Long Play was peering into the bathroom mirror, reapplying some red mane highlights, when he heard the front door slam.
"Vi? That you?"
Long Play didn't see anything when he stuck his head out. Though he did hear the shuffling patter of dejected hoofsteps climbing the living room stairs. No doubt an embarrassed, short-legged filly hadn't expected anyone else to be home. And to be fair, Long Play was indeed prepping to go to a Blue Oyster Colt concert this evening. He was actually planning to gallop at full speed so the wind would dry his fresh highlights in an appropriately wavy style. But now...
"Vi?" Long Play repeated as he trotted into the foyer. "Was school okay today?"
A despondent, prepubescent grunt answered him from upstairs. It was followed the whumph of someone small flopping onto their bed.
For reasons Long Play knew too well, Vinyl Scratch rarely spoke. But she was usually comfortable around her family. And she certainly never slammed doors.
"Vi, do you need some company?"
Silence.
Long Play made his way up the steps. The stairway wall was bare. Normal for this household but not for most Ponyville homes. Long Play's friends all had murals of family photos and foalhood artwork. Photo Finish, a Westphalian exchange student he dated in high school, was really into that new "hoofheld camera" technology. Her dorm had been completely plastered with polaroids.
Long Play though, he was a music colt. He had a few band posters (most of them signed) for the Red Trot Chili Peppers and Rage Against the Paddock, but those stayed safely in his bedroom. He preferred CDs to posters anyway, and he preferred posters to tacky traditional home decor. Vinyl Scratch wasn't much into drawing or painting either, which was admittedly something that isolated her from the other fillies in her class. Long Play recalled his own trouble making friends at that age, and how he'd eventually found belonging playing peewee hoofball. Roughhousing like that had actually toughened him up for future mosh pits.
Sports weren't an option for Vinyl. She had a few obvious handicaps that precluded competing in games of physical prowess. Most days she didn't let that get her down, and during the days it did, Long Play had promised himself he'd always be there for her. Even if today it meant being late to a Blue Oyster Colt concert.
Finally upstairs, Long Play noted that his baby sister had left her bedroom door open. For someone normally nonverbal, Vinyl made very understandable cries for comfort. Long Play loped inside.
"Need a hug, kiddo?"
A nod came from the pony shaped wad under the covers, and Long Play passed Vinyl's prized phonograph on his way to over. It had been their grandmother's. When Vinyl was feeling blissful, she often cranked it with her fumbling magic, the hissing tunes of old records filling her room with song. The phonograph was untouched today though, as Long Play sat on the My Cantering Romance sheets, waiting for Vinyl Scratch to emerge. He didn't need to wait long.
Vinyl Scratch wriggled headfirst from her blanket like a Changeling grub. She even sort of looked like one, with her hefty and ever-present prescription glasses. Perpetually magnified bug eyes, that was the baggage of being a nearsighted six-year old. She curled up in her brother's lap, face puffy from both her spectacles and from recent crying. Long Play wrapped his forelimbs around her patiently. Talking with Vinyl always required patience.
"Sh-sh-show And Tell," she eventually managed. Long Play petted her ears encouragingly.
"Show And T-T-T-Tell," she repeated.
"Yep. Show And Tell was today, wasn't it? I remember you being really excited this morning."
"I got to go f-f-f-first. I put my hoof up when Miss Ch-Cheerilee asked who want-t-t-ted to volunt- volun- to vol..."
"Deep breaths, kiddo. You know your stutter gets worse when you're fired up."
Vinyl Scratch nodded, full of trust. Her tiny nostrils flared a few times, and with her chest pressed to Long Play's, her hammering heartbeat relaxed. Relaxed by fidgety foal standards, anyway.
"I went f-first."
"And showed everypony your toothbrush?"
"Yeah! My toothb-b-brush!" She produced the treasure in question and waved it in Long Play's face. The back and forth motion activated a simple charm enchanting the brush, playing a nursery rhyme. 'The Heart Carol.’ Uniformly popular with elementary schoolers for generations.
There were of course much fancier, more expensive Tooth Tune brushes on store shelves. Some even came with real licensed pop hits instead of public domain folk tunes. But gifts were about the thought put into them, not the Bits spent. And since Vinyl was still a foal, any and all music-makers were exciting to her. That had been Long Play's logic when he bought his sister a novelty toy for her birthday. He'd been confident she'd love it. His confidence had been correct.
"I waved it around and s-s-some of the other foals danced. Like, w-with their heads only, cuz everyp-pony had to st-st-stay at their desks like good p-p-ponies except f-f-for me." Amid the stammers and involuntary ticks, genuine joy was warming her words. "I was up in f-fr-front of ever... I was m-m-making m-music... and they all l-liked it! They l-l-l-liked me and my m-m-my mus... my m-m-m...!"
So much for staying calm and coherent.
Long Play jostled his knees a few times and Vinyl giggled at being bounced like a baby. Whenever she was happy, every little excitement in life got amped up like a boom box dialed to ten. Long Play knew how to tune her foalish emotional knobs, but he also knew Vinyl's day must've had a sour note at some point. She didn't cry over little things like some fillies her age.
"So you had a good time at school?" Long Play was fishing, and Vinyl bit immediately. She seemed smaller than normal now. Again, those heavy glasses did not flatter her.
"Y-y-eah. I mean... I took my t-t-toothbrush and sat d-d-down and..." she was gripping her toy like a security blanket. "Then the others t-took their t-turns..."
"Mmhm. So what'd the other foals bring for Show And Tell?"
Vinyl Scratch didn't answer right away. And not for speech-related reasons, Long Play guessed. He wracked his brain for classmate names he knew.
"What did... what did little Berry Punch bring?"
"A shaky mixy c-c-cup. It was neat. I g-g-guess."
"And uh, what about Light... no wait, Lyra. You go to school with a pony named Lyra, right?"
"She had um, a P-P-Power Ponies comic where they w-went to a human w-w-world."
"Thunderlane?"
"He was home sick w-w-with feather flu."
Long Play's list of names was exhausted. Oh wait, who was that blue pegasus with the multicolored mane? Darn it, how come he knew every past and present member of They Might Be Geldings, but barely any of the local foals his sister's age?
"R-Rainbow Dash went after I did."
Vinyl's voice was wobbling. From emotion now.
"She showed her C-C-Cut-t-tie Mark she g-g-got last w-w-week-k-k-end..."
"Deep breaths, kiddo."
Vinyl did not take any deep breaths. She was staring into space, stammering feverishly.
"She g-g-got her Cutie Mark f-f-from doing a t-t-trick that lit up the sk-sk-sk-sky with a b-b-boom-"
"Flames of Tartarus, that's what the explosion near Cloudsdale was last weekend? I thought the Weather Factory blew up or something."
"Everyp-p-pony remembered it and got t-t-talking even when Miss Cheerlilee s-s-said "shush" no one sh-sh-shushed and I remember seeing that b-b-b-boom and all its c-c-colors and Rainbow D-D-Dash was at school w-w-with all her colors and her Cutie Mark's c-c-colors and all- and all- and all- all-" Vinyl Scratch pounded the bedspread, fresh tears fogging her glasses as her disobedient jaw trembled. "All those colors!!"
Energy spent, Vinyl Scratch bawled into her brother's embrace. Long Play stroked her head.
More than her bug-eyed glasses, more than her chronic stutter, the most striking thing about Vinyl Scratch was that she had the dullest, most washed-out fur in Ponyville. Nothing matched her mane's blank lack of luster, except her accompanying tail of course. Long Play remembered when Vinyl was born, how strange she'd looked with her weak red eyes and pale ghostly fur. The nursery pony called her "albino." That word had never left Long Play's head. Nor Vinyl's, once she was old enough to understand it.
"Rainbow Dash's t-table was full of f-f-friends at lunch." Vinyl was mumbling to nopony, but Long Play didn't need any details. Vinyl had shown off her musical treasure, made hopeful by the sight of a few bobbing heads, then been promptly forgotten a minute later.
Sit down, nearsighted colorless stammerer. Stand tall, flying rainbow prodigy.
"It's okay Vi," Long Play crooned. "I'm here kiddo, it’s okay..."
Neither he nor Vinyl knew how long they sat on that bed, rocking back and forth until her bitter envy faded to numbness. Somepony was humming a slow, soothing rendition of the Heart Carol. Long Play realized it was himself.
"You can p-p-put me down. If you w-want."
"Depends. When I leave, are you just gonna bury yourself under the covers and cry some more?"
Vinyl's silence spoke volumes.
Long Play blew out heavily, sweeping some stray sweaty mane strands from his face. They fell right back, and he irately brushed them away again. Stupid uncut hair. Stupid genetics favoring the brother and shortchanging the sister. Stupid conditioner he always used to downplay damage from his constant... use...
Constant use of hair dye.
"Vi, instead of unplugging in your room, I want you to come downstairs with me."
"B-b-blue?" Vinyl Scratch was seated on the sink's edge, short little hind legs dangling down. Long Play meanwhile was battling the lid on a spare bottle of dye. The seal was strong and his magic was not.
"How come you have a b-b-bottle of blue laying around? You're all r-red, and Miss Cheerilee said you can't get red by m-m-mixing other c-c-colors. We even had a t-test on colors and I got a B p-p-plus."
A loud pop ended Long Play's war with the lid, and Vinyl tapped her forehooves in shy applause. Her brother gave an exaggerated bow, then snorted at the sight of fresh cerulean marring the tile floor.
"Dang spill," He muttered. "Whatever. Your head's small, so half a bottle's still enough." Long Play was stirring the remaining contents with his hooftip. "I bought this stuff a few weeks ago when I first heard Blue Oyster Colt were coming to town. Blue mane, blue rock band... look, I was too excited to realize I would've just made my head purple as a grape. Didn't get around to pitching it in the trash though. Thankfully."
"Was that b-b-band the one you were g-gonna see tonight?" Vinyl was looking around, but the bathroom had no clock in it. Her tone got meeker than normal. "Are you... m-m-missing the show's start 'cause of me?"
"This is more important," Long Play dismissed. "Now turn around and put your glasses somewhere safe."
Vinyl obeyed. With her coke-bottle spectacles clutched to her chest fluff, the bathroom around her was full of amorphous soupy blobs. Nothing had shape, everything was frightening. Even her own reflection was a bleached, defensively hunched smear. Vinyl Scratch blinked slowly. Two squinting red blots in the mirror blinked too.
"The dye might feel cold at first." Long Play's words were encouraging, crisp and clear. Vinyl's eyes and voice were weak, but ears had never failed her. Nor had her brother.
"I'm r-r-ready."
The dye wasn't cold at all. Or maybe Vinyl just didn't notice because her reflection, while still blobby, didn't look so blank anymore. Blue was one of the "cool colors", that was what Vinyl had learned in school. But as it brightened her mane and gave definition to her trembling tail, Vinyl wasn’t chilled. Instead she felt wonderfully, blissfully warm.
Something prodded her cheek. It was her Tooth Tune brush.
"Scrub up, kiddo. I'm almost done here, so try washing today's bad taste from your mouth."
Music filled the bathroom. From the toothbrush's jingle, then from Vinyl's harmonized humming, and from Long Play's voice as he supplied the lyrics.
"Quarrels arise but their numbers are few,
Laughter and singing will see us all through..."
Eventually, Vinyl Scratch heard the sink turn on. Long Play rinsed his hooves, then helped Vinyl rinse her mouth.
"Alright, kiddo," he declared. "You're blue. Da-ba-dee, da-ba-die."
Vinyl's shakily slid her glasses back on. Blobs became recognizable again, herself being one of them. And 'recognizable' was the right word, because even though she was still herself, still Vinyl Scratch, she wasn't a blank canvas anymore. She was more now. She was... whole.
"Whaddya think, Vi?"
Vinyl Scratch touched her hair, then the mirror, then her hair again.
"I look like a n-n-normal pony," she whispered. Then she bit her lip guiltily. "With b-b-buggy eyes though."
Long Play chuffed in agreement as he toweled the sink dry. "You definitely need new specs. Maybe some of those fancy prescription sunglasses like the lead singer of Jockeys Priest wears. Ugh, those are gonna cost a shiny bag of Bits."
He paused and tapped his chin thoughtfully. "Then again I am pocketing what I would've spent on that concert ticket today..."
"So you're r-r-really not going?" Vinyl Scratch hopped down from from her perch looking even guiltier. "I... I'm sorry, this is b-b-because I c-came home crying..."
Long Play almost shrugged. He almost assured her this wasn't the first, dozenth, or even hundredth rock concert he would have gone to. He almost gushed about next month being the start of Depeche Mare's reunion tour, and til then he had no issue kicking back, putting on his headphones, and spending some lazy nights in.
He didn't do any of that though. Instead he frowned at Vinyl Scratch pawing absently at a bathmat. Her new mane really did look amazing. Her tail too, which he noticed was swishing with idle, wistful, youthful energy. Even her glasses didn't seem so bad from this angle. If they were a few shades darker, she'd make a terrific little homebody starlet.
In summary, Vinyl Scratch was all dressed up with no place to go.
Long Play decided 'a place to go' was worth the price of a concert ticket.
"Hey kiddo, I just remembered: Concerts usually have an opening act that comes on before the band. If we hoof it, we might get there in time for the main show."
"We?"
"Yeah. Foals get in free, you know."
Vinyl Scratch's eyes went wide as stage lights. Then she bolted for the front door.
"Hey! You don't even know which section of town we're going to!"
"So run f-f-faster than me and I can follow!"
Long Play huffed. Then grinned. Then galloped after his sister.
This eventful evening was far from over. If Vinyl's first concert experience went well, Long Play predicted today would be one for the record.