//------------------------------// // Planning a Party // Story: Scarred Vinyl // by Belgianchief //------------------------------// I woke up with the sun shining on my face. It looked like it was going to be a fine day... "Wait. Sun? What time is it?" I quickly had a gander at the clock and saw that it was nine o'clock in the morning. I had actually slept till 9. It put a huge smile on my face. My stomach gave a small growl. Clearly not even it was used to sleeping till 9. By the time I'd arrived at the kitchen, the growl had turned into a thundering roar. "Woah there, easy, fellow. Sheesh, thank heavens I did my groceries yesterday." I took out the milk, eggs and flour and started mixing them. Whistling a tune, I started making my pancakes. I took out the apples and started cutting them up into slices. I loved eating apples with my pancakes, even though ponies always had a puzzled look in their eyes when they saw me eating those two together. It didn't matter. They didn't know what they were missing. I looked at the apple slices on the table "You know, I always wondered how..." I looked around "Ah, why not?" I cut up the apple in even smaller pieces and put them in the frying pan. I took another frying pan out of my cupboard, washed it, and poured the pancake dough into that one. It had been a while since I used two frying pans at the same time. I just used the same frying pan all the time. Thinking about it, ever since I discovered the apple-pancake combination, I had made nothing else. That kinda bothered me. But then the smell of sweet apples filled the room. Now that the apples were heating up, they were starting to spread their divine aroma. I quickly took a spoon and took a tiny piece of apple. It was an explosion for my taste buds. It tasted ten times better than the regular apples, but not only that. Now the crunchy, hard part of the apple was gone too, and in it's place had come a flowing, soft sweetness that suited the pancakes so much better. How had no one come up with such a simple idea? The combination of the two was superb. "I gotta remember this" I mused after finishing my breakfast. I sat back, rubbing my belly with a glee sense of fulfilment. Looking at the window, I saw that the day was as clear as it could be, not a cloud in sight. Feeing great, I decided to go for a little walk around town. Closing the door behind me, I took a deep breath of fresh air. How simple things like feeling the sun's warmth on your face, having a good breakfast and breathing the fresh air of Ponyville could make your day. I had a walk around, wanting to greet all the ponies, wanting to show that I had a good side too, which they hadn't seen too much of. Except everypony seemed to ignore me, some were even avoiding me, I was sure. This kinda brought me down, but it still was a wonderful day, and I was not going to things like that bring me down. I passed Sugarcube Corner and thought of Pinkie. "I really should check up on her and apologize. I hope I didn't hurt her too bad." As I approached the door, I saw a note hanging. Closed Nothing more, nothing less. Sugarcube Corner was never closed during the day. Never. "Did I do this?" I looked around. Ponies were staring at me and once I saw them, they turned their head and went their way. If I wasn't already in the dumps, I was now. I could take being ignored or even avoided. Ponies have been doing it since I came here. But the look in their eyes saying that I was the cause of everything, it was too much. I made my way to home. In the distance I heard somepony mutter "That filly is going to destroy us all someday" I started running, tears now flowing freely over my cheeks. When I got home, I quickly shut the door behind me, crashed into my couch and started crying. "I'm such a stupid filly, why did I do all of that? Why am I destroying everypony?" I lied there for a couple of minutes, crying, until the tears wouldn't flow anymore. "There, there, everything's going to be fine" I heard a soft voice whisper. Fluttershy's. She laid a hoof on my back, and just kept whispering "There, there" It actually felt really comforting, and after a minute I went to sit on the couch, still sobbing a bit, but feeling better overall. "Thanks Fluttershy, that really helped." When I tried to look her in the face, she shied away, saying "I'm sorry. I uhm.... I-I wanted to talk to you, and the door was open, so I went in but you weren't there, so I wanted to leave again, but then you ran straight..." "It's ok, I always leave my door open. I shouldn't, but I do. So don't worry about it. What did you want to talk about?" "Pinkie" I sighed. "I figured as much. Would you like some tea?" I really didn't like its weak taste compared to coffee, but I knew from previous experiences that drinking tea was way more common in this town, so I always offered tea instead of coffee, when... if I got visitors. "No... I mean you don't have to, I mean if you want to..." I'd already gone up and gotten the kettle and two cups. "Thank you" she whispered, and gave me a smile. After sipping from our tea for a bit, I broke the silence. "Do you know what's..." I wanted to ask what was wrong with Pinkie, but I knew, I had hurt her. "Do you know what I can do to help Pinkie?" "She's sad, she locked herself inside her room, and the girls and I really have no idea what to do. We're really worried. Could you tell me what happened here?" "Well, uhm... After you guys had all left my party, Pinkie stayed. She tried to make me see that she was trying to help... But then... I don't know, I lost it, I don't know why, and the next thing I knew..." I pointed at the stairway. "I was up there, and she was down there. I think I hurt her. Bad. I'm sorry" I said with a voice that was dying. "She got up and left without saying a word. I'm sorry" I looked up to see Fluttershy looking at me with sympathy in her eyes. "I shouldn't even try to help, I'll only hurt her more. I'm useless either way." I continued. Sighing, I took a sip another sip of my tea, while thinking what I could do to help Pinkie, like she tried to help me before. "I got it!" I shouted while jumping from the bench with such intensity that I knocked over the table. After hearing my cup and the kettle crash to the ground, I asked Fluttershy whether she was available tomorrow evening. "Uhm sure, I guess" "Good, because we're gonna have a party for Pinkie." She looked at me with doubt. "Uhm... I don't know how to make a party, usually Pinkie does everything..." "We'll manage, I've been to plenty of parties as a DJ, so I know what's needed." I tried to sound confident, but it'd been so long ago that I had actually been to a party. "So, let's get started, shall we?" Looking at her, I saw that she was still holding her teacup. "Just throw it away for all I care, the set's gone anyway." As I made my way to the front door, I couldn't help but notice how Fluttershy floated to the kitchen table to carefully put down the cup, before heading out. "Okay, we need a few things: music, decorations, invitations and food. I can take care of the music, so that's settled. I think the first thing we need to do is to make sure we have food, since that will take the longest to prepare. Any ideas?" "Well usually we go to Sugarcube corner, but it's closed now, so I don't know, sorry" "That's ok, I wasn't planning to go there anyway, I was planning to make it a surprise party. Do you know anyone else who can make like cupcakes or cakes or any other sort of pastry?" "Well, the Apple family made apple pies in the past, but they stopped doing it about a year ago." "Okay, let's go there first and see if they can still make them." We rushed to Sweet Apple Acres as fast as we could, talking about other possibilities if the Apple family wouldn't make pies for us, but there weren't many. If we couldn't find anything, we decided we would make the pies ourselves. I knew that that wasn't going to work out that well, so I was desperately hoping that the Apple family would make us at least a couple of pies. I knocked on the door when we arrived, still hoping for at least a couple of pies. Applejack opened the door. "Hello... Oh, it's you. Can Ah help ya with anything?" Her tone implied that I wasn't really welcome, but I couldn't blame her for it. I was, after all, the cause of Pinkie's sadness, which had caused sadness with every other pony in town. "Hey Applejack, I kinda need your help-" She shut the door in my face. "I guess I deserved that" I said to the door, hoping that Applejack was still there. "Look, I know I messed up with Pinkie, real bad this time, but I'm trying to make things right. I'm trying to help Pinkie, but I need your help to do it, Applejack. Please give me another chance, I won't mess up this time." The door opened again." "All right, but lemme make this clear. Ah'm doin' this for Pinkie, not for you." "I got it, that's fine by me. I'll prove to you that I can change some other time. Now, Fluttershy told me that you used to make apple pies. Can you still make them?" "Why? Ah mean sure. Sugarcube Corner made better pies than ours, so we just stopped makin' them. Doesn't mean that we can't anymore." "Well, Sugarcube Corner is closed..." Fluttershy started. "Sugarcube Corner is closed?!" Applejack shouted. "Gosh, it's even worse than Ah thought." My face was looking at the ground, ashamed of what I'd done. "Listen, I know what I did was bad, but I'm gonna make it up to everypony." I started stumbling to the ground. I looked Applejack in the eye. "Every single pony." "Sure, ok, Ah guess." I could tell that she didn't know what to think of me. "One more thing" I added "Do you still have some barrels of cider?" "Sure, Ah've got a couple in the cellar. Whatcha gunna do with apple pies and cider?" "Well, we're going to make a party for Pinkie!" Fluttershy squeaked. I had a look at her and saw that she was really excited. I smiled. It seemed she really liked organizing something for once. "One more thing though" I said, not sure how to address the situation. "Straight to the point I guess" I sighed. "I'm broke." Before Applejack could say anything, I added "I'm not taking the pies and cider for free, even if you insist. I'm going to work in the orchard or anywhere else you need help until I paid off everything. Whether you like it or not." "Sure, Ah can live with that." To my surprise, she seemed rather pleased with that offer. "So, when's the party gunna be?" "As soon as possible. Would tomorrow evening be okay?" "Tomorrow evening? Sure, Ah guess." "Good, see you then. Good luck with the pies." I left the orchard immediately after, now thinking about what the next thing should be we should go after. "Vinyl, maybe Applejack can help us convincing the others." Fluttershy said. "No, trust me, she's going to need her time making those pies. If she hasn't made them in a couple of years, it'll take a few tries before she gets them the way she wants them. Now, I think we best go for the decorations next, but who do we go to for that?" "Well... Rarity can decorate, but I don't know if she can make decorations herself." "Right... Well I guess it's the best we got." Rarity. Now there's a pony I can't stand, and she can't stand me. She's so pretentious, she's The Great Fashion Designer of Equestria, she's better than anypony. She just was lucky. I could have been just as great as she is, but she got lucky, and I didn't. I called her out on it, and she knew it. And I knew how she felt about me, I was a lowlife scum. I listened to techno, I wasn't sophisticated. She couldn't even stand the look of me. I was so ordinary. She always said my red eyes stood out like a sore thumb. Maybe they don't really suit me, but I was born with them. I shrugged the thoughts away. Clearly, they were the last thing I needed if I wanted Rarity to help me. We arrived at her boutique. I was still thinking if there was somepony we forgot, who might be able to decorate a party, but no one jumped to mind. I sighed, and knocked on Rarity's door. "Yes?" That voice, so elegant, so posh, can't she just be normal? "Who is it?" "It's me" I responded, trying to bite down all the negative thoughts about her. "Fluttershy's here too. Can we come in?" "Naturally" she said while opening the door. Can't she just say "Of course" "Please do wipe your hooves though." Why, am I that dirty, perhaps? After closing the door behind me, and wiping my hooves, I looked around the shop. As always, it was flawless. Not a single speck of dirt, everything perfectly tidy... I sighed. You can't be this perfect. It's just wrong... somehow... "Now, how can I help you?" "Well, as you probably may know, Pinkie is sad..." "Yes, quite the unfortunate series of events, I might add" Rarity interrupted me. It's as if she doesn't think I feel responsible at all. "...As I was saying, Pinkie is sad, so we're planning a party to cheer her up." "And how can I help with this party?" Rarity asked. "We were wondering if you could make the decorations." "Well, I don't know. I am rather busy, you see..." I see. Well, here goes."Listen Rarity. I know you and I are not the best of friends, so this makes this even harder to say. I'm an idiot of a pony, I don't consider other ponies feelings. There's probably a million more things I should say, but here's the deal. I need you to make those decorations. I know it's below your standard work, but this is not for me. This is for Pinkie. So, could you please make those decorations?" "Well I suppose I could. For Pinkie. When do you need them?" "By tomorrow evening if that's possible" "Tomorrow evening?! Fine, but you'll have to leave now. I have a lot of work to do." I knew it, she just wanted to hear me beg, insult myself and all the other things I did there. Well, I guess it worked. Someday, however, I am going to show her that she is not as perfect as she thinks. I sighed. "Everything ok, Vinyl?" Fluttershy asked. "Yeah, it's just harder than I thought. I didn't realise just how much everypony disliked me." "They don't, Vinyl, they just don't know you. You never said anything to anypony. Ponies don't know anything about you. All we knew, was that you were a DJ. And when that stopped, you did... nothing... sorry." "Thanks for the comfort, Fluttershy, but they really hate me. When I look at them in the street, all I can see in their eyes is contempt. And if I ever look somepony in the eye, they're scared of my red, 'monstrous' eyes. Why do you think Applejack agreed to my deal? I looked her in the eye, and she backed away." "That's not true!" Fluttershy had stopped walking. I turned around to see her face. "Applejack did not agree to some deal just because your eyes happen to be red! When Applejack looked into your eyes, she saw a honest pony, who had made a deal, and who was going to uphold that deal no matter what!" I was speechless, I didn't know Fluttershy had a side like that. She never spoke her mind like that. She was right, though. If I ever made a promise, I kept it, no matter what. I was going to make things better with Pinkie, I promised myself that. I was going to do everything I could to do so. If this party was going to fail, then I wouldn't stop trying, just as Pinkie never stopped trying for me. "Uhm... where do we go next?" Fluttershy asked. "What? Oh right." As fast as her outburst appeared, it had left. "All we have left to do is make the invitations. And since we want to have the party tomorrow, I don't think Ditzy can get all the invitations to everypony. Do you think you can get Rainbow Dash to come to the library? I'll be waiting there, explaining the situation to Twilight. Perhaps it's better to not mention me, if we want Dash to come." Fluttershy took off to look for Dash, while I headed for the library. I didn't know much about Twilight, since she was always in that library of hers. I sighed. I hoped that she would understand that I was genuinely sorry about what happened to Pinkie. I knocked on the door. Spike answered it. "Oh. Vinyl, right?" I nodded. "Twilight, Vinyl's here!" Spike shouted. "She'll be right here." he said to me. "I have to say though, I really liked your beats on the Gala that couple of years ago. Why haven't I heard of you ever since? I mean, playing on the Great Galloping Gala must have given your reputation a boost?" "Well, ever since... I kinda lost my touch, the music I'm making now isn't all that great anymore. Thanks for the compliment though" "I'm sorry, ever since when did you lose your touch?" "I don't really wanna talk about it. If you really want to know, just ask somepony else when I'm not around ok?" Crash! "Ouch! Spike, remind me not to read books while going downstairs." "You know, for being such a smart pony, you sure don't learn from past experiences. You fall down the stairs at least once every week, and every time it's because you were reading a book." "Well, they're just so interesting... Oh, hi Vinyl." "Uhm... hi." Wow, she's actually friendly to me "Twilight, I kinda need your help with something." "Sure, what's the matter?" "Uhm, you probably know that I hurt Pinkie, and I never meant to, I mean, it was an accident, I would never..." "You don't have to apologize to me. You seem willing to do something about it and that's enough for me. So, what do you need." Twilight said in her cheerful voice. "Well, Fluttershy and I had the idea of organizing a party for Pinkie. Would you mind writing the invitations?" "Spike, grab a quill, some ink and some paper for me please. So, Vinyl, how many invitations do you need?" "Uhm... I actually hadn't thought of the number yet... How many ponies usually come to one of Pinkie's parties?" "It varies a lot. It's usually between twenty and fifty ponies." "Let's make fifty invitations then. I doubt that all fifty ponies are gonna show up, since the party's gonna be tomorrow evening, and some ponies are gonna have plans already. Some ponies are probably gonna bring friends, which are welcome too." "I guess that's okay. Spike, take note please." "Hey Twilight, you wanted to see me?" I looked over at the door to see Rainbow Dash standing. At the same time she saw me. Then, nothing... "She's coming to." I heard somepony say. "Vinyl, are you okay?" I opened my eyes to see that I was laying on the couch, with a bag of ice on my head. "What happened? Where am I?" "You're in my library" The voice was Twilight's "Right, so Twilight, could you write those fifty invitations." I tried to get up from the couch, but Fluttershy held me down. "You really need to rest a bit more." she whispered "I'm fine, really" I waved her off. I still had a lot to do, and whatever had happened couldn't hold me back more from practising for the party. I got up from the couch, my head hurting like somepony had dropped an anvil on me. "I've written all the invitations already." "How long have I been out? Wait, never mind, still have a lot of work to do. Is Rainbow Dash here?" "You don't remember?" "Remember what?" Then I saw Dash. "Hey Dash" I started to feel dizzy. "Sorry about Pinkie, could you deliver these invitations? I don't think Ditzy..." "She's passing out again. I'm getting a doc-" Nothing When I came to, I was in the hospital. Fluttershy and Twilight were next to my bed. "How are you feeling, Vinyl?" Twilight asked when she noticed I was awake. "I'm fine, though my head is hurting like a stampede of cows ran right on my head." I tried climbing out of bed, but Fluttershy placed her hoof on me. "No, you need to rest." she whispered. "No, I don't have time, I need to practise for the party tomorrow." I tried climbing out of bed again, but Fluttershy kept her hoof on my chest. "No, you need to rest." she now said, loudly. She was in her other state. I smiled, there was no way I could get her to change her mind now, so I stopped trying. "What happened exactly? I'm sorry but I can't remember." Fluttershy put her hoof off my chest. "Well, Rainbow Dash... she uhm..." Fluttershy started. Twilight continued."When Dash saw you, she got angry, and well... She charged you into a wall, after which you had a ton of books fall on your head. We put you on the couch, and you came to half an hour later. You then said Dash needed to deliver the invitations, and then you fainted again. We took you to the hospital. You seem to have a concussion. She's sorry Vinyl, she lost her temper, you know how she can be, but she's really sorry. She's delivering the invitations now." I smiled. "When you see her tomorrow, tell her that I know how it feels when you lose your temper, and do things you didn't want to do." The image of Pinkie flashed through my head again, accompanied by a sudden jolt of pain. I grunted and Fluttershy called for the nurse. She entered with a pill and a glass of water. "Now girls, she needs her rest" she said to the two fillies. "Here, this will help you sleep." she said to me as I took the pill and glass from her. "A nice sleep will make you feel better in no time." She said as I swallowed the pill. The ponies left the room, and I felt the headache slowly fade, until it was gone, and so was I not very long after.