//------------------------------// // Nerve-wracking-vana // Story: Guided Rhythm // by Valshe //------------------------------// Chapter 7: Nerve-wracking-vana _________________ Remember how I said nothing would stop us? Yeah, we might have been stuck again because I was about to smack Luis so hard, Helen Keller would have cringed at the sight. In case of you’re wondering on why I was so pissed off at him, not long after leaving Mississippi, we had stopped at another convenience store for a quick bathroom break, but after that, we somehow got lost on the road. “Okay, seriously... Where the fuck are we even at!?” I yelled at Luis, “We’ve been on these back roads for a while.” I took a look at the clock, it read 4:30 P.M. We were going in circles for the past four hours. God damn, we had a hopeless sense of direction. Had our GPS not have decided to break on us, we’d be halfway through Tennessee by now, but instead we’re stuck in the middle of nowhere, Alabama. Luis glared at me, “That’s the fourth time you asked me! Again, I have no clue. I’m just trying to find my way to the highway, or at least someone who isn’t too drunk or stupid to give directions.” Merille amped up the volume on my MP3 player, “Well, that’s Alabama for you. They seem to be almost enforcing their stereotypes.” Well, it was true. The people we came across were either alcoholics, or people so stupid you’d wonder how they even graduated from school. After more bickering among us, we eventually came across a rest stop. There was small building that had restrooms along with a lobby area that housed maps of the area and countless brochures. The area outside comprised of a few benches and a grassy hill in the field next to it. We decided to stop here to stretch our legs for a bit while Luis went to get us a map. I stepped out of the car and stretched my limbs a bit before heading up the hill. I laid down on my back in the grass and began to stare at the clouds. It was something that always helped me relax and get my mind off of things. I took the time to reminisce on all of things I had left behind when we decided to go on this journey. I thought back to the day immediately before my transformation. *********************************** “Hey man, you’ve been keeping up with the news lately?” asked the older man with the goatee who stood in front of my register. Since it was a slow day at Wal-Mart, and there was no one behind him, I had time to chat for a little bit. “A little bit, though sadly I haven’t been watching any news stations.” He looked at me dead in the eyes and said, “Well, across the country, there’ve been people who are turnin’ into them colored horses from some girl’s show.” Of course, I knew about that, but I pretended not to just to keep the guy’s attention. “Really now?” I asked with a raised eyebrow. “Yeah. All over the nation. I believe they might one day take over the world and bring us humans to extinction!” he exclaimed while making weird arm gestures. “Great. Another conspiracy theorist.” I said to myself as he continued his bullshit prediction about how ponies will one day have world domination if they aren’t stopped. Eventually, he stopped and handed me what looked like a business card. “You seem like a decent enough feller, take this card here. You should give these people a call. They’re a group against these ponies.” When he walked off, I didn’t even bother to look at the card before I threw it away. When I looked back up, someone had placed some groceries on the conveyor belt. I looked down the lane and there was woman and something else placing groceries on the register’s belt. The woman wore an evening dress that had a floral pattern. The other thing was not a person, but in fact, a griffon. He had white head feathers with yellow highlights and a grey fur color and grey wings on his body. The jacket he was wearing had holes placed for the wings to fit through. If I had to guess, he was his own fan made character. They both approached my register, and both seemed perfectly content. So, out of curiosity, I spoke up first, “Sorry to ask, but I’m guessing that’s an OC you made and somehow became it?” The griffon kid, who I guessed was no older than eleven, said, “Yeah, but I’m perfectly happy like this. As long as I have fingers, well, claws now, and can grab things with no problem, I’m good.” Talk about having a positive outlook on things. While scanning their things, I asked the kid’s mother, “He’s quite the optimist. Though, I’m curious as to what your original reaction was upon seeing him like that.” She looked down at her son and said, “Well, it was quite the shock at first. While we were shopping for clothes about a week ago, Jimmy went in the fitting room as a human, but then came out the way he is now. It took some time getting used to, but as long as he’s happy, then I don’t mind.” I finished scanning their items and soon received their payment. Though before they left, I took a picture with Jimmy and saved it to my phone. As they walked off, I thought to myself, “That’s one hell of a tolerant mom, though I’m quite curious as to what causes people to transform into these characters.” *************************************** Thinking back, I noticed that the guy who tried to get me to join the People Against Ponies Association was also one of the attackers at Walmart this morning. Then there was that kid. Before him, I never came into contact with a single pony, and then the very next day was when I transform into Vinyl Scratch. While I was laying there, I heard Luis shout my name. I stood back up on my hooves when I noticed Luis leaving the rest stop with the map we needed. I walked down the hill and past the benches as I approached my friends. Luis waved the map in front of us and said, “Well, we got a map. Turns out, we were way off course. The closest place now is a town called Albertville.” We soon piled back into the car and began to take off once more. We fired up my MP3 and browsed through the many tracks until we settled on a classic. With Merille reading from the map and giving Luis directions, we eventually found our way back to the highway. As we were jamming out to Ratt, a sudden urge came to me... I realized that I really needed to go to the bathroom really bad. “Luis. Stop the car at whatever the next building is! I need to piss really bad!” After getting Luis to stop at some random bus station, I hurried up out of the car and ran for the bathroom. Finally, I got me the bathroom break I needed. Though, as I was walking out of the bathroom, I began to hear yelling from a voice that sounded insanely familiar to me. “... And every time we’ve tried to purchase something, or even just stand in one spot, we’ve been discriminated against. We might walk on four legs, be half your height, and have a horn sticking out of our head, but that does not excuse you to suddenly drop the constitution because it doesn’t suit you!” Four legs? Half height? Horn sticking out of head? I was seriously intrigued about who was causing a commotion here. I galloped to the source of the scene. It was easy to find as I saw a crowd begin to form around one of the ticket booths. After making my way through the crowd, I finally took note of who was raising their voice. She was a blue unicorn with a silver mane. A wizard’s hat and cape adorned her body, both pieces of clothing bearing a star pattern. Her cutie mark was unmistakable, as it was a wand with a magic trail. I had come across The Great and Powerful Trixie. Though, by the way she looked, I guess you could call her “The Dirty and Disheveled Trixie.” Obviously, she looked like she was just moments away from snapping at someone, so I decided to at least attempt to calm her down. “Hey, hey, hey! Let’s all take a chill pill and calm down!” She looked around and after some searching, immediately set her sights on me, glaring daggers. By looking at her, you could tell she was in no mood to just sit down and talk things out rationally. She looked like she was prepared to fight anyone who she could get her hooves on. “Don’t tell us to calm down!” she shouted. Her knees bent so she lowered to the ground, as though to charge, and pointed her horn at the me. Now, I was never one to start a fight, and I didn’t want to fight her. Though if someone does fight me, I sure as hell would finish it. If she did charge at me, it would’ve been a bad idea. Even though I’m now a pony, it wouldn’t be too hard to adapt my old Tae Kwon Do moves back from when I took classes as a kid to my new pony body. I decided to give her a simple warning, “Really now? I was hoping to be the voice of reason, but if you start charging at me, I’ll fight back!” Well that didn’t work, as she immediately retorted with, “Reason? Funny, because every time we’ve tried to use it, we’ve been denied services. We were even chased out of a travel agency by some crazy guy with a bat!” she shook her head before indicating my two friends behind me. “At least you’ve got people that others are willing to talk to without automatically wanting to spit in their face.” After what she said, making herself sound like she had it so horrible really made me mad. I had family members who were like that, always making their problems sound like it’s worse than everyone else’s. Then they shoot down everyone else’s problems like they were nothing important. People like that always grinded my gears to no end. I could feel the anger rising as I recanted what happened to me earlier today, “You think you have it bad!? Just earlier today, I was almost killed! Even with my friends there! Instead of one guy with a bat, how about having to deal with four mental people who chase you through a superstore! Each armed with something very deadly! And not much longer after that, I was almost shot at by an armed gunman!” I can tell she didn’t believe me, as she pressed a hoof to her chest. “We sincerely doubt that any of that actually happened, we may have been dealt a bad hoof of cards, but we know that you just made that up to pump up your own grandeur to make yourself feel better when compared to us.” That’s it, I knew she was just brushing off my problems as unimportant. This got me even angrier, especially coming from Trixie, who was shown in the show to be arrogant and full of herself. That’s when the hypothetical devil horns came out as I said, “Make myself feel better than you!? Bitch, please. Almost everyone in this room is better than you! At least I can back up my boasts with actual talent!” This pissed her off even more, as I saw her get ready for what looked like charging up a spell. I was about ready to sling her across the room so fast— “The both of you, enough of these threats, before you do something you regret,” a voice called out suddenly. My head turned in the direction of the rhyming voice. Through my glasses, I could make out a black-and-white striped figure in a black hoodie trotting towards us. There was no mistaking it. It was Zecora. The very same Zecora who I talked to on Facebook this morning. It was then that a realization struck me. Trixie and Zecora... These were the same two shown in those weird dreams that I had. Everything had been tuned out as I realized how strange this was. Out of all of the possible outcomes that could have happened, I wound up meeting the two ponies who appeared nonstop in my chats with Vinyl. The only word that I could think of saying was, “...Zeccy!” as I galloped up to her and hugged her. “Oh, my, God!” I was quickly brought out of my trance when I heard someone yell at the top of their lungs. I quickly released Zecora and looked back at the crowd. Rushing between the many people were none other than Snips and Snails. “It’s, it’s, it’s!” Pablo stuttered, his lanky legs carrying him towards us. “Redheart!” His legs carried him towards Serah so quickly, I could have almost sworn he teleported. “Me encanta!” Bowing his head to her hooves, he puckered his lips. “A Mexican Snails?” I thought to myself as he kissed her hoof, trying to act like a gentleman. I saw the look on Serah’s face. She gave a nervous chuckle and mouthed the words “Please help.” I honestly couldn’t blame her, since that was a really awkward moment. I turned and I saw Snips next to Zecora, the former trying to flirt with her and utterly failing. I noticed the very nervous look on Zecora’s face, as her cheeks turned red. “Look! Zecora’s black, white, and red all over!” Snips was rolling on his hooves, a silly smile on his face as he looked up at Zecora, his pudgy body shaking as he did so. “Hey there, pretty lady, I’m Enrique! But you can call me Rick if you want to...” Zecora merely grinned sheepishly as she backed up, “Umm, why hello, little fellow?” she stopped when she backed into me, “I am not sure I see, if there is something you need from me?” I kept on looking back and forth between Snips and Snails, watching as they kept on trying to score brownie points with Serah and Zecora. “So what’s it like?” Pablo asked. “Taking care of the patients I mean. It must get lonely, being there in the hospital with nobody but the sick?” “Zecora, care to tell me about some of the things you see in the Everfree Forest? I’m sure you see all sorts of exciting things,” Enrique said. While watching the two lovestruck idiots keep on hitting on the nurse and herbalist, Merille and Luis finally approached Snips and Snails and picked them up so they couldn’t get close to Serah and Zecora. Luis, who was now carrying Snips, said, “Someone, somewhere wants what you two have to offer, but it isn’t these two Romeo.” He then was approached by Trixie who said, “You have no idea how much we wish to have thought of saying that a day earlier, Mr...” She trailed off. “Luis Bonilla, but just Luis will do.” He extended a fist for Trixie to bump after tucking Snips under one arm. “Trixie Lulamoon,” she replied, obliging the gesture by raising her hoof up and allowing him to bump his fist into it as he smirked. “Though of course you’d already know that.” “There they are!” We all looked over to see the woman who Trixie was yelling at earlier. Accompanying her was the security guard for the bus station. He was a big dude with tanned skin and a balding head, but he had a handgun holstered to his hip that he had a hand over. “Gentlemen...” He suddenly paused, as if he was trying to figure out the best word choice for the situation. “Ponies?” Eh, whatever floats his boat. “I’m’a gonna have to ask you to leave the bus station, right now.” Merille, who was still holding Snails, stepped in front of the guard. “Sorry about that sir,” he said. “We were just leaving anyways.” As he said that, everyone who participated in the fiasco had begun to walk out of the building. I turned back one last time to see Zecora just standing there, wide-eyed at the people staring at her. I waved to Zecora and yelled, “Hey, Zeccy! You coming or not!?” She got the message and followed the rest of us out of the station. We all walked towards Luis’s silver Prius. I stopped next to Merille with Zecora being the last to stop altogether. I guess she felt nervous being around a strange group of ponies, because it looked like anxiety was taking its toll on her. When Luis was about to put his hand on the car door, he said, “Oh! Before we depart, how about we get the formal introductions out of the way?” He then looked towards Zecora and Trixie’s group, “Well, that is, if you want to travel with us, since I’m pretty sure we’re all going to the same place.” “Vaudeville and Broadway,” Trixie answered, before continuing. “We’re okay with all of you just calling us Trixie.” Pointing to Snails and Snips respectively, she continued. “The orange one is Snails, or Pablo as he prefers, and with him is his brother, Enrique, or Snips.” Luis pointed to himself, me, Serah, and Merille while saying, “Well, my name is Luis Bonilla, but you can just call me Luis. Over here is Vinyl Scratch, or Gage. It doesn’t really matter to him what you decide to call her.” He continued, “Right here is Redheart, or Serah as she prefers. Finally, this here is Merille Robichaux, or just Merille.” There was a pause for a moment as we looked at Zecora, “Oh! Right sorry, of course you mean me. My name with grace, is quite simply J...” She paused awkwardly for a moment as her face contorted “It’s Zecora,” she spoke very un-whimsically. Taking note of the sudden break from rhyming, we took care of introductions. I began to walk towards a car door to hop in when Trixie offered, “So, you’ve got transportation? We have gas money if you need it.” Remembering the lazer tag tournament, I replied with, “Actually, we have that covered. We recently got around five-hundred bucks before we left Mississippi. Though, if you still want to chip in, that’d be great.” As Luis and Merille began to adjust the back seats of the Prius to accommodate all of us, Serah had taken notice of the sky and said, “Hey, you all realize it’s getting late. I saw a Holiday Inn while we were coming here, how about we get a room there for the night?” Zecora quickly nodded in agreement as she readjusted her pack. “Having rushed on hoof from town to town, I could certainly use a sit down.” Trixie gave an unrepentant yawn. “Ah, yes, we have wearied from travelling so much over the day.” Noticing how Trixie kept saying “we”, I wondered, “Hey, when you say ‘we’, you mean you and the two dolts over there with the orange one close to Serah...again. Or is it like that outdated royal ‘we’ that I’ve seen this one guy use back at the Ren Fair?” Her eyes practically popped out of her head. I guess she was shocked that I caught it so fast. She gave off an audible gulp before saying, “Yes.” I had opened my mouth to reply to her, but Luis cut me off, “Well, we have it set to fit everyone. Since I’m driving and Merille will be in the passenger seat, who’s sitting where?” Serah was the first to speak up, “As far away from Snips and Snails as possible. I’m sure Zecora would agree with me.” “I guess... that would be best.” Zecora nodded as she glanced back to the duo. “I’d rather not have another exchange. That last one was certainly strange.” Trixie clopped her front hooves together as she excitedly said, “Excellent! They can stay in the trunk, we can take the folded seat, and you two can take the rest of the back seat!” “So that means we’re set!” I said while adjusting my glasses, “Alright then, Dumb and Dumber, in the trunk you go! Oh, Trixie and Zeccy, I hope you don’t mind some J-Rock and Vocaloid tracks, as my MP3 player is hooked up to the car’s speakers.” “I’ve never even heard of those genres,” she answered while getting in the Prius, “Is it like country?” Laughing a bit, I hopped into the car and said, “Well Trix, J-Rock and Vocaloid will just have to be something I need to show you then.” As I signaled Merille to play one of my favorite Vocaloid tracks, the car soon filled with music blasting at a decent volume. I took a quick look and saw Zecora humming to the beat. “Hey Zeccy. I see you like the song. Pretty upbeat, right?” “Hmm?” she hummed, “Oh yes this music I absolutely adore, but I don’t think I’ve heard of this artist before.” “Well, that’s because Hatsune Miku is first of all, really popular in Japan. Second of all, Miku isn’t even real.” “I’m not quite sure I understand,” she questioned “is it some sort of made-up band?” “Actually, it’s a synthesized voice. Using a real life voice as a base, and then synthesizing it to make a whole new sound!” I explained to her with glee. “Most of the time, they use a character to represent the voice. In this case, an anime character.” “I didn’t think that a voice could be made that way, into such a sort of musical array,” pondered Zecora. “Speaking of anime...” I had paused for a bit before continuing, “I’m assuming you’re a Naruto fan? Or at least a fan of Gaara?” There was a pause before Zecora finally spoke up again “Oh, yes Gaara is one of my favorites of the show. I’ve only enjoyed certain anime’s although...” She paused for a moment, “But enough of me, what of you? What sort of things do you like to do?” “Well, before becoming Vinyl, my life was kind of boring. I was a hardcore role-playing gamer. When I wasn’t working a dead-end job, I mainly played stuff like Skyrim or listened to music. If I wasn’t doing that, I usually was at a friend’s house.” We continued to chat with each other until I heard Pablo and Enrique chatting amongst each other. “I can’t believe I am in the same vehicle as Redheart! I am so excited!” said Pablo, sound absolutely giddy with excitement. “Forget that!” hissed Enrique. “We’re with Zecora, honestly, how cool is that.” “So...” Enrique started, “do you think Nurse Redheart was a nurse before all this?” Pablo responded, “All I know is that she has my heart!” I decided to at least tell them a little something, since they probably wouldn’t shut up about them for the rest of the ride even if we told them to. “Actually, she was a nurse before becoming Redheart. Quite the coincidence, isn’t it?” “Doy gracias a dios!” Pablo yelled. Knowing little to no Spanish, I turned to Trixie, “Hey, Trixie, do you have any idea what Snails just said?” questioned Vinyl. “Nothing overly important, I’m sure.” She lifted her head to look out of the window before facing us again. “So I suppose you want to know who I was before all this?” Well, I was curious, so I told her, “Well it would be interesting to find out, but if you don’t want to share it with us, I won’t press the issue.” Zecora’s ears perked up when she looked at Trixie. “It would be interesting to share, if you wouldn't mind much or care.” “Alright,” she explained, “University student, I was taking this fall off in order to get familiar with a few things I should have looked up when I was younger.” She paused for a bit before turning to the two in the trunk. “Pablo, Enrique, you interested in telling us what you did before we met?” “I worked at a power sub-station,” Enrique answered, “patrolled it at night to make sure nothing went wrong. As for my brother, he was in Junior High.” “That... explains quite a bit actually.” Trixie said as she turned my head back to the others. While we were all conversing amongst each other, Luis had turned towards us and said, “Hey, I’m not sure about you guys, but I’m really hungry. How about we stop at a diner and get us a quick bite to eat?” There was a quick squeak from Zecora, “Oh uh, well if thats best I’m unsure, my funds are somewhat insecure...” “No problem,”  responded Trixie. “We can cover the meal for tonight. What do you see, Luis?” Luis looked to his right and said, “Well, there’s a little place called Rosie’s Diner. How about there?” “If there is no disagreement.” Trixie looked to all of us, her head poking into the trunk briefly. She then looked over to everyone else. I nodded and she said, “Alright Luis, Rosie’s it is.” Luis pulled into the parking lot and soon we all climbed out. We entered the diner. This place screamed fifties diner. There was a steel counter along the length of it with red-upholstered stools in front of it, and plenty of booths with the same upholstery. I always loved these local places. They always took more care in preparing their food compared to popular franchises like Burger King or McDonalds, who really didn’t give a damn how your food turned out. One of the waitresses walked towards us, asking how many people were in our group. Luis told the woman that there was a total of eight people and that we would like to be seated in adjacent tables. We were soon set at the window seats in the middle of the diner. Zecora and Redheart sat at one booth, and were soon joined by Pablo and Enrique, who sat across from them. Zecora and Redheart looked at each other and smiled before hopping out of their seats and coming to join Trixie and myself. If they didn’t get that hint, then they really are lost causes. Pablo stood up to jump out of the booth, but was stopped when Merille stood in front of him. “Hey, let’s talk, us four, ‘kay?” The waitress handed each of us a menu, and I used my magic to open it up to check out what they had to offer. I saw the specials... All of them were meat-based products. I cried on the inside on how I wouldn’t be able to eat bacon.  Soon, the waitress came back asking for our orders. I couldn’t really decide on what I wanted when Trixie spoke up, “Vegetarian pasta for us, we suppose. We’d risk meatballs, but we didn’t really enjoy the prospect of sausages for my first breakfast... As for the drink, ice tea please.” Under the reasoning of ‘fuck it,’ I decided to just get the same thing Trixie ordered. “What she said, and a diet coke.” Zecora glanced up at the waitress, “I guess a salad will do for me, along with umm... uhh sweet tea?” The waitress nodded, then inclined her head to Serah, who didn’t really bother looking at the menu. “I’ll just take a salad as well. With a glass of water.” After getting all of our orders, the waitress headed to the kitchen to tell the chef to begin cooking our meals. Without looking at me, Trixie put both hooves on the table and said, “We suppose you are owed an apology.” I rubbed a hoof on the back of my head as I said, “Ditto. We did get way too out of hand... er well, hoof now, I guess.” Trixie stayed still as she replied, “Agreed.” The waitress came back with our drinks, sweet tea for Zecora, ice tea for Trixie, water for Serah, and diet coke for me. I began to lift my drink up with magic to take a sip when I heard a gasp, then the clink of glass on the table. “Oh my gosh! I’m so sorry!” Trixie let out a yelp as water spilled off of the table and onto her. Serah’s glass was spilled on the side, completely empty now. After cleaning up the contents of Serah’s glass by levitating many napkins onto the spill, Trixie turned to Serah. “You ask for the refill; we’d probably be rejected.” After giving a silent nod, she walked to the waitress who had served our drinks to get a refill. I soon turned to Trixie and asked, “You know, we’ll probably be travelling with each other’s company for a while. How about we take the time to get to know each other better?” Soon Serah returned, with a full glass in her mouth. This time, there was a straw in the cup. The waitress soon followed, with our meals balanced on a tray. Setting us up, the waitress smiled at us, then went to the other booth. “I’ll get your meals in just a minute,” she said to Luis, Merille, Pablo, and Enrique. “Very well, we shall start. We woke up like this two days ago, and began our travel to New York since yesterday. That was when we met with...” Trixie tilted her head to the other booth and nodded towards the others. “Them. Enrique was still human, but halfway through the trip he fell asleep at the wheel, crashed the car, and turned into a pony.” When she said it like that, it sounded like one of those B-rated comedy movies. “Then we had to march through some backwater town, contacted Zecora, and the rest...” She leaned back in her seat for a dramatic pause. “Is history.” That story did raise a few questions. I had to ask her why Enrique suddenly went comatose like that. “Is there a reason that Enrique fell asleep at the wheel? Was he narcoleptic or something? Or does becoming a pony suddenly make someone sleepy?” “Were we to hazard a guess,” Trixie responded between wads of noodles in her mouth, “we would say that it was the latter. Particularly considering that just after, Discord showed up.” Upon hearing that, I was absolutely shocked. So shocked that it caused me to do a classic spit-take as I was drinking my diet coke at the time, “Discord!? He’s here!?” The drink I spat out flew in Trixie’s direction. She dabbed more napkins to dry herself off again. “Well, here in the relative sense, we suppose, here on Earth,” she answered. “He’s in all likelihood responsible for this whole mess, unless some poor sod woke up as him and couldn’t handle it.” she finished cleaning her face, and turned to Zecora. “What about you? Anything else to make the musical blowhard spoil my cape some more?” she asked in a total deadpan. Zecora turned to face Trixie after a distracted glance “Oh me?” She asked before waving her hoof, “Well, there is not that much at all to say. I woke up like this the other day. I only set off this morning, by bus; I’ll admit it was boring.” Well that was very anti-climatic. I took a few more big sips from my drink as I began to tell Zecora and Trixie the epic tale of my journey. “I guess it’s my turn. Well, to begin, before I became Vinyl this morning, I had actually just graduated from high school, and was working a dead-end job as a cashier. I became Vinyl this morning, actually.” It was then I realized that I said the same sentence twice.  I then pointed to Merille and Luis. “The two humans behind me, lifelong friends who helped since this crazy adventure began. I ran into Serah here at Wal-Mart this morning, only to be chased out by that crazy extremist group against ponies. I was in Mississippi when I was caught up in a gas station holdup and was in a laser tag tournament that I lost in. Also, I actually met Zecora on Facebook then. Then we got lost and by chance, met you guys at the station.” Trixie simply, and slightly sarcastically, said, “Right.” I could tell she still didn’t believe me.  I always hated that about myself, when I could tell the solid truth, it’d get written off as a lie. Yet when I lie, most people believed it as the truth. I simply looked back at my food a bit dejectedly and said, “I remember how you basically called BS on my story back at the station when arguing, but I’m dead serious. In fact, if you want me to, I could show you the news report that was made on it.” “I’ll wait for the security footage to show up on Spike TV one of these days,” she answered. “Well, I guess it’s my turn now.” Redheart giggled a bit, “I worked at a local hospital back in Louisiana. I was more of a paperwork person, but I did see a patient or two now and again. It was actually pretty early in the morning when I became Nurse Redheart, as Vinyl had stated. So, from the hospital, I travelled on hoof to Wal-Mart, since I didn’t have a car. It was Vinyl who came across me in the Pharmacy section, and well... You know the rest from Vinyl.” I noticed that Zecora glanced at the fork placed in front of her by the waitress with a confused look on her face. The fork was then surrounded by a light blue glow, and it lifted up to Zecora’s mouth. I glanced over and saw Trixie’s horn glowing the same color. Zecora glanced at the fork surrounded in the light blue aura before glancing back to Trixie. “Oh, um thank you,” she said embarrassingly. It was probably a bit diffident for her. I couldn’t suppress my laughter at the sight as I said, “... Gallons of shipping fuel right there.” Trixie glared daggers at me when Serah tapped me on the shoulder and gestured to her fork. I felt like life just slapped me across the face. “Sometimes, I really hate you Karma...” As I used my magic to lift up the fork, it began to envelop in a sky blue aura. I guided the fork to pick up a few leaves of lettuce and over to her mouth. I heard Pablo say, “Gracias!” before immediately hearing the sound of his muzzle slamming into what to me sounded like soup. Trixie looked over to the duo of colts and said to me, “If that’s what happens to you for teasing us, imagine what we had to do to get that guy.” I chuckled at the statement before trying to get a few sips from my drink, only to find out that it was empty. “Damn. My drink is empty already. Need a refill.” Zecora stared at the empty cup as Vinyl placed it back on the table before she pulled it back over to herself. “I don't think there’s need for distress,” she commented as she placed her hoof on top of the lid, “It just requires a bit of finesse.” The sound of ice in liquid being shaken suddenly returned to the cup. Zecora tilted her head, and her eyes widened at the sight of what she had done. The second I saw that, I squeed an inhuman squee. “Zecora, I now officially love you forever!” “What was that about shipping fuel again?” Trixie interjected. Lifting up her cup of ice tea, she shook it in front of Zecora. “Don’t suppose you could fill it up with Bailey’s?” I shrugged off her retort as I laughed a bit before saying, “Oh shut up Trixie.” Zecora chuckled hesitantly as she took Trixie’s cup, “Oh.. uhh well I suppose its worth a try,” There was no sound this time though as she looked back to it sadly “Or... well... fie.” We continued to eat in silence as I enjoyed the relative peace. After what had happened to all of us today, it looks like fate was throwing us a bone and letting us have a night of laughter and merriment.