Chronology notes:
Stop! You are reading the second story in the Bonds of Eternity Series.
The first story in the Series is Family found here:
www.fanfiction.net/s/7447500/
Nihil Novi Sub Sole
Chapter 1
Vinyl Scratch awoke to a knock on the door, here she was lying on Twilight Sparkle’s sofa in the Ponyville Library, sleepily rubbing her eyes as she got up to open the front door.
“You’re not Twilight Sparkle!”
Vinyl blinked in the early morning light, Derpy Hooves, the Ponyville postal mare was standing outside with a comically large box that would have been impossible for her to get here by herself, even though Vinyl looked around to find that there was no other pony around who could have helped her.
“Uh... no, I’m not, I’m Vinyl Scratch. I’m just staying with Twilight for a little while... do you need me to go get her?” Vinyl asked.
“Oh, no, if she’s sleeping I don’t want to wake her up! I know she’s usually up all night studying and I feel bad when I have to wake her up to sign for a package. Anypony can do it; it’s just that she’s the only one who usually does.” Derpy said.
“Okay,” Vinyl said with a smile, she took the mare’s pencil and clipboard and signed her name for the package, and returned it.
The wall eyed Pegasus smiled back as she placed the clipboard back into her bag and helped Vinyl bring the large box inside with great difficulty.
“What is in this thing!?” Vinyl asked.
“Couldn’t tell you, not allowed to open anypony’s packages,” Derpy said with a grunt as they brought the box into the centre of the room.
Derpy sighed in relief. “I am so glad to have this thing delivered! It was so heavy!”
Vinyl nodded in agreement and gave the mare another smile. “I hope you don’t mind me saying this... but has anypony ever told you that you have really pretty eyes?”
“I...” the walleyed Pegasus said and then froze, processing what had just been said to her. Her face turned a bright red. “Do... do you really mean that?”
“I do,” Vinyl said with a grin. She found Derpy to be a rather attractive mare, and she knew that if the ponies of Ponyville could look past her eye problems, they’d probably see the same thing to.
“I...” Derpy said, stammering in surprise, she clearly hadn’t heard such a compliment in a long time. “Thank you! Would it be all right... if I could see yours too?”
“Sure!” Vinyl said, lifting her goggles off her face, her bright red eyes shining in the morning light.
Derpy smiled back at her. “You have really pretty eyes too... I uh, I have to get back to delivering the post... maybe I’ll see you tomorrow? Hopefully?”
“I hope so,” Vinyl said grinning from ear to ear.
Derpy bid her goodbye, and continued on her way, humming a cheerful tune as she worked.
Vinyl slid her goggles back down over her eyes and took a look at the large box before her. Twilight was probably going to want to open it right away. Vinyl called for her, and she trotted down the stairs slowly and yawning heavily, upon laying eyes on the box, her eyes widened and she ran over to it.
“It’s here! It’s here!” She cried gleefully.
She went over to her supply closet and levitated a crowbar out from it.
Vinyl watched as she brought it over to it, glancing at the closet. She knew that Twilight liked to be prepared, but sometimes it felt like the solution to every single imaginable problem was inside that closet.
“Why do you have a crowbar?” Vinyl asked.
“Obviously, for this such occasion!” Twilight said with excitement in her voice. She levitated the crowbar up and pried the lid off, it clattered down onto the floor and the two mares looked inside.
Twilight looked at it intensely.
“Isn’t it amazing?” Twilight asked.
Vinyl looked into the box; she wasn’t quite as impressed as Twilight was. “It’s a statue, of a unicorn.”
“Not just any statue! This statue is 2000 years old! And it was found in South Island!” Twilight explained.
Vinyl looked in the box again; the stone unicorn was very old looking to be sure; she looked back at Twilight in confusion. “South Island?” she asked. “How does a 2000 year old statue of a unicorn end up in South Island?”
“That’s why it was sent to me! I’m going to find out!” Twilight said with a smile. “I’ve been corresponding regularly with a professor at the South Island National University, and his archæology team found it while doing a dig at a place called Karlu Karlu, which was a site of worship for a tribe of wallabies that went extinct at about the same time.”
“This tribe, why’d they go extinct?” Vinyl asked.
“No one knows,” Twilight said with a shrug. “But the statue! Finding it proved that ponies had visited South Island before Welera did!”
“Is that a big deal?” Vinyl asked.
Twilight’s face filled with embarrassment. “Not really, even if they did come, they didn’t stay very long, and they obviously didn’t have a lasting impact on the natives.”
Vinyl smirked at her. “Well you have fun egghead! I’ll get out of your way.”
“I’ll need to write Professor Tebbs and let him know that the statue arrived... oh what did I do with my quill?” Twilight said.
Vinyl froze at the mention of a name; she slowly turned around to face Twilight. “Percy Tebbs?”
“Yes as a matter of fact! I was so surprised when he contacted me! I’ve read all his books! He talks about how the history of all peoples in the world are interwoven, and that trying to go it alone can only lead to disaster!” Twilight explained.
“Huh. I’ll have to give them a read,” Vinyl said as she trotted out the door, glad that Twilight was too wrapped up in what she was doing to question where Vinyl knew Percy Tebbs from.
She stopped, and looked back at the statue, something about it caught her eye, like she’d seen it somewhere before. It was as if the statue itself was broadcasting a thought of “look at me! Look at me!”
It couldn’t hurt to have a closer look, could it?
Vinyl trotted back over to the box and reached out with her magic to bring the statue closer to her, the microsecond that her magic touched the statue, lightning arced out of it, sending high amperage current running through the mare’s body, strong enough to toss her backwards into the closed door.
She was dead. There was nothing but blackness, she had to be dead.
“Oh my gosh! Vinyl!” Twilight called out to her.
Okay, clearly not dead, still dark though, Vinyl felt herself opening and closing her eyes, but nothing changed. She began to panic.
“Twi... Twilight? Where are you?”
“I’m right here Vinyl,” Twilight said, her voice cutting through the darkness.
“I... I can’t see Twilight,” Vinyl said, her voice filled with panic. “I can’t see!”
...
Vinyl Scratch’s eyes flung open, she sat up in bed and found herself breathing heavily. Everything was dark and for a moment, she had forgotten why. Then she remembered; she was blind. She had just dreamed about the day she lost her sight.
Vinyl was lying in a hotel bed in a fairly comfortable hotel in Swan City, Western South Island. South Island, the homeland of the kangaroos, easily one of the most beautiful places in the world, and she could see none of it.
“Vinyl Scratch? Is everything all right?” the voice of her companion asked.
“Yes, Princess Luna, I’m perfectly fine,” Vinyl said.
Vinyl Scratch and Princess Luna had travelled to South Island to return the artefact that had blinded her to its hiding place. They were spending the night in Swan City before they would board a train bound for Warrane, New South Welera, and get off at an interchange in Arrernte Springs in the Northern Protectorate. Vinyl Scratch was exceedingly good at direction and studying maps, and would have loved to have planned out the trip. Her lack of sight, however, made it impossible.
“I don’t think I believe you,” Princess Luna said firmly. “Were you dreaming about the accident again?”
“Yeah,” Vinyl said simply. “There’s just too much to look at in the world! I don’t want to go through life not being able to see any of it! I mean we’re here in South Island! The beautiful homeland of the kangaroos! And I can’t see any of it!”
Vinyl Scratch was frustrated, it wasn’t fair! Why did this have to happen to her? Then the thought came into her head, the artefact was going to blind someone, and if Vinyl hadn’t touched it with her magic, then Twilight Sparkle would have.
It could have very easily been Twilight that was blind and not her, and the more Vinyl thought about it, far better for her to suffer than for Twilight to suffer.
“I’ll be fine princess, I’m sorry if I woke you. I’m going to try to go back to sleep now,” Vinyl said, she laid back down in the bed, resting her head upon the pillow and pulled the blankets over her.
Try as she might, Vinyl Scratch would not be sleeping soundly tonight.