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Chapter 28: An Old Story
(The Burden of Knowledge Pt. 2)
It was soooo much money. Vinyl Scratch had never seen so many bits in her whole life. She couldn't fathom how in Equestria Patched Hat had earned all that money. Whenever somepony had tossed even a single coin at the two of them when they played for bits on the street corner, she had been elated. Now, she had more cold hard cash than she'd ever think she'd need. It was all there, sitting in a cart, covered in a blanket, hidden right where Patched's note said it'd be. It had always been there, locked away all those years she scrounged around, hungry and destitute.
In a way, she was angry. Vinyl never felt like Patched had neglected her. He loved her like she was his own filly. But... they could have had so much more! With all this money he had hidden away, she could have lived in a house! Gone to school, had friends! Lived a normal life! Probably would have even gotten a cutie mark by now! I mean, she's a little old to be a blank-flank. He could have provided her with greater material things... things she'd always envied. But he didn't. Instead, they had lived in back-alleys on smelly mattresses that richer ponies had decided were too old or too uncomfortable.
Vinyl fiddled with the note that Patched left before he died. She was all alone now. Just a filly on the streets, with a single piece of paper: a paper that claimed she was wanted by somepony powerful and that was the justification as to why she couldn't go to school or be registered anywhere as existing at all. Her father was dead. Her mother surely was, as well. Patched had given up his own life of comfort and wealth to save hers. Now he was gone. Now Vinyl had to figure out what to do.
The white unicorn filly groaned and sighed. She was in the little makeshift home she and Patched had shared. They jimmy-rigged some shelter together with ropes and metal sheets to keep the rain out. Whatever things the pair found they collected here. Of note was Vinyl's "guitar" that Patched had put together. It didn't work, but Vinyl loved to stroke the strings and pretend. Patched Hat's namesake top hat was sitting comfortably on the old mattress. The place where he lay and gave his last breath. Vinyl stuffed the note she had looked over many times back into the secret hiding slot in that hat before lying down on the ground and staring straight up.
She took off her sunglasses. They were junk. Only one lens was still intact, cracked though it was. The other side was taped over with black tape, with only a small pinhole poking through. Vinyl focused on the thin line of sky she could see between the two grimy buildings that surrounded her. Nopony ever came back here. Patched was gone so she didn't need to worry about him seeing her eyes. She took the opportunity to observe the brilliant blues and white above her without the usual shade.
What was she going to do?
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Manehatten's streets were so busy that the slight clip-clopping of Vinyl's tiny hooves were inaudible as she paced just outside the record store. The ponies that passed her by ignored the dirty young unicorn filly wearing broken sunglasses and contemplating whether or not she should step inside. She was not accustomed to going inside a store at all. The most she had done was buy from street vendors when she could spare the bits. But now, a little scruffy pack with a portion of Patched's inheritance hung from her back. The coins clattered as she moved, just another inaudible sound in the bustle of the big city.
'Don't be such a filly!' Vinyl thought, in an unsuccessful attempt to encourage herself. 'Just go in! Who cares how I look? They won't care! I don't even care!' Her confidence wavered at this new threshold. She sort of stood out: dirty unkept hair, blank flank, taped up sunglasses, unchaperoned with a pack of money. She never used to care about anypony else's thoughts when it was just her and Patched. He had been somepony to lean on. Now she had nopony. It was the thought of Patched's absence that made Vinyl swell up in emotion again. As she aggressively shook her head to try to clear out the sad memories, the unbalanced shades upon her face fell off and hit the concrete.
'Horsefeathers!' Vinyl cursed in her head as she shut her eyes for the safety of the ponies around her. She felt the sunglasses leave their place but didn't hear where they landed. 'Buck it all...' Vinyl crouched down and started to feel around for the lost item, keeping eyelids closed as she did. Of course, she couldn't see a thing and ended up in the path of passing ponies. One stallion who was busy looking at his watch stumbled into the crouched filly, hitting her in the side.
"Oof!" Vinyl spurted out as she fell over, almost opening her eyes in shock.
"Hey! Watch it kid! I'm walkin' 'eeere!" the grumpy stallion shouted in a strong accent as he recoiled from the collision.
"You're supposed to apologize when you run into somepony!" Vinyl shouted back as she wagged her tiny hoof angrily in the direction she thought the stallion was.
"Pft!" the stallion spit. "Don't have time for this!" He cursed some under his breath as he stepped around the complaining filly and his hoof connected with the fallen sunglasses. The already weak plastic cracked and crumbled under the full-grown stallion's weight. Surprised for a moment about stepping on something, the stallion glanced down only once at the item he broke. Without an apology, he trotted off, grumbling.
Vinyl heard the shades breaking and gasped. "No, no no..." She reached for the area, quickly found the crumbled mess and picked it up. "You... BIG STUPID JERK HEAD!" Vinyl screamed out, flailing angrily. The stallion, who couldn't care less, didn't respond and continued off. Every pony who passed noticed the angry filly on the ground flinging out juvenile obscenities with shut eyes and broken glasses, but no pony stopped to comfort her. Nopony wanted to get involved.
This was the final straw that broke the weakened dam in Vinyl. Her anger just combusted her own sorrow. She couldn't see. The world was black. She couldn't even open her eyes for fear of hurting somepony. She had nopony to help her. Patched Hat was gone. "Ughn... Waugh... Waaahhh!!!!" she started crying. The young pony didn't want to, but tears and exasperated gasps came out as helplessness filled her.
"Hey, don't cry!" a voice spoke to Vinyl as soon as she started bawling. It was a soft voice of another young filly, but Vinyl didn't care. She was too swept up in her own despair. "Oh! That guy was a jerk! It's okay!" the voice reassured, but Vinyl ignored it. She curled up on the ground, still sputtering out sobs.
'I'm all alone! Without Patched I can't do anything! I don't wanna be alone! I'm not gonna make it! I don't wanna die!' Vinyl thought in horror.
"Look, you can have mine, okay?" the voice continued despite Vinyl's dark thoughts. A small hoof placed itself on Vinyl's shoulder. Instead of embracing the empathetic gesture, Vinyl swung her hoof in defiance in that direction while still unleashing tears. "Hey! Don't be such a baby! Just put them on!" With that, the voice lost its patience and placed something forcefully on Vinyl's face.
The familiar light pressure on the sides of her muzzle made Vinyl's heart skip. She knew this feeling. Turning her head downward, just to be safe, she opened her eyes. Though she was dripping wet with tears, Vinyl could see the Manehatten concrete beneath her hooves. It appeared purple, though she knew that was not their true hue. She had sunglasses on. Purple ones. Really BIG ones. Gazing upward, now that she was protected from hurting anypony around her, she saw the pony behind the kind voice. It was an Earth pony filly, just about her own age. Her coat was a light mulberry and her mane was cerise. (Then again, from Vinyl's perspective she probably could have been any color and she'd just see purple.) The cutie mark on the flank of the pony was a bunch of grapes and a single strawberry. She was cute.
"There! That's better, right?" the little filly asked, beaming now that Vinyl had stopped sobbing. Vinyl reached up to touch the new sunglasses that had been forced upon her face. They were egg shaped with thick black rims. The lenses shifted from two shades of violet between the top and bottom. It was a moderately high class pair of shades. They were also way too massive for a pony of Vinyl's age. "Here, see how you look," the filly continued. Reaching into a pack she had set down beside her, the little Earth pony pulled out a compact mirror and held it up for Vinyl. Seeing her reflection, Vinyl saw how ridiculous the poorly sized sunglasses were, and tittered out a laugh.
"Pfft! They're kinda big," Vinyl finally spoke to the filly.
"I know... Sorry," the filly moaned. "They were gonna be a souvenir for mom."
"What? I..." Vinyl spoke almost instinctively, not really knowing what to say. Maybe she should apologize for taking the present, or thank her for the gift? There weren't any other young fillies that were homeless around Vinyl, so she had almost no interaction with anypony her own age. The words that would fall out naturally when she conversed with Patched didn't bother to show. She could do her own barking when performing for bits from strangers, but those were all adults. This filly was... at her height. Looking at her eye to eye (err... shades). It was a new feeling and it was making Vinyl's stomach start to flutter and her cheeks start to fill. Vinyl liked looking at this filly. She was very cute.
"Oh! You can keep them, though!" the little pony continued. "I'll get her something else." Looking around, the filly spotted the record store. "Ooo! Maybe something in there," she said, pointing at the very store Vinyl had been attempting to enter. The neon lights of the small store, crammed in a small slot along a busy street, read McJazzer's Record Shop. Before Vinyl could respond to any of this, the pony glanced at the watch she had around her foreleg. "Ack! I gotta go now, I hope you're feeling better!" the filly said to Vinyl before trotting happily and nonchalantly into the store.
Watching the filly bounce into the store, Vinyl's heart began to race. Without thinking and without the hesitation she had before, she hurried in after her. The store was filled with vinyl records. Rows and rows of them. There was a case against the wall with a few instruments in them, but this store was clearly for fans of listening to music rather than fans of making it. An unshaven, rough looking stallion reading the paper at the counter whistled along with the phonograph turning beside him. Vinyl ignored all this. On any other day she would have been enamored with everything in that store. But on this day, she was enamored with something else.
"W-what's your name!?" Vinyl called out as she caught up to her target who was quickly flipping through album covers. The shocked, berry-colored filly turned quickly and jumped a little, not expecting Vinyl to have followed. She relaxed after recognizing the unicorn with the large shades and red cheeks that contrasted her white coat.
"Berry Punch! What's yours?" the filly responded, keeping her attention on Vinyl but turning to continue to look through the albums.
"It's Vinyl. Scratch. *sniff*" Vinyl stuttered out, sniffing up the last of the mucus that had sneaked out when she was crying moments before. "Vinyl Scratch."
"Hey, that's cool!" Berry responded. "What do you think of this one, Vinyl?" Berry held up an album cover and handed it to her new acquaintance. "It's cute, right? That means its probably good, right?'"
Vinyl took the vinyl record. She never held a new album in her hooves before. Her and Patched used to have some old, dirty ones that barely worked that they played on the phonograph they found that was, also, old, dirty and barely worked. The sheen of the album case caught her attention. It was smooth. She rolled out the vinyl disc and admired the quality. She suddenly had the desire to sniff it to see if it smelled different when it was new.
"I... don't know unless I hear it," Vinyl finally answered, her interest in music vying against her interest in Berry. "I've never seen you before... Do you live around here?" Vinyl asked, trying to learn more about Berry while handing her the record back.
"No, I'm on vacation," Berry answered, putting the record back on the shelf. She trotted along looking at more covers. "I live in Ponyville."
Having never heard of it, Vinyl asked, "What's that?"
"A town just outside of Canterlot," Berry replied stoutly.
"...Canterlot? What's that?" Vinyl continued.
"-!!! Canterlot!? The capital? The place were the princess lives?" Berry exclaimed, stopping her perusing to stare at Vinyl in disbelief.
"...Princess...? Oh, right! The big pegasus who moves the sun!" Vinyl said, suddenly remembering. Patched had taught her about Princess Celestia and her fallen sister, but Vinyl had a bad habit of... not paying attention.
"She's an alicorn...?" Berry corrected. "Are you... okay, Vinyl? Like, in the head?" Berry continued, growing concerned.
"Yeah, I'm-!" Vinyl started to try to explain. Growing embarrassed of her lack of education, she shuffled where she stood. Her life situation crept up to interfere with her thoughts. She nervously wiped some grime off herself. She was dirty. She probably smelled. She was just a street urchin. Should she even be talking to Berry? A pretty pony, who smelled heavenly, and was well-off enough to take vacations? It probably wasn't right, but... she couldn't help it. She wanted to. She wanted to be around Berry. She... made her feel good. "It just slipped my mind... haha," Vinyl eventually said to try to explain it away.
"Okay... Hey! These guys look cool!" Berry exclaimed, losing interest in Vinyl for a moment. She picked up an album. The cover was simply a group of impossibly handsome young stallions in white suits looking pensively in different directions. Backcorral Colts was the artist and Celestial Millennium was the name of the album.
"I... think I've heard of them," Vinyl said, thinking back to when she used to stay up late, listening to the muffled humming outside of a dance club.
"Are they any good?" Berry asked.
"I think they're pretty popular..." Vinyl said, unsure.
"Okay! I'll get mom this! Thanks, Vinyl!" Berry said happily, abruptly bounding off with the product. She effectively left Vinyl, but the stubborn little unicorn filly didn't hesitate to follow her. She hadn't thanked her for the sunglasses yet, but it wasn't coming out of her mouth. Despite this, she tried to with little effect.
"I... um," was about all Vinyl could muster as Berry trounced up to the sales counter with record in hoof.
"Excuse me! I'd like this, please!" Berry announced to the shopkeeper, who put down his newspaper as she called. The unicorn stallion was gruff and brown but had a warm expression upon seeing the two young fillies in his presence. He was probably McJazzer, the namesake of the store.
"Sure," McJazzer said cheerfully, with an accent Vinyl was accustomed to hearing in Manehatten. "You must be a fan of these fellas, then young lady?" the stallion surmised based on the age of the two ponies.
"I never heard of them before," Berry replied.
"Oh, well would you like to give it a listen to first, before makin' your purchase?" McJazzer asked.
"Um, hmm..." Berry pondered as Vinyl came up beside her. The shopkeeper didn't wait for a response, he took the needle off the phonograph that was playing some old blues beside him. With a flick of magic he levitated an object from behind the counter instead and placed in front of the two fillies. It was a more modern record player than the one he had been using.
"It will only take a minute, hmm?" McJazzer offered.
"Okay," Berry responded after checking her watch again. "I got time."
Vinyl hadn't spoken up any, as she felt out of place. Her attention had been on Berry this whole time, and she felt compelled to be next to her in a way she hadn't felt about any pony else. She didn't even notice McJazzer getting the record player ready until the moment the needle hit the vinyl. (The material, not the pony.)
"YeeeaaaAAAHAHAHAHA!!!" the voice erupted from the record. The startling intro to the song was proceeded by a popping beat and electric guitar. Vinyl immediately began to slightly nod her head to the rhythm before she could even process a reaction. There were sounds she had never heard before, not clearly anyway. The muffled sounds outside dance clubs could only educate her so much to the world of music, with intermittent moments of ponies entering or exiting giving her a clearer glimpse to the world within. But now, it was right in front of her. She could listen all she wanted. Hear every detail: every note and word that were crafted to evoke a response in a pony's heart. She could... reach out to it...
"These fellas are pretty popular with the young ladies," McJazzer commented to his customer.
"Oh, I like it!" Berry exclaimed with a smile. She began to sway with the music. "I'll take it!"
"Well, all right then. Let me just-," McJazzer turned to collect the record that continued to spin and play, but froze when he beheld the little white unicorn reaching to it herself.
Vinyl's hoof cautiously descended to the smooth surface of the black vinyl record that spun before her. As she touched it, electricity coursed through her, not from the record itself or the player, but from deep within her. It flushed her with excitement and in that moment, she knew, she needed to move. She forced the record back in the direction opposite of its spin. The needle scratched along the surface as the vinyl was jerked below its pin point in a new counter-clockwise direction. The record player emitted a new noise at this new motion. Vinyl released the record as the sound she created entered her ears and it began to turn as intended once again. But Vinyl didn't allow it to go, stopping it in its tracks once again. Forcing it back, this time she didn't release, she instead drug it forward. She played with it. Back and forth it went at Vinyl's command. The new sounds it was making excited Vinyl even further. She made a new rhythm atop the one pressed into the material itself. Vinyl continued with her experiment, much to the amazement of two onlookers.
"Well, I'll be..." McJazzer muttered to himself as the little Berry Punch stood shocked beside him. The old pony smiled as his expression softened. He began to tap his hoof to the beat Vinyl was creating.
"Wow," Berry stated with surprise.
Vinyl didn't want to stop. She wanted to continue to create the sounds on the record but Berry's reaction caught Vinyl's attention. She realized she was messing with someone else's property and tried to abruptly stop. However, something within her convinced her to press on just a moment more... Just... one last scratch... As Vinyl released the record with a forceful stride, the final noise floated through the air before the song continued as intended. Vinyl stood there in a slightly silly, slightly triumphant pose. Her heartbeat was racing faster than ever before from the excitement. It felt so right, what she just did. It came so naturally. She had longed to... touch music, as crazy as that seemed, her whole life. It was always too far away, behind a wall, in a building as she stood outside. She finally was able to, in some way, touch it. It felt wonderful. It was almost... Almost as if... it was what she was meant to do.
There was a flash of light behind her, but Vinyl didn't notice. She was awestruck at what she had just done.
"Oh, wow! You got your cutie mark!" a pony said. It was Berry Punch who said that. Who was she talking about? Vinyl wondered. Berry was pointing at her. But, that would mean... Vinyl turned her head and beheld what was behind her. (Err, on her behind, I should say.)
A cutie mark. Beamed eighth notes. Though Vinyl couldn't read music, she at least knew what notes looked like.
"I... I got my cutie mark," Vinyl stated, more dumbfounded than excited, but the excitement would come next. "My cutie mark. I got my cutie mark!" Vinyl began to bounce in jubilation.
"Congratulations, Vinyl!" Berry said with as much mature sincerity a young filly could give. Unable to contain herself, she bounced along with Vinyl a bit. "You're gonna be a musician!"
"A musician!?" Vinyl squealed.
"Maybe a DJ," McJazzer stated as he watched the two fillies jump around in his store.
"A DJ?" the two fillies said in unison as they stopped bouncing and turned to the old pony.
"Sure! You just did what's called 'scratching' on that record. It's a skill DJ's have," McJazzer pointed out.
"Oh, no! Did I damage it?" Vinyl asked at the mention of scratching.
"Well, no," McJazzer fumbled out an answer as he lifted the record needle up and stopped the spinning. "It's still safe for your friend here to play."
'Friend?' Vinyl thought suddenly at the word. He turned to Berry who was smiling. 'I have a friend? I'm friends with this pony?'
"I don't want it anymore," Berry said suddenly with a pleasant smile.
"Huh!?" McJazzer blurted out comically as he was putting the vinyl record back in its sleeve. (Oops, somepony just lost a sale.)
"Vinyl should keep it!" Berry explained. "It helped you get your cutie mark! Take it and cherish it forever!"
"O-okay!" Vinyl said with glee and surprise. "I will!"
"Hey, mister! Do you have another one I can buy?" Berry asked McJazzer, who answered.
As the stallion store owner walked off and came back with an identical record, Vinyl just stood, beaming. She smiled at the record she now held in her hooves. She smiled at the cutie mark now on her flank. She smiled... at Berry.
Berry herself completed her transaction with McJazzer, noticed Vinyl and said, "Hey, that's a nice smile! That looks better on you than crying."
"Oh. Thanks, I guess?" Vinyl laughed a little in embarrassment. Why did talking to Berry feel better than anything else that had just happened?
Berry Punch looked down at her watch again and addressed Vinyl one last time, "Oops! I gotta go. It was nice meeting you, Vinyl!" With that, Berry gave her own adorable smile, shuffled her pack back on and, with her new record in a bag, scurried out the door of the shop.
Vinyl felt an emptiness fill her almost instantly. Berry was leaving. Probably forever. She had to do something. She dashed over to the door, catching it from slamming shut. "Nice meeting you too, Berry! Thanks for the sunglasses!" Vinyl called out, unsure of what else to say. Across the street, her target heard the cry and turned around. Berry waved happily at Vinyl.
"Good luck on becoming a DJ! Come see me in Ponyville sometime!" Berry shouted her final goodbye with an invitation before rushing off into the city, the last time Vinyl would see her for years.
Vinyl stood blushing at the entrance to the store. Her feelings a mix of elation and sadness. After staring down the street longingly for far too long, she returned to the counter inside the store. McJazzer was waiting with the record Vinyl had been scratching, a wise smile rested on his face.
"So, you interested in buying this record?" McJazzer asked, not crudely, but warmly.
Vinyl took the record from the stallion, and held it in her hooves. Pensively, she stared it down, deep in thought.
"Yeah. And... can I work here?" Vinyl asked finally, looking up to McJazzer.
"Oh-ho?" McJazzer responded quizzically. "What for, young filly?"
"I want to... learn more about music. I want to... I want to be a DJ!"