But, like, why?
Why would she call for me?
It’s not something that could be resolved through the group chat or through DMs so it’s not just a minor problem. At least, I assume it’s a problem. Oh fuck, what did I do wrong?
I run a hoof through my mane and rub my eyes as I try not to tear my gaze away from the swirling pink and blue door currently standing in front of me. Though, the piercing gazes of the castle staff that seem to surround me like a million tiny porcupine quills tearing through my flesh all at once make that very hard.
I force my expression to soften and my shoulders to relax.
No need to dwell on it when I can very easily get a clear answer.
Adjusting my stance, I rhythmically rap my hoof against the wooden door.
“Come in!” I hear a muffled reply that somehow still manages to sound like a catchy chorus.
Here we go.
Pushing the door in, I can only cock an eyebrow at what I see, namely: Cadence lounging on some pillows in front of huge TV that looks nearly blinding from where I can see it lighting up the front of her body.
Is that a fucking NX controller she has?
“Hi, Mezzo,” she calls out from the other side of her room.
“Sup Cadence, you called?” I ask.
She quickly glances in my direction and pats a wing on the pillow on the floor next to her, leaving me to mouth ‘What the fuck’ when she isn’t looking.
Huh, she’s still wearing her regalia.
Anyway, as I walk over to her, I can’t help but let my eyes wander a bit. Walking in from one of the room’s corners, a huge king-sized bed rests lazily on the ground to my right, accompanied by a sizeable nightstand. The top of the nightstand itself is covered with personal effects, ranging from a mane brush to a framed picture of Cadence and some white stallion with a blue mane.
Shining Armor, maybe?
Further down on the right sits a large fireplace that looks like it's long since burnt out its fuel supply, kind of like me after a long weekend or just one simple fucking party. In contrast, the entire left wall is covered in wooden furniture: she has a bookshelf full of books that, I’m sure, she’s actually read before, unlike most creatures. There’s also a sizeable dark oak desk in the back left corner with a large monitor on top and a multi-colored computer tower below.
Huh, she’s got really good cable management. Twilight must’ve helped her. Or maybe she did it for her? Probably the latter.
The curtains on the opposite side of the room are drawn slightly, allowing a small font of light to spill into the room, revealing a marble balcony railing.
It’s not at all what I was expecting. Then again, what the fuck was I expecting?
Plopping myself down next to her, I finally get a good look at what she’s playing, the small blue, red, and grey controller only barely obscuring my vision of the TV as it floats in her aquamarine aura.
Vibrant greens and deep blues jump out at me from the screen and the vaguely cartoonish art style allows me to identify the game almost instantly.
What? She’s fucking playing The Great Calamity?
“So, I saw you had an NX from the report of the militia’s raid on your apartment, so I thought we could play The Legend of Epona: The Great Calamity together on my own console,” she says, drawing my attention to face her as she smiles.
Wha-wha-what? Why? How? Mostly just ‘Why?’
I-
I don’t-
“Um, sure?” I reply shakily, trying to ignore the small warm and fuzzy feeling in my chest.
I almost cringe when her smile falls and she puts the controller down as I hear a soft whoosh.
“Do you not want to?”
“No, no, I-I’d love to, I just wasn’t expecting that. I thought you called me here because I did something wrong,” I reply, nearly chuckling at the situation. I continue speaking before she can interject.
“But you d-do know that Equestrian Explorations is a s-single-player game, right?”
I fail to hide just a bit of mirth when her mouth goes agape.
“Oh, wait, really? I thought I just hadn’t gotten far enough yet…”
I sigh.
Look at this absolute fucking casual, imagine. Couldn’t be me.
“Pffft, mares, not knowing anything about video games. You’re not a true gamer, Cadence,” I say mockingly and a small wave of relief crashes into me when she nearly laughs.
I thought I didn’t make the joke obvious enough.
“Yeah, well, in my defense, I haven’t played this game in a while.”
What? How old are you again?
“This game has been out for, what, 5 years, and you’ve been off for the last near-century and you didn’t find the time?”
“Listen…” she trails off.
“Yeah? I’m listening,” I say before I finally start to laugh.
“It’s fine, I’m messing with you. How about I j-just watch you play? I’ll be the best backseat gamer you’ve ever fucking seen,” I say and grin like a fucking idiot when she laughs along.
“If you say so.”
I turn my attention back to the TV as she does so as well and the menu dismisses with a quick whoosh.
“So how far are you in the story so far?”
“Uhh, I think I’m heading to the fish creature territory? I forget what they’re called.”
Wait, she doesn’t even have any of the champion icons on the left side of the screen!
“What? Hasn’t even completed one divine-beat? Pffft, imagine. Couldn’t be me.”
“Shut up!”
Over the course of the next minute or two, I fail to stop myself from laughing as I see her player character continuously run into walls and drop into and out of the climbing animation.
This is so fucking hard to watch.
“Cadence,” I start after she falls into the river that splits the valley of this part of the game in two. “You’re not very good at this.”
She just cackles.
“Are you having fun watching me?”
“Not in the slightest, but making fun of you thoroughly makes up for that.”
Suddenly, my ears are nearly torn to shreds when Cadence yelps at the top of her lungs right next to my ear.
“Ow…”
“It’s killing me!” She cries as I see a small, red, grotesque pig creature winding up its club to attack her player character. I have to physically restrain myself from throwing my head into my hooves.
It hasn’t even hit you yet!
“Pull out your shield,” I say as calmly as I can. It’s the sort of calm where you can clearly see and hear the roaring winds of the storm approaching.
“How?!”
“ZL.”
A faint whoosh fills my ears.
“That’s not ZL,” I manage to say before breaking down into laughter.
With a soft click, the menu closes, only for the pokoblin to finally unleash its brutal club attack and for me to finally realize just how low her health bar is.
Cadence yelps one last time as big, bold, red letters reading ‘You Died’ fade onto the screen and the background fades to black with a brief, descending, legato piano flourish.
“You want some pointers, chief?” I manage to sputter out in between breaths of laughter.
“Shut up!”
“So first off,” I wheeze out. “You’re gonna wanna not run into the walls. That’s a very important part-”
I laugh even harder when she shoves me down onto my side.
“Please, Cadence, just fucking kill it for the love of Celestia!” I screech like a fucking banshee.
“I’m trying!” She shouts back at me.
The gamer rage has really consumed us both, huh? Eh, who cares, we’re having fun.
Still flicking my eyes back and forth between the screen and her controller, I watch as her player character jumps and then swings their sword, holding it out longways on the way down before splashing into the water below.
Fortunately, the swirling mass of dark purple and black malice is only just barely alive and takes the opportunity of Cadence’s immobility to collapse itself down into a small glowing ball of blue light and fly over to one of the other four pillars just barely jutting out of the water.
The sound of rapid-fire clicking calls my attention back to her controller, where I see Cadence furiously mashing X in a desperate attempt to get back up onto dry land before Aquablight Ganon could reform.
Normally, now would be the point where I’d tell someone ‘holy shit, calm the fuck down’, but I think I can safely keep my mouth shut here. If I remember correctly, I was mashing X just as much as she is when I did my playthrough.
Granted, I didn’t have a fucking idiot screaming in my ear the whole time. Am I an asshole for doing this shit?
“Please, please, please,” I whisper to myself as her player character finally drags themselves back onto land. Quickly, they draw a fire arrow back in a black and scaly white bow and release it.
The arrow soars through the air with the precision of an eight-year-old foal in front of a crowd and, somehow, with a satisfying ping and a screech of pain, the screen flashes to the ending cutscene and I let out a small sigh.
Finally.
“YES! WOOHOOO!” Cadence cries, pumping her hoof up into the air and bringing the biggest, and probably stupidest, grin to my face.
Fuck, there's just something inherently infectious and adorable about watching her cheer like a school filly.
Holy shit, that was cheezy, where the fuck did that thought come from?
With a sigh, I see a smiling Cadence drop the controller down onto the pillows and let herself collapse backward, wings spread.
Carefully, I lie down next to her.
“Oh, sorry,” I hear her say and the pink feathery things in my peripherals leave my sight.
“You’re fine, this is your room after all,” I say immediately as I turn my head slightly to see her scooching herself closer to me.
After a moment of silence passes, I let my eyes wander around what little of the room I can make out with my peripherals.
“Thanks for playing with me.”
“Anytime, Cadence. Thanks for inviting me,” I say with a grin.
“Wanna do this again sometime? Maybe with a different game?”
“Sure, I’ll kick your ass in Kario Mart.”
“Oh, you have no idea how much I’m gonna make you eat those words.”
“Really? Prove it.”
“And have the opportunity to make you eat my ass? Gladly.”
What?
“What?” Cadence says, grinning.
Did I say that out loud?
“PFFFFFFFFTT!” I spit out, quickly bringing a hoof up to cover my mouth and turning away before laughing. I wheeze even harder when the melody of Cadence’s laughter joins the chorus.
For nearly a minute we just lie there, fucking dying. Nothing else in the world matters right now. My lungs start to burn and I involuntarily clench my stomach with my hooves.
Eventually, our laughter dies down to a quiet chuckle…until I let out a gasp.
A guitar? How did I not notice that before?
“What?” Cadence asks.
“You play?” I respond, pointing a hoof towards an occupied guitar stand in the back corner of the room.
Cadence sighs and lets her smile fall.
“Not anymore, I’ve been meaning to get rid of it.”
“What? Why? What’d that guitar ever do to you?”
“I tried learning to play a while back, but playing wasn’t ever any fun. My instructor just had me play the same songs over and over and over again until guitar just went into the pile of dropped hobbies,” she replies, splaying her ears back.
Oh, fuck off with that! I can already picture that damn instructor: uptight, definitely had a suit on during every practice session, used dumb terminology of technical correctness.
“Oh no, I’m sorry, Cadence. I know exactly what kind of bullshit your instructor was pulling. I assume they just kept having you play Beethooven and shit over and over again?”
She hums in agreement, seemingly defeated, and I sigh.
“Yeah, I’ve known creatures like that, your instructor was definitely just trying to show off their knowledge and class. Let me, the actual musician who does this for a living, tell you that actually playing music is so much more than that. Did your instructor ever let you do improv? Did they ever let you play songs you actually wanted to play?”
She sighs. “No, it was just, ‘Princess, follow my conducting!’ or ‘Princess, that’s da-diga-diga-da not da-da-da-da’.”
Fucking gatekeepers. And they wonder why creatures feel like they can’t understand music.
“Yeah, I’m sorry you had to go through that,” I reply, splaying my ears back as well.
Hmm, I could just leave it there…or…
“Tell you what, how much do you actually remember from your lessons?”
“All of it, actually, I just don’t bother with it anymore,” she says, seemingly mildly confused if her eyebrows and tone are any indication.
I nod along with what she’s saying.
“If you wanna try playing again, let me know. We can play one of your favorite songs or something. Or really, just something better than that centuries-old BS that creatures still pretend is relevant. Because let me tell you, there are few things in life as satisfying as coordinating your improv with somecreature without using words, just audio cues.”
She hums and purses her lips.
“I don’t know…”
“If you don’t want to, then I won’t make you-”
Not like I even can make you.
“-But I strongly encourage you to give it another go. There’s so much more to it than just getting judged for playing something wrong. I assume your instructor did that?”
She nods.
“Yep, it sucked every time.”
“Yeah, but when you’re actually playing with other creatures, you’re allowed to make mistakes. You wanna know one piece of advice musicians learn about making mistakes?”
“What?” She responds instantly.
“Play a wrong note once, it’s a mistake. Play it twice, it’s intentional.”
“But you’ll know when I play a wrong note.”
Fair point.
“Not necessarily, I’ll be playing my own instrument. But even if I do, do you really think I’m gonna be a bitch about it? You’ve already made it clear that this is serious.”
She sits up and brings a hoof up to her chin. I smile lightly when I notice the small creases on her forehead.
“You know what?” She says finally. “I think I’ll take you up on that offer.”
I smile to myself, letting my hooves stride along on autopilot and my head hang down.
That was the most fun I’ve had in a long ass time. Guess it says something about how fucking lonely and sad I am.
I chuckle to myself. Like the sort of chuckle where you just let a breath out of your nose.
Well, it’s not like my friends take the time to invite me to do anything so, fuck me I guess. Maybe I can organize something with them when I’m actually allowed to go out into public. Right, because I’m still a state secret right now.
Fuck, am I even going to get the chance to do that with them? What’re they gonna think? First I’m the oddball for not belonging to a church and now I’m the odd one out for just being different.
I clench my teeth.
And it’s not like I had any fucking control over that!
I force my teeth to unclench and take a deep breath.
No, stop. Anger doesn’t help anything. Just get back to more positive thoughts like…Cadence!
Bringing a hoof up to slam my face into, I look up to be met with the sight of my door approaching on my right, still covered in swirling colors that would Cadence’s mane look dull.
And there I go again, still thinking about her. What the fuck is wrong with me? I’ve only known her for nearly a week and I’m this fucking attached to her?
I sigh as I bring my right wing up to grip the doorknob and throw it open.
It’s just infatuation. A school-yard crush, it’ll pass.
Hopefully.
Because I have no idea what I’ll do if it doesn’t.