Light trickled through the windows slowly as Celestia rose her sun, a waking call for all the ponies in Equestria. The birds were chirping in the trees, and some ponies were already up and about their business.
I opened my eyes slowly as I awoke from my first peaceful sleep. I reveled in the fact that for once, I had not woken up sweating in the middle of the night. However this happened, I really didn't care at the moment. There had been too many restless nights before then, and just one peaceful sleep was enough for me. Nothing could possibly ruin this great morning. I started to get up, but was quickly stopped by something I did not expect.
I heard a mumble.
When I looked down I saw that I had my hooves wrapped around a white mare with an electric blue mane. She was still sleeping soundly, her soft breathing ruffling through my fur. Her comforting heat traveled through my body as I started to piece the events from the night before.
I remembered that I had taken Vinyl to a bar, where she drank quite a bit and told me all sorts of things about her life and career. I also remembered that she had invited me into her home, where we just watched TV for a while until she fell asleep on me.
I figured I had also fallen asleep in her home, which was why she had her head on my chest. I didn't dare to move, afraid that I might wake her up from her comfortable sleep.
Unfortunately, I was also worried that she might not remember the previous night's events and would be terrified to find that she had suddenly woken up on her friend's chest. Apparently too much alcohol caused "hangovers" with ponies, causing them to black out and suddenly come awake with amnesia and a terrible headache. Vinyl, however, would probably not have that problem, considering that she was a rave pony after all.
There was no telling, though.
Still, there was no reason to be worried at that particular moment. Vinyl had not woken up yet, and her presence was extremely comforting. In fact, my heart completely melted at seeing her curled up next to me, using me as her pillow. Thoughts about running my face through her chest started invading my mind, but I pushed them away. These thoughts were getting way too creepy, and I was convinced they were not normal for any sane pony.
I did settle for nuzzling and smelling her mane, though. Her smell was extremely unsettling, actually. Rather, it was the fact that she had absolutely no scent that unnerved me. I knew that ponies had a smell reminiscent of their color or special talent, but she completely lacked form of fragrance. I had assumed that she would have smelled like blueberries, but instead it was as if she didn't exist at all. As I looked up from her I saw a shadow slide across the windows. It did so quickly and without a sound as if it was just passing by, yet I couldn't help but feel that it was watching me.
"What the hell..." I said under my breath without thinking. This stirred Vinyl from her sleep, and I felt her breathe in deeply before she looked up at me. Her eyes widened for a few seconds as we just stared at each other.
I felt my heart drop. At this point, she was either going to completely flip out or we were going to stare at each other blankly until somepony came in and intervened. Could I have ruined our friendship? Had a simple hangover completely ruined her opinion of me?
"Mornin'," Vinyl's expression suddenly changed to a smile as she greeted me. I felt my heart come back up into my chest again. I smiled back.
"Good morning." She chuckled a little. I then realized that my face was completely flushed, and of course she found that humorous. I laughed as well; her laugh was so infectious that even in a situation like this I felt completely unable to resist laughing alongside her.
My spontaneous laughter made her laugh even harder, which in turn made me also laugh even more intensely. We were both rolling on the floor at that point when suddenly Vinyl jammed a hoof in my mouth. Before I could attempt to mumble anything in protest, she said:
"Did you hear that?" she said in a frantically hushed tone. I moved my ears around to hear what she was talking about, when I heard hoofsteps coming down the stairs. I could only assume that was Octavia.
It seemed that Vinyl had been too late in warning me as Octavia walked into the living room, where Vinyl and I were lying down face to face with her hoof in my mouth. Octavia blushed furiously at first before shaking her head and raising an inquisitive eyebrow.
"I don't even want to assume what happened here." she simply said in her strangely superior tone. She then proceeded to walk out of the room, presumably to head to the kitchen and get breakfast. Vinyl and I looked at each other for a few silent seconds before bursting into laughter again from the sheer randomness of it all.
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Octavia didn't really question what had happened. Vinyl explained it to her anyway, and for some reason Octavia seemed to ease up a bit when everything was explained, as if she had been tense before. It was possibly because it was still early morning and she hadn't fully woken up yet. Truly, I wouldn't be surprised. I often felt grumpy when waking up at first, and my muscles were all stiff and sore from work.
Which reminded me, I hadn't worked on the forge for almost a full week.
"Vinyl, Octavia, I really gotta head out. I haven't worked for a while and I'm probably way behind on my projects," I said as I headed out the door. Neither really had much of a chance to argue as I had already shut the door and was running towards the shop.
On the way there, I noticed Big Macintosh walking with a pegasus that had a really flashy yellow coat. Her mane was a bright pink which should have made her stand out even more. However, for some reason, she seemed to really be shrinking back from everything and everypony, as if trying to hide under Big Macintosh. I also noticed she was wearing one of those saddlebags used for carrying foals, in which sat a filly with bright yellow fur like the mare, yet with a red mane matching Big Macintosh's coat. I assumed that the pegasus was Big Macintosh's mate, and that the foal was theirs. I found the whole scene kind of cute, in fact.
I found myself smiling at the scene. Truly, I thought that it would be nice to have a family of my own at some point. Raise my own foals, have a mate, all that stuff that came with being a pony.
Of course, the only problem I had was falling in love. What did love even feel like? Was it even possible for me to fall in love? Really, I felt like it would probably be useless to actually consider it, so I kept walking. I'm pretty sure I saw Big Macintosh scowling at me.
The streets were strangely empty while I was on my way to the forge. The problem was that it was the weekend; nopony was at work at this time.
When I finally arrived at my forge I felt my heart sink into oblivion.
There was a yellow police line across the front of the house, most of the windows were broken, some of the walls had been destroyed, and most of the actual forge was ruined and in shambles. Some policeponies were gathering up the remaining hot coals as ponies gathered around my house, trying to see what happened.
"Excuse me, coming through, excuse me..." I pushed through the crowd of ponies to reach my home. An officer with a brown trenchcoat was holding a notepad and talking to a couple other officers. I slipped under the police line and walked up to him.
"What in blazing hay happened here?!" To say I was flustered at the moment would be underestimating my rage. The officer turned around and looked at me with a frown.
"Sir, I'm afraid you'll have to step out of this zone, this is an inspection zone and--" he started before I cut him off.
"I live here, officer. This is my house. I want to know what happened." I glared at him, trying to be intimidating. Although that didn't work, he still consented and explained to me what they knew so far.
"Apparently, this was either a case of vandalism or extreme theft. We're not sure why anypony would do this to your home, but we have reason to believe that they may or may not have been looking for something."
"How so?"
"Most of the drawers in your home are open, and many of them are completely empty save for one with an apron." This was bad. The only thing of value in my home was my journal (which was made of the hive's skin) which I used to practice writing Chiddish. However, beforehand it was a mandatory record of our lives which we used for some reason that I believe related to "improving" our lives (not that it was necessary). If anypony translated what was in that journal, my identity would be discovered, and I would most likely be executed.
"Did the apron have anything in it?" I asked hesitantly.
"No."
Oh dear Chrysalis no. I panicked. Although I tried to hold my anxiety, I couldn't withhold a few beads of sweat on my brow. Who would actually want anything to do with my book? Why would anypony actually try to find out anything about me? I was certain that nopony had any suspicions to who I was.
Nopony other than Big Macintosh.
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"Hey, Blacksmith, are you alright? Is the music still too loud?" Vinyl sat down next to me as I clutched my head in both of my hooves. It had only been two days since my home had been sacked, yet I still felt like anypony could suddenly raid wherever I was and kill me on the spot. In fact, I could barely hear the pounding rave music since I was so captured in my thoughts.
I was only trying to live a normal life. Why was this happening to me?
"No, it's not that." I muttered. Vinyl scowled.
"Look, stud, you're not going to fix anything if you keep your head in your ass," she turned my stool around to face her, "We'll get you out of this together, alright?" I couldn't tell if she was being sincere since I couldn't see her eyes, but it was a nice thought.
"I guess I'll recover eventually, Vinyl." I looked at her, trying to see through the glasses she almost always wore. "Say, why are you always wearing those sunglasses? The only times you ever take them off are when you're around me or Octavia. It's almost like you're a vampony or something! You afraid of light?" She froze at what I intended to be a joke. Then she just scowled at me and walked out the door.
Well, that was certainly random.
"What in the hoof just happened?" I muttered to myself. The bartender looked at me for a few seconds.
"If you like her so much, why don't you go after her?" he asked. Wait, did he say like her?
"What?" I turned towards him and gave him a questioning look.
"Hey, it's obvious from how you talk to her that you're a bit smitten." He said bluntly, "Now get out there and make things right before you ruin your chances of being together for good."
I looked at him, then at the door, and then back to him before nodding and saying thanks, heading out myself.
When I got out onto the street, I looked everywhere for Vinyl. The streets were relatively empty, so I could see her stick out like a sore thumb in a small crowd of ponies down the street. I started running after her, shouting "excuse me" every two seconds as I ran against the crowd. Vinyl turned a corner, and I followed. When I saw her, she had just gone into an alley and had taken off her sunglasses. She was pretty much crying her eyes out.
I couldn't believe what I had done to her. Had my question really hurt her that much? Did I really make her cry just from one careless question? Really, the biggest question was: how could I make this right? I truly had no idea what to do here. I took a deep breath, gathered my thoughts, and headed into the alley.
Vinyl didn't react when I sat in front of her. She just kept crying like she had been before. I edged closer and closer to her, careful not to startle her. I just sat in front of her for what felt like hours before she finally looked up at me.
Her irises were blood red, and her eyes were completely bloodshot.
"How could you say that?" she asked in between sobs before she looked down again. I said nothing for a long time. My mind was blank. Eventually, I decided to just let my words come to me by themselves.
"Please, Vinyl. I don't know what I did wrong. Just explain to me what's wrong," I pleaded her, "Whatever I said, I want to be able to fix it."
"I've never told you why I'm like this, have I? The pale fur, the weird eye color..." She looked up at me again and edged closer, "I'm not like other ponies. I wasn't born with any of the colored genetics other ponies are born with."
"So..?"
"I'm an albino, you idiot." She laughed a little at my ignorance, but that didn't wipe the hurt from her face.
"So it's something you're really sensitive about?" She nodded.
"So I should never have said anything regarding that?" She nodded again.
"That would have been a better idea." She mumbled.
"I just want you to know that I'm sorry. I'll never bring this topic again." I brought my face closer to hers and looked deep into her eyes as they started to fade back into a magenta color, "Just please don't be mad at me." I felt extremely awkward with my wording, although it was the only wording I could find to truly express how I felt.
"You know you sound like a school colt right now, right?"
"Yes. Yes I do." I smiled, "Let's go home now."
"Right."