I feel like I've been homeless for the past seven years.
It is only when I'm out here...
Mobile...
Trotting random, winding paths in public that I am truly myself.
And it is such a bleak, harrowing, hellish place to be.
Perfect lucidity—exposed before my own banal qualities.
No longer I never want to be here. When I am, I have music to distract me—a pair of clamshell oracles shrieking beats and refrains into my ears.
But that is not the case now.
Part of me wants to return—but to what? It's not my home now. Perhaps it never was.
I've been a bum... an emotional and psychological bum, squatting on Octavia's sofa for years.
I found a place—a niche where we were both comfortable, and I dominated that spotlight. I occupied it with every atom.
And I deceived her to keep the shroud hanging over it... using coy smiles and lies of omission. It worked so long as she was happy... so long as she was deaf and blind.
And that is no way to treat a musician... an artist... a friend.
But her words... her words...
I draw a hoof over my muzzle. Maybe it's daytime... nighttime... a gray malaise in between. I dwindled between Everfree and Ponyville, lost between the twigs. My legs give way and I sit in the shadow of something far more material than I've ever been.
Tavi...
If you can only understand...
I never threw anything away to be with you.
At least... not anything that mattered to me.
Nothing like... like...
I hug myself. I stare up at the fading sunlight. I try breathing, but all I find are sobs—like rocks and shoals. I navigate the tears downstream, and yet I strike every boulder along the way.
Feeling your lovely voice, like a velvet blanket, wrapping around me every morning...
The way the kitchen dishes and the bathroom mirror vibrates with your harmonious voice...
The soft glint in your eyes and the rosiness to your cheeks as you rest on your favorite cushion, enjoying a delicate glass of wine with reds that match the sunset.
For seven long years, I've been part of something far more beautiful than I...
...a life-giver packaged in elegant silk, laced with bittersweet dreams...
...whom I could make smile despite the stagnant tug of daily ennui.
A grimace overcomes me. I fall over the edge and into the depths below, where truth waits with frigid breaths.
Seven long years...
...and nothing changed.
I saw something that was beautiful, and I clawed my way deep inside.
I possessed it...
... infected it...
... ... ...and so long as there was plenty of mirth, plenty of music, plenty of wine...
... ... ... ...it all didn't feel so bad.
But the best poisons are the flavorless ones, given in tiny doses, day by day, until one gets numb to the future by proxy of an epic past. Be it epically gorgeous... or epically horrible.
Tavi...
We've been molding our paths together for a decade now...
The one I wish to avoid... and the one you can never forget...
...now the future has come crashing in on us, and it took you with it. It ripped you apart, and I almost lost you... only to lose you again...
... ...only to lose you now.
Tears are hottest after the sun's gone down.
I melt into the green hum, a little island of swirling tan and magenta.
There's no drowning in this tempest. I've grown used to it. What's worse, I almost dragged Tavi down with me. Thankfully, she's too honest to try holding her breath... and that's when the currents separated us.
Tavi...
Tavi, I'm so sorry... ...
I think... yes... I realize now... ... ...
Comfort is a poor substitute for love.
I let loose a painful squeak as the realization hits me.
It's a glorious song. A sad song.
It knocks me out with a righteous left hook, and I float lonesomely into darkness, seven years younger.
Wuh-oh. Flashback time?
I'm starting to wonder if I'll have enough tears left to read Background Pony by the time this is over.
6706916
You need all your tears for Background Pony. Give yourself a week or so after this ends. Drink plenty of fluids, get your best snuggly blanket before you read and a pillow to hug. And maybe some duct tape for your soul.
6707008 I will be sure to remember that. Unless I forget.
IS MY THEORY THAT IT WAS ALL MENTAL BECOMING TRUE!?
ANd also, somepony left hook Octavia for me, plese? Still a tad bit angry over tht last cahppie!
6706916
Prepare yourself, the feels train is coming.
Also, I think we're finally going to find out exactly what happened 7 years ago next chapter!
YAY FLASHBACK
NGNGNGNNNNGNGNGNGNGG!!!1¡!¡!1!!!! FTHHLFLHFHTLHFHTLFLHFTLTHFFHFFF!!!!
6707092 +1
6707036
Octavia's clearly doing the "I'm pushing you away because you're too good for me." bit. It's obvious she cares for Vinyl as well - though how I'm not entirely sure. Maybe unexplored bisexual attachment she wasn't previously acknowledging, maybe sisterly/best-friend.
I feel she could have better handled the situation had anyone else raised her.
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Awesome chapter Skirts awesome chapter
6707178True.
Still needs somepony to physically hand some sense to her.
6707008
I still don't get all the hype for background pony. It's just 20 blank chapters. Why do I even have it in my favorites?
Obviously Tavi was acting the way she is due to emotional stress - both of them need to sit down and talk it out.
Well, Tavi needs to talk and Vinyl write or use her blank speech, if Octavia knows it that is.
Still... so much turmoil, and for what? It can't end like this.
Tavi stop being an idiot.
I mean, I can understand how screwed up her childhood must have been, but FFS she is being so dense right now.
6707512
You know, I'm not sure. It... it felt like a good reason to favorite it at the time. Say, you got the urge to sing?
Well... I didn't need those feels anyway.
See, here I thought we were going to have a happy ending for a change.
And I was so wrong to hold out for it.
6707512 No. Just no.
Here comes the flashback when they first met!
I wonder if they meet after of before the accident.
6707512
I don't remember if I already read that, but it's already bookmarked, liked and in my favorite.
Based song. Good, introspective chapter. Looking forward to the conclusion.
I've got a feeling that Vinyl is going to awaken in hospital with a very, very bad prognosis hanging over her.
I know how you feel, Vinyl.
WTF skirts? I was having a damn good day, looking forward to some fluffy Tavisratch and now I just want to curl into a ball and drain my body of every last drop of "liquid pride"
...I don't get it.
Nothing has to be like this. There can still be something good on the other side. There can still be hope.
Vinyl...Octavia...please. Just allow yourselves to be happy. For yourselves. For each other. For everyone.