Static. It was all Vinyl could hear. A ceaseless, terrible buzzing of nonsensical feedback drowning out the world around her. Princess Celestia’s lips were moving, but all that was there was the deafening noise. Vinyl did her best to read her lips, but it was almost impossible to register anything outside of a thank you. Once the princess stopped, it was probably her turn to say something.
“S-sure thing, your highnesses!”
A marker hovered in her periphery next to her album. Right, she was supposed to do something about that. Vinyl fired off her magic, quickly letting her spellwork write out her name. DJ Pon-3, Vinyl Scratch. It didn’t matter. She just needed to scribble something legible on it for her fan, Princess Luna. A princess who liked her music. Said princess muttered something, but there was no way she’d pierce the angry swarm.
Her duty done, Vinyl capped the marker and choked a smile out of her face. “If you don’t mind, I really need to check up on… something.”
Her magic grasped for her headphones, but she’d left them in the theater’s dressing room. There was no hope for relief here, so she excused herself, pushing past royals, then shoving her way through the sea of attendees in a mad dash for the stairs. She clambered up the steps, tripping over one of them briefly and jamming her hoof on a step. The pain barely registered past the pressure in her head, and she pushed on. There was no time. She needed to do something before her head exploded. Her uneven galloping gait matched her surging heartbeats as she ran on pure instinct towards the only place she might find relief: the library.
The doors thrust open from a bolt of magic which ricocheted into the lightswitch. Vinyl immediately dove into the biography section, frantically searching through the titles and pulling anything she thought might be relevant. It was going to be a waste of time, she knew that for a fact. Nopony had the resources she had access to in the mansion’s archives, but she needed to do something that at least felt proactive, even if it was hopeless.
Her eyes scanned over the flipping pages, skimming for the answers that weren’t there. Still she prayed that she was wrong. Vinyl didn’t need an exact quote, just something to go off of. Her mind was racing. Everything was too fast. Why was everything happening all at once? Life needed to slow down, to take its time, and allow her to pace herself. Where was her breath? Was she breathing? How long had she been looking through books? There were already three books next to her in a stack. Still no answers. She wanted answers so badly. She didn’t understand why it was all happening. She needed to understand.
“Ah, so this is where you went.”
Vinyl tore herself from her searching to see Fancy Pants trotting through the double doors. A clear voice. The static was gone. That was good. When had it stopped? She didn’t know.
“I hope you don’t mind my intrusion,” Fancy said as he traced the stacks of books around her.
“Fancy Pants! What are you doing here?”
“Trying to find you. I neglected to congratulate you on your amazing performance tonight, Vinyl. You were absolutely brilliant,” Fancy said as he approached the table she was seated at. “Those jackals who left early should be kicking themselves for missing out on a free concert from the incredible DJ Pon-3.”
“What?” Vinyl barely eked out above a whisper. “You… you liked it too?”
“How could I not?” Fancy’s smile glowed wide and welcoming. “Never have I heard that song presented in such a lively and scathing manner. It was respectable in its irreverence of the original, a marked improvement in my opinion. Good show, Vinyl!”
“You liked it too…” Vinyl trailed as she drummed her hooves on the table. “That’s good, right? Yeah, that should be good.”
“If you don’t mind my saying, you don’t sound too thrilled by the notion.”
“No!” Vinyl said on impulse before realizing her mistake. “I mean, no, why wouldn’t I be? You and the princesses… you like my music. Even the biggest minotaur I’ve ever seen likes my music! What’s not to be thrilled about?”
“That’s exactly what I thought, but what are you thinking?” Fancy approached cautiously while keeping a respectable distance. Of course he knew she was upset, but she couldn’t help it.
“Nothing?” Vinyl forced a toothy grin. At least she hoped it was a grin. She wasn’t sure. It wasn’t going to work, but she had to try.
Fancy opened his mouth to say something else, but snapped it shut as he gave a sad, tender smile. “I seem to have you at a disadvantage again.” He reached into his coat pocket with his magic and carefully extracted her sunglasses. gave the lenses a gentle rub of his polishing cloth before setting them on the table. “Here, Vinyl. These should level the playing field a little. You dropped them in the lobby.”
Vinyl touched her bare face. She hadn’t even noticed they were missing. Their siren’s song emanated from their obfuscating lenses promising to shield her with the comfort of a security blanket. All she needed to do was put them on, and she could resume her role as DJ Pon-3, hide her eyes, and ignore the world around her from behind their reflection. Fancy knew that. He was offering her the option. She had a choice.
However, that’d be breaking rule one. DJ Pon-3 was no longer needed tonight. She was supposed to be Vinyl Scratch. She was supposed to be helping Fancy and Fleur. So, she pushed the sunglasses away and tried to calm herself with the rhythmic tapping Tavi had done before. It sort of worked, allowing her to Swallow the panic coiling around her throat. Vinyl tried to think of something to say. Unfortunately, there was only one thing on her mind, and she’d been avoiding the topic with him.
“Can I ask you a question?” she asked, regretting every single word.
Fancy nodded. “If it will help, by all means. Go right ahead.”
“Okay. Thanks.” Vinyl took a deep breath, but still didn’t have the courage to look at him. “Do you know a mare named Sunny?”
“Sunny?” Fancy mulled over the question, his eyes wandering upwards as they dug through his memory. “Could you be more specific? I’ve known several ponies that may have gone by that over the years.”
“Sunny! C’mon, you know Sunny, right?” she joked as pulled at her legs “You have to! She worked somewhere in the weather service at a desk job, had a broken wing? She’s sweet, selfless, painfully naïve but exceptionally sharp?” She forced herself to laugh as her legs gnarled along with the panic twisting inside of her. It coursed through her body as she braced herself for the answer she knew she was going to get, only causing more worry in the stallion. “Please, Fancy. She was your mom’s best friend,” Vinyl added weakly.
“This has something to do with the archives, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah. I—I meant to ask you a while ago, but I never got around to it,” Vinyl lied as she slumped over in shame.
“Why is this important now?”
“Please!” Vinyl shouted louder than she intended. She covered her mouth briefly to pull the reins on her emotions flaring out of control. “I—Please, just say yes or no. Do you know Sauna Summer’s best, most important, most precious friend?”
Fancy’s eyes widened in shock before he frowned at himself. “I’m sorry, but no. I know I should, but I’m not sure I’ve ever met anypony like that.”
“You don’t.” Vinyl laughed bitterly. “Of course you don’t. Why would you? Nopony else does.” She turned back to her useless stacks of books. Despite her assumptions, his definitive answer was still soul-crushing. “Nopony knows anypony connected to the Sensational Sauna Summers.”
“Right,” Fancy said slowly as he opened a nearby book of his mother. “That’s why you’re on the case. You’re trying to fill in the gaps.”
“But, just hear me out on this one: why is it so friggin hard to find anything about the ponies around Summers in the first place? Why would such talented ponies just… fall by the wayside? Tumble out of history to be forgotten?”
Vinyl hated how accusatory she sounded, but her nerves were far too frayed to be anything but direct. If she had offended him, he didn’t show it as Fancy gave her questions some genuine thought.
“From what I recall, it was because Groovecasters wasn’t interested in record-keeping beyond their star,” Fancy answered.
“Who told you that?”
“I believe it was Steeplechase.”
“So, not Summers?”
“Sadly, no. I only recall her being completely alone, and using her loneliness against her.” Fancy sighed with regret before collecting himself. “May I ask you something as well?”
Vinyl flinched. “Sure? Only fair, I guess.”
“Why are you asking—no, that’s not right.” Fancy closed his eyes in deep focus. After a moment, they shot open, burning with perfect clarity. “What does Sunny have to do with anything happening tonight?”
“Right! I should’ve known you’d choose the best question. One cutting right to the heart of it.” Vinyl snickered, trying to calm herself and forced her best cheeky grin. “Do you know the best answer, too?”
Fancy blinked. “Well, no. That’s why I asked you.”
“That’s too bad.” Vinyl’s glib glee collapsed in despair. “Because—because I don’t know what I should say.”
“My apologies, Vinyl. I didn’t mean to corner you. You can just ignore that question.”
Fancy was being the perfect stallion as he usually was. Recently, the world made her tell the truth anyway since she was so bad at lying, but he was giving her another way out. She could shut it down. But she didn’t want to shut it down. Not when Fancy was communicating for once. She couldn’t let this chance go to waste. Vinyl needed to be strong, to be honest, and stop hiding behind a shade.
“It’s because I need her. I need her, but I can’t find her.” Vinyl surrendered to her desperation as the unsettling truth overtook her. Her legs rattled from sheer panic as she begged the books for answers she knew weren’t there. “I-I can’t find her, Fancy! I can’t find Sunny!”
“It’s alright, Vinyl.”
“No! No it’s not! I can’t find her and that’s a problem, a big problem!”
“Then it’s going to be eventually. It might not be now, but I’m sure you will find—”
“No! I need her! I need her right now!” Vinyl pulled another random book from her pile, not even glancing at the title as she searched for any mention of Sunny inside. “I can’t even find her full name. All I have is Sunny. Nothing else. No backstory, no family, nothing! It’s like she’s been wiped away from history!”
“Vinyl, please calm down. What could she tell you that’s so pressing?”
“Because she’ll know how this turns out!”
“How what will turn out?”
“The princesses like my music, Fancy! You like my music!” she screamed.
Fancy tilted his head in confusion as he tried to follow her derailing train of thought. “Is that a problem?”
Vinyl leaned over the table and cradled her head, trying to stop her brain from bursting at the seams. “I don’t know if it is!”
“Vinyl, listen to me,” Fancy said calmly as he took the seat next to her and looked the anxiety-addled mare in the eyes. “You worked so hard for your return. Why wouldn’t we appreciate your efforts? You’re exceptional!”
“But—but I don’t want to be!”
Fancy balked. “What?”
“I don’t want to be special! Didn’t you ever consider that? You choose the best of the best, but how? What does ‘the optimal outcome’ even mean? What if it’s something I don’t want?”
“I—I don’t…” Fancy stumbled through his words, trying to process what he was hearing. “Don’t you want to be successful?”
“No!” Vinyl cried. “I just want to be me!”
“But you are you, Vinyl. You showed everyone who you are. I told you before that I saw something in you, and it was more than I could’ve ever imagined. It’s normal to be rewarded for such accomplishments.” Fancy rested a supportive hoof on Vinyl’s shoulder and smiled knowingly. “The successful mare I know has such a bright future ahead of her if she lets it happen.” He chuckled to himself. “Who knows? Maybe one day it’ll be her making enough bits to get angry over a ruined dress.”
Ice shot through Vinyl’s veins as her eyes widened, completely bewildered by Fancy Pants. “You don’t get it, do you?”
Fancy’s smile faltered as Vinyl laughed at her own stupidity. “I beg your pardon?”
“Of course you don’t. Why did I think for even a second that you would? Vinyl swatted the fop’s useless hoof away as she roared back to life, her raging fear overtaking her senses. “Nopony ever gets it!”
“Vinyl. Please calm down. What’s wrong?” Fancy asked as he stood up and backed away to give her some space.
“What’s wrong? What isn’t wrong? Everything is wrong! All of you are just so wrong and you can’t even see it!” The mare fumed as she stood up and marched towards him. “What made you think I wanted anything like what you have? Fame, power, money. What’s it all for? You nobles just keep getting richer and richer without a second thought! But it’s never enough, is it?”
“I don’t understand. That’s not—”
“Of course you don’t understand! Why would you? You don’t even think to ask yourself basic questions. Can you even remember why you wanted all your wealth in the first place?”
Fancy stuttered trying to find some sort of reply. “My life has always been this way.”
“Is that why you’re so weird? You’ve been so sheltered that you don’t know what it means to want something? Or maybe this is all just a ruse to make me think you’re a good pony like Sauna Summers. Was she even a good pony?”
“She was, Vinyl. I promise you she was.”
“But how can I trust you? Do you even know what they say about her? The queen casted an endless shadow. Everypony that even fell under her wings, Autumn Aria, Springstep, Sunny, even Suede Shoes; nopony could escape. They were good, talented ponies that didn’t deserve that, Fancy. Sunny didn’t deserve that!” Vinyl screeched in trembling anger.
“I don’t know what to say. Sunny sounds like she was a wonderful pony.”
“She wasn’t just wonderful! Sunny was everything! She’s the one who made sure Summers was always sensational! She sacrificed everything so Sauna Summers could fly where she couldn’t! You owe her so much, but you don’t even know she exists! Nopony does!”
“Vinyl, please. I’m so sorry that I can’t be of more help.”
“I want to believe you. I want to believe Summers was a good pony. But how could she be if she just let everypony forget Sunny?”
“Vinyl…” Fancy paused his retreat, and stood firm in the face of her tantrum.
“You know what the absolute worst part is?” Vinyl seethed as her righteous indignation began to crumble. “I know why. I know exactly why, but I’m just too scared to admit it.”
Why are you being so sensitive?
“The wealth, the power? It goes straight to your head, doesn’t it?”
We can’t all have good cutie marks, dear. I’m just trying to make sure you’re taken care of.
“You might feel free at first, but then you see that little bit more just around the corner. It’s always just one more step, one more rung of the ladder, one more pony to trample.”
That’s nice dear, but I really need to get to work now. Be a good filly while I’m gone.
“It poisons your mind, making you crave it all like some hoard-maddened dragon.”
Oh, and before I forget…
“Everything in life just becomes another obstacle to crush. Suddenly money becomes more important than everything. Your talent? Your friends? Your family? It doesn’t matter. None of it matters!”
…Mommy loves you.
“You just tear everything apart!”
Vinyl fell back as a flood of old memories seized her by the throat. She wanted to tear them all out of her skull and burn them to a crisp. There was nothing good to remember. She hated it. The past was supposed to be dead to Vinyl Scratch. It didn’t matter. Even if she still didn’t understand it, it didn’t matter.
“I don’t want that!” she shouted defiantly at Fancy. “If somepony as amazing as Sauna Summers failed to resist it, then what hope do I have? I don’t want riches or fame. I don’t want to become a monster!”
Fancy furrowed his brow with resolution as he approached the quivering mare with conviction. “Vinyl, I can promise you this: I wasn’t always the best pony, but my mother was. No matter how successful she became, Sauna Summers was always a compassionate and caring mare. I refuse to believe anything to the contrary.”
“Maybe to you. You’re her darling child. Her successful, Kingmaker son! Of course she’d be proud of you! You could live up to her expectations!”
“Vinyl, that’s not—” Fancy stopped and shook his head. “You’re right. I could’ve lived up to her expectations, but I never did. But you know what? She never held it against me. I was absolutely terrible to her. I caused her so much grief, probably more than I will ever know, but Mother loved me anyway. All parents love their children, Vinyl. It’s what they’re supposed to do.”
“They're supposed to…” She didn’t understand that. She’d been told something like that before, but if it was true, then reality didn’t make sense. “So, why didn’t mine?”
With four little words, Vinyl ripped the wind from Fancy’s sails. He stood, utterly dumbfounded and speechless, as if such a thing wouldn’t be possible. All of the past bubbled up to the surface, washing away the anger and replacing it with the vulnerable filly she thought she’d discarded so long ago.
“They never accepted me, Fancy. My talent was never good enough for them. They told me to not take music ‘so seriously.’ That I should use it to find a partner with a more ‘stable talent’ that could make up for the lack of mine. After all, ‘Rich stallions just love a mare who can play music.’” Vinyl spat in disgust with love leaving the taste of bile in her mouth.
Vinyl closed her eyes. She refused to cry. They didn’t deserve her tears, even if it killed her. “What if I like my talent? What if I think I’m good enough? You can’t just throw me away because I’m not what you wanted me to be! I want to live my life on my own terms! Parents aren’t supposed to do that, right?”
“No, Vinyl. No,” Fancy assured weakly after finding his voice again. “I’m sure if they could see you now, they’d be happy to know how far your talents have taken you. Princess Luna was so impressed with you that she begged for your autograph. I’m sure if they were here, they’d be absolutely thrilled.”
“Stop giving them the benefit of the doubt! They only cared about riches and prestige! They’d never care unless I—” Vinyl stopped dead in the middle of her rant. “No. You’re right.”
“Of course I am,” Fancy said with a relieved sigh.
“But that’s all that would matter to them, wouldn’t it?”
“What would?”
“You and the princesses like my music, but they wouldn’t care about that. They’d only care that you approved of it. That’d be the value.” Vinyl slumped to the floor, hugging herself as reality dawned on her. She couldn’t help but laugh at herself, but the painful mirth was choked by a sob she couldn’t hold back anymore. “She told me no hoof-outs. I had to make it on my own. But, she never told me what that meant to her.”
Vinyl felt her magic reach out for a locket that wasn’t there. “I… I could never win, could I?”
Fancy simply stared, lost, almost scared. It was funny in a way and made the broken record on the ground chuckle as the arbitrary rules of her life’s game revealed themselves in their vaguely defined detail.
“I’m so stupid. I thought if I tried hard enough, I could prove them wrong. I could prove that I mattered. They’d be proud of me. They’d accept me. They’d… they’d finally love me.” Vinyl seized up at the curse, a sharp knife twisting in her gut, long neglected but never forgotten as her stress casting flicked an invisible heart open and closed. “But no. That was never never going to happen. Not without money to back it up. She’d just tell me it was nice, pat my head, and tell me she loved me as an afterthought.”
It wasn’t fair. DJ Pon-3 had kept the world awash in a colorful trance, drowning out everything in the beat of her music. Keeping the static of her life away. Anytime she doubted herself, she’d simply look at her reflection through the purple haze and see the confident mare that mattered. But then the music came to a screeching halt. The colors faded, the music died, and she could hear the filly behind the mirror again. Vinyl thought she’d left that weakling a long time ago. After all these years, that filly was still crying as loud as the day she’d been abandoned. She just wanted to know one little thing that Vinyl had never been able to figure out.
Looking up from her broken records, she saw Fancy standing there, waiting to help. She didn’t trust him, but maybe she could try anyway. If Vinyl didn’t have any answers for her, maybe she could ask the Kingmaker.
“Why would Mom tell me she loved me if I’m worthless?”
Before Vinyl could completely shatter, before a single tear was shed, she felt the familiar pull of another tugging her back from the edge of the abyss. It was still dark, but only because of the black fabric wrapping her in a trembling embrace. There was the rapid sound of a panicking heartbeat, but it wasn’t hers. Underlying it all was the subtle thrum of a weak magical aura, but she could feel that her channeling had been interrupted.
“Don’t listen to them!” Fancy begged as he held Vinyl closely to his chest. “They couldn’t be more wrong! Please, don’t let them hurt you.”
Vinyl sat dumbfounded. Poking out his coat pocket and surrounded by his golden magic stress casting was a quartz—her quartz. It was the stupid little rock she’d carved for him in the heat of the moment and instantly regretted. Fancy still had it. Despite his precious monocle sitting on his face, he was using the quartz for his stress casting.
Why did he still have it? It was cheap, ugly, and clouded. If he had taken her streetside diagnosis, why didn’t he buy something better? Why was it his favored object?
“I don’t understand,” Vinyl muttered.
“What’s not to understand? You are DJ Pon-3: the amazing and talented artist that blew away any expectations that I could’ve ever had. You are Vinyl Scratch: a gifted student and persevering pony that deserves so much more than she’s been given credit for. Don’t let them take a single thing away from you.” Fancy loosened his grip so he could meet her eyes. Buried under his chuckle was a complicated smile. “Nothing anypony can say will ever change what makes you special, Vinyl. Especially not me.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m afraid I haven’t been entirely honest with you, Vinyl, despite you being so forthright with me, willingly or otherwise.” Fancy cleared the hesitation out of his throat. “Before I decided to hire you, did you know that I met with each and every noble that attended the Festival of Flakes in an effort to change their minds about you?”
Vinyl blinked, her tears completely dried by the absurdity of such a notion.
“I’ll take that as a no.” Another snicker and sigh escaped the stallion. “Well, I used every diplomatic trick that I could think of before offering you a job. Every word was crafted with perfect precision, every conversation was planned with care; I tried so hard to tell them all that the Screech wasn’t your fault, even throwing Fleur to the proverbial timberwolves to get them off your back.” Fancy laughed as he reflected on the memories as Vinyl stared blankly in utter disbelief. A wistful smile caught his musings and dragged him back down to Equestria with a disappointed frown. “But in the end, Fleur was right. It was all for nothing. Not a single one of them listened. I couldn’t make them see you as anything but a pariah, no matter what I said.”
“Why? Why would you do that? You didn’t even know me.”
“Because it’s the truth,” he said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “It was as true then as it is now. I couldn’t just let Upper Crust use you for a cheap headline.” Fancy drew a sharp breath before continuing. “I even went so far as to confront her directly on Hearth’s Warming Eve, you know.”
“You did what?” Vinyl shot to her hooves, locking her legs in distress. “Y-you can’t talk to her!”
“Well, I know that now,” Fancy briefly smirked before it died on his lips. “Bloody Hades, do I know that now. It would’ve been helpful if you’d told me sooner, but I suppose I wouldn’t have noticed something I’d been ignoring for too long.”
“What did she say to you?” Vinyl asked hesitantly.
“Nothing that bears repeating here. She simply held up a mirror, and I didn’t like what I saw.” Fancy took a calming breath before giving Vinyl his earnest attention. “Do you remember why they call me the Kingmaker, Vinyl?”
Vinyl cleared the stress in her throat. “Yeah? You said your special talent means you’re good at picking talented ponies out of a crowd.”
“You’re right, Vinyl. I choose the best of the best, the king of kings. Give me three crowns and I can tell you which stands the tallest.” Fancy’s eyes glazed over as his gaze fell away. “But, you know, there’s something about kings that had slipped my mind until recently: Kings aren’t elected, Vinyl. They’re born into privilege.”
Vinyl’s breath hitched. She could see it now. The sudden change in his appearance, the snippy conversations, the purging fire, and the overarching weariness; Upper Crust hurt him. She’d torn open a wound and dripped her vile poison inside to ravage him. How could she have possibly done that? Fancy Pants, the Noble of Nobles, The Kingmaker of Canterlot. How could she have managed to hurt him of all ponies?
“I’m so sorry, Vinyl. I could scream from every rooftop, tell everypony in Canterlot how hard you work, how talented you are, how brilliant you are, how happy you make everypony around you; but they wouldn’t hear me. Not when they’ve already made up their minds. None of it would matter.”
Vinyl panicked as she scrambled for something to say. This wasn’t right at all. “But everypony looks up to you, Fancy!”
"Unfortunately, you’re wrong.” Fancy shook his head and looked over his shoulder. “Everypony looks to my mark, not to me.”
“Horseapples! You’re, like, the most important pony in Canterlot! You’re a knighted ambassador! For peat’s sake, you have tea with the princesses every week!”
“And absolutely none of that mattered!” Fancy flared bitterly as he met Vinyl’s eyes. “I’ve negotiated peace treaties, presented trade deals, and met with leaders the world over, but it didn’t help. I wanted to shelter you from a storm that I thought I could control, but I couldn’t. In the end, it didn’t matter. I failed!”
Fancy bit down on his tongue to steady his temper. She could see the faint glow of his stress casting glistening from his horn as he calmed himself with the crystal in his coat. After a patient moment, he reclaimed his senses. “I’m so, so sorry, Vinyl. Because I couldn’t see past my ego, I failed you. The one thing I’m supposedly good at, and I failed you spectacularly.”
“But why? Compared to somepony like you, I'm nothing.” Vinyl looked down at her hooves. She still didn’t understand. “Why do you care?”
“Oh, Vinyl. That’s the wrong question. The better question is, ‘how could I not?’” Fancy said as he approached the confounded mare. “For all of my wealth, power, and prestige, there’s only one pony standing in this room that’s worth anything.” Fancy lifted Vinyl’s head by the chin and beamed with melancholic pride.
“And she is priceless.”
In a single moment, everything stopped and all was silent. Not a crackle of static, a thrumming of magic, or a whisper from the air around them. Even time itself seemed to yield its unrelenting march forward, just to finally give a single moment to breathe.
But Vinyl forgot how.
Her magic whisked shot over to her discarded shades and snatched them from the table. The shield slammed over her eyes, starting the clock again. Realizing he’d overstepped his bounds, Fancy pulled his hoof back and retreated to give her some much-needed space as he kept his face turned away from her.
“Right. Terribly sorry about that. I keep forgetting you asked me not to compliment you. This is supposed to be an evening of fun, and here I am being a killjoy.” Fancy took a few calming breaths and plastered a diplomatic smile on his face. “If you’re up for it, I would still like to introduce Miss Athena to you. She and Luna are good friends of mine. I do hope you wouldn’t mind getting to know them for that friendship thing Fleur’s been on about.”
“Okay,” she replied quickly.
“I won’t force you, but I know they’d both lo—” Fancy interrupted the curse word with a cough. “Rather, I know they’d enjoy getting to know you better, if you’re willing to give them a chance, that is. And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry that I surprised you with Luna. I need to stop doing that.”
“Yeah. It’s cool. Don’t worry about it. Just… give me a moment to clean up here.”
“Of course, Vinyl.” Fancy hummed to himself. “Now, I think everypony will be wondering where the brightest star of the evening has wandered off to, and Luna is not fond of misplacing those. Plus, I’ll need to see if Fleur needs a lawyer.”
Vinyl’s ears popped up. “A lawyer?”
“Nothing to worry about. I’m overstating things… I hope. Would you like me to help you pack away these books?”
“No!” Vinyl shouted before chuckling nervously. “No. I got it. I know where they go anyway.”
“Ah, true. Steeplechase would be rather cross with me if I messed up his library when a perfectly good archivist was already here,” the stallion joked knowingly. “Don’t tarry too long here now, this night is about celebrating your brilliant success. A success you shouldn’t fear.”
“Mhmm, yeah. Got it,” Vinyl agreed dismissively while shooing him away with her hoof. “Just give me a minute alone, please.”
“Right. I’ll be downstairs.”
The door shut quietly behind him, and she listened for the clops of the stallion’s hooves to fade away. When she felt he was safely out of earshot, she allowed herself to give into overwhelming anxiety forcing its way into her mouth. With nowhere else to turn, she tore a nearby cushion from a seat and screamed into it.
This wasn’t supposed to happen. The whole point of talking to Fancy Pants was to fix things between the estranged siblings. The pressure building inside was going to make it worse. She was going to mess this up. Vinyl Scratch always messed things up. She didn’t want this. In a whirlwind of frustration, the mare swept the stack of books off the table, letting the old tomes fall to the ground as she slammed her head on the wood. She pressed firmly on her temples, trying to squeeze the useless emotions racing through her mind out of her head. They weren’t allowed to exist.
If only he hadn’t said those things. If only he hadn’t been so genuine. If only he hadn’t kept that stupid quartz. Fresh tears streamed down her face. She didn’t want to understand. She’d heard it too much recently. It was the one downside of listening to so much of Sauna Summers and her music. The stupid disco queen wouldn’t shut up about it, but thanks to her, she knew the symptoms perfectly.
Vinyl shuddered, cursing under her breath in complete terror while covering her burning ears. It didn’t help as the music was already in her head, pulsing her heart at a solid 125 beats per minute. Her face flushed red in a trance she’d never truly experienced, but knew the fluttering inside her chest all too well from the electrifying swing of a classic disco groove.
So what if you’re taken?
I can’t be mistaken,
There’s no use in tryin’ hidin’ your love. So~!
Give me more, give me fire,
Open the door to my desire!