Vinyl Scratch inched her eyes open and yawned. Her blurry vision slowly focused on the unlit light on the ceiling, and she yawned again before stretching out and tossing the blanket off of herself. Blinking the grogginess from her heavy eyes, she slowly slid off the bed and wearily wobbled into the front room.

"Good morning, Sunshine! Or... Good afternoon, I should say." Octavia winked as she returned to her routine.

Vinyl stumbled onto the couch and wiped her tired eyes. "How long you been up?"

"Few hours," Octavia said, bent down with her nose touching her front hoof. "I'm still kind of on a third-shift schedule, you know?"

Vinyl raised an eyebrow and shook her head. "I gotta head out and do some stuff."

"Great! Can I come?" Octavia leaped up next to the couch, widening her eyes pleadingly.

Vinyl slid her shades over her eyes and frowned. "Sorry, I'm gonna have to say nnnnnn-of course you can! Let's go."

Vinyl chuckled and opened the front door, tossing her saddlebag over her shoulder.

Octavia frowned and pulled her back inside by the tail. "Wait, don't you want breakfast?"

"Uh, aren't the cupboards empty?" Vinyl asked, scratching her head.

"Nope! I picked a few things up while you were snoozing the day away," Octavia explained as she opened a cabinet stocked full of succulent-looking fruits and vegetables.

"A'ight. Toss me an apple and let's go. I'm kinda in a hurry."

Octavia lobbed a red fruit towards her friend, who caught it in her magic, and grabbed another for herself. Vinyl held the door open for Octavia, hurrying her out of the apartment. The pair then trotted out of the building and down the road out of the complex.

Octavia glanced at Vinyl's expression and bumped her shoulder. "Hey, something bothering you?"

"Nope." Vinyl sighed and shook her head, perking her ears and picking up her pace a little to keep up. "Just a little tired. You?"

"Tired?!" Octavia threw her hooves into the air. "How in Equestria could you be tired?! You slept for over twelve hours!"

Vinyl huffed and looked away. "I don't always sleep well in new places, I guess."

"Do you often sleep in new places?" Octavia asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Uh, no? But... I don't know. Does it matter?" Vinyl coughed and pressed forward, trotting ahead. "Since when do you ask so many questions anyway?"

Octavia put a hoof in front of her friend, stopping her. "I don't. I just think something else might be on your mind, and I want you to talk to me."

"Nothing to talk about, sorry." Vinyl ruffled Octavia's mane and shouldered past her.

With a sigh, Octavia returned to her side. As they walked, she began to eye the sidewalk, intentionally avoiding the cracks in the pavement and any stray pebbles. Glancing ahead, she gulped at the sight of a almost completely demolished panel of concrete in their path. As they approached it, she stopped and backed up while Vinyl trotted over the crumbled mess. With a quiet yell, she rushed forward and leaped over the broken sidewalk, carefully landing on the freshly paved panel where Vinyl now stood, startling her.

"Whoa there. What the heck are you doin'?"

"I'm entertaining myself, since somepony feels like clamming up today," Octavia explained, as if it were the most obvious thing in Equestria.

"Heh, sorry. I guess I'm still a little groggy." Vinyl waved at a passing carriage and nudged Octavia across the street. "Whatcha wanna talk about?"

"Well... How do you like the new place? I love it! Everything is so nice and spacious, and there's so much room for... activities!" Octavia beamed, her eyes glazing over a little.

"I can tell. You seem pretty happy to be outta that stuffy hotel room."

"Oh, I am! Everything's great. Thanks for helping me get to this point, by the way. I really owe you." Octavia nodded and pressed the button at the crosswalk to stop traffic.

"You owe me huh? Wanna pay up?" Vinyl pushed her glasses down and winked, looking her friend straight in the eye.

Octavia recoiled and gulped slightly. "Eh, what did you have in mind, exactly?"

"Oh, nothing major. Just cancel this stupid dinner thing you have planned."

"Whoa. No way. I absolutely will not cancel any dinner plans for this evening. It's just too short notice, you know?" Octavia stuck her nose up and began crossing the street.

Vinyl groaned and stomped along behind her, kicking an empty can across the road. "Have you even told Raindrops about this thing yet?"

"Maybe."

"Maybe?"

Octavia glanced over her shoulder and narrowed her eyes. "You're not weaseling your way out of this. It's set in stone. You promised..."

"Whatever." Vinyl picked up her pace and trotted ahead, her old apartment building in view. "But we're gonna go ahead and say you owe me two now."

"So be it." Octavia chuckled and began to hurry alongside her friend, when her eyes widened with sudden realization. "Wait a minute. Is that why you're so moody this morning? Is this dinner really bothering you that much?"

Vinyl sighed and lowered her head as they reached the front door of the old building. She levitated her key into the door and opened it up, signaling Octavia to go ahead of her with her hoof.

"Look, Tavz, I know you don't really get it, and who knows, maybe you're right and this whole thing will turn into some kind of great relationship. But I doubt it. I'm not really bothered to get my hopes up, and it's all kind of depressing when I really think about it, to be perfectly honest." Vinyl placed her hoof on the doorknob to her old home, and slowly wobbled it from side to side. "Do you know what time it is?"

"It should be around two o'clock, why?" Octavia shrugged, then rapidly shook her head and took a step back. "Wait a minute! Don't distract me, this is important stuff we're talking about here. Look, I think you're just reading too deeply into something that shouldn't be so complicated. This dinner is just so you two can get to know each other a little better outside of work. Or at least, well, I think that's what it's for. I'm not saying you two should get married, just hang out for a while and enjoy my fine cooking."

"Hmm, they're late..." Vinyl fidgeted for a moment longer, then opened the door and trotted in.

Octavia followed with her head tilted in bewilderment. "Huh? Who's late?"

"Ah, I called these guys yesterday morning and told them that I needed some stuff moved, but this cheap moving company is always super late. Serves me right for being on time, I guess." Vinyl shook her head and began kicking garbage off to the sides, clearing a pathway from the front door to her bedroom.

"Um, I thought we agreed that all of this furniture is staying here." Octavia cringed as her eyes locked on several dark grease stains and food remnants on the living room sofa.

"Yeah, that junk stays, but this baby goes wherever I go. I'm way too invested to part with it, no matter what." Vinyl delicately brushed the tip of her hoof across the top of her turntables, the dormant keypad looking potent beneath it.

"Oh, your instrument..." Octavia frowned, leaning against the wall.

Vinyl peeked out from her bedroom door and raised an eyebrow. "What, you don't like it?"

"No, no. I mean, yes. I do like it, but that's not what I was... Eh, what I mean to say is that the discontentment I'm currently expressing isn't directly related to your musical device. Although, its presence and your loyalty to it did inadvertently sadden me."

Vinyl scratched her head and tilted her neck as she lowered her shades. "Uh, you lost me..."

"Do you have this under control? I think there's something I should go do, and then I want to start preparing that dinner." Octavia waved with the tip of her hoof and ducked out the front door.

"Yeah, sure... It's all good." Vinyl muttered into the air as Octavia made her way out the front door of the building.

Octavia took in slow, deep breaths as she cantered down the city streets for several long minutes. Be strong. Be mature. Look good. You're great, you're doing great, your job is great, everything's great.

She spotted a familiar road sign and swallowed a deep lump in her throat.

'Burgundy Lane'

Taking a stroll down memory lane, Octavia headed up the hill towards the home she had grown up in. A small sign stood regally in her front yard, reading Oatsenburg Estates. She bumped the plank of wood being held by two chain links as she walked by, causing it to sway back and forth with a nostalgic squeak.

Tap Tap

She knocked and stood still, the habit of simply walking into the house quivering at the tip of her hooves. Before she could act, the door slowly opened, and a tall pink unicorn pulled her into a hug.

"Oh, Octavia! It's so good to see you again, darling. We've missed you so much." The unicorn lifted the small gray earth pony off her hooves and rubbed their cheeks together.

"Hi... Mom... I missed you too."

"Dear! Haynk! Guess who's home." The unicorn called out happily and carried her daughter inside.

The large gray stallion stood off his armchair and puffed on his pipe. "Hoho, you see? Didn't I tell you she'd be back?"

"Actually!" Octavia interrupted, sliding out of her mother's hold, "I'm just here to visit, as an adult. I'd appreciate a little respect from you two, or I'll be heading right back out the door."

Her parents glanced at one another, then back at their daughter. "Very well then, I'll fetch us some refreshments."

Octavia nodded as her mother trotted off, and took a seat at the desk facing the fireplace. "So, Father. How's life treating you these days?"

The stallion stared down at his once irritatingly rebellious daughter and stifled a skeptical chuckle. "Couldn't be better, unless you decided to come back home of course."

"Sorry to disappoint, but I'm well situated as of right now. Which is the real reason I'm here. Aside from a family visit, I realized it was inexcusably rude of me to have left all my old things lying around your home. I've decided to make an arrangement to have said things moved to my new residence." Octavia casually waved her hoof, huffing on the tip and shining it against her chest.

Haynk nodded respectfully and brushed his coat off before standing up and slowly stepping towards an old, oaken hutch. He leaned over it and faced away from Octavia, his large, golden hammer cutie mark gleaming beneath the overhead chandelier.

"So. It's finally happening, is it?" he muttered, his ears lowered.

"What's happening?" Octavia asked, as her mother returned with a silver tray of drinks.

Haynk sighed and took a glass in his hooves, taking a long sip. "Did you hear that, Mortrotia? Our little Octavia has become a respectable mare."

"Oh, has she now? Isn't that just precious. Do you need more bits darling? Is that why you're here? You do realize you can always just move back in if things are too hard or too scary out there. Would you like that?" Mortrotia asked, leaning down and rubbing her muzzle against her daughter's.

Octavia shuddered and backed away, beginning to turn towards her old room. "No, Mom! I don't need bits! I'm here to let you two know that somepony will be here to get my stuff later! That's it."

"Ah, there's the Octavia we know and love..." Haynk muttered into his wife's ear.

"I'm sorry darling, I didn't mean to upset you. Come give mommy a hug and make it all better, yes?" Mortrotia chased after the young mare, carrying two glasses of refreshments in her deep blue aura of magic.

Octavia slammed her bedroom door shut and latched a small lock on the inside.

Tap Tap Tap

The unicorn rapped on the door, her incessant pestering ringing in Octavia's ears. The young mare yanked her door open, and her mother stumbled forward, tripping over a small pile of bowties and dropping the refreshments onto the floor.

With her cello slung around her back, Octavia trotted out of the room and into the hallway. "I'll expect that mess cleaned by next week, Mother, I'd hate to make a bad impression on the movers."

Her mother following close behind, she stepped into the living room with her nose up high. Without a glance back, she placed her hoof on the front door and took a deep breath. "I'll take this off your hooves for now. And Mother, Father, I'd love to have you both over for dinner sometime soon. I'll have my address delivered when I send for my things. See you soon."

"Yeah, right..." Octavia muttered to herself as she closed the door. She shuddered and tightened the strap on her cello's case as she began her trek home.

Utter bafflement perpetrated the Oatsenburg Estates, as young Octavia confidently trotted down the sidewalk and out of the neighborhood she had grown so accustomed to.

"Dear Haynk, I do believe our precious little Octavia has become stricken with madness. I fear her mind is unstable, should we do something?" Mortrotia asked, clinging onto her husband as she fanned her face with a silk cloth.

"She'll be back in the safety of her room soon enough, respecting us the way she should, my love. I'll make sure of that."

"No! NO, NO, NO! Be careful, will ya?!" Vinyl bit down on the tip of her sunglasses as she anxiously supervised the ponies relocating her precious musical equipment. "Watch the sides!"

The two brutish stallions grumbled as they held the elaborate turntable in their magic, one a deep forest green and the other a vibrant sky blue. Sweat beaded around their necks as they strained to keep the heavy object steady through the thin corridors of the apartment building.

"I swear, you pair get ONE scratch on that thing, and I'm not paying you a single bit! That was the agreement, so be more careful." Vinyl placed her hooves to her temples and sighed. "And hurry it up will ya? I've got things to do."

Each stallion rolled his eyes and set the large contraption down.

"Whoa, what do you guys think you're doing? You don't get paid hourly, so move your flanks!" Vinyl clapped her hooves and tapped on the top of her turntables.

"We're takin' a break. You gots a problem wit dat, missy?" one stallion muttered as he lit up a cigarette.

"Yeah, I have a problem with it. I'm paying you chumps to perform a service, not to sit on your big, stupid plots all day. That's it, I'm calling your manager." Vinyl grabbed a corded phone off the wall and began bashing random keys.

The stallions glanced at each other as the angsty young unicorn held the phone to her ear.

"Hello, I'd like to report a problem I'm having with two of your movers, please. Yes, I'll hold." Vinyl glared at the two sitting at the bottom of the stairway. "You're in for it now."

"Fine! Hang up the phone and we'll move the dang thing." The green stallion dropped his cigarette and stomped it out.

"Make it snappy! And make it careful!" Vinyl dropped the disconnected phone and trotted after them.

She clung to her precious DJ equipment, placed snugly in the back of a large, open carriage, as the stallions carried it across town to its new home.

Octavia merrily cantered down the sidewalk of a more comfortable part of town with a bright smile on her face and her nose pointed to the sky as she neared her new home. The warm sun fell over her gleaming gray cheeks and she felt as if she might burst into song at any moment. The familiar sensation of her cello thumping against her back as she trotted sent jolts of nostalgia coursing through her limbs.

With the apartment complex in sight, she picked up her pace. She pushed through the front doors and made her way to the elevator as it was closing, but a young light gray pegasus held the door.

"Thank you for that." Octavia smiled and bowed her head.

"No problem. You play? Is that a viola?" the other pony asked, nudging Octavia's case with a hoof.

"It's actually a cello. It's a bit smaller than your average, but much larger than a viola. It was custom-made for me when I was young and just learning how to play, and I can't bring myself to let it go. I do intend to buy a new, more full-sounding instrument when I have the money," Octavia explained as she unbuckled the case.

She lifted the instrument out of its case and held it up for the pegasus to marvel at.

"Wow, this is very nice. I bet it cost quite a bit," she said, her eyes running down the neck as the light gleamed from its polish.

"I'm not sure. It was a gift."

"Trust me, this thing cost somepony a shiny bit or two. My name's Harmony by the way." The pegasus reached her hoof out and smiled.

Octavia glanced down at it for a moment, then hastily gripped it between her own two. "Oh, of course! I'm Octavia, and it's nice to meet you... I also happen to find you very familiar. Do you live here in the complex?"

"I do, but then again you may have seen me performing somewhere. I play violin and I've been touring around the city. I'm really hoping for a record deal, and to be able to travel around all of Equestria playing my music. Oh, but look at me rambling on about myself. What do you do?" The pegasus fluttered her lashes and took a step back while Octavia put her instrument away.

"I, well... I work in the entertaining business as well... Anyway, did you say that you performed at a place called eClipse?"

"I actually did pretty recently, is that where you saw me?"

Ding

The elevator opened up at Octavia's floor, where she saw Vinyl directing two clumsy stallions. "Come on, you lazy chumps. Move your flanks! You're taking too damn long."

Octavia smacked herself in the face, her hoof slowly sliding down and wiping her smile away. "Well, it's been a pleasure meeting you. This is my floor, so I guess I'll talk to you later. Bye."

The pegasus chuckled and took a step back as the doors closed shut.

"What's going on? Why so... rackety?" Octavia hushed the two stallions and smacked Vinyl's horn.

"Sorry, Tavz, but you gotta be stern with these brutes or they don't listen," Vinyl explained with an apologetic frown.

"I understand that, but you're making quite a scene here and we're still new. Seems kinda, I don't know... bad?" Octavia threw on a wide smile and waved at an older mare fidgeting to get her key in a door further down the hall. "Don't mind us, we'll be out of the way and quiet in no time." The mare glared back as she got her door open, and Octavia pretended to be looking elsewhere.

The two stallions finally maneuvered the cumbersome object into the building and Vinyl sighed a deep sigh of relief. "Alright, you two get out of here. And please exit quietly. Folks around here don't take too kindly to racket, apparently. Now, shoo. No tip for you slackers."

Octavia rushed in and circled the large, bulky turntables. "Are you going to need help moving these somewhere? And you do realize that you can't play them loudly or anything like that, right?"

Vinyl chuckled and snatched a pair of large, expensive-looking studio headphones off the side of the stand and wrapped them around her neck. "That's what these bad boys are for."

"Ear muffs?" Octavia giggled, trotting into the kitchen.

"They're headphones, dipwit. Jeez..." The unicorn began sliding her machine across the carpet and into her bedroom.

"Dipwit?" Octavia glared at her friend as she scooted her turntables across the floor. "Yeah, well. Feel free to help with this dinner if you aren't too busy being a name-caller."

The gray mare opened the cupboards and rifled through them, pulling out a sauté pan and several ingredients. She hummed a familiar tune as she lined the pan with olive oil and set it on the burner. With a bulb of garlic and a whole onion sitting on the counter, she lifted a knife in her hoof and set it down on the center of a cutting board, then began hesitantly peeling the dry, flaky skin from the shiny purple onion.

"So, how can I help?" Vinyl trotted around the kitchen island in circles as her friend shrugged and continued peeling.

Octavia then sliced the onion down the center, leaving its halves face down on the cutting board. "Here, you can chop this thing up. I hate cutting onions."

The unicorn lifted the large knife in her hoof, a trail of light sliding down the razor-sharp blade as she inspected it. "How small should I cut it?"

"Uh... It doesn't really matter too much, just imagine how it'll look when the meal's finished," Octavia said as she dropped a large red tomato on the cutting board. "Slice and seed this when you're done with the onion, but make sure you rinse the knife first. And hurry please."

Vinyl bit her tongue and nodded as she began roughly chopping the onion into random chunks and bits, using her magic to guide the knife. Octavia glanced over her shoulder and giggled at the mess as she crushed the garlic.

"That'll do." The gray mare snatched the onions and dumped them into the pan with the garlic.

They sizzled and popped as she stirred them around. "Mmm, smells good already. How's that tomato coming along?"

Vinyl snapped back to the cutting board and poked at the round vegetable with her knife. "How do I seed it?"

"Um... Here, watch me do it, and then you can do it next time." Octavia took the knife away and forcefully swatted down on the tomato, its halves slowly falling to each side.

She proceeded to cut the gooey centers out and dice the rest, hastily repeating the process with a second tomato.

Vinyl crossed her hooves and scoffed. "How did you learn to do all this? Aren't you from, like, a privileged family, or something?"

"Well, obviously, the butlers and servants showed me how to do this when I snuck out of my palace tower, duh."

"Palace... tower?" Vinyl cocked her neck and raised an eyebrow.

"Don't be silly. My parents often had me prepare dinners for them and our house guests. I suppose it was my father's way of showing off his respectful, obedient daughter." Octavia's voice dripped with contempt as she forcefully scraped the tomatoes into a small mixing bowl and and turned to the rest of her ingredients. "I thought it was fun when I was younger, but for some reason I began to hate it, and just saw it as another chore... Well, needless to say, I got used to it pretty quickly. It isn't all that hard."

Octavia smiled brightly and gave the knife back to Vinyl.

"Now, we'll slice the rest of these similar to the tomatoes, but don't worry about the seeds. Keep them separate as well."

Vinyl slid her knife through the veggies and mimicked Octavia's previous dicing. "You're right. This isn't so hard at all. A little boring, but not hard."

Octavia shook the pan with a hoof. "Are those vegetables chopped? It's time to add them to the mix."

She took the cutting board and scraped the sliced eggplant into the sizzling pan.

"Why don't we just put it all in there at the same time?" Vinyl peeked over Octavia's shoulder and eyed the steaming food.

"Cooking them in the proper order will affect the texture of each ingredient as the meal cooks. For example, these onions are losing their bitterness and becoming quite soft, and this takes longer to happen than it does for the eggplant to finish. So, if I had put them in at the same time, the eggplant would be overcooked." Octavia placed the wooden spoon into the unicorn's hoof and turned to the rest of the ingredients.

"Ah, that makes sense. I guess. So, is this stuff really good? Because it's looking pretty nasty."

"Yes, it's rather disgusting. I'm hoping Raindrops will take one look at it and run for cover." Octavia shook her head and sprinkled thyme onto the mixture before dumping red and green peppers, squash, and zucchini on top. "Now, mix that up."

"Right... Well, I guess I'm not used to this kind of food." Vinyl shuddered at the sight of the wilting eggplant and covered it beneath a pile of peppers.

"We'll order you a pizza if this goes well."

Vinyl rolled her eyes and flipped the veggies around in the pan. "What about the tomatoes?"

"Just let that cook for a few more minutes and I'll dump them in when it's ready." Octavia trotted up behind Vinyl, mixing the bowl of tomatoes and basil together.

"How will you know when it's ready?"

"You can time it, or once you've cooked a meal a few times, you'll just kind of recognize the way it looks when it's ready."

Vinyl wiped the steam off her glasses and stepped aside as Octavia added the rest of the mix into the pan. She leaned back against the counter and watched her expertly tossing the sizzling vegetables around in the pan. The unicorn lowered her shades while Octavia wiped a drop of sweat from her brow and began washing her hooves.

"A pinch of salt, a dash of pepper, and voilà. Doesn't this smell good? Set the table, I caught Raindrops on her way home from work this morning and told her to be here tonight at six o'clock. So we have about fifteen minutes before she arrives." Octavia shuffled a few plates from the cabinet and dropped them onto the kitchen island. "First, we need to clean this mess up, since we don't exactly have a dining room table yet..."

Vinyl sighed as her smile slowly slipped away. "Tavz, why exactly are you doing this? I mean, why do you even care?"

Octavia stopped moving and turned to face Vinyl. "I'm not sure what you're asking me."

"I don't know. It doesn't matter." Vinyl shook her mane out of her face and spread the plates, two large and two small.

"Okay then? You alright?" Octavia slowly pulled the pan off the burner and covered it.

"Mm-hmm." Vinyl nodded.

"You nervous?" A devious grin formed on Octavia's face.

"About what?" the unicorn chuckled and slouched against the living room sofa, tapping on the cello case that leaned next to her.

"You wanna see that or something? Go ahead and open it up." Octavia trotted to the case and unlatched it.

Vinyl lifted the top, the hinges creaking as she slowly let it fall open. The setting sun's bright rays lit up the cello's glossy finish, the silver-plated steel strings gleaming.

"Ooh, shiny."

Octavia lifted it out of its case and twirled it around. "It's more than shiny. This was my best friend growing up."

"That explains your amazing social skills at least. Is this what you went to go do while I was busy busting my flank earlier?" Vinyl asked, falling backwards onto the couch.

"Yes, actually. I visited my parents so I could pick this up. It's pretty old and a bit small, but I still love it. When I played at the gala or other big events, I always got to use some other, more fancy cello, but this one is special." She lifted her bow and twirled it around in her hoof, her ankle popping as it stretched.

"So play something." Vinyl leaned up and grinned, her pearly white smile sparkling.

"Sure thing, just let me... Hmm..." Octavia cleared her throat and hummed a low pitched note as she tightened the C string back to its proper tune.

Vinyl flopped over onto her chest and propped her chin up on her front hooves as she watched her friend focusing on the pitch of each string. The cellist closed her eyes and carefully ran her bow across each string, fine tuning them to precision. The warm sun washed over her face as she leaned up and stroked the A string and opened her eyes.

"Alright, I'm ready. Let's see if you like this." She lifted her bow and took a deep breath, the notes she was preparing to play flashing through her head, her hooves ready to act on muscle memory.

She placed the bow to the string, and—

BZZZT

"That must be her!" Octavia quickly sat her cello down and skipped into the kitchen. "So, um, you just... uh, go get ready, and I'll go let her in, then I'll serve you two, and... Yeah, I'll go let her in now. Get ready!"

"Get ready?" Vinyl scratched her head as Octavia rushed out the door and into the elevator. "Eh... alrighty then."

She dragged her hooves into the kitchen and slumped into her chair, letting her face fall flat against the table and her hooves hang limp. The smell of freshly cooked eggplant filled her nostrils and she cringed as her stomach churned. Don't be nervous... It's gonna be fine.

"And here we are!" Octavia opened the front door and stood aside, winking at Vinyl as she did so.

The unicorn leaned up and rested her glasses over her horn as she watched Raindrops enter. She fluffed her wings and stretched her legs, loosening a long black scarf. Her mane was brushed neatly to one side and a silky black bow sat atop it, adorning her.

"Hey, welcome. Hope you didn't have trouble finding the place." Vinyl waved and put on her brightest smile.

Raindrops gulped and looked away, her eyes wide as she stared at Octavia and whispered forcefully, "You didn't say Vinyl was going to be here!"

"Oh, that's right. Vinyl is my roommate. I figured you two could have dinner together and talk about stuff. You know." She nudged the flustered pegasus into the kitchen. "Take a seat here, and I'll get you some food."

As Octavia scooped the fresh ratatouille onto their plates, the other mares fidgeted in their seats, glancing around the kitchen, looking anywhere but at each other.

"Mmm, this sure looks good." Octavia smiled wide and bowed her head as she backed into the other room. "Feel free to chat it up... in private... I'll be over here, in the other room. Eat up."

Vinyl forced her hooves against her eyes and shook her head. "Yeah, we're good, Tavz. Thanks."

Raindrops cleared her throat and poked at her meal with her fork. "This looks good. Did Octavia make it all?"

"Pretty much, but I helped quite a bit." Vinyl took a bite and slowly chewed on it.

Octavia scoffed from the living room sofa. "Psh! Yeah, right."

"Hey, I did all the chopping, and I stirred it and stuff!"

"Yeah, you're right. I couldn't have done it without you. Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to provide some romantic background music for your meal." Octavia lifted her cello and began quietly gliding her bow across the strings, a soft tone resonating.

Raindrops cleared her throat again and took a bite of food. "So, you knew I was gonna come over then?"

Vinyl shook her head. "Nope."

"Oh. Well, you didn't seem too surprised when I showed up."

The unicorn shrugged and took another bite. "I was a little."

"Ah..."

They sat eating quietly while Octavia's music grew louder and more complex. The cellist began practicing an elaborate and complicated scale, running her hoof up the neck and hitting a sour note, only to start from the beginning and repeat the process, always missing her mark at some point. With each off-note and pause, Vinyl's eye began to twitch. Octavia then began to repeatedly strike the note with her hoof, hammering it over and over.

"I think maybe my string needs to be replaced."

"I think maybe you should go do something else for a while!" the unicorn snapped.

Raindrops jumped in her seat and Octavia set her bow down. "Easy there. I'll go play with this somewhere else. I think there's a nice park behind the building."

She slung her case over her back and waved at her friends as she opened the front door. "Try and enjoy yourself a little, Vinyl. I worked hard setting this up."

The door latched closed and Vinyl sighed.

"So, how's it goin'?" Raindrops asked, her mouth full of eggplant.

"A'ight, I guess. You?" Vinyl twirled her veggies around with her fork and grunted.

"It's going well. I actually sent off my application to get into The Wonderbolts Academy today. It's not for a pretty long time, but it sounds like a lot of fun." The pegasus spread her wings and beamed.

"Huh, you don't exactly seem cut out for that sort of thing."

The pegasus' wings fell limp and her ears flattened. "Right, I just thought it'd be fun..."

"Sorry. I'm sure it will be. That is, if you like getting screamed at all day." Vinyl forced a smile.

Raindrops shrugged and took a deep breath, a smile returning to her face. "Okay, so Vinyl. I'm sure Octavia has told you by now that I like you, and want to get to know you better. We're pretty chummy at work, and I thought we could, like, go out together or something."

"Yeah, that'd be cool. I'll let you know when I have some free time." Vinyl stood up and scooped the rest of her food into the garbage disposal.

"Okay, great! Just let me know anytime, and we can do whatever you want." The pegasus placed her empty plate into the sink and leaned in front of the unicorn with her bright blue eyes.

"Cool." Vinyl turned away and headed into the living room, where she flopped down onto the couch.

Raindrops stood silently in the kitchen and waited awkwardly. She sighed and slumped down into a seat, resting her head on her front hooves. "So, should I leave now?"

"Do whatever you want." Vinyl muttered as she closed her eyes and stretched out.

With a deep, painful sigh, Raindrops tightened her scarf and fixed her bow, then headed to the front door. As she turned the knob and pulled it open, Vinyl called out.

"Hey, hold on."

"What is it?" the pegasus asked, latching it back shut.

"I don't know... Look, I'm sorry I'm not being like super-friendly and stuff. I just don't know how I should act around you, and... Guh, I don't know." Vinyl wiped her muzzle and let her head fall back flat against the arm of the sofa.

With a joyful grin, Raindrops fluttered to the opposite arm and took a seat. "That's alright. You can act however you want around me. We're friends, and I'm not gonna judge you, so... Just do and say whatever you want to? And if you feel like it, ask me anything."

Vinyl leaned up and removed her glasses, her deep red eyes meeting her friend's bright blue ones. "Why do you like me so much?"

Octavia took a seat on a bench beneath a tree, the rest of the buildings in the complex surrounding her, as if to encase the small serene meadow. Across the grassy clearing, she spotted a small playground with several young foals laughing and running. As the sun faded, mares and stallions called their foals back indoors, and a chilly evening breeze blew through the leaves overhead.

She smiled, and took in the fresh, cool air before unlatching her case and removing the instrument within. Already flawlessly tuned, she stood off her bench and began to play. Rather than a display of her mastery of the instrument, she slowly rocked her bow back and forth with her eyes closed. Her hoof gently walked up and down the strings as she twirled around the cello.

The deep notes flowed through the air, filling the silent evening with somber tones as she played her haunting refrain. She looked to the stars as they appeared one by one above the setting sun, her cycle of notes growing louder as the piece became slightly more symphonic. She imagined a violin playing along side her in perfect harmony, a third above the smooth melody she was coaxing from her cello. She dropped down an octave and began to play an ascending circle of fifths. To her ears, the violin followed into a perfect canon, just a single beat behind her.

Invigorated, the mare closed her eyes again as she reached the highest string, and she struck three soft staccato notes, which the violin mimicked as Octavia's hoof fell into a rapidly falling arpeggio. At the end of each phrase, she jumped back up, starting one note lower than the previous time. As she began to run out of lower notes to play, she changed the melody and started to pedal on the open low string, alternating between two short notes on it, and one longer one an octave above. The violin in her head began to ascend the minor scale, and this time, Octavia followed it, still pedaling the low note on the offbeats. The melody sort of sounded similar to the one that...

Abruptly, her eyes snapped open and she stopped playing, the final note echoing between buildings. The violin, however, continued the melody for a few more notes. Octavia glanced over her shoulder to see a gray pegasus standing behind her with a shiny black violin pressed against her neck. Harmony?

"Hey, why'd ya stop? I was diggin' that." She dropped her bow to the ground and frowned.

"Oh, I hadn't realized... I kind of thought I was imagining that. How long have you been out here?" Octavia blushed and fidgeted with her bow.

"A while. I saw you out here from my window, and thought I'd join you. It is a pretty nice day to play. You're pretty good by the way." The pegasus fluttered over the bench and took a seat.

Octavia nodded and sat next to the mare. "Thanks. You are too, but I already knew that."

"You should show me your best later, and maybe I can get you a spot on stage with me some night. Like a guest appearance or something. Could be good for you if you're looking to get your name out there. I realize I'm not exactly a star, but I'm known around the city, and that's a start."

"That sounds great, but I don't know if I'd be allowed to. Maybe if it falls on one of my days off," Octavia said as she placed her cello back into its case behind the bench. "Anyway, I should probably be getting back now."

"Aw, you can't stay for a minute? We just met, and I'd like to know you a little better." Harmony smiled and twirled her bow around.

Octavia put on a bubbly smile and leaned on the bench. "Okay, sure! What did you wanna talk about?"

"Well... How long have you lived here?"

"Canterlot? My whole life. This apartment? Since yesterday." Octavia answered and let her hooves dangle from behind the bench as she slouched over. "How long have you been playing violin?"

"In general? Since I was just a blank flank with a tiny fiddle. Professionally? For a couple months." She stood off the bench and leaned in close to the mare's face. "I think you seem pretty cool, and you're a good cellist too, which is definitely a plus by me. Wanna come hang out at my place for a while?"

Octavia stood up and backed away. "That sounds like a lot of fun and all, but I should really be getting back to my roommate and her friend. Maybe some other time?"

Harmony shrugged with a chuckle and fluttered over Octavia back to the door of the complex. "I'll hold you to that."

With a wink, the pegasus trotted through the door with her violin balanced carefully on her back and let it close behind herself. Octavia sighed and placed her front hooves over her heart, leaning her head back. Squawking, she flinched and stumbled backwards over the bench as she spotted Harmony giggling through the window. Blushing profusely, Octavia leaned up and peeked over the back of the bench, only catching a glimpse of Harmony's long blonde tail as she trotted down the hallway and away from the window.

"How rude. I could have been hurt." The blushing mare brushed herself off and slung her cello case over her back, heading back into the building and making her way to the elevator.

As she cantered down her hall, she spotted Raindrops, who was skipping in her direction with a girlish smirk and blush across her cheeks. Her mane was messy and her scarf was loosely dangling around her neck, and as she approached, Octavia noticed she was catching her breath.

"You look happy. So I assume it went well?"

The yellow pegasus nodded rapidly and fluttered into the elevator giggling. "Yeah. Thanks for dinner!"

"Sure, no... problem," Octavia muttered with a raised eyebrow as the doors closed.

She swallowed hard and trotted into her apartment, spotting Vinyl blissfully sprawled out across the sofa with her glasses on the middle of the floor. "What happened?"

Vinyl chuckled and shrugged. "Nothin'."

"Oh, okay then."

Octavia trotted into her room and leaned the cello up against the wall. She fell backwards onto her bed and closed her eyes. Images of Raindrops and Vinyl kissing and cuddling flashed through her head and she smacked herself in the face. She slowly opened her eyes and stared up at the blank white ceiling.

"You alright?" Vinyl opened the door and leaned against the doorway.

"Of course! Are you?" Octavia jumped up and fixed her mane.

"Yeah. So, the date thing went better than I thought it would, and I invited Raindrops to come back over later. Same time next week actually, because we'll both be off then." Vinyl fiddled with the knob and stared at the floor.

"Okay, that's great." Octavia mare forced a smile. "Should I cook dinner again?"

"Sure, which reminds me..." Vinyl jumped onto the bed next to her friend, causing her to fall over.

"What?" Octavia laughed and jumped back up.

"You promised me a pizza if this went well, so I'm collecting payment." The unicorn beamed a sheepish grin and poked Octavia in the ribs.

"You are absolutely right, I'll go and order that right away. Oh, and maybe we can play a board game!" Octavia rushed into the living room and grabbed a phone off the wall, glancing at the phone book, which had the name and number of a pizza delivery company on the cover.

"What kind of board game?"

"Shh." Octavia wagged her hoof and stepped around the corner. "I'd like one large pizza please. Extra mushrooms, extra onions, extra olives... and extra anything else you can think of."

Vinyl rolled her eyes and jumped onto the couch. Octavia hung up and followed her over, leaning on the back of the couch and wearing a soft smile.

"I've got Cloperation, Guess Whooves, Glue, Horsopoly, Apples to Apples, Unocorn, and Scraddle. The store down the street from where I lived used to sell a lot of these at unbelievably low prices." Octavia pulled the various boxes off a shelf and spread them across the floor, taking a seat. "You know, I never got to play these as a foal, since I didn't have any siblings or friends."

Vinyl stifled a pang of empathy and bumped her friend on the shoulder. "Well, you pick one then. We can play whatever you want. And hopefully that pizza gets here soon."

"Scraddle it is." Octavia opened the box and began setting up the game, shuffling the letter tiles in a small silver bag and turning the board so that it faced her.

Vinyl slowly took a seat on the floor with her and began rearranging her tiles into words. "You know what?"

"What?" Octavia looked up and tilted her head.

"This is nice. I mean, not being alone at night. I'm glad we did this."

Octavia stood up and moved over to her, giving her a quick hug and returning to her seat.

"Yeah, me too."

Author's Notes:

It's been about five months or so, but here we are with an update... one huge update...

Make sure to thank Silver Cloud for all the hard work he put into editing this, and the rest of the chapters. Fun fact: He helps out tremendously with all the musical scenes. I pretty much wrote the most basic version of what you see in each of the musical scenes of this story, and he amps it up to something amazing.

If you haven't yet, check out his making of Vinyl's song from the second chapter. Here.

If you like that, plenty more of his non-pony related music can be found here!

Don't forget to comment and let me know what you think of this. Peace!