//------------------------------// // Being Better // Story: The OC Support Group // by M1ghtypen //------------------------------// The Gilded Trumpet turned out to be a charming little jazz club hidden away in an unremarkable part of the city. It was a well-kept secret by locals, who worried that too much popularity would ruin the pleasant atmosphere and intimate setting. It was a wonderful place to relax and take in the more subtle side of Canterlot’s night life. Nestled amongst the flashing lights and deafening dubtrot of the city’s nightclubs, the Gilded Trumpet was a tiny island of smooth serenity. Lightning Dust had never been a fan of jazz music, but now she could see the appeal. She was relaxing in a booth with her new friends and nursing a gin and tonic while a talented cellist played on the stage next to the bar. She couldn’t remember the last time she had been so comfortable. The only reason she hadn’t fallen into a content sleep right there in her booth was that Hot Blooded could not shut up. Pinkie Pie – there were no other Pinkies around, so her real name would suffice – and the nameless pegasus were politely trying to pay attention, but one of them was very distracted by the other. “So anyway,” Hot Blooded said as his friend cast another glance at Pinkie’s drink, “this guard is going on about what he knows and doesn’t know about fighting, and he keeps talking about his Rolling Stone technique.” His narrative drew to a jarring stop. Lightning Dust shook the drowsiness from her head and finished her drink. “That’s it?” she asked. “You spent ten minutes telling that story. You might as well finish it.” “I got tired of it.” “But–” “I could buy you one!” Nameless said suddenly. Pinkie was so startled that she almost let her empty glass slip out of her hooves. He coughed and looked away to hide his embarrassment. “I mean a drink. I could buy you a drink. C-can I buy you a drink?” Pinkie had to stick a hoof in her mouth to keep from laughing. She was so obviously amused that it was impossible for him not to notice. The poor pegasus seemed to wilt, feathers and all. Just as Lightning Dust was about to give the gypsy pony a piece of her mind Pinkie threw her forelegs around his neck and pushed him out of the booth. “You’re so cute!” she laughed. “Of course you can buy me a drink, silly. I’ll buy you one too. We’ll trade drinks!” Hot Blooded rubbed at his temples and took a deep breath. “Seeing him try to flirt is painful sometimes,” he sighed as the pegasus followed Pinkie to the bar. “I’ve tried everything I can think of. At this rate, he’ll be a bachelor forever!” Lightning Dust considered getting another drink, but she didn’t want to overindulge. She’d already had too much. “Is it always like this?” she asked, determined to distract herself. “There are only about six group members here. Where does everypony else go?” With an apathetic shrug Hot Blooded took another pull from his beer. “Nowhere. Everywhere. Does it matter? Some of us make friends, so we get together and talk for a while after the session is over. It’s just to blow off a little steam. I think some of us need it way more than others. Speaking of which, where’s Rover?” An annoyed grunt came from the other side of the lounge. “Wow,” Lightning Dust remarked. “He has really good hearing.” “You bet he does!” Hot Blooded said. “He’s also got a good memory, and he should know better than to think he can get away with not giving us a song.” The hybrid tried to wave them away and go back to his conversation with Disharmony, but Hot Blooded wouldn’t take no for an answer. “Come on, dude. Please? Pretty please? Pretty please with implied threats of violence on top?” Rover’s claws scraped against his table as he stood up, interrupting the musician onstage just as she was finishing her song. “Sorry,” the hybrid muttered as the cellist began packing up her instrument. “I guess I need a trim. You aren’t packing up early, are you?” The cellist shook her head. “Good. I’m going to need a little backup. Care to help me out?” The cellist unpacked her instrument and stood at the ready. Rover climbed onto the stage and grabbed the microphone. “You’re a peach, Octy. Mic, can you get the piano?” A stallion staggered drunkenly out of the audience and took his place at a piano that had seen better days. “Okay, good enough. Woody, am I good to go?” A mare with a cream-colored coat and multihued green mane made an adjustment to his microphone. Rover nodded to the assembled ponies, all of whom were watching him excitedly. “You all get one song, so make it count.” “Do The Thing!” somepony shouted. The cry was echoed across the room, branching out from the group of OCs and on to the club’s regulars. “Really?” Rover asked. “You could have anything, and you pick that? You don’t want something a little less morbid? I could do… no? Alright, if you say so.” He looked back to be sure that his cellist was ready. “You both know the drill. Mic, pal, will you give it to me?” The cellist strummed her cello, the pianist played something that almost resembled music, and Rover began to sing. It was probably more like crooning, but Lightning Dust was no expert. “He’s really good,” she mumbled. “Does he do this often?” “For a living,” Hot Blooded confirmed. “He’s a pretty well-known lounge singer around here. He’d have groupies following him everywhere if he didn’t look so weird. This is one of his most popular songs.” Lightning Dust listened to the strangely morbid tune and tried to place it. When she finally recognized it, she had to fight the powerful urge to squeal and clop her hooves in excitement. “That’s The Voice?” she asked. “Why didn’t you say so? I wish I had my autograph book with me.” “You could always come back next week,” Hot Blooded said. “We don’t normally let non-OCs hang out with us, but we could make an exception.” He directed Lightning Dust’s attention to the bar. “Check it out! Maybe my pal isn’t so hopeless after all.” Pinkie was talking excitedly with her green companion. Lightning Dust couldn’t hear all of what they were saying, but she could guess what was going on. Pinkie was loudly rambling through a list of names, heedless of the noise she was causing. Her friend had to politely remind her to keep it down. Rover’s song soon ended and he hopped off the stage as the audience begged for an encore. Pinkie paused long enough to politely applaud, then rattled off a final hooffull of names. “You could be Stock Ticker, or Type Set, or maybe Clackey Keys!” She giggled and finished her drink in one gulp. “I like that last one. It’s super fun to say, especially when you’re drinking. Clackey Keys, Clackey Keys, Clackey Keys!” “I might like that one,” the pegasus said shyly. “I mean, if you’re alright with me using it.” “Yay!” Pinkie cheered and motioned for another drink. “I helped! It’s super nice to meet you, Keys!” Clackey Keys politely accepted her hug. “We’ve known each other for months,” he said quietly. Lightning Dust still wanted another drink, but she made herself hold off for now. “That’s sort of cute, in a dorky kind of way.” Hot Blooded crossed his front legs and rolled his eyes. “Yeah, they’re gonna get married and have little adorkable gypsy babies. I’m so sure.” “Something the matter?” “No! No, of course not. They look happy.” Hot Blooded tried unsuccessfully to look disinterested. For the first time that night, he seemed genuinely hurt. “He’s been gone for less than five minutes!” Lightning Dust pointed out. “You can’t possibly be jealous already!” “Am I being too clingy?” Lightning Dust didn’t respond. She leaned over and rested her head on the table, too tired to argue with her bizarre new friend. It was getting late, and she just wanted to go home. She wanted another drink first, but then she’d go home. Probably. Lightning Dust stared at the bar, an anxious feeling growing in the pit of her stomach. “I should go,” she said. Her hooves were beginning to tremble. “I should really, really go. I don’t want to be here anymore.” “Are you alright?” Hot Blooded asked. “I’m okay.” Lightning Dust made up her mind and leapt out of the booth, making for the door as quickly as possible. She felt a not-quite-unpleasant shiver creep up her spine as she passed the bar and stopped in her tracks. She could have one more drink before going home. She could afford it, and this was a special occasion. There was no harm in drinking with friends. A pair of rough hooves shoved her away from the bar. “You look like you could use some sleep,” Hot Blooded said. “I’ll call you a cab.” “I’m alright. Can I come back next week?” “Only if you promise not to drink.” Lightning Dust pushed through the club’s front door and sighed. “Fine,” she grumbled. “I just don’t see what the problem is. I’ve only had a few today.” It was a lie, of course. She had been drinking since her shift with the weather patrol ended, and that was almost five hours ago. Maybe it would be good to cut back a little. She had to get back into her training regiment, possibly go through a detox or something so that she could whip herself back into shape. Lightning Dust climbed into the taxi and waved goodbye, still wishing she had stayed for another drink. As the cab pulled away she noticed another pair of ponies coming out of the club. Pinkie was lying across her friend’s back, blinking sleepily at the bright purple light of the Gilded Trumpet’s neon sign. Clackey Keys was singing to her quietly. A bright pink stallion trotted out of the Gilded Trumpet after them and clapped Keys on the shoulder. “See u later!” he said cheerfully. “Same tim next weak?” Lightning Dust felt a strange pressure building in her wings. One moment they were in resting position and the next, with no warning, they shot out to full extension with a loud flapping noise. She happened to catch a glimpse of his cutie mark: a red heart. “You bet!” Keys offered a hoof-bump. “Take care, Plot!” He watched the stallion leave, then went right back to singing. Lightning Dust managed to pick out some of the words to his song as her cabby trotted away. “When I’m bright with jubilation there’s a simple explanation. You’re a wonderful creation and I’m glad to see your smile….” “Wait up,” Lightning Dust told her cabby. “Let’s see if they need a ride.” Keys and Pinkie happily climbed into the seat across from her and the cab started off again. “What about that guy?” Lightning Dust asked. “Doesn’t he need a ride?” “His apartment is just around the corner,” Keys said. “I just need to make sure that Pinkie gets home okay. After that I’ll head back and make sure Blood hasn’t killed himself with alcohol poisoning.” “That’s nice of you.” Lightning Dust sank into her seat and wished the cabby would trot just a little faster. The alcohol in her system was making her feel uncomfortably warm, and a breeze would feel wonderful. She didn’t recall having that much to drink, but maybe she hadn’t been paying enough attention. “What’s with him, anyway?” she asked to distract herself from the sick feeling building in her belly. “Your friend, I mean. The pink one.” Clackey Keys propped Pinkie Pie up in the seat next to him and sighed. “Some of us just weren’t created all that well,” he said. “Plot’s got the weirdest speech impediment I’ve ever seen. It’s like his brain just wasn’t put together quite right. He’s a really nice pony, but sometimes he just zones out. He’ll go perfectly still and just stare straight ahead for minutes at a time.” Pinkie Pie had already fallen asleep and leaned against Clackey Keys for support. The poor stallion was now blushing so hard that he looked more red than green. He tentatively put one of his legs around her, apparently to keep her from falling onto the floor as the taxi hit a bump in the road. Sure, Lightning Dust thought. No ulterior motives here. “What about your other friend?” Lightning asked sleepily. “He seems really happy for a guy going to a support group. “He’s having one of his good days,” Keys said. “Blood had a lot of problems when he first showed up. The last thing he remembers before coming to Equestria was being in a fight.” “So what?” Lightning asked. “Lots of you probably had fights. It sounds like most of you come from places that weren’t very nice.” “This is different.” Keys hugged Pinkie gently, evidently determined to make sure she didn’t fall over. Unless, of course, she fell in his direction. “Don’t you remember what he said earlier tonight? He thinks he was created for a nasty underworld fighting tournament. One moment he’s fighting for his life, and the next he’s here.” Lightning Dust’s foggy mind struggled to put the pieces together into something resembling a logical conclusion. “He thinks he died?” “Not anymore, but for the first six months that I knew him, he was convinced that this was the afterlife. He was really depressed for a long time. It got so bad that he had to start taking medication for it. He still has bad days, especially when he has to be alone a lot. Sometimes he’s afraid to sleep. It’s like he isn’t quite sure if he can trust the world to be there when he wakes up.” Lightning Dust couldn’t picture Hot Blooded as anything but dangerously overconfident. The loud, energetic earth pony looked like the living embodiment of confidence and excitement. The very idea that he could feel unhappy at all, much less sink into depression, was profoundly sad. “That sounds awful.” Keys shrugged noncommittally. “It isn’t so bad these days. That’s why we go to the OC support group, right? We want to get better. That’s all anypony really wants. If you can’t be better than you are now, what’s the point of anything?” Lightning Dust didn’t have an answer. She sat quietly until the taxi pulled up to her apartment building. Keys touched her shoulder when she climbed out of her seat. “Hey, um, be careful. Take care of yourself.” “’Course I will,” Lightning Dust said dismissively. “Why wouldn’t I?” “It’s just that, you know, I think you have a problem.” Clackey Keys drew in on himself a little as he spoke, and Lighting Dust got the impression that he was used to letting his friends speak for him. “N-not that I know a lot about that sort of thing. I just saw how you looked when you tried to walk by the bar.” “I’m fine,” Lightning Dust assured him. “Don’t worry about me.” Keys shook his head sadly and managed to move just a little closer. At least he no longer looked like he was trying to hide behind Pinkie. “Don’t tell yourself that. That’s something that me or Pinkie could tell ourselves, but not you. You’ve got more than just a few bad insecurities. You’re about to develop a serious problem, or maybe you already have one. Please get help, okay?” The cabby pulled them away, an implied apology lingering on Keys’s face. He seemed almost ashamed to have spoken up, but Lightning Dust couldn’t be mad at him. Maybe, she decided, there was actually something not quite right about her life. Maybe she really had a problem. Lightning dust sat down on the sidewalk, not yet up to the task of climbing the stairs to her apartment. She looked up at the big, empty sky above Canterlot and wished she wasn’t too drunk to fly. The clouds, stars, and moon seemed impossibly far away. With the streets deserted and nopony around to see her, she started to cry. ***** Several months passed, and Lightning Dust spent a lot of time around her new friends. She also went to the meetings of the ‘dark powers’, though from what she could see they were not so much dark as they were misunderstood and very confused. She felt like she was making progress with her issues, but it was hard to know how much. She rarely shared with her actual support group and almost never spoke at the OC gatherings, but she felt better about herself. It was probably all the exercise that made her feel so great. Lightning Dust had rediscovered her love of flying, and had spent all of her free time shooting around Canterlot at speeds that could make most pegasi hang their heads and wings in shame. She finally felt ready; she was in even better shape than before the Wonderbolt Academy, and her job as a weather pony was driving her insane. It was time to leave. The weekly gathering of the dark powers went silent as she accepted her turn to share. “I’ve been doing really well,” she began. She laid an open envelope on the table in front of her. “I quit the weather team yesterday and sent in my application for the Wonderbolt Academy. This is just their acknowledgement letter, but I think I’ve got a good chance of getting in.” Nightmare Moon cleared her throat politely. As the unofficial leader of the group, she often gave advice and directed the conversation in whatever direction was most beneficial. “We are most pleased that you have applied for admittance again. We wish you the best of luck.” Discord, who had been sitting next to the princess, leaned over and whispered in her ear. “What?” she asked. “I am not! I’m speaking for the group as a whole!” A few other ponies had to share, but they didn’t take long. When the session was over, Lightning Dust stayed behind while most of the group filtered out into the evening twilight. The only other pony left was Luna, still sitting at the head of the table. “You have come a long way,” the princess said when they were finally alone. “I am very happy that you are pursuing your dream again.” “Yeah, it’s great to be doing something I care about.” “Might I inquire about your other problem?” Lightning Dust had been expecting the question all night, just like every other night. She hated talking about it more than she had ever hated anything in her whole life. “I’m good. I haven’t had a single drink in three weeks. The only times I get close to anything alcoholic are when I’m with my friends, and they keep a close eye on me.” “I am quite glad to hear such news. What of your friends? Are they well?” “You could say that.” Lightning Dust began running through a short list of names. “Hot Blooded is still training Canterlot guardsponies, Rover is singing, Disharmony paints, and Clackey Keys got a job as an editor for a newspaper. He and Pinkie are pretty much insufferable these days.” Luna was smiling and nodding, but stopped when she heard Lightning Dust’s mix-up. “Pardon me, but do you not mean to say that they are inseparable?” Lightning Dust thought about the way they looked at each other, the late-night baking sessions, and the endless practical jokes. Pinkie had always been a prankster, and now she had a fresh perspective to help her with new ideas. “No, but you aren’t wrong.” “I am pleased that you are happy. I am sure that the Wonderbolts will give you another chance to prove yourself.” Luna looked at the clock and, after some consideration, began to channel magic through her horn. “My moon rises. You should return home and rest, Lightning Dust. We will meet again next week.” Lightning Dust launched into the air and nearly crashed into the roof. “Derpy usually leaves a hole there,” she explained bashfully. “Catch you later, princess!” The night outside was cool and dry. Lightning Dust took a moment to savor the fresh air after nearly two hours of being trapped in a stuffy room with a handful of creatures much larger than herself. True to the goddess’s word, the moon was creeping its way through the sea of stars above her. She flew off toward home at a subdued pace, enjoying the peace and tranquility of Luna’s majestic night. The tranquility was shattered soon after she reached her apartment building. Lightning Dust took her key from inside her flight suit and slid it into the lock. A sudden jolt of electricity made her shriek in surprise and tumble down the steps leading to her door. After a bit of fancy wingwork she righted herself in midair and climbed back up to her door, wondering what in Equestria was going on. A hushed giggle came from the bushes by the door. “Pinkie Pie!” Lightning Dust shouted angrily. A pink blur, followed closely by a green pegasus that couldn’t quite match its speed, rocketed out of the bushes and into the night. “Just you wait until tomorrow night! You’re both ten different kinds of dead!” Lightning Dust noticed windows lighting up all around her and quickly retrieved her key from where it had fallen. She gingerly touched it to the lock and, feeling nothing out of the ordinary, managed to open her door without any more trouble. She didn’t know how Pinkie had electrified her lock. There was nothing on the other side that would cause a shock, and the lock itself hadn’t been tampered with. “Gypsy magic,” Lightning Dust grumbled. “Stupid, annoying gypsy magic.” By the time she made it to her apartment, she was no longer angry. It had been pretty funny after all, and she wasn’t hurt. I’ll be fine, Lightning Dust thought as she got ready for bed. She looked at herself in the mirror and smiled around her toothbrush. I really will be, won’t I? I’m fine. I’m actually doing alright. She still wanted a drink, but the desire wasn’t as all-consuming as it was before. She was in control. Lightning Dust went to bed and slept soundly, never once waking up thirsty.