“I guess the question we should be asking ourselves is, does she even have an audience to return to at this point?”
The radio in the corner cracked as a burst of static muffled the next bit of what the announcer was saying. Vibrant Tone closed her eyes, waiting restlessly for the connection to reestablish itself - it taking a bit too long for her liking.
There was probably a spike of magical energy nearby causing some interference, and Vibrant had no way of knowing how long it would take for it to dissipate. She couldn’t help grumbling to herself about how this never would have happened a few years ago—back when she would stay in the hotels of uptown Manehattan, surrounded by the glitz and glamour of the city. Those hotels had radios with reinforced wiring so meticulously engineered that they would have probably managed a clear signal straight through Princess Cadenza’s Canterlot Wedding.
By the looks of it, her current radio could be taken out by a unicorn foal levitating a ball outside the window.
“I mean, they’re calling it a comeback album, but at this point she might as well be starting from scratch,” a voice said, the radio signal coming back to life. “No new music for years, no appearances? No concerts? No shows?”
“Not that her last performances were anything to write home about either,” said a deeper voice, causing Vibrant to grimace. She remembered those performances all too well. She knew they were correct in their assessment.
“Right, so, bad last impression, then silence for years while the rest of the music world has kept on moving. Songbird Serenade and Sapphire Shores have been on fire the last few years, not to mention Coloratura dominating as both the Countess and Rara. And that’s without getting into the explosion of music genres and collaborations like “Symphonic Music Machine” by DJ-Pon3 and Octavia Philharmonica. I just don’t think there’s anything for her to come back to at this point.”
“See, that’s where I disagree,” that second voice jumped back in. “You have to be curious about this new album right? I mean, she’s taken years to write it and it’s already been delayed twice. You may say no one cares, but we’re on air right now talking about it. If anything, I think this album has a lot to live up to in terms of hype.”
A dry chuckle escaped Vibrant at this.
“If there’s so much hype, then explain to me why no one is bothering to buy tickets to her show at the Rustic Stable tonight?”
“That dive bar? That’s your answer right there. That’s a warm up performance at best. A trial run. No way we’re going to see any new content tonight. No, the show to look out for is going to be her performance at the Manehattan Theater for Luna’s Festival of the Arts Celebration a month from now. A bunch of singers, each performing a single song? A chance to perform for a bunch of mixed audiences, especially those who came to see someone else? If she’s going to generate hype for her album, that’s where it’s going to happen. I’ll bet you anything.”
“Well, I guess we’ll have to wait and see. In the meantime, let’s take some calls. Are you excited for the return of Vibrant Tone? Do you think that her new album is ever going to actually come out? Or are you just confused about who in Equestria we are talking about? To call in, attune your messages to—”
The radio abruptly shut off, a sharp click resounding through the room as Vibrant turned the radio knob with her magic.
She used to love listening to the people call in. In fact, it used to be her favorite part of the radio appearances, getting to sit there in the studio and read the messages as they came in, but listening to them over the radio was almost as good. Or at least it had been in better days.
Now she could hardly stand to listen.
And it wasn’t so much that she feared negative commentary or even the apathy that was honestly more likely to arrive. No. Even positive comments were hard to listen to.
They reminded her too much of better times.
A phantom hunger rippled through her stomach and she clenched her teeth as her hoof rested on her abdomen. And yet it disappeared as soon as it started.
Of course it did. She hadn’t actually been hungry in quite a while.
Nope, not going there, she thought, finally sitting up in her bed.
The simple action was enough to bring everything back into focus. The scattered papers all over the floor, the smell of alcohol that permeated the room (mostly coming from the pile of empty bottles in the trash can), and the stack of mail resting on the vanity desk by the mirror. Outside she could hear people yelling, laughing, and despite the closed blinds plenty of light still managed to permeate into the room.
By her estimation, it was probably close to noon. She had slept in. But hey, part of her hadn’t been planning on waking up at all so, in some ways, she had woken up early. Chalk it up to the radio being left on overnight, she mused.
Deciding to deal with her natural needs first, she began heading towards the restroom.
The light flickered as she turned it on. The room was cramped. She was pretty sure there was mold on the shower wall. She shuddered.
“When did things get this bad?”
You know when.
She violently shook her head to clear her thoughts. She then took care of her business as quickly as possible. After washing her hooves, she splashed some water on her face to little effect. She sighed.
Stepping out of the bathroom, she was forced to confront the room again. Her instinct to burrow somewhere and hide in shame was strong.
The radio ponies had said that her new album had a lot to live up to. If they could only see it now, scattered across half written pages all over a cheap carpet floor—trampled underhoof as she walked within the confines of the hotel room. The pages were tattered. They were dyed by spilled drinks. And, more than anything, they were worthless.
Back in the day she would have filled each of these pages, front and back, before carefully filing them away in folders. Back in the day the ideas would not stop flowing, and it was all she could do to contain them, to capture them, to keep them from spilling out and going to waste. Back in the day she had been hungry, starving even. And that hunger had driven her to lengths most artists could not even imagine.
That hunger had led her to sky-rise condos and sea-side villas. It had led her to the top of the charts and the finest of tables. It had opened doors to contracts and sold out stadiums. It had paved a road lined with comfort and luxury—and hunger, yes; but the hunger had earned its keep.
That was a long time ago, she reminded herself looking at the peeling paint by the door.
She hadn’t been hungry in quite some time.
Looking over the letters, she couldn’t help but think as well that she never used to let the mail pile up this much either.
Stop it, she thought.
One of the letters was already opened, the one from her label letting her know her reservation details for this hotel.
That had been an awkward meeting, more of a dance than a conversation. Vibrant had once learnt that, in dealing with record labels, you had to pay more attention to what went unsaid than what was said. There was plenty to pay attention to that day.
The hotel had been booked due to its closeness to the Rustic Stable for her convenience. The fact that this squarely put the hotel in the “wrong side of town” definitely went unsaid, as did the fact that the label was unwilling to spend any more money on her than absolutely necessary anymore.
Their understanding at her need for a second extension for the album was stated, their unwillingness to grant her a third was not.
They even brought up how eager they were to see her performance at the Manehattan Theater, while failing to mention her contract re-evaluation two days after that.
And yet, everything that went unsaid was understood by Vibrant Tone. Each message was abundantly clear. Not that it had helped to motivate her any. Not that anything could anymore.
She began opening the rest of the letters.
One was from her bank, letting her know she was dangerously close overdrafting again.
Nothing new there.
Another was from the Manehattan Theater, letting her know about the load-in times and itinerary for the day of that performance. There was one from the hotel itself, reminding guests about their rules, including their most often violated ones: no parties in the hotel, no drugs in the premises, no loud noises after 9 pm - the usual crap. There had been one earlier with the details for tonight’s performance, but that had been discarded the day before. 10 pm. 35-minute set. Show up 30 minutes early to set up.
Which left the fan letters.
Ever since the announcement of her new album over a year ago, letters had started coming in again. At first they had arrived in bunches of thirty at a time. Over time that number began to dwindle to where now she could reliably expect to only get two or three a week, probably due to her never responding.
In her defense, it was hard to answer letters when you never opened any of them.
Vibrant picked up one of the unsealed envelopes at random and scanned it.
No stamp. No return address. Just a handwritten scrawl on the face of the envelope
To: Vibrant Tone
From: Honeysuckle
Not even a mailing address, Vibrant remembered thinking when she had first received this letter, a sign that the envelope had been hoof delivered to the record label building. The letter had looked different when it had first been forwarded to her, lacking the stain that was either beer or vomit, the creases from traveling from place to place, and the small tear at the top right corner where Vibrant had once begun to open the envelope before stopping herself. That had to have been over a month ago.
Vibrant Tone was, of course, no stranger to fan mail. She still remembered her first letter and the burst of energy that came from reading the words of love and admiration held within. She had memories of rushing home on mail days, knowing there would be a pile of letters waiting for her, ripping into them with gluttonous abandon. She remembered writing back. She remembered meeting the fans who wrote to her. She remembered. She remembered. She remembered.
Shrippp
A small yelp escaped her lips as the sound of paper ripping startled her from her thoughts. In her hooves was the now torn-in-half letter, envelope and all. It took a moment further for the anger to really settle into her skin.
That was something else she had lost. She had met fans since then. Read letters since then. And she had gotten nothing out of it, just the same complacency that followed her day in and day out through her mediocre existence.
As she tossed the scraps of paper to the floor, she decided she would not be reading any fan letters today. She would not be reading this letter at all.
She took a glance at the clock. 12:50. Still too early. And with the way her mood was going, it was only bound to get worse from here.
You should be songwriting.
The stray thought stopped her for a second before she turned on a dime and began to rummage through the bags laying at her bedside. From within she pulled an unopened bottle of whiskey and a pill container.
Her choices at this point were to try to spend the day writing, to spend her day chasing a spark that had long since faded, or to go back to sleep.
Not really a choice when one stopped to think about it.
She dry swallowed a hoof-full of pills, as she had done many times before, and began chasing them down with a few swigs of the whiskey. The alcohol bit into her throat but she stifled her reaction, letting the burn slowly settle within her stomach.
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, wishing she could feel the effects of what she had just done, but there was nothing. Probably by the same virtue of physiology that stopped this same act from being dangerous for her, she was unable to experience the feeling of being drunk and the feeling of being high. In some way, she figured it balanced out. All it would do is knock her out for a few hours. She would probably wake up at around 8 or 9, feeling worse for wear but overall ok.
That said, she had just woken up, meaning it would take a bit more than usual to put her to sleep. And so, she continued drinking.
Slowly she felt a haze begin to cloud her mind and blur her vision. She could tell it was working. However, the haze did not arrive alone. Along with it came a stream of memories of things that had once been.
Memories of pushing herself to be the best. Of staying up for days to finish a composition. Of playing a show at a different city every single night for months on end and looking forward to the next stop. Memory after memory after memory flashed across her visage in quick succession as tears began to form.
The world then began to tilt and she knew it was coming.
She caught a flicker of movement and a flash of light at the corner of her vision. She turned to look and found the mirror in which she saw the tell tale signs, as embers of green flame danced around her. The flames licked her mane and features before the spell failed altogether, revealing not the cream colored unicorn with a caramel mane, but rather the changeling concealed within.
In seeing herself, Vibrant Tone could not help but to feel frustrated that her last moments of consciousness would be filled with anger and disappointment.
She studied her reflection with disgust, her lemon-yellow carapace, the lack of fangs making her feel toothless, defenseless. And those eyes...
Oh, how she hated those eyes.
So sad. So full of pity. Devoid of purpose.
Devoid of hunger.