//------------------------------//
// 2. NIGREDO 
// Story: Trip the Light Fantastic 
// by ponichaeism 
//------------------------------//

“There has always been a dance element in my mysticism. [....] Music is imposing a state of consciousness by its very nature. If what this [Qabalistic] Tree of Life is is a hierarchy of different states of consciousness, would it be possible to simulate and stimulate those states of consciousness in the listener by producing the right sorts of music. Is it possible? We don’t know, but we’re working on it."
-Alan Moore


Even the fireflies in the lampposts struggled to pierce the gloomy night blanketing Vinyl Scratch. She made her weary way down the dirt road which streaked through the thatched, timber-framed houses of Ponyville. She was half-lost in the long, dark night, her only companions the cart wheels squeaking in pain at the burden of carrying her equipment home. Her legs felt the same way. They could barely keep her moving in a straight line. 
Ahead, her modest house appeared from the darkness. Pale glimmers of moonlight glinted off its frame. She staggered to the door and swung a hoof at the handle, but missed it entirely. Squinting at the dull brass, she wondered why it was so hard to see anything. Then, and only then, did she realize she had walked all the way home from Sweet Apple Acres with her party goggles pulled down over her eyes. When she lifted them up, rather than being dark and blurry, the world became merely blurry. She didn't trust her vision, so she slid her hoof across the wooden door until it found the handle. She put all her weight on it. The door swung open so quick she nearly fell in and hit the floor face-first. She careened down the hall on unsteady legs, dragging her cart inside. Her forelegs hit a table against the wall, making her lose her balance and fall to the ground. As her dead weight sagged against the cart's harness, it threatened to upend and spill its contents everywhere, but luckily a gray forelimb reached out and steadied it.
“Honestly, Vinyl....” Her roommate stepped out of the doorway to the kitchen, wrapped in a bathrobe. Her jet black mane stuck up every which way.
“Stupid place for a table,” Vinyl said, unbuckling her harness. She tried to stand, but was unsuccessful. 
Octavia gave her a helping hoof and dragged her off the carpet. “How much cider have you had?” she asked.
“Hey, you know how Apple family parties gets. They like to keep the songs and the cider flowing.”
“Drinking on the job?” Octavia gave an exasperated sigh. “Really, Vinyl. How unprofessional....”
Vinyl Scratch brushed her roommate away. “I got this, alright?”
“Are you quite certain?”
As Vinyl walked away, she gave Octavia a grin over her shoulder and said, “Totally.” Then she walked straight into the doorframe. Her rump landed on the carpet while her head revolved like a record.
“Totally,” said Octavia with narrow eyes, the epitome of droll.


As the world spun to face the sun again, Vinyl lay in bed and wished the sweet cider would carry her away to slumberland. But, as always, the dizzying high slipped away from her and weighed her down with the funk that always followed, and unfortunately it wasn't the kind of funk she could groove to. After a half-hour of tossing and turning, she got up. The room was empty and silent, cold and lonely. Bare white walls in the dark. She stumbled over the clothes and odds and ends left on the floor, making her way to the synthesizer in the corner. She sat down heavily on the stool and gave the keyboard a burst of magic to turn it on. The amplifier gave a warm, reassuring hiss as it came to life.
Maybe this is the night, she thought, as she had so many nights before. So many nights since that day, long ago.
She sat still for a moment, awed and feeling trepidation at the ebony and ivory spread out before her. Between those eighty-eight keys, they could conjure up any song on the face of the planet. 
If she knew the right order, that is.
Still, I got a good feeling about tonight.
Her hoof hovered uncertainly over the keys.  Every song depended on the first note. It was a signpost informing everything that followed. With bad directions, the whole journey was off on the wrong hoof.
Key of D, she thought suddenly, with absolute firmness.
She held her breath; would this be it? Would she summon up that sublime melody tonight?
But she was still woozy, and her hoof came on the edge of both C and D. A discordant squeal came from the speaker, making her gnash her teeth. She shook her head and hit the D key, but it was no good. After that tormented wail, her mood had been soured. She hit D again and fiddled with the octave, but her hooves refused to come up with a melody. 
She fancied she could hear Octavia grinding her teeth through the walls. 
Another night used up and turned to ash, she rued sourly. But she wasn't willing to write it off entirely, so she magicked the sheet music to her current professional composition over and propped the leaves up on the keyboard. She almost had enough material for another disc to spin on the dubstep scene, such as it was in the backwater berg of Ponyville. She switched the synthesizer over to the pad patch and laid into a chord progression. The shape of the song formed in her head. She mentally added the beat, the mid-range bass....
But something wasn't working. She played the chords staccato and upped the gate, but to no avail. All of it was too smooth and catchy. Her gut reaction was it wasn't working, though she couldn't put her hoof on why. Too mainstream to her ears, probably. It didn't befit dubstep. It didn't fit the future of music, which was certainly not that lame old stuff Octavia played.
She threw in a time signature change for the bass. Better, she thought as she heard the choppy, gated pad and played the bass under it; it gave the chord progression just the right choppiness to throw ponies out of their groove and shake them up, and she was all about shaking things up.
Comfortable is for wimps, she thought as she stifled a yawn, ponies who play it safe. I want to take music right to the edge....
She pushed herself for so long she couldn't remember when she fell asleep, but there came a point where the only thing Vinyl knew was the darkness. She opened her mouth wide, but before she could scream she heard a high-pitched voice cut through the oppressive silence. 
“Help me!” the foal shrieked, his voice echoing to her from up the stone tunnels.
Vinyl crept forward, one hoof trailing along the rough stone wall for support. What's that little colt doing here? she asked. This is no place for a pony with as much to live for as he has.
There was a thing she could use to ward off the darkness down here in the dungeons, but no matter how hard she racked her brains she couldn't remember what it was.
“Who goes there?” growled a voice from very close in front of her. 
Vinyl thought it was a mare, but she couldn't tell. In the dark, it was impossible to see even the barest glimmer of movement. Her heart started pounding as the shuffling of the guardian of the labyrinth echoed all around her, so loud she couldn't tell where it came from. 
“Help!” the colt called again. 
But Vinyl couldn't help him, or herself. She didn't know where the gatekeeper was; the guardian could be a foot away and Vinyl wouldn't see her. Delusions of heroism forgotten, Vinyl turned tail and obeyed the neighing voice in the back of her head commanding her to run. She flattened her ears and galloped back the way she'd come, screaming for the light. But the darkness was so thick she couldn't tell if she was moving or just running in place. She put everything she had into galloping faster and faster, but it was no use; the darkness was too thick. It tangled around her and tripped her up--
Vinyl jerked up in bed, legs tangled up in her blanket. While waiting for her beating heart to slow, she glanced at her synthesizer and noticed it had been turned off. 
Octavia, she thought.
When she trudged into the kitchen, she smelled a freshly brewed pot of Griffon Gold.
“Good morning,” Octavia said stiffly. A touch sarcastically, she asked, “Did you sleep well?”
“Who needs sleep?” Vinyl scoffed as she used her horn to magic the pot of coffee into the air and pour herself a cup. “I've got wubs to wub out today.”
“Another gig?” Octavia asked. “Your eyes are bloodshot something ghastly.”
Vinyl flapped her hoof dismissively. “That's why goggles are an essential part of the club DJ style.”
Octavia said nothing, though she did raise one eyebrow in a perfectly measured arc of incredulous disapproval.
“Hey,” Vinyl said, uncomfortable and defensive, “breaking the boundaries of music is hard work. It's not the kind of thing you can just sit down and do. It demands long hours.”
Octavia averted her eyes and mumbled into her coffee cup. “Breaking the boundaries of good taste, more like.”
“At least I come up with my own music,” Vinyl snapped, “and not just play stuff by guys who've been dead for centuries.”
Octavia scoffed at that, but her cheeks flushed slightly. “How charming, you calling that noise you make 'music'.”
Vinyl could have carried on with the offensive, but didn't feel like letting this blossom into a full-blown argument, even if Octavia was mocking the musical movement she'd committed herself body and soul to. They still had to live with each other, after all. So Vinyl stared at the bright cold day outside the window and let her thoughts wander, and they attempted to piece together a long forgotten song. When Octavia left the kitchen, though, she returned to her room and took up her cello again. The scratch of the strings set Vinyl's nerves on edge, and she couldn't concentrate on music with that racket. Instead she finished off her coffee and went to get ready for that afternoon's gig.


“Vinyl, dear....”
“Yeah, Missus C?”
Cup Cake chewed her lip as she glanced at her husband, who urged her onward from a comfortable distance away. Cup Cake sucked in a breath, faced the DJ, and broached her point of contention as meekly as she could: “Carrot and I were hoping you would stay away from....wubs.” She whispered it like a dirty word. “Dew Drop is paying us quite a lot to cater for this party, and we're not sure this is the right venue for, er, 'music' like that.”
She gestured to the event room of the Dew Drop Inn, where two dozen foals were romping around. A yellow banner that said “Happy Birthday, Honey Drop!” was strung from the rafters.
I already left the smoke machine and strobe lights at home, Vinyl thought, supremely miffed. What more do they want? She relented and said, “I'll see what I got, Missus C.” 
She ducked down and dug through her box of records, shuffling past her choice picks until she got to her emergency stash, for extenuating circumstances. She pulled one out and held it up, then blew the thick layer of dust off the aging sleeve, revealing a black and white photo of a smiling stallion in a bow tie with a slicked back mane. "Whinni" was scrawled across the top in a looping cursive font. Vinyl pulled out the record, dropped it on the turntable, and started to spin it. A xylophone twinkled from the speakers, followed by a stallion talk-singing along with it.
“Clap....your....hooves if you can tell me where the dragon is, dragon is, dragon is!”
The foals gurgled happily and squealed as they toddled over to sit near the speakers. Pinkie Pie hopped across the room bouncing the birthday foal on her back. She shouted “Aw, yeah!” as she dropped into the forefront of the semi-circle of foals.
“Oh, there he is, there he is, there he is!”
Vinyl leaned towards the mic and gave a half-hearted, “Whoo hoo. Get down, ponies. You're a great crowd.”
“Yeah!” Pinkie shouted, gleefully clapping along to the song.
I need a cup of cider, Vinyl thought, struggling to contain a yawn. Like, right now.
Then she heard it, buried in the mix. Her ears perked up and her adrenaline began to flow. It was only four notes long, a simple counter-melody twinkling away behind the vocals, but she was absolutely convinced it was the start of the Song. But already it slipped out of her mind and became fuzzy, indistinct. In a panic, she grabbed the record and rewound it, sending a sharp squeal through the speakers. The foals covered their ears, and some began to cry, but Vinyl paid them no mind. Her burning desire to listen to those notes and find out what they sounded like consumed her. Sweat ran down her forelimbs and made her hooves slick. She fumbled around to get a grip on the vinyl, when all of a sudden she heard a sharp crack. Staring in shock, she saw the broken pieces of the record lying on the turntable.
No no no no no! she thought. What were the notes?!
But already she wasn't sure it had been the Song. Maybe it had just been her mind playing tricks on her.
“Um, Vinyl?” asked Cup Cake. “Can we talk?”
Vinyl tore her eyes away from the shattered shards of the record, feeling ready to throw in the towel for the night.
“Are you alright?” the caterer asked.
I better get in shape, she warned herself, or I'm not going to get paid for this gig.
So what? she grumbled back. All the gold in Canterlot can't tell me how the Song goes.
No, but I could buy another copy of that album. Where did I get it? Some bargain bin. High Fillydelity in Fillydelphia, I think. Yeah, that was it.
She salvaged some shred of hope, put on a grin, and turned to Cup Cake. “Sorry, but when I get in the zone and start laying down thick beats, things tend to get out of hoof mad quick.”
“I see,” Cup Cake said, her tone making plain that she didn't.
As Vinyl looked into the wary mare's eyes, she felt the look of bravery she'd slapped on her face start to falter. She turned back to the box of records to find another disc to spin.
“I'll dial it down, though.”


Vinyl Scratch was lost, and searching for a way to remedy that. She felt along the damp, earthen wall of the catacombs, trying to see something, anything in the darkness. What was she doing here? She couldn't remember. She had to find her way up to the surface, but she was so lost in the shadows. Then she remembered there was something down here in the dungeon that could help her find her way out, if only she could locate it first.
And soon.
She heard the faint sounds of things scurrying through the darkness behind her. She told herself it was nothing. Just rats. She didn't know why that was supposed to make her feel better, but she clung to it regardless.
Then, up ahead, something pierced the darkness. If was faint and obscure, but definitely a light. She hurried towards it, but no sooner had she gone two feet than she tripped and fell to the ground. Her leg broke with a sickening crunch, and she was alone in the catacombs. She cried for help, but there was nopony coming, nopony at all....
“Vinyl!” she heard distantly. “I say, Vinyl!”
Groggily, Vinyl lifted her head off the living room couch. An empty glass cider bottle rolled away from her. She had been drinking to forget her failure to find the Whinni record at the Ponyville record store.
“Must you leave this here?” Octavia asked, her cheeks flushed. 
She gestured to the cart with Vinyl's equipment, sitting in the middle of the living room. Vinyl squinted at it, because the setting sun was coming right through the window.
“No big deal,” Vinyl said, yawning. “I'll move it, don't worry.”
“Sometimes I think you forget I own half this house.”
Vinyl turned away from her roommate, then rolled her eyes and flapped her hoof to mimic Octavia talking. She glanced at the phonograph on the cabinet, where one of her records was spinning. The needle was in the end groove and revolving endlessly to no particular purpose, sending static crackles through the horn. She aimed her magic at the needle arm, but when she fired a spell off she missed and knocked over a framed photograph of her and Octavia. Octavia frowned. Vinyl got up and lifted the needle manually.
“What are you dressed up so fancy for, anyway?” Vinyl asked, nodding at Octavia's coiffed hair, earrings, and silk dress.
“You forgot,” said her roommate flatly, her voice a sharp, cold dagger. “The recital?”
I totally did, Vinyl thought. She affected a casual voice and said, “Nah, I'm just messing with you. How could I forget, when you keep playing that violin—”
“Cello.”
“....cello all the time? So when do we leave?”
“Surely you're not going to go like that?”
Vinyl shrugged. “I kinda was.”
Octavia's eyes briefly went to the empty cider bottles on the floor. “You know, you don't look all that well. Perhaps you'd better stay here and....rest. I'm sure I could muddle along without you, seeing how much you loathe my 'dead guy' music.”
Vinyl swaggered over to her roommate, draped a foreleg over her back, and pulled her close. “Are you kidding? You'll go to pieces if I'm not there, so let's rock this thing down to the ground.” 
And hopefully I'll have time to slip away and check the record racks at Beats of Burden before the show starts. 
“We'd best hurry then,” Octavia said. “The last train to Canterlot leaves in twenty minutes.”
“Then look out Canterlot, 'cause here we come.”


The Friendship Express jostled from side to side as it rattled along on its rails. The percussive thump of the wheels went through the carriage like shockwaves from an earthquake. To Vinyl Scratch, they sounded like the beat of war drums heralding a coming battle. The rhythm wormed its way inside her mind and goaded her to rise from her seat. It was an itch in her mind, and as the train shot into the night, she was torn on whether to confront the future as it rushed up to meet her or not. She longed for the disrupted, frustrated beats of dubstep.
Outside the window, the darkness gathered. She watched, transfixed, as inky fingers stretched out from the mountains on the flaming horizon, stole across the landscape, and brought the veil of shadow over the country fields. The rhythm of the train and rhythm of her heart were one; they made her yearn to jump out the window run across those fields, away from the night and towards the sun, never once looking back. The more the darkness took away the world, the clearer she saw her reflection in the window, until there was nothing but her face superimposed over darkness that stretched out behind her to an infinity. Deep down, she knew the dark was coming for her. She couldn't escape its pull.
“Vinyl, are you quite alright?”
The concerned voice of her roommate pulled Vinyl out of her reverie. Like waking up, she blinked heavily beneath her goggles and turned to the gray pony laying on the seat next to her; her cello case was nestled at her side. Octavia cocked her head and stared at Vinyl with equal parts curiousity and apprehension.
Vinyl smiled. “Just thinking up some sick beats for my new magnum opus.”
“I see.”
Octavia's eyes lingered on Vinyl for a few more seconds, then she busied herself with making sure her notation book of sheet music was still in order. Vinyl turned back to the window. The train had swung around to begin its ascent up the mountains towards Canterlot, and she saw the city upon the hill burning bright in the night, a shining beacon against the darkness. Was that where the coming battle she felt in her bones would take place? Would she have to stand and fight, or turn tail and run? Out of the corner of her mind's eye, she glimpsed some dark shape hanging precariously over her head, ready and waiting to snap its wire and fall. Nervously, Vinyl Scratch gulped as the train carried her upwards.