//------------------------------//
// Day 9 (Part 1) 
// Story: The Royal Ponyville Orchestra 
// by Distaff Pope 
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	For the second time since I moved to Ponyville, I awoke to find myself lying in a hospital bed. I would say this was beginning to become a worrying trend, but it was still preferable to facing an angry deity first thing in the morning.Thankfully, I saw Vinyl sitting next to me, and I remembered the events of last night. In only a few days, I had inadvertently caused the partial or total destruction of two buildings. Normally, I would find this worrisome, but I am beginning to suspect that buildings are destroyed with alarming frequency in Ponyville, and it seems that I serve as a giant lightning rod for the madness that fills this town.

“Oh, hey,” Vinyl said upon seeing my eyes open, “You are up.” She sounded almost normal today, my ears seemed to be healing up rather well, and for the first time since the fire I didn’t wake up coughing. Hooray.

I nodded my head, “Yes, I am awake. What are you doing here? I thought you would be sleeping still.”

“Nah, I had a gig last night, so I took care of that, and then, when that was over, I thought I'd come back here to check up on you.”

She’d been here since her “gig” had finished? “How long were you waiting?” I asked, moving to sit up in my bed.

“Not too long,” she shrugged, “Maybe a couple hours.”

“A couple of hours?” I looked at the clock, “It’s 9:00 in the morning. Are you saying your… party didn’t let out until 7:00?”

She tilted her head and thought for a few seconds, “Yeah, that seems about right, maybe a bit closer to 6:30 ‘cause I had to walk over here.”

My eyes went wide, “That’s… how could you stay up that late, and how are you still on your hooves?”

She shrugged, “I dunno, I guess I just got used to it, although… yeah, once I go to sleep today I will probably be out for a long while.” As if to make her point, she struggled to stifle a yawn.

“Well then,” I said, carefully getting up on my hooves, “Let’s get you home.”

“Uhmm… I am no medical expert, Tavi, but shouldn’t we wait for the doctor to discharge you before you just up and leave?”

I sighed and sat back down on my bed, “Yes, yes we probably should.”

On cue, Doctor Flatline walked into my room, “Well, you seem to be doing better today. How are you feeling?”

“I am fine, Doctor, or at least I am as well as can be reasonably expected. Can I go home now?”

He nodded his head, “Of course, you were probably okay to go home last night, but I wanted to keep you under observation in case the shock made you do something silly.”

Right, like lead to me accidentally declaring my love for Vinyl? Not to say that I love Vinyl in a romantic way, I mean, she is a perfectly nice mare, and she is certainly attractive, but I don’t think of her in that light, and even if I did, I would never act upon such a base urge. It would be both unprofessional, and serve as a distraction from my cello practice, although I suppose my current lack of cello is a far bigger issue than any potential relationship with Vinyl and… I don’t have romantic feelings for Vinyl.

“Well then,” I said, standing back up on my hooves, “Do I need any medicine or is there anything I should know before I leave or can we just go?”

He shook his head, “I gave some information to Vinyl about how frequently your bandages need changing, but that is it. You should be back to normal in just a few days.”

“Pardon me Doctor, but after spending a few days in Ponyville, I highly doubt things around here will ever be normal.”

He chuckled slightly at that, but otherwise ignored my comment, “It’s always a pleasure to have you two around, I hope to see you again soon.” Why? Why would a doctor ever say that? Did he skip class the day they talked about bedside manner or… I stared at him in shock as my mind worked to come up with a situation where that would ever be an acceptable thing to say.

The doctor noticed it too, “Uhmm… I mean in a nonprofessional setting, I wasn’t trying to imply you would have to come to the hospital again in the next couple of days. Although, now that I think about it, you probably should come back in a week so I can do a check-up and make sure you are healing up well.”

I nodded my head, “Well then, I guess I will be heading out then, although I will be sure to schedule a follow-up appointment before I go.”

He nodded, “See that you do.”

A few minutes later, I had scheduled the follow-up and was heading out the hospital door. Vinyl was even letting me walk this time, although that might have been because she was so exhausted she wasn’t quite herself. “Vinyl, don’t take this the wrong way, but are you okay?” I asked as we headed towards home.

She jerked her head up at the mention of her name, “Huh… yeah, why do you ask?”

“Well, it’s just that you were snoring while we walked.”

She blinked a few times before rubbing one eye, “Yeah, I guess I was. Sorry, it’s just that I have been getting up so early the past few days, and then there were those all-nighters I pulled when you were in the hospital and…” More blinking, “I could definitely stand to get some sleep.”

“Then I suppose it’s a good thing we don’t have anything planned for the rest of the day,” I said as we walked through the streets of Ponyville.

Vinyl bucked up at that, “Oh man, I totally forgot that Rarity is having her grand reopening party tonight, and she wants you to be a guest of honor.”

I tapped my chin, “I will have to make an appearance then, although I am certain it would be fine if you slept through it, Rarity strikes me as a very understanding pony.” Besides, I highly doubt the building will burn down again, although now that I have said that, I am no longer certain. This town does delight in proving me wrong.

Vinyl snorted, “Well, you don’t get to be the Bearer of Generosity by being selfish.”

Right, I keep forgetting that she is one of the six bearers. Most of the time, I don’t even think they remember it, they certainly don’t mention it at all. If I was in their place, I would make it a point to bring it up every thirty seconds, but then, that might be why I am not a bearer.

“Anyways,” I said, “Go home, get some sleep, and I will wake you when I am about to leave. If you want to come, you can, and if not, you can keep sleeping.”

She nodded her head. “Yeah, okay, that sounds good. Just… let me know when we get home.” With that, my roommate was uncharacteristically silent for the rest of our walk; the only noises coming from her were the occasional snore. I pondered exactly how she could sleep while standing up before eventually chalking it up as one of Ponyville’s many mysteries that would never and should never be solved. Although, if I had to guess, I would speculate that Pinkie Pie created a reality distortion field around her that made the improbable probable. It was backed by absolutely no evidence, but I had to believe that Pinkie Pie was somehow related to this town’s… abnormalities for my own sanity.

Upon opening the door to my house, Vinyl walked over to our sofa and proceeded to collapse onto it. I sighed and moved into the kitchen to fix my usual breakfast and coffee. The coffee was, of course, excellent, but I was quickly losing my taste for store bought muffins, or muffins at all, in fact. They were far too dry and the only parts that tasted decent were the top. And of course, they are far too messy to be eaten amongst civilized ponies. By the time I was done with one, the table was littered with crumbs. I sighed, finished my coffee, and cleaned off the table. Then, while cleaning the table, I decided I might as well clean the entire kitchen while I was at it, and proceeded to spend the next hour making sure the whole thing was spotless.

Now, it occurs to me that I have not previously discussed Vinyl’s definition of neat, or more accurately, her entire lack of definition. The entire kitchen was, well filthy. A layer of grime infused everything in the kitchen, and the whole thing looked drab, green, and sickly. That wasn’t even touching upon the mold and mildew that had launched a war of conquest upon Vinyl’s walls. They might have made substantial gains during Vinyl’s rule, but they weren’t prepared to deal with me. Grabbing a mop, a bucket, a towel, and a spray bottle filled with cleaning solvent, I stood tall and gazed upon my enemy. It was time to launch the counter invasion.

The mold was deeply entrenched, but carpet spraying followed up by heavy scrubbing allowed for massive casualties and forced the invading army to retreat. With every pass of my rag, the grime was lessened, and soon enough, the kitchen looked like a place a proper pony could have breakfast in. I smiled as sweat dripped down my brow. My eye twitched. If I had been more aware of my feelings at the time I might have deduced that, having found a semi-healthy outlet for my frustrations from the past few days, I was perhaps getting a touch carried away in my cleaning zeal. Of course, none of this crossed my mind at the time; the only thing I knew was that every last bit of filth in this house had to be purged, and I would be the one to do it. From the kitchen, I moved to the downstairs bathroom, and then the upstairs bath. I spent a few minutes making sure my room was still clean (It was) and debated on whether or not I should clean Vinyl’s room without her permission (I didn’t). With all that taken care of, there was only one room left, the living room.
Moving as quietly as my hooves would allow, I snuck downstairs, working to not wake Vinyl from her slumber. The walls in here were positively filthy, and I was 80% confident that they weren’t initially colored algae green. Flashing a brilliantly cracked smile to the doomed mold colonies I went to work. Vinyl, for her part, did not wake up until the very end of my cleaning spree when I got… perhaps a touch too wrapped up in my war against dirt. I laughed in triumph as the last of the green was swept away to reveal a lovely white wall underneath. “I am Octavia! Destroyer of molds! Gaze upon me, dirt, and despair!”

“Uhmm… Tavi, what are you doing?” Vinyl said, moving to sit up on the couch, my victory yell having clearly woken her up.

“Oh… Uhmm… Vinyl, I am so sorry, you were asleep, and I had some time to kill, so I thought I would engage in some house cleaning.” Blood rushed to my face, and I mentally chastised myself for getting so worked up over a bit (or a lot) of dirt.

“So… why were you yelling then?” She said, looking me over.

I was suddenly very much aware of how unkempt I had gotten during my cleaning spree, my hair was in total disarray, my bowtie and collar were crooked, and I was absolutely drenched in sweat. It would take at least thirty minutes of primping and a very long shower for me to get anywhere close to presentable. “Well, the thing is, I might have gotten a touch carried away during my cleaning fit. I am sorry Vinyl, I shouldn’t have cleaned down here while you were sleeping. I just got so wrapped up in my one mare battle against mold, I forgot about the outside world.”

I looked down at the ground, my cheeks tinged with shame. Why did I let myself get so swept away in my cleaning crusade? It shouldn’t have been that important, but I treated it like a battle for the fate of Equestria. And now, Vinyl was going to think I was horribly inconsiderate pony who was completely unhinged. Granted, both of those claims might very well be true, but I was fond of Vinyl (Not in that way) and wanted her to think well of me.

To my surprise though, instead of yelling at me or berating me for my foalish behavior, Vinyl started to laugh. It was a little giggle at first, but it quickly turned into a series of uproarious guffaws. “What… why are you laughing, Vinyl?”

“I am sorry,” she said, wiping a tear from her eye, “It’s just that whenever I think I have you figured out, you do something crazy like this that totally proves me wrong. You’re just full of surprises.”

Great, at least she didn’t think I was crazy, or, more accurately, she thought I was crazy in a moderately endearing way as opposed to the destructive way I had previously imagined. “Well,” I said, “I am cleaning up the house, would you mind if I sorted your room out?

She tilted her head in thought for a second, “Sure, why not, it might be fun to see the floor of my bedroom for once.” Vinyl laid back down on her makeshift bed, and waved a hoof at me, she was already going back to sleep it seemed, “Knock yourself out.”

Great, I thought as I stood at the threshold to Vinyl’s room a few minutes later, I might have bitten off more than I could chew in this particular instance. If the other rooms had been messy, this room was an order of magnitude worse. There were… things growing on the wall, not just stains, but an actual living biological organism that seemed capable of responding to stimuli (It hissed when I sprayed it with my solvent). The floor wasn’t much better, clothes were discarded with wild abandon (Why and how did she have so many clothes), and one of the bedroom’s walls was composed entirely of moldy pizza boxes. And that’s just what I can describe, there were other things that I don’t think I will ever write about for the sake of my own sanity.

However, I eventually started to make progress. The clothes were moved into a massive laundry hamper (and eventually washed), the wall of pizza boxes was demolished, and the thing on the walls shriveled up and died after a judicious spraying of cleaning solvent. It’s body was disposed of after I covered myself in a makeshift biohazard suite. On the upside, it burned spectacularly, and I felt as if I had slain some great menace to Equestria. Finally, Vinyl’s room looked livable, and I admired my hoofwork. Maybe there is another reality where I took a few more seconds to bask in the glory of my accomplishment before departing. Maybe there is a world where I didn’t notice the small blue book on Vinyl’s night stand. A world where I lived the rest of my days blissfully unaware of the conspiracy that ended in me being exiled to Ponyville. Unfortunately, this story does not take place in that world.

I arched my eyebrow upon seeing that small blue book. It was very clearly the only book in Vinyl’s room, and I felt an overwhelming desire to learn what it was. Nothing was written on the cover, so I flipped it open to the title page. No words there either. Flipping through the first few pages, I quickly realized that I held Vinyl's personal journal in my hooves, and based on her loose unorganized scrawl, she clearly needed to work on her penmanship. I knew that reading through her private journal would be a massive violation of trust, and that my life would be substantially better if I just put it down and walked out of the room. I wouldn't look through my roommates most personal thoughts, and our lives would continue normal. But on the other hoof, I would get the chance to know what her thoughts were on the past few days, and perhaps that knowledge would bring us closer together (Just not in a romantic fashion, I cannot stress that enough). Flipping to the latest entry, I started to read.