//------------------------------// // Chapter 1: Cascade // Story: Everything Ends... // by Harold_Genhi //------------------------------// The day holds no enjoyment for me as I try, once again, to stand on my hind legs to play my cello. I feel the familiar tug on my ribs and gingerly retreat. I wish they would heal faster, but the doctors had explicitly withheld magical healing from me. They would not say why, which only irritated me more. Vinyl pops in and out throughout the day, poking her head into the room, spotting me staring out the window, not out of longing, but out of annoyance. She slowly ceases checking me, which subsides my nerves, which were slowly growing short at the care that wasn’t necessary. I hold my breath and shut my eyes, feeling the rays of the sun through the window as it reflects off of the white snow. Eyn must be cold. As I blink, Eyn decides to answer the question for me. He stands at the gates of the castle, feeling the door with his magic. Two guards are pinned against the wall, eyes shut, and their chests never rising or falling for breath. Dead. I feel my heart race, his meticulous, though foreign, thoughts working carefully at the locks on the door. His calm and pleasure in the situation frightens me more than the Everfree. With two more guards on his body count, he proceeds to commit what I assume to be less than noble intentions. Before I can even ask him a question, a faint click echoes in his acute ears. The door has been successfully opened. He smiles at it thoughtfully before he turns away from it, the lock sliding back into place, the two bodies falling to the ground limply, and their breathing resuming as if they had simply fallen asleep. “I expected better locks, though with no memory of me, I knew security would be light at best.” He sounds amused as he vanishes around the corner, just as the guards open their eyes and look at each other embarrassed. If only they knew my plan. My plan? Eyn smiles just as my own mouth cracks into the same smile. It wasn’t forced, but my own genuine attitude though I couldn’t rightly explain the sensation. “If you could go in and do what you want, why didn’t you just do it now? Why are you waiting?” I discover myself strangely annoyed at his decision to relock the doors and leave. A part of me senses the happiness one would expect to witness two guards live, but it never emerges. “It isn’t the right time. I will wait a few more weeks. I wouldn’t want your concert to be canceled.” He shuts his eyes, blinding me to his world, though I can feel him walking. I lose track of time as he drags himself around, chatting to me along the way, small meaningless dribble. I wish he would stop talking and just get his plan over with. I hate him and he can sense my distaste. “Why do you care if you ruin my concert? How does that hold you back?” I ask, exasperated at the strange logic. “I think we will all learn a lesson about harmony when all of Equestria hears you two play.” He opens his eyes revealing a brick wall. “Time to take another step. You know you want it.” With just a simple blink, I find myself back in my room, the sun slowly setting on the horizon. Tomorrow, I get my stitches out and these constricting bandages off. Tomorrow, I get to wallow in the knowledge that Eyn is purely capable of sneaking into the castle at night and killing everypony with just a thought. I know that I can trust him, but I don’t want to feel it. He set everything. He is the grand puppeteer. He is always in control. My body feels useless while I just sit in my chair. In a few more weeks, Vinyl and I will be showing Equestria a different form of music, one that will blow their monocles right off of their faces. It will also be the day that Eyn enacts his plans. I couldn’t cancel or move the date of this concert since it was Princess Celestia that placed it. Then there is the concern of my own thoughts. The joy I experienced, the elated sensations of cracking the locks concerned me. What was I enjoying, and why was I enjoying it? I retrace my memory to the still fresh moment. It wasn’t me feeling it though it was my thoughts. Deep down they began to grow increasingly louder until I heard them, chilling me to the bone. “Kill Celestia… make her suffer.” I whisper, my heart constricting and freezing to the words. “Are you ever going to stop staring out that window?” Vinyl trots into the room, happily not holding another bowl of soup. “I’ll stop staring out of it when you give me a reason not to.” I toss a smile at Vinyl who jumps into my chair, lying behind me, her body contouring to mine. I blush instinctually. The tightness fades from my body as Eyn’s words, my words, dissolve. “And what would you have me do?” Her breath plays on my neck. I sense her smiling when she catches me shiver slightly. No pony could help but find joy when Vinyl beamed the happiness in her heart. Eyn’s words hit me almost instantly. “You know you want it.” I do want it as much as it frightens me. My nerves tremble. I breathe slowly to calm and ready myself for a bold leap. Repositioning myself, I softly turn to meet Vinyl’s eyes. She isn’t wearing her glasses. I lose myself in the large crimson rings of her irises; her black pupils reflecting my image back at me, stoic face Octavia, if she only knew of the battle inside of my head. As I stare, her eyelids began to drop, her face nearing mine. My heart beats faster as my mind attempts to withdraw the memories of how her kissing played on my lips, but it emerges in a garbled mess. Our noses touch as she slowly slides across the bridge, though her lips never nearing mine as I open my mouth to receive them. I could feel the inexperience clouding my judgment as I cracked my eyes open to witness her plans, but I observed none of the sort. She pulls her nose back, her eyes now closed as my body turns toward her, our legs weaving together as we resumed our nose play. The smile that evolves from my fluttering nerves causes our cheeks to touch as our next nose rub dips further. Is this how she expressed love to her ex-lovers. My eyes shut as the play continues, her nose traces down mine, her head turning more, the angle almost perfect to connect with my lips, but I don’t open them to her teases. We don’t kiss. Instead, we hold ourselves closer to each other, letting the other’s body envelop the other in a loving embrace. It is what every mare could ask for in terms of comfort. My mind rests, in peace after so much, no outside forces intruding. I listened to him, and now I desire my peace. “Vinyl…” I whisper, holding her close. “Yeah?” She whispers back, though it cracks slightly at trying to be quiet. She stares at me, her ears perked up, waiting for my words. I look at her, my eyes shifting all around her features, and I simper and hum slightly at the heat that evolved from our close bodies. I had never shared such a loving embrace with another pony. “What?” She asks, laughing with what I would guess to be an awkward silence. I never speak. Instead, I feel my face move forward, my heart fluttering as my brain realizes how close I am to her. Our lips only brush briefly, but the sensation still fills me. My bravery ceases at the small touch, but Vinyl eases her face forward again, softly placing her lips on mine. Eyes closed, heart pounding, I am paralyzed at first. I consider this the first kiss that we have shared under peaceful conditions, and it makes all the difference. I softly breathe through my nose as I pull away from her lips, my eyes managing to open and gaze upon her. Her eyes are still shut, but the smile on her face is fresh. “You’re a good kisser, Tavi” Her voice is soft. “Frederic was a lucky stallion.” “We never kissed.” I say, waiting for her eyes to open. They open slowly at my response. “I thought you two were going to be getting married or something.” “This is strange to talk about after I just kissed you and meant it.” I chuckle. She just smiles at me before her horn lights up. Soft music, trance music, began to play as she leaned in and kissed me again, but this time only a small peck before standing dramatically. “We are breaking new boundaries, Tavi. Think about it, imagine their faces…” Vinyl preaches. “You aren’t going to go on a philosophical tangent because I kissed you are you?” I ask with dismay, knowing I will be forced to sit through and accept it at the end. “Music ponies… side by side, hoof in hoof…” She confirms. “Yup… here we go…” I say. Her revelations of kissing me keep me entertained as I lose myself in my own thoughts of the kiss. The wetness of her lips still resides on mine, unsure of if I should lick them so it’s my wetness or to wipe it off in a rag or on the side of the couch. It is a strange desire, but I discover myself just watching her bounce around, pacing the room, staring out the window, the floor, ceiling, then me. She’s attractive when she attempts to find deeper meanings in a simple subject. “…And that is why we must be together.” She concludes. “You figured all of that out by kissing me? I wasn’t graced with such revelations.” I joke, sticking out my tongue playfully at her. I am happier than I normally am, finding myself acting like those few times when Vinyl manages to get more than just wine into my system at the clubs. I am not one for alcohol, but Vinyl enjoys it on occasion. Drinking should be casual and not how Vinyl drank which was to forget the night, but leave in her wake a series of events that she enjoyed rediscovering. I couldn’t complain when she distracted me enough to slip a shot into my wine. I didn’t even notice the taste and before I knew it, I couldn’t feel my cheeks or hooves. Vinyl smiles. Before lying in front of me on the floor, her head resting on the couch, she asks me a question. “So this masterpiece you are working on includes me, eh?” Talking business after such a light-hearted conversation disrupted my thought patterns and completely scrapped my mood, but I quickly recover with a stutter. “W-Why are you bringing that up now?” I ask, managing to flood out the stiff response and keep it somewhat airy. “Why not? Your concert is in only three days, and I didn’t even know that I would be sharing the spotlight with you. It doesn’t give me much notice to prepare.” “I didn’t plan it until yesterday. It was a crazy idea that began to work in my head. All we need to do is build a nice beat and trance feel behind my work, and at the same time allow you to shine when I dim out.” I explain to the best of what the music in my head is telling me. “I can play what I have and you can fill it in with your own musical abilities. It would just be a live remix, that is what you call them right?” “A live remixing of an original tune that no one has heard?” She seems terrified of my idea. Am I crazier than Vinyl? “Why didn’t I ever think of that?” Her terrified face instantly clicks into one of excitement. “Buck yeah!” “So you think you can do it?” I ask, relishing in her excitement. “Do it? Challenge accepted.” Her spunk is back in full swing as she hops up, about to jump onto the couch with me. “Get my bow. We can start practice immediately. It’s under my bed.” I lie, knowing full well I couldn’t stand with any degree of composure. “Why would you keep your bow under your bed that’s just strange…” She trails off as she trots out of the room chuckling. I’m sure she could see through my ruse. I clopped my hooves together, my heart beating anxiously at the discovery of the box. The silence is deafening as I wait, the clopping hooves being my only reference to the passing time. I hear her rummaging through the few items under my bed until I am greeted with the awkward silence of discovery. I can’t help but smile to myself. The quick galloping back to my room revealing Vinyl holding the sealed bag in her teeth, her sunglasses pulled up so that she could see under my dark bed, excitement beaming in her eyes. She mumbles, forgetting that the box is still in her mouth, I stifle my giggle as she stares at me. She places the box down before beaming. “Another gift? You’ve already given me an awesome record, why more?” She asks, bouncing over to the side of the couch where I was resting. I had ran these words through my head countless times, trying to find a means in which to best approach this answer, but all of them had come off corny. I had to speak and say at least something. “Because you are more to me now.” I almost cough at the corniness, but I manage to hold it back. It can’t have come off too horribly, could it? A soft smile stretches across Vinyl’s face as her face falls into a smooth relaxation. Her eyes glitter from the gentle candlelight of the room as only her breathing could be heard. Awkwardness creeps into me from the silence and her stare, but slowly I sense my own heart melting and the muscles on my faces relaxing. Those red eyes stare at me lightly crackling embers of a warm, soothing fire. “You mean that…?” Her voice is unbearably softhearted as if she is mocking me, though my heart told me it is completely genuine. I forgot what I had said to even lock myself in this position. I can only stare at her, a lump in my throat preventing any of my mixed fury of thoughts to form a cohesive thought. I open my mouth as to finally say something, but she interrupts. “Hold that thought.” The spark returns to her eyes as she gallops out of the room. She returns with two bottle shaped packages floating above her head. She stares at me with a grin that could only mean a few things. I see two glasses float into the room as she traverses the doorway and into the room, and I know her plans. “We can’t. Not tonight.” I dismiss. “Please, Tavi. If this is our special night, we should have some special time together. Plus, we will be working all the way up to concert. We should take this time to enjoy our last day off before planning and practicing.” She nods vigorously as a table slides over to the couch. Two glasses, the bottles and a bucket of ice fall onto the table. I hadn’t even seen her bring in the ice. “I just don’t think-“ I stop as the paper is removed from the bottles revealing my favorite whiskey. A whole bottle of it sitting just inches from my nose, completely sealed and fresh, untouched by any other pony. “How much was this?” I stare at the bottle more than her, taking it from the table and checking the year. “It was in my price range.” She answers simply. It must have been a good portion of her saved money that she was saving to move out of my duplex, which I can safely say is now just our home, no more separation. “Right…” I couldn’t help but maintain an accusatory tone, yet her appearance didn’t change. Still soft, still glittering, still Vinyl. I can’t help but smirk and feel guilty that I gave her a locked box while she was being open about her presents. She removes the cover of the other bottle revealing it to be a much stronger concoction; one that I assumed would to be used to remove paint from a barn. Both of the corks popped, filling the room with their clashing odors. My whiskey is strong smelling with just enough flavors to give it a fragrant smell. Vinyl’s is sinus cleansing and causes my eyes to water. “Must you drink such poison?” I ask, pressing a hoof against my nose in an ill attempt to block the wall of tear gas. “Poison? Octavia, you always know the nicest things to say to me.” She teases as she fills her glass, pouring mine as well. My nose twitches as the flowing whiskey catches in the air, completely nullifying the stench from the corrosive material beside it. “Bottoms up!” She yells as she lifted her glass, tossing the foul smelling liquid into the back of her throat, swallowing heavily, hitting her hoof against the table. “Yes.” She sighs. “How can you even enjoy the taste of that stuff?” She stares at me thoughtfully for a bit before cracking up with laughter. “Taste? I prefer effects. We are going to have our own private party.” I am surprised to see her eyes already slightly hazing from the effects. Her horn lights up, transforming the soft trance into something heavier, the blinds being pulled, and neon in the room beginning to flicker, her own pre-made club. How long was she planning this? Sipping softly on my own glass, my eyes pop open at the taste of it. It is probably the best Jura Whiskey in existence, or at least that I’ve tasted. Before I knew it, my glass rests empty on the table. My tongue is numb as I pour another glass. I check the year again only to shake my head at the dim lighting conditions of the room. I barely notice that I am leaning off to the side, my vision slowing as I pour another glass. The beats from the new music causes my head to sway back and forth, my head bobbing with the memories of our humble beginnings together and my introduction into the world of techno and club mixes. “I told you that you needed to relax…” Vinyl laughs, her cheeks rosy and her eyes glassy. I barely notice the next two glasses that I dump into my mouth. I can barely feel anything on my body anymore, but I can’t help but smile at the smells and the aftertaste, the wonderful aftertaste. “Tafvi… I need to tell you, how shmuch you mean to me.” Vinyl’s words slur, but she never loses her beat as she bounces over to me, leaving behind a vapor trail. Her whole form pulses with the bass as she nears me, throwing me off balance. I stare into her glittering eyes, the only thing in focus, and I can’t help but beam wider. “Ssuch pretty eyes.” I can barely see the other two glasses vanish of liquid. I don’t even know how it is being refilled. I don’t care. It isn’t long before I am being held down onto the couch by an unseen force. I try to fight it off, but it never lets go. I see Vinyl stumbling around on the floor, approaching me, somehow using her magic to make the room spin or something. I find that the magical force holding me to the couch is still active, but when Vinyl arrives at my side, she manages to pull me off. My body shuts down, leaving only blackness, though I know my body is still moving. When I open my eyes, I find myself pressed against, Vinyl, dancing. We aren’t together out of attraction, but out of necessity to stand on our back hooves, which is already a feat without the alcohol. My hooves slide against her back, her body turning into my cello, and I play techno through her. I hate being this drunk, I always do stupid things, but seeing only Vinyl in the room helps. I figured that it is safe for her to see me this way, bobbing to the music, losing my vision in the blinking lights, questioning the rising fog that envelops me. I didn’t want to speak anymore as I lifted a glass to my mouth again, dumping in a much stronger alcohol. My mind tells me to quickly spit it out before it gets into my stomach, but my body is too slow. The lights, music, fog, and alcohol take me, lost in one of Vinyl’s raves. Vinyl? My eyes snap open as I look around the room for her, but the fog is too thick and the blur is too great. “Vinyl?” I whisper, oblivious to the loud music drowning me out. Feeling a creeping fear taking my whimsical senses. I blurry shape materializes only for a second, a screech in my ears as it cracked into the room. “Vinyl…?” I didn’t trust what I was seeing. Vinyl’s drink must be part hallucinogenic. “Now… now, Octavia… enjoying yourself a bit too much, aren’t we?” The familiar voice asks. “Why are you here? Leave me alone.” I edge back into the fog, seeing the large shadow of a cloaked alicorn appearing, something off with the voice. “I gave you a chance to fix your life and you waste it on intoxicated raving with your lover?” The voice is Eyn’s, I know that for a fact, but the tone of it is completely off. It is much harsher, colder. “I’m sorry. I just…” The alcohol crippled me enough. “You just what?” He bellows at me, his form being created out of the fog, his eyes cracking with red lightning, his head twitching with what appeared to be bouts of pain, but the glare remained. I bury my head under my hooves, unable to keep my balance. “You’re not real. You’re not real.” I repeat to myself. “I’m just beneath the surface…” The final consonant slowly fades out of the room forming into Vinyl’s voice. “Silly you…” She laughs as she stumbles over to me. “Falling on the floor… such a clumsy filly.” She bends over to pick me up, but quickly loses her balance and falls on me. I couldn’t experience any pain from her body and instead shiver at the sensation of her rubbing past me, trying to move to a more comfortable position, but instead, my head sits between her legs as she half stands above me, her head pressed against my flank. “Sorry, Tavi…” I don’t know if the alcohol has finally settled in letting me speak perfect drunk. I couldn’t complain. I was cozy. “It’s okay… I was just having a nightmare.” My mouth feels heavy. “You’re goofy… goofy, Tavi, you.” I feel her body relax onto mine. She must have given up or is too tired to continue. I feel myself begin to drift off, still shaken from the encounter with Eyn, but too drunk to understand any of it. I promised myself that I would remember what happened. I lied… “What did you two do last night?” I hear a voice ask. I mumble as I try to move, but discover myself still held to the ground by the magic of alcohol, but now I am staring up at the ceiling and covered in a fine veil, a blue veil. I blow out to try to blow it off my face to see Ditsy staring down at me, grinning from ear to ear about something. “Did you find them, Dits?” The Doctor’s voice fills the hall. He walks into view, flinching back slightly. “Oh, I’m sorry. We aren’t disrupting anything are we?” The question rolls around in my head as I gaze at the blue veil around me. Slowly, it dawns on me. It’s hair, Vinyl’s hair, more specifically, her tail hair, to be exact. I retrain my gaze up toward my chest, only to see Vinyl’s rear end at face level. Sensation begins to permeate my body again as the pressure of her head materializes between my legs. Blushing was an understatement in that moment as I couldn’t even breathe at what position we had rolled into while we were asleep. “I…” Words escape me. My mind collapses into a chasm of embarrassment. “Vinyl. Wake up.” I try to move her, but her head only bobbles between my legs, making the situation seem far worse. “Ditsy, can you help me up? I had a bit too much last night.” I attempt civility, but my voice is shaking with my fluttering heart, my face burning with embarrassment, my brain fried with a hangover. “Why? You seem so comfortable.” She beams innocently. “Ditsy.” I am stern and more forceful, the wave of embarrassment overtaking my civility. “Oops. My bad.” She catches on to me being serious. I felt bad for being crude with her, but it had to be done for now. She seizes my hooves and manages to pull me out, causing her to lose balance and crash into my globe of Equestria. I only hear it crash to floor; happily, the noise is worse than the damage. “I can breath again…” My lungs fill as if a weight had been slid off of my body. Surprisingly, Vinyl is still sleeping, a nice pool of drool forming on the ground. It only takes me a second to feel the same wetness between my legs. I cringe and shake with disgust as I look around the room for something to clean the drool off of my coat. Vinyl mumbles. I faintly make it out to be my name, but I attempt to toss it into the back of my mind as my attention focuses more on Ditsy and Doctor Whooves, but it lingers. “Why are you two here?” I ask, looking around the room to make sure nothing was out of place or embarrassing, luckily there is just the sharp aroma of alcohol both in the air and on my breath. I turn from him to hide the breath. “Neighbors filed a noise complaint. Guards came and found you two apparently like this. They contacted us, neglecting to tell us where you were at, and we came right away.” Doctor Whooves explains. “Glad to see you both breathing.” His words are still stiff as he hides his initial shock at seeing my more unfortunate positions. “Yes. Breathing and apparently getting ourselves in more trouble.” I shake my head. “We are fine. We just need a bath.” I try to make it short so they leave. “We’ll wait outside. We can get some muffins at the bakery, on us.” Doctor smiles. He always managed to be the polite pony of the group, a set of mannerisms that any mare would find attractive if given the chance. At one point, I held a liking to him, but it was never in my heart for a sense of love. Instead, we became good friends and not a moment too soon before Vinyl moved in. It was that slow sensation hiding behind a wall of contempt. Slowly her manners glimmered through, a softer side of her emerged. Looking back, I can only feel ashamed at how quick I was to judge her, but she apparently held no ill feelings, even to this day. Vinyl grumbles again, but she manages to raise her head, her sunglasses falling over her eyes, blocking out the piercing light of the morning. “Tavi? Why am I wearing your bow?” I turn to her quickly to see my bow wrapped around her neck. I grasp at mine to touch my nude neck. I blush before yanking it off of her, trying to tie it back in its rightful place. “What happened last night, and why am I bow-legged?” She stares at me. I stare at the floor. “You two were laying funny.” Ditsy responds, righting the fallen globe. “Laying funny?” She glances down where we were lying, putting her head close to the ground. I can see her squinting under her glasses. What is she looking at it? Then I see it. Drool. Her drool was at one point and mine was at another. Awkwardness wouldn’t even begin to describe how I would feel when she connected the dots. I can only stand there as she traces out the spot and finds my drool. Realization begins to cross her mind as she turns to me, her eyes locking onto the wet area. Her mouth drops open, her glasses falling off of her face, but instinctually caught by her magic. “We didn’t…?” She starts. I couldn’t answer it if she finished it. I barely remember what had happened that night. “No.” I answer shortly and awkwardly. “I’ll just let you two… catch up, eh?” Doctor walks out of the room, grabbing Ditsy’s tail and dragging her out of the room. She remained seated with the same smirk on her face. I questioned that pegasus on occasion. The door closed before Vinyl’s eyes snapped back onto me. “Whatever I did last night, I didn’t mean it.” “I don’t think we did anything. I think we just collapsed on each other and passed out.” I toss out as a reasonably innocent occurrence. “I will not drink that much again.” She chuckles, regaining her carefree confidence. Her eyes migrate over to the table where they connect with the box. “I never opened your present.” “It’s locked.” I say with a grin. “Where’s the key?” “I have it, of course.” I can’t help but feel the rising tease in my chest. Vinyl begins to smile as she catches on to my ruse. “Well, can I have it?” “Later.” I smile at her. “After the concert.” “The concert? We need to work on that today. How should we begin?” She moves quickly, but instantly collides with the mental wall that I had been flinching at. “I’m never drinking that much again.” I watch her stumble around, losing track of what all she wants to do when the edges of my vision move with ghostly images. “What?” I can feel myself running, but I am standing in the middle of the room, only my peripheral vision is moving. I can only make out the fine etchings and craftsmanship of a few railings as they vanish. My center of gravity begins to lean onto the side as if I am turning. “What?” Vinyl turns back to me, confused, but the tunnel of my vision begins to tighten around her. “Nothing. I thought you said something.” My face must not be as convincing as I think it is. “What’s wrong?” My vision flashes to Eyn, an electrical wall forming around him. I don’t know why until I see a few guards round the corner, yelling at him. A wave of energy erupts from him as they are thrown into the nearby building, shattering the wall. The room remerges; Vinyl is much closer to me now. “He’s in my head, or maybe it’s me in his head. I don’t know.” I feel my heart rate beginning to pick up as it flashes back. Vinyl tries to yell something at me, but I’m too far away. He’s in another part of town. His breathing is ragged, and the pain is almost unbearable as he falls onto his metal hoof. The guards surround him, knocking him down completely, but his eyes stay open just enough to let me see. White legs decorated in gold approach the barely awake Eyn, who struggles to rise. I can barely make out what she is saying, but I couldn’t mistake those legs. An orange energy circles around her as I feel Eyn regaining his strength and looking up at her, putting a hoof in front of his face, defenseless. Her eyes fill with orange light and her horn sparks as a wall of energy hits him. I can feel his heart weaken at the searing pain before I feel everything grow cold and black. I blink, ejecting me back to the room, crouched on one knee, Vinyl holding me up. “He’s dead…” I can’t even believe my own words. “Who?” She asks, flinching back as I stand to look at her. “Princess Celestia killed Eyn Spyyr.”