breakfast after waking up together. And the dancing last night… the dancing last night was spectacular.”

“The dancing was amazing. I’ve dreamed about having a night like that since I was a little filly. Didn’t think I’d ever find a partner though.” Maud’s ears drooped a little, a rare indicator of emotion. She glanced over at Tarnish and the corners of her mouth twitched ever so slightly.

Grinning, Vinyl scratch sauntered over to the table carrying four plates loaded down with food. She set the first plate down in front of Octavia, gave her a kiss, then set a plate down in front of Maud. After a moment of hesitation, there was a quick peck on the cheek. Stepping around Maud, she set the third plate down in front of Tarnish, grinned even wider, gave him a muzzle nuzzle, and then, after a moment of contemplation, she also gave Tarnish a chaste peck on the cheek after glancing at Octavia. Having served everypony, Vinyl sat down and set the fourth plate down in front of herself.

“Oh my,” Tarnish said as he looked down at his plate. Fried eggs, fried mushrooms, fried tomatoes, bits of what appeared to be fried squash, toast covered in beans, and hash browns. Everything looked so good that he didn’t know where to start.

As Tarnish sat there staring at his plate, Vinyl set down a platter full of scones upon the table and then there was a clunk as a jar of lime marmalade was set down near the scones. Vinyl was skilled with magic and Tarnish could not help but feel just a little bit jealous.

“So… how did you two meet?” Maud asked.

“We shared a bed,” Octavia replied with a hint of laughter in her voice. “I had just come here to Equestria. Was dirt poor and had nothing but a suitcase and a few coins. I had to sell my cello just to get passage across the ocean. I had to get away from Trottingham… I didn’t want to become a housewife or a steel worker. I met Vinyl in a train station in Fillydelphia. She was trying to get to Vanhoover, because she had a job waiting for her there, but she didn’t have enough bits for a train ticket. We put our bits together and got a sleeper compartment on the train.” Octavia’s eyes misted over and she stared down at her plate.

“So what happened when you got to Vanhoover?” Maud asked.

“Vinyl got stiffed.” Octavia scowled and her ears splayed out sideways. “The pony that was supposed to give her a job didn’t have one to give, but he suggested that we could work for him anyway… there are ways for a hard up mare to make money. It was all part of a ploy to lure down on their luck mares into prostitution and selling them in the lumber camps. I beat him to a bloody pulp and Vinyl stole his money.” Octavia paused and her ears perked up. “We got out of Vanhoover and away from that disgusting pimp. We took a train to Las Pegasus. Vinyl found work as a studio mixer and we met a very kind and very flamboyant stallion with the delightful stage name of Peacock. He helped me get a job with a house orchestra that did music for the nightly shows.” Octavia shook her head. “Those were hard times. Tough times. Vinyl and I had an efficiency flat with one little bed that we shared together. It was just us versus the world.”

“Somehow, you ended up here,” Maud said as she lifted up a spoon with her hoof.

“We stuck it out, together.” Octavia looked over at Vinyl and then back at Maud. “After a lot of effort and hard work, we got out of Las Pegasus. We came to Ponyville because it had cheap living. I got work in Canterlot making music and Vinyl also got work in Canterlot as a producer and sound engineer. Once we got settled, we had more time for our hobbies. Which is how we ended up here, with the two of you, eating breakfast after sharing a bed together.”

Tarnish, tucking into his plate of food, couldn’t help but feel that this was the beginning of a beautiful friendship. He liked Octavia and Vinyl. More importantly, it seemed that Maud also liked Octavia and Vinyl. Nopony enjoyed being alone, Tarnish understood that all too well, and it was nice to have friends. The trick was, finding the right ponies.

Octavia and Vinyl, another earth pony and unicorn couple, were the right ponies.

Author's Notes:

This might need touching up. Maybe. I don't know.

Edit: Also, go and read This story! It belongs in this universe! It's the future!