//------------------------------// // Chapter 14: Past, Present, Future // Story: In the Background // by Harold_Genhi //------------------------------// I didn’t know how long I had my head buried in my hooves crying. I didn’t know if the others were staring at me or crying themselves. I didn’t care. I could watch as my memory played back her last moments in my arms. The way her eyes twinkled, that soft understanding smile, and blush on her cheeks as she pulled away from the kiss and let herself fall into the dark void below. Everything I felt only intensified, as it repeated making me feel weaker and feebler. I tried to beat the grief out of myself by smashing the ground, but my arms felt heavier each time. “Why…?” I sobbed again. “Vinyl?” Lyra’s voice was broken with her own disbelief and sadness. She had collected herself as she tried to comfort me. “Vinyl, we need to go…” The way she said ‘needed’ held no confidence or truth. She wanted to stay and grieve as much as me, but she knew what all of had to accept. “No…” I wasn’t one to let go and accept that it was over. “Maybe she caught unto a ledge, or maybe she survived the fall. We just need to go down into the crater and find her.” Denial began to form. “We just need to find a way down there.” I managed to stand on my shaky legs and turn toward the crater. The darkness was tempting. I could just jump where she fell and be with her, maybe survive the fall like her and be there for her. Help her get out. I walked slowly toward the side of the crater and sat down at the edge of it. I didn’t think I would have managed to stop myself. Everything felt so unreal. A calm breeze blew through my hair as the tears dried on my face while new tears made fresh paths. I listened to the darkness below me, but I didn’t hear anything. I knew I would be able to create a ball of light with my magic to see if she was all right, but a fear hit of what I would see. I took a deep breath and generated the ball of light. I could hear slight noises behind me in opposition, but they were hushed. I stared into the soft light I created, watched it pulse and waver as my heart did the same. Did I want to see…? I began to lower the light into the hole, watching as the jagged edges of the cliff stretched what seemed like forever. I already knew that Octavia couldn’t have lived, but a nagging tug on my heart needed to know, had to know, at least for sure. I knew that my heart wouldn’t able to handle seeing her broken and lifeless body, but I had to know her body existed so that she could have a funeral. The tears began to fall heavier. Stop thinking like that, Vinyl! The light began to show the crater floor, casting long shadows around bottom. I moved the light carefully, trying to make out her body through the blur of the tears in my eyes. It rounded a sharp rock sticking out of the ground and my heart instantly pulled together and froze. I could just see the shadow of her body laying on the ground, completely lifeless, no she had to be just unconscious, something! I moved the light closer, and saw that my fears were true. I stared at her chest to see if she was breathing, but I couldn’t tell. I pushed her side with one of the rocks down below, but she didn’t move at all. I moved the light over to get a better view of her chest to see if it was moving, but instead I fears were answered. A pool of blood had formed around her mouth. I could just make out the dull twinkle of her eye along with the dark lines that ran down her face. My concentration broke, disintegrating my light. I fell down to my knees again; feeling the pain in my heart, as I knew the fact of her death was real. My denial eventually transformed into a rage at the pony that had caused all of this. “Eyn! You bastard!” I cried and listened to the echo. “You said you would save her, but you killed her, left her to die in my arms!” The rage filled me quickly. “It’s all my fault!” The truth hit me harder than Octavia’s death. “It’s all my fault…” My voice dropped to a whisper in the wind. “I’m sorry, Octavia…” The familiar numbness of the loss struck me again as I stared into the dirt at my hooves. Octavia would have loved it out here. I managed to turn my head up and out toward the setting sun in the distance. It was the first normal sunset in the time that Discord had taken over. It only told me that the other group of friends had managed to stop Discord with the Elements of Harmony. I turned away from the beautiful scene in front of me. I didn’t want to enjoy something this beautiful without Octavia by my side. Nothing mattered anymore as I walked to my friends to help them carry Ditsy back to Ponyville. I wouldn’t let this forest take any other of my friends. “I will forever love you, Octavia…” I said in the breeze, letting another tear fall for her as we hoisted Ditsy onto our backs. With the use of the road, the numb walk back took dramatically less time. We arrived back in Ponyville just as night had arrived. Happily, normalcy had also been restored enough for the nurses of the hospital to fix up Ditsy. I waited with the rest of my friends inside of the waiting room; the chair next to me was empty. I wouldn’t let any other pony sit in there. In my head, Octavia was sitting where she should be rightfully sitting. I had lost so much sleep and the despair only caused slight hallucinations and paranoia. I would turn and see the back of a pony with a treble cleft, only to blink and see her disappear. I managed to turn a few heads of those ponies that had been to my show and them for once in their lives seeing my eyes. It was hard to talk to them. Hours passed before we were allowed into the room, though all of us knew she would live, we wondered more about if she could fly again. They wouldn’t answer our question every time we asked. Instead, we received some ambiguous answer that ‘only time could tell’. It didn’t sit well with me after all I had lost. I eventually walked up to one of the nurses and demanded that we would be allowed to see her or at least know if she would be able to fly again given the complex breaks at the base of the wings. Instead of answering, they allowed us to go in, which didn’t sit well with me, but it was enough. Walking down the hall, my pace dropped to the slowest it had ever been. The others passed me, Doctor Whooves taking the lead, the most concerned of us all. I let everyone else enter the room first, I held the door, and I stood and thought about everything, my eyes trying to avoid the rest of their eyes. I couldn’t deal with seeing any of their worry to me, or their condolences for my loss, it was as much as a loss to them as it was to me, or so they thought. None of them knew what Octavia’s last words were too me, or mine to her. No pony would know how we were in love, how the taboo that was first broken by Lyra and Bonbon had spread to Octavia and me. I questioned when we would break it to somepony about Octavia’s demise. It still didn’t feel real it couldn’t feel real. I entered the room, but kept my distance from the bed. She was forced to lie on her stomach, a contraption holding her wings completely extended and stiff while they were wrapped up in white bandages like a mummy. I could see wet, red lines where they had to make incisions in the skin to set the bones and screw in the pin. All of what seemed like a horrifyingly painful experience, yet Ditsy smiled with her eyes crooked. I saw The Doctor put his nose up against hers, close his eyes, and lovingly rub it. “I was worried about you.” He spoke. Was love really that easy? I stared at The Doctor, knowing that I would be the only pony to truly know who or what he was just as I would be the only one to know of Eyn. I knew how he had left Octavia to stand at the edge of the crater on purpose so that she would fall to her death. Then he never came back to speak to me, to reassure me that everything would be fine. He just vanished without a trace. “Are you going to be able to fly again?” Lyra asked, smiling like her normal self except for the dried tears on her face. “I think so.” She smiled. “But I could really go for some delicious muffins from Sugarcube Corner.” She laughed her usual laugh. It was strange how contagious the small burst of happiness was for everyone except me. I managed a half smile, but my loss outweighed any happiness that I could ever draw out from seeing that Ditsy would be fine. It was easy to back out of the room and make sure that no pony saw me leave. I figured it would be best if I took my leave and not make a scene about it. They were happy and I didn’t want to ruin it. They needed their happiness more than ever. I walked back to my, no, Octavia’s house. I stopped and observed how it stood in darkness over the other buildings that had their lights on for the night. The house seemed to mourning her death just as I was. The workload began to stack inside my mind numbly. Tomorrow I would tell the coroner of Octavia’s death and take them out to where she had died so that I could hold a proper funeral for her. I’d have it in the study with her cello, music, and window. It seemed the most fitting. I nodded at the checklist in my head as I stepped through the door and into the darkness of the entrance hallway. Everything seemed dead and stagnant of activity. The silence was deafening, I wanted to escape it, but I felt the strong desire to just wallow in it. My grieving hit another peak as my eyes became misty again. I limped toward the far door that led into the study. My magic had already stopped working from my lack of concentration forcing me to stare at the door for a few seconds. I had to see the room again, where the adventure, where the tragedy had began. Everything back then felt so carefree and fun, if I had known… I opened the door with my head, walking into the quiet room that was only illuminated by the street light across the street. It was only enough light to make everything in the room appear black and white. In the far corner of the room, I saw her cello sitting on its stand, now devoid of a player. It shattered my heart as I saw it, causing my legs to drop out from under me as I cried again. The tears pooled under my body as I tried to speak to the dead house. “Octavia… I miss you…” The words hurt. “Why did you… did you… have to…” I didn’t want to admit another truth to myself. “Why did you have to die?” I broke down once again and limped my way over to her cello, the wonderful wood finish reflecting my face off of it. The instrument was almost as beautiful as her. I stood onto my back hooves and hugged the cello softly, letting my face feel the strings slide under it. My tears fell from my face and slid down the strings to the base of it. Being in this house only made my heart hurt more. Releasing the cello, I knew I would have to move out from the house, there were just too many memories of her, but for now… I had to do one last thing in the house, something that Octavia always enjoyed when she was still… I pulled the pillows and the blankets in front of the fire place and made our ramshackle tents, but instead of two, I only made one. “Together tonight… we will camp together tonight… in our house… in your arms…” I smiled as the tears began to fall again. I buried my head inside of the pillow beside the fire and let my emotions completely let go. Crying wouldn’t even begin to describe what I was doing as the pillow silenced my screams and dried my tears. It was our roommate anniversary today, and she didn’t get me anything. Suddenly, I heard the door click open and then closed as hooves connected with the hard wood surface. My heart stood at a stand still as I stared at the corner of the wall where, whoever it was would reveal them. - I never knew death would hurt so much. I hit the floor of the crater, feeling my ribs break from the collision and the wind being completely blown from chest along with a spray of blood. I couldn’t see anything in the darkness of the crater, but I had enough feeling in my body to feel that death was on me. I had hoped the fall would have killed me immediately, but instead I survived just long enough to feel everything. The pain was almost unbearable as I tried to move, but found my body completely paralyzed from the fall. My eyes had grown completely lifeless as I fought back falling unconscious. I wanted to laugh at my luck, but my damaged lungs and blood in my throat only made me gurgle. Warm tears fell from my eyes as the pain grew in me along with a fear of death. I tried to breath faster, but I could feel that the air wasn’t making it. My heart burned to keep me alive, but just by tasting the amount of blood in my mouth and feel a tickle lower on my body, I knew that I was bleeding to death. Always a bleeding heart wasn’t I? I could feel myself slipping under, feeling colder by the second when a strange illumination filled the area around me. I looked at the light and felt serenity about it. Was this what happened when a pony died? The light was soft, beautiful and stopped in front of me just as I took my last breath, embracing the cold and succumbing to the pain. My last sensations were something touching my body. I hope they were taking me to paradise. Everything went black. Everything. I woke up in a dark area, a single light shone on me with an everlasting darkness stretching in each direction. Was this death? Was this it? “Octavia… It is an honor to finally meet you as yourself with a clear mind.” I knew that voice. It was the voice that had helped me get over my sadness, a voice that had filled my mind and my dreams the past few days. It almost felt like my life was running in reverse where I had control over my dreams, while the voice had lived my life. “Who are you?” I yelled out into the darkness. “Vinyl wanted you to find me.” He spoke almost nonchalantly. “You… you exist? Eyn Spyyr?” He emerged from the shadows of the darkness around me. His stance was powerful and engaging as his dark purple eyes stared at me with wisdom and understanding like nothing I had ever seen before. He continued to leave the darkness revealing his majestic alicorn body, not one like Princess Celestia, but one that held far more male qualities to him. He flapped open his gray wings, letting his feathers stretch out, like he had been trapped inside of a cage for far too long. Even his horn seemed longer than Princess Celestia or Luna. “Yes… Vinyl got you to me.” He smiled at me, almost lovingly. Not in the sense of being in love with me, but almost as a parent figure. “But… I died at the bottom of the crater. Are you saying that I am still alive?” I almost jumped with excitement at what my brain pulled forward. His appearance took a more solemn tone to it as he stared at me. “Octavia… you are dead. You made your final breath after you saw Vinyl’s light when she searched for you, hoping that you were somehow alive even though she knew that no pony could live, she felt that you could somehow have pulled out of it, but this is not the case.” The happiness left me. “Vinyl…” I let her down. I now knew how she felt about me, that our love was mutual and powerful between us, but… I died. “Death is difficult to comprehend, Octavia Pie.” He nodded as he circled me. “Follow me…” I turned to see him walking into the darkness, lights filling where he walked. Everything about him felt powerful and planned, thoughtful and careful. I followed him, knowing that I had no reason to trust him, yet he had a strange comforting aura about him. I felt that I could trust him. “I want you to imagine one of your dreams and focus on it.” He spoke as I walked next to him. I could barely think straight, like my mind was slipping quickly like death wasn’t over. “What’s wrong with me?” I asked him, feeling a wave of weakness come over my mind. “Your brain is still alive. I am using it to get this gift to you before you go.” He spoke as if the circumstances were better. “Before I go?” The words disgusted me. “How can you speak so calmly about my death?” “Everypony dies. I’ve seen more ponies pass than you can even imagine. These friends that hold and can use the Elements of Harmony now, they will die of old age, just like every other pony. Vinyl Scratch will die of old age eventually. That is the fact of the world around us, and you best be comfortable with it.” He continued walking in what felt like a random direction, though I didn’t even know where we started. “But…” “Now imagine something you wanted before your time is up.” He had no urgency in his voice, but I still felt rushed. I closed my eyes and imagined not just one thing. My focus quickly flipped between my many dreams until I only felt one that mattered. I opened my eyes and saw Vinyl standing in front of me. Her glasses were missing, and upon looking down at myself, found my bow missing. I raised my head back up to Vinyl and saw that she had reappeared much further away. The darkness quickly erupted into light as I found myself standing at the top of the crater where I had died, looking down into the hole, and seeing Vinyl looking up at me, glowing with an unreal light. “How can I get down there?” I asked aloud. “Think of another dream…” Eyn whispered into my ear with an air of excitement. I closed my eyes and imagined a dream of mine to get down to her. I felt myself become heavier, yet lighter at the same time, like my weight had been redistributed. I cracked my eyes open and looked at my back. My heart fluttered as I stared at not just pegasus wings, but that of an alicorn. A mirror appeared next to me, showing me how I looked. I didn’t just have alicorn wings, but I had transformed into an alicorn. Eyn walked behind me in my reflection, smiling as he stared at me. “Like it? Now you can fly down and greet your Vinyl, save her from the hole in which she is trapped.” I turned give him a smile, but he wasn’t where his reflection was. I turned back to the mirror to see him step out from it, still smiling and moving as carefully as he had done, but with a minor limp, his eyes now gray instead of their bold colors. “What’s happening to you…?” I asked, my voice trailing as I asked. “Look inside your heart and follow your true love.” He dodged the question. Taking flight, my wings worked with just a thought of flying. I couldn’t see how one like Doctor Whooves wouldn’t be able to master such a simple task. My body, or was it my soul, descended into the hole, landing next to Vinyl who stared happily at me. I smiled back, loving her grin and her glittering eyes. I took a step forward causing her to frown. She turned from me and cried. “Octavia…” I heard her cry my name. “What is it?” I walked hurriedly to her side to see why she was crying, but I saw her looking at something else. I looked where she had focused, spying my own broken body lying in a pool of blood. I couldn’t even describe what I was seeing. I tried to comfort her, but found that I wisped through her like I was just a breeze. “You can make… any dream… come true.” I looked back at the voice as he limped from the shadows. His eyes were completely white and his horn had been snapped from his head. He shook with pain, as he leaned against the wall of the crater. I saw that he only had three legs, while drops of blood fell from what was left of his other leg. “What…” I wanted to ask him, but he shook his head. “You need to dream… you need to desire your dreams and follow it without doubt.” He took a deep breath as he coughed blood onto the ground. “You need to see that, or you will regret ever living.” His breathing was broken and weak, his eyes dragging to stay up. “I just wanted to be with Vinyl… I didn’t even have to close my eyes as that desire outweighed the rest of my dreams. A white light exploded out from a broken box, Vinyl’s box, which sat right next to my dead body. It crept out of it and began to envelope my body, causing to glow as if it was cast in iron and burned with an amber hue. It blinded me as I stared into it, but it felt right to not look away. Everything became colder and tighter as everything went black. I would sacrifice anything to be back with her. I woke up at the bottom of the crater, cast in the moonlight that illuminated the ground around me. My breaths were broken and weak as I rose and leaned against the same spot that the broken Eyn had leaned against. My ribs were still broken, but the wounds on my body had stopped bleeding. I coughed blood against the wall, trying to walk forward, but collapsing as I felt a sharp pain shoot through the bone. I knew it was broken. Every step felt like I was walking on fire and breathing brimstone or dragon’s breath. “Welcome back to the land of the living, Octavia…” It was Eyn’s voice, but it sounded much colder, and filled with a hint of anger. “How am I… still alive?” I breathed heavily, feeling my ribs strain. “Vinyl gave you the gift of life for one that would sacrifice her own heaven to be with her loved one. You desired it and you have a love that no one can break. I gave the magic to succeed in such, but I had to make sure that this desire existed. You passed without question.” He walked from the shadows, a metal click echoing in the cave at each fourth hoof clop. I squinted into the darkness to see softly glowing white eyes and the metallic shimmer of a mechanized leg. Eyn’s breathing wasn’t strained and he wasn’t breathing as hard as I was or how I had just seen him on the verge of death. His stare was colder, though his eyes never locked onto me, but instead looked out into the darkness. “I could only wish I could see what you look like. Judging by your breathing and strained syllables, I can guess that you aren’t in the shape you would hope to be in right now. I stared at the alicorn that loomed over me. Something had changed about the aura around him. The feelings of relaxation and happiness had left and were replaced with coldness. “What… happened to you?” Everything hurt to move. “I was thrown down in here after they had clipped my wings and broke my horn. They thought they could keep me down here, barely alive so that I could continue bestowing the power of the Cutie Marks onto the fair ponies of Equestria. After a few years, they forgot about me, or more appropriately, I made them forget I existed. I made myself a fairy tale for children’s books, so those that still remembered me, would think that they only remembered me through a childhood story.” “That’s awful… Why would they… do that?” I could feel my breathing improve slightly. “That is for another time, right now, you need to get to a hospital. Come. Grab your gift from Vinyl.” His voice held urgency this time causing me to react quickly. I painfully bent down and picked up the cracked wooden box, turning my vision away from the contents so that I could save the moment to when I could see her again. Before I could even mutter another word, metal wings creaked from his bag. He picked me up with his magic, using a magical horn that shimmered out of the broken stump. His flying was much more strained as he rose, but it didn’t seem to bother him in the slightest. In the air, high above the forest, I could see the scope of the distance that my friends and I had travelled. The crater, the swamp, mountains, and forest, all flew past me, as Eyn picked up speed. I could see the lights of Ponyville, tears welling up in my eyes at seeing that I was home and that I was granted a second chance at life. Eyn stopped at the edge of the forest, staying within the boundaries of the trees and stopped, lowering me to the ground. His mane flowed over the nearby tree, making the leaves vanish so that only the sticks could be seen, but as the mane left from over them, the leaves returned. Everything that it flowed over would show what was hidden underneath, including the cloak that Eyn wore. “This is as far as I can take you. I’m sorry that I can’t progress any further. The hospital is on the other side of the town from here. Find someone to help you get to the hospital; you are not out of the woods yet.” He nodded and smiled briefly. “It is an honor to finally meet a generation in person.” Before I could even return my own thanks, he shrank into a small dark hole and vanished in a pop. I struggled to take a step forward, feeling the pain resurface and rack my body. I wheezed through my teeth, still holding onto the wooden box. I continued my slow advance toward the town, watching it grow in size with each step. My smile only widened with each step, knowing that I’d be with Vinyl soon enough, but I still felt worried about my health. Eyn warned me that I would not be able to make it to the hospital. I continued to limp down the dirt road where I had started my first pleasant conversation with Lyra. It was the first place where I had tried to conquer my fears, but failed. I still enjoyed the memory of it. I continued to limp, picking up speed only to slow and cough with pain. Entering town never felt better, but as I looked around I saw one shop still open. I limped toward the record shop, looking through the window to see the owner packing up his things and closing the store. Equally, the record that I had wanted to buy Vinyl for our anniversary was still there. “Sir…” I tried to act calm like there was nothing wrong with me. “Oh, what can I do for you, Miss Octavia?” I had to smile at the politeness of the stallion. “I was hoping to make an IOU purchase on that record in the window. I currently don’t have my money pouch with me, and I have to get this tonight.” I hoped he would understand. “Hmm…” He looked at the record and smiled. “For you? I shall make an exception to the no IOU’s. I know you are a mare of your word. I will have to ask that you pay for it by the end of the week.” He nodded and entered the store, pulling the record down and putting it inside of a bag. He carried it out to me, where I picked up Vinyl’s box and placed it too inside of the bag. “Have a good night, Miss Octavia.” He smiled and went on his way, unknowing of the condition that I was in. I let out a pained breath as tears fell. I didn’t have much strength left in my body to make it anywhere that I wanted other than one place. I walked toward it, trying to conserve my strength and trying to stay awake. I didn’t notice the small drips of blood landing on the ground below me from one of my wounds opening back up. My pace quickened as I saw the house, smoke coming out of the chimney, meaning only one thing. The door was the hardest to open, but I managed to step inside, hearing someone move and listen inside of the living room. I wanted to call out to her and say who I was, but my lungs had already almost burned themselves dry. I slowly limped myself forward and rounded the corner, to see Vinyl staring at me. Her eyes were bloodshot and her face was wet from the tears that she had been releasing into the pillow. I looked around the living room to see that our usual set up had been created except that the double bed was much smaller, though still made for two. I stared at her before my jaw finally stopped holding the bag, sending it falling to the floor. “Hospital…” I collapsed in the doorway, watching her almost leap out of bed and run to my side. - “Octavia? Octavia!” I screamed out as I saw her lying in front of me. I wanted to cry with happiness at what I was seeing; even doubting myself that this couldn’t be real. The more I looked at her the more I knew it was real, yet still impossible. “Come on, Octavia…” I lifted her limp body onto my back, feeling her breathing work slowly, but still enough to know that she was still alive. My sprained ankle held no hindering power over me as I ran her to the hospital. The others were still there, just exiting Ditsy’s room to go home when they saw me barge into the room with a broken and bloody Octavia on my back. “She needs a Doctor, now!” I screamed when I burst through the door. The look of panic and surprise hit the rest of the group as they stood in shock at what they saw. Octavia managed to crack her eye open at the group, smiling and sending a single tear down her face. The doctor’s vanished with her into the Intensive Care wing of the hospital. “You’re covered in blood…” Lyra spoke in amazement, still dumbstruck by seeing Octavia alive, but barely. I hadn’t even noticed the blood dripping from Octavia as I ran to the hospital. I didn’t know a pony could hold that much blood, or that a pony had a heart strong enough to keep beating after losing so much, yet Octavia remained. I knew she was dead, I could see that she was lifeless and not knocked out. Something happened whenever I left, but the only chance that she ever had was through Eyn Spyyr. The thought alone made me immediately know it was correct. He didn’t leave her. He didn’t leave her to die. I wanted to cry again, but instead of sadness, I wanted to let the tears of happiness roll off my face. I wanted to dance, hear music, and just scream at the top of my lungs, because Octavia was alive. The stark reality of her still being in danger never crossed my mind as I walked to a chair and sat down. Morning came before I was even allowed to enter Octavia’s room. Everything on her seemed to be wrapped in the white bandages that had covered Ditsy along with bags of blood and fluids being pumped into her. A group of doctors still stood outside her door, talking of her condition. “May I pass?” I questioned. “Yes, but we warn you, she is sleeping and under a heavy amount of painkillers. I don’t know how she managed to live, but she will make a full recovery in a few months. The words danced around my head, making me smile and grin wider, happiness almost wanting to leap from my throat. Entering the room, Octavia didn’t move. She had the different devices connected to her as well as just the tubes feeding her fluids. I pulled the bag that Octavia had drug with her into the room with me, taking the chair next to her bedside. “I’m glad to see you are alive Octavia…” My words took on a more serious tone, knowing that she had to still be in pain even with the painkillers after they had told me how much damage had been done by the fall. She breathed calmly with no reaction to my words, but I didn’t care. “I opened the gift you got me… I didn’t know you knew what I wanted.” Tears of happiness began to form in my eyes. “I would have just been content with having you again.” My voice began to grow heavy as the crying increased. “I love you, Octavia…” I put my head against her cheek and pulled away before my tears could moisten her pillow. Setting the box next to her, I smiled through the tears. “I unlocked it for you. I hope you like it.” I turned to leave. “Aren’t you going to open it for me?” came almost a whisper from behind me. I jumped around to see Octavia just barely awake, staring at me with her gorgeous purple eyes, a weak smile on her face. “Of course…” Tears of happiness were my only response to her. I opened the box to reveal my gift to her. A silver treble cleft with notes attached to the end in black obsidian stone, mimicking our Cutie Marks, all wrapped into a pink bow, similar to her old bow, but of a newer fabric. I had spent countless hours trying to bend the metal smoothly and attaching the carved obsidian, which was a project as well. I could only stare at her as her smile grew to her ears, her eyes dripping with tears of happiness as well. “I love you, Vinyl…”She spoke her last words before slumping back to a deep sleep. I tied the bow around her neck and kissed her forehead before taking my place back in the chair by her side. I wasn’t going to leave her. I wasn’t going to let anyone harm her again. I promised myself of that.