[SIZE] Psychoacoustics - Chapter 1

	White coat.  Blue mane.  Piercing red eyes.  Anonymous stood at the doorway, looking his new roommate over.  She was a unicorn, still Amazonian sized, just as Octavia was.  It was silly to think that the ponies would be any smaller or larger, but it was a strange thought the human held on to all the same.  This ‘Vinyl Scratch’ was no different, the human’s head coming up to the crest of her chest.

	“Ummm… Hi?” Anonymous offered, waving.  The strange albino pony only looked at him, thinking who knows what.  Her eyes were full of curiosity, almost glowing with energy, but she said nothing.  Anonymous was starting to worry that the Lyra encounter would repeat itself and that Octavia had made a mistake, until the unicorn displayed a weak smile.  The human let out a sigh he didn’t know he’d been holding back, continuing this semi-awkward introduction.

	“You’re Vinyl, right?”  The unicorn said nothing, only nodding in affirmation.  Well, it’s something… “I’m Anonymous.  Nice to meet you.”  Octavia had sent the human’s things to Vinyl prior to his arrival, leaving the human with little to do in terms of breaking the apparently thick ice.  “So… Nice house you got here.”  Again, the unicorn only smiled, seemingly content with silence.  “You play in Octavia’s orchestra?”  A shaking of her head signaled a ‘no,’ but she continued her silence.

	“…is something wrong?” the human asked, the silence getting to him.  “I don’t mean to be rude, but you haven’t said a word since we’ve met.”  The unicorn went wide eyed, shock or fear striking her, whichever one Anonymous couldn’t quite say.  She quickly shook her head no, however.  “Then what’s up with the silent treatment?”

	Still looking a bit frantic, Vinyl reared up on her hind legs, bracing herself against the wall with her right hoof.  Taking her left hoof, she pointed at her throat.  Upon further inspection, Anonymous found that it indeed looked as soft and lovable as Octavia’s.  Staring a bit longer than he’d care to admit, the human finally figured out what Vinyl was trying to point out.

	“Ooooohh,” he said, cuing the unicorn to return to her previous stance.  “If you don’t mind my asking, what happened?”  Upon the question leaving his lips, Anonymous realized just how little the unicorn could actually convey.  Ponies had hooves, not sign-language like on Earth.  Even if they did though, the human would still be up a creek without a paddle.  He didn’t know sign language.

	His embarrassed state was apparently realized by the unicorn, as she bent down, nuzzling him.  His thought process broken, he looked up into her bright red gaze, startled at being so close so suddenly, then relaxed by her expression.  Though she could not speak, she managed to convey a sort of understanding relatively well.

	“Right… sorry about that.  Do you have a place we can sit down?  I’d like to get to know you a bit, but I think we’ll have to play twenty questions before I make any headway, and my legs are getting tired.”  Vinyl backed off from her nuzzle, her horn lighting up with a light blue aura.  The human was quickly enveloped as the unicorn carried him through her house.

	As she did so, the human took note of the extremely smooth ride her magic provided, almost like wafting across water.  Looking around, Anonymous found Vinyl’s house to be very Spartan.  A painting here or there, but no musical instruments about like Octavia had at her apartment.  No extra pillows on her couches, no stands for decorations… Very bare, if not somewhat isolating.  Nothing like the homey feel that Octavia’s apartment had to it.  Vinyl jumped up on the couch, depositing the human on the cushion beside her.  Turning around, she laid down, keeping her head upright as she waited for the human to do something.

	“Well… first things first.  We need a better way to communicate.  Do you ponies have something like a sign language?” he asked, unsure of what to expect.

	In response, Vinyl’s horn lit up.  Looking at the space separating the human and herself, Vinyl concentrated.  Using her magic, she led streaks through the air like a sparkler would smoke, spelling out ‘kinda.’  After she’d gotten the word out of the way, she unclenched her jaw, relaxing her muscles.  Evidently this was not her forte, nor her preferred form of communication.  Not to say she really had a choice in the matter.

	“Excellent!  How much can you write in one go?”

	Again Vinyl’s face contorted in one of concentration.  Her horn aglow, she spelled out ‘a little,’ in the air.  After the words were written, she opened her eyes, relaxing as the words faded from view.

	“Alright, we’ll make it work,” Anonymous said, relieved that they’d found a method of communication other than yes or no questions.  “Have you been mute all your life?”  Vinyl shook her head ‘no’ in response.  “What happened?”  Once more the unicorn concentrated, a great deal of strain on her features this time.  She spelled out ‘an accident,’ in the air, then ‘permanent’ below it.  “I’m sorry to hear that,” the human responded.

	Vinyl only smiled, giving off a warm effect that contrasted the room in which they sat.  Using her magic, she scooted the human closer to herself, pulling him up to sit next to her shoulder.  Her coat was exceptionally soft, just as Octavia’s was.  In this position, Anonymous’s head came up to just barely under her throat.  He was close enough now that he could feel her steady heartbeat, the massive muscle thumping away just under her flesh.  After they’d settled the more comfortable position, she wrote out ‘continue’ in the air.

	“Right,” Anonymous said, a bit surprised by her second display of closeness.  He’d only just met her, and already she was starting to act like Octavia did.  Strange that they would seem so similar; Octavia had left the impression unto Anonymous that she and Vinyl weren’t the best of friends.  Not enemies per se, but not on the best of terms.  She made sure to re-iterate however, that had she not trusted Vinyl, she wouldn’t have left him with her.  “So, what instrument do you play?”

	Her calm breathing was replaced by labored breath as she closed her eyes to concentrate once more.  Gradually, she spelled out ‘I don’t’ in the air.  Being next to her as she did so, Anonymous now had a slightly better understanding of the strain this was putting on her.  While she wrote, she would hold her breath, shut her eyes; even her muscles would tense up, making the soft surface that he was resting against firm.

	After the words dissipated, Vinyl took a moment to catch her breath.  While she did so, Anonymous was swarmed with questions his mind was producing.  If she didn’t play an instrument, how did she know Octavia?  Why would she have a musical cutie mark if she didn’t play something?  Does she not work in the field that her cutie mark suggests?

	“Then,” Anonymous said, finally voicing one of his questions, “What is your cutie mark?”

	Her laborious processes was repeated, spelling out ‘music.’

	“But—“ before he could continue, Vinyl sat up, looking around the room for something.  The human had no idea what it could be, seeing as there was very little in the room in the first place.  Eventually though, she found what she was looking for, bringing a slim, square envelope over.  Laying back down, she extracted a record from the envelope, placing its container on the floor beside the couch.  She spun it around a few times, lowering it over to Anonymous so that he could better examine it should he so desire.

	Anonymous didn’t need to examine it, he knew what it was.  It still didn’t make sense though, you don’t play a record, you put it on a turn table and the table plays it.  Why would someone have a cutie mark for putting records on a table?  Seeing his confusion, Vinyl spelled out ‘record’ in the air.

	“I know what it is, but it’s still confusing,” he said, crossing his arms.

	Vinyl set the record aside, looking to where she’d retrieved it.  Quickly another record was produced and slipped from its envelope, now to levitate in front of the human.  “Okay?  You put records on a turntable?  I’m sorry, but I don’t think that’s what your cutie mark is supposed to represent.”  Vinyl rolled her eyes, something the human wouldn’t quite see from his angle.  She took the first record and suspended it next to the second.  Nudging the human to get up, she pushed him towards the two discs.

	Anonymous, having little choice in the matter, proceeded to get a front row view of the levitating records.  Looking at them, he found nothing out of the ordinary.  They looked identical, save for the label.  Actually, the more he thought about it, the more the label stood out… He stood up, examining them closer.  Finally, it clicked that one was the original, the other was a remixed version.  As the realization dawned on him, Vinyl put the records back in their envelopes, setting them back where she’d retrieved them.

	“Ooooohh.  Why didn’t you just write ‘DJ’ then?”

	Vinyl blinked for a moment before slapping her hoof to her face.  Had she the vocal capacity, Anonymous was sure she would’ve groaned.  Her face was red with embarrassment, realizing her trivial mistake.  She offered up a shrug to the human, a weak smile on her features.

	“Oh well.  Now I know, at least.  That explains why Octavia wasn’t your biggest fan.  Could we perchance listen to one of your records?  I’d like to hear what you can do.”

	Vinyl’s smile weakened at the mention of Octavia’s name, but returned a bit stronger when the human asked to listen to her music.  ‘Later,’ she wrote out in the air, now panting from the exertions that air writing was putting on her.  ‘Food,’ she wrote under that, getting off the couch.  Her legs were a tiny bit shaky after all the writing, but after a good stretch she was fine.  She leaned up to the side of the couch, looking to Anonymous.

	Slowly he put two and two together, carefully climbing onto her back like he would Octavia.  Scooting up, he laid against her neck, clenching at her lower neck with his legs.  He’d fallen off of Octavia once or twice before, and it had never been pleasant.  The drop wasn’t much, but it left him sore and out of breath, like landing face down in a pool from a diving board.  An unpleasant experience, to say the least.

	Once he was secure, Vinyl began walking towards a different part of her house.  Her muscles shifted below the human as she walked, her shoulders rising and falling just behind his position.  Her mane was electric blue, offering an easier security than holding onto her neck.  Anonymous mentally slapped himself for never doing this with Octavia.  She took note, but didn’t seem to mind much as the human repositioned.

	As she walked, the human could hear her breathing.  Apparently the air writing took more out of her than he thought, her breathing reminding the human of a long oust jogging.  As she carried him through her house, the human began thinking about how communication would work between himself and this mute, musical pony.  Something better would have to be conjured up, surely.  He hoped that he could figure something up that would not be as strenuous for her so that they could partake in longer conversations.

	All thoughts were cast aside at the introduction of a familiar smell: Food.  Vinyl placed Anonymous on the counter with her magic, now focusing on the beeping oven.  The human watched as she removed two entre dinners that had apparently been cooking while they ‘chatted.’  Both were a cheese lasagna, though one was significantly smaller than the other.  She hurriedly set them aside to cool, closing the oven with a gentle kick from her rear right leg.

	As she went about removing the food from its metallic containers, Anonymous took the opportunity to observe yet another room of Vinyl’s House: her kitchen.  It was Spartan like the rest, very little in terms of color or decorations.  A kitchen table of a similar fashion was off towards the empty, left side of the room, apparently having been set prior.

	Looking on, he failed to see Vinyl carry two plates of lasagna over to the table, setting one down on either side of the rectangular structure.  Once the food had been set out, she walked over to the counter she’d place Anonymous on earlier, leaning down so that her snout was just under the counter.  Her large red orbs watched the human, waiting for him to take the hint.

	Eventually he did, jumping forward onto her head.  Small or not, the human considered it rude to walk on someone’s face.  After landing, he slid right into her horn.  While it stopped his movement, there was another reaction that came from his grabbing said horn that he didn’t catch.  Vinyl bit her lower lip, inhaling sharply.  He couldn’t have known what touching a unicorn’s horn did or what it represented, so she let it slide.  For now.

	Gingerly, she looked up to watch for the human, should he slip off of her head.  Not to mention he was holding onto her horn for stability.  She wanted to cease the… intimate contact the human was having right now, as soon as possible, lest she make a fool of herself.  Once she’d arrived at the table, she lowered her head towards the smaller of the meals, allowing the human to step off.  At his size, the silverware was somewhere between a third and half his size, so it might make eating difficult.  She hoped not, as she didn’t really have any other silverware to offer.

	Standing at the edge of the plate, the human looked down at his food and the utensils provided.  While they were larger, they were also not the toothpicks he’d grown accustom to.  Octavia, being concerned for his maneuverability and ability to function on his own, had provided him with toothpicks to use in place of forks.  It had taken a bit of getting used to, but he had managed.  Being given a proper fork and knife… that was going to prove a challenge.  Using something half your size to eat was certainly going to be interesting.

	Working the fork up, the human managed to hurdle it into the lasagna.  Picking up the knife, he held it like one would a joust, plunging it into the lasagna.  Vinyl, having been silently giggling at the human’s efforts, couldn’t help but snort when he attacked the lasagna with the knife.  The human stopped what he was doing to see where the strange noise had come from, only for his bewildered expression to throw Vinyl into another silent giggle fit.

	As she slid out of her chair in a silent fit of laughter, the human resumed attacking his food.  It might be unorthodox, but he was going to get it done.  As he worked the knife back and forth, deeper into the lasagna, it was enveloped by a light blue aura.  Relinquishing his grip, Anonymous looked back and up to find Vinyl.  Tears in her eyes and a not-so-subtle smile on her face, she cut some of the lasagna up for the human.

	The human approached his more manageable sized bite of lasagna, biting at it much like a hamster would lick at water.  As he was eating, albeit a bit messily, Vinyl levitated her silverware over from the other side of the table, eating from the other side of the human’s all too large portion.  While she was consuming entire bites, Anonymous was still working on his first.  He’d made significant progress, but he didn’t have the physical capacity to eat as much as she could, not even close.

	After finishing off Anonymous’s plate of lasagna, Vinyl leaned back in the chair that was at that end of the table.  Anonymous, sitting down beside the fairly cleaned fork that had been set aside for him, looked over to Vinyl’s own plate.  It was still full, only a corner having been cut off, but never having made it to her mouth.  Vinyl huffed at the sight of the plate, levitating it over to the counter.

	Today had been a bit of an odd day, more so than most, but overall it had turned out pretty good.  Now that dinner had been served and both Vinyl and Anonymous were content, there remained but two things: sleep, and to hear Vinyl’s music.

	“So, do I get to hear some of your music now?”

	Vinyl turned red again, her horn lighting up to write in the air.  She tried to focus, but she couldn’t bring herself to do so after eating.  She was far to content and far too settled to write in that manner.  Giving up, her horn fizzled out and she shook her head ‘no.’

	“What?  Well why not?”

	Vinyl shifted uneasily in her seat, eventually sitting up straight.  She looked around, her eyes eventually landing on the dirty dishes and leftover lasagna.  She levitated the plates over to the sink, letting them clatter into its basin.  Satisfied that that should get the message across, she leaned back in her chair, eyeing Anonymous warily.  She performed for throes of ponies, why was it that one little creature was giving her butterflies in her stomach?

	“Oh, right, the dishes.  Do you need any help?”

	Again, Vinyl shook her head ‘no.’

	“Well, alright.  Is there anything I can do?  At all?”

	Vinyl put her hoof to her chin in thought, considering the human’s offer.  At his size, there wasn’t really all that much he could help with.  At least, not yet.  His being helpful would require a bit of modification around the house so that he could be mobile on his own, but until that happened… Eventually she shrugged, gently levitating the human onto her back as she got off of the chair.

	Anonymous held on like before, gripping her electric blue mane instead of her neck.  She had a scent to her that he couldn’t quite place… It wasn’t unpleasant, rather appealing actually, but he couldn’t quite pin down what it was.  The journey this time took them upstairs, down a hall, and into a room.  This room turned out to be the most colorful room in the house, having streaks of dark colors running along the edges of the walls.

	In the center of the room was a bed, a deep velvety purple comforter atop some plush white pillows.  Looking around the room, Anonymous eventually came to the conclusion that this was Vinyl’s bedroom.  Why had she taken him here?  Expecting the question, Vinyl walked over to an end table to answer it.  Upon the table was a pillow and a small towel.  Gently, Anonymous was placed upon the miniature bed via Vinyl’s magic.  After making sure the human wasn’t going to fall off or get himself injured, Vinyl smiled and left the room.

	Strange that she would have him sleep in the same room as her, though it did make sense.  It was a bit odd when Octavia did something similar, but it wasn’t something that really concerned him or made him worried.  Looking around, the human took in the refreshing brush of color from the rest of the house.  The walls weren’t white, instead a dark grey, lined by dark colors.  Purples and blues mostly, with a little dark red here and there.  It was certainly a sight to behold, and, judging from the state of the room, not one many others were allowed to witness.

	Sitting on the bed-pillow with not much to do, Anonymous continued to observe the room.  Everything here had been nearly silent, yet now he could hear the faintest of musical notes.  Some were almost electronic in nature, others were more akin to simulated instruments, and others still bore a striking similarity to the actual instrument.  Closing his eyes, the human focused on the sounds, guessing that Vinyl was playing a record downstairs.

	Taking on a rather foolish endeavor, the human looked around for a way to open the door.  Vinyl had closed it on her way back out, and he was too big to squeeze through the gap.  Looking around, Anonymous’s eyes landed on the bed as he formulated a plan.  After taking one of the pillows, he leaned it up against the wall, climbing up to the knob.  It was still a bit of a jump, but at least he could make a soft landing now.  Leaping forward and grabbing onto the knob, he promptly lost his grip and fell right back down onto the pillow.

	Trying once more, he repositioned the pillow, climbing up and lunging once more.  This time he managed to keep his balance and grip, getting the knob in a death grip.  Panting, he now realized he had to turn said knob.  Carefully, he worked himself around the knob, eventually winding up upright atop it.  Leaning forward, it was a simple matter to twist the knob, the lock opening easily.  As it was opened, Anonymous was presented with yet another hurdle: actually opening the door while the lock was released.

	Holding the knob, he began to hump wildly against it, trying desperately to push the door open.  When it didn’t budge much at all, he looked over to find that his pillow was against the door, preventing it from swinging open.  Groaning at his own plan’s detrimental effects, he began humping again.  If he could just get it to the point where it wouldn’t slide back, he could open it…

	Soon enough, he succeeded.  His thighs were sore and he was panting, but he’d gotten the door wedged.  Quickly he leapt off towards the pillow, realizing on the way down that his landing might very well close the door.  Landing with a soft thud, he looked up, watching the door slide forward ever so gently.  When he didn’t hear a click, he shoved the pillow to the side.  Kneeling down, he reached through the gap, pulling the door towards him.  As he tugged, it slowly pulled open towards him.

	Jumping for joy, the human ran to the side of the door, pulling it open with ease so that he could get through.  Now in the hallway, he could focus once more on the music he was hearing.  Following the sounds down the hallway, he came to the stairs from earlier.  He had to be careful here, one slip up and he could be in for the rug burn of his life.  One by one, he sat down on the edge of one stair to slide down to the next.  It was a slow, careful process, but it worked.

	Eventually he made it to the living room at the bottom of the stairs.  Following the sounds, he turned a corner and wound up in the kitchen.  The sink was running, and the orchestra music was playing just loud enough to be heard over it.  Then, as he listened, he picked up on the electronic music overlaying the orchestra he’d heard earlier.  Peering around the corner of the counter, he found Vinyl.

	She was scrubbing away at the dishes with her hooves, a smile on her face and her eyes lidded with contentment.  Her horn was aglow, but the human couldn’t figure out what she was manipulating with it.  He looked on, trying to figure out what she was doing with magic, when it dawned on him.  Her magical aura around her horn was pulsing in time with the electronic music overlaying the orchestra.  She was humming, with magic.