“Vinyl Scratch, the infamous DJ Pon-3, had always been known for being a bit of an eccentric. For instance, she had decided to make her home in little Ponyville. Nopony really understood this, since she had been offered residences in really every major city in the land. And why she would decide to live in a small town two hours away from her radio station simply made no-
“We have an update on the situation in Ponyville: The gendarmerie are still searching for the missing pegasus. However, with so little known about the elusive Cloudsdalian, it is unlikely any leads will turn up soon.
“However, new developments in Hoofington have arisen, leading the Guard to think that this may just be the beginning of a connected series of attacks. Another pegasus was attacked in the Whitetail Woods, and when he survived, the Hoofington Clinic where he was being treated, was attacked with great ferocity, and a filly abducted from her bed.
“We will bring you daily reports on the situation, so keep an ear on the airwaves. K-Kolt out.”
*****
Lots of ponies assumed I was born and raised in the city. To be honest, I nearly had myself believing that with how well I pulled off pretending that was true. But it wasn’t. I was in fact born and raised in a small town just the other side of Canterlot in one of those idyllic valleys the Equestrian Elite like to buy out and build huge mansions in. In time, my family home was bought, of course, and my parents moved into a scruffy basement apartment under some slightly less scruffy apartments. To begin with, I hated Canterlot. The only time I would ever go out was night, because that was the only time I felt like I wasn’t being looked down on. Canterlot was polar like that; the rich paraded around in the day, and the poor lit up the night. It was there in the darkness, surrounded by ponies I would eventually surpass, that I went to my first rave. There, surrounded by the powerful music, every pony from rich teens looking for trouble to down-and-out bums looking for an escape were all equal, because the sound controlled them all.
I guess I always wanted to emulate that. It’s such a shame I eventually did.
*****
“We should have left her.”
Elderberry snapped a growl at me, hackles rising as she protected the huddled bundle on her back. Tech stepped between us, facing me, “Look, we’ve spoken about his, we couldn’t have left her on the roof, okay? We’re just looking after her for a while.”
The bundle between Elderberry’s shoulders wriggled, and the ashen mare turned to nuzzle the burned filly within comfortingly. My heart went out to the little one, but I was thinking practically, for our safety. “We could have, Tech, there were ponies from her own home town on the floor below us! She would have been fine.”
“How far from the nest to fall,” whispered Elderberry, “when the nest burns out from beneath you?”
Tech Beat and I both looked at her askance, confused and derailed.
“She means we don’t know where this filly’s parents are, or even if we can find them,” Riff Pick offered, “And I’m a little inclined to agree.”
“Well…I’m not.” I looked at the uneven ground of the forest floor as we filed along a narrow ridge between two streambeds. “Do you honestly think she’s any safer out here in the wild…with us?”
“Safer here than on a crumbling rooftop in the aftermath of a battle,” Tech spat bitterly. “I don’t know what possessed me to make me listen to you, Angel.”
“Maybe the logical explanation; that if we’d spent any longer on that rooftop, guardsponies would have leapt at the chance to call us out on attacking the clinic,” I snarked back, but even as I spoke, I caught the curious knowing glance Riff Pick shot at Tech.
The pegasus wisely interjected, “Look, we all have good points on this one, but the fact is, the filly is with us. She needs care now; she was on a heart monitor earlier for a reason. For now, let’s just get our stuff and move on.”
Tech and Elderberry both agreed in their own way and walked down the ridge into the dried-up confluence of the two streams. I hung back, thinking, while Riff Pick remained by my side, waiting for me to speak.
I obliged him, “So…what about you, what does your…whatever-you-call-it do?”
Riff smirked at me as he explained, “My effect is the Scale. It was actually pretty common among Virtuosos way back. I can…call other Taken, or communicate my intentions at least, to whomever hears it. I’ve gotten really good at it,” He admitted, “I can even use it as a sort of echo-location, figuring out the area around me by ear alone.” He looked up at me again, the smile wavering, “Your Warp, you called it? It makes Taken ponies lose themselves in the sound, like your music used to. Yeah, I got caught in its path; pretty potent, gotta say.” Then he sighed. “Me, I always said I wanted to reach out to ponies with my music. I guess being Taken can be ironic like that.”
And I’d wanted to let ponies lose themselves. Turns out now I gave them no choice. I raised an eyebrow at him, “Huh…for a shy guy you sure do talk a lot, don’t you? Where d’you really learn all this stuff anyway?”
Riff looked a little uncomfortable for a moment. “Remember how I said Elderberry was the only one of us who’d been here during the Taken hayday? One day, before she…slipped, she sat me down, told me somepony had to remember what she’d learn before she ‘gave in to the Mind’s call’. I guess at least part of her stayed. I just don’t know how much, exactly, but being the brain is my job now, I guess.”
I looked down into the hollow where Elderberry was carefully curling up around the burnt, blind filly. I took a moment to remember that all of us, no matter what we were now, had been something more once, even the silent and haunting Elderberry. Tech stood beside her awkwardly, wanting to help, but unable to. That reminded me of another question I had;
“I thought you said these…effects we have only affected other Taken and Changelings,” I intoned. “Tech just nearly brought down an entire building just now. Wanna explain?”
“I…left a few things out,” Riff admitted. He squinted up at the moon above us. “Tech is a Viber, like I said. Vibers used to be considered very valuable assets out here, because they’re the only known Taken that can so utterly affect the world. But you have no idea how much energy Tech expended to save you.”
“Well, he coulda saved himself the effort, I had that Changeling on her knees.” I boasted.
Riff raised an eyebrow at me, “Her?”
I paused, my mouth open, trying to work out where that had come from. But it was lost to me. I huffed and forged on, “Well…it just looked skinny and all. Ei-either way, Tech didn’t have to listen to me afterwards either. I was hardly expecting him to.”
“Tech will probably listen to you more often than not,” Riff Pick said, getting up. “He used to be an audio technician, set up sound systems and concerts for famous musicians in Canterlot and beyond. He was once involved in the biggest Vinyl Scratch concert ever in the capitol.”
The breath flew from my lungs before I could shout Riff down. He noticed and smiled sadly, but continued anyway, “Ever since that concert, he had a huge crush of Vinyl Scratch. Even if you don’t claim that name anymore, he still sees her in you, whether you like it or not.”
*****
Do you hear it, Scratch? That soft melody at the winter hearth? It’s begging for you.
A dream. This was a dream, I knew, because as I stood from the ground, I brushed my shocking blue mane from my eyes, marveling at the bright glow my fur gave off, radiating starlight. I heard the eerie ageless melody, soft and ringing as it gently seconded the moon. I felt confident, strong in and of myself, ready to face the world. I was drunk with a power I no longer had, and I liked it.
You could be you again. The great Vinyl Scratch! Untouchable! Indefatigable! All you need to do is do what you want most, and even these bumpkins will follow your every beck and call.
I looked around myself in the moonlight, eyes wide with wonder. Ethereal trails of light glimmered in the air and eddied on small currents of static, reaching out like tendrils to touch the grey, drab, dead world around me. The trees, and leaves, the grass the sky...everything was dead, save for what the power I felt throbbing within me touched.
These others are useless to you, already dead, but she, she still has true power.
A tendril before me turned an unnatural shade of green and shot forward, caressing the bundle of blankets just enough for the thin fabric to fall aside, revealing one bareskinned small hoof to the tinkling of ice-harps.
Power, Scratch, like you’ve never felt before.
The feeling in my chest, of sheer, raw energy surging through me, rose to a boil, and I felt my mind click even as the music rose and cascaded over me. It was light, flowing, enchanting, and oh so tempting. I felt like giving in, just losing myself, in it’s embrace. Then I saw those blue eyes, sightlessly staring up at me, questioning.
The rapture ended, and the anger rose in my breast.
You get out! Out of my head, and away from this child! I won’t hurt her, and I won’t let you either!
Oh, but Scratch, you so nearly did.
“H-hello?”
My eyes snapped open. The twilit morning sky bled veins of red across the sky, and I shivered in the freezing air. A thin tendril of warmth brushed my coat, and I turned towards its comfort, only for my blood to run cold once again. Two huge ice-blue eyes stared emptily back at me, the tremor in her voice all the more heart rending.
“I-is anypony else awake?”
“Y-yes.” My voice cracked as I spoke.
The filly shuffled awkwardly with her blanket, and her eyes closed. “…You’re that pony who…who found me at the hospital, aren’t you?”
“You have a good ear for voices.” I mentioned, then winced as she opened her sightless eyes again.
Her furless ears splayed back as she huddled down even more, “Y-you don’t like me very much.” She poked a hoof out and brought it up to her own nose, as if inspecting the pink new skin that had grown there. In the early light, I could see the scarring, “You w-wanted to l-leave me behind…”
I couldn’t stand seeing her like that, nor anypony thinking like that. I could just about feel her fear. A small part of me whispered in the back of my mind that, whether I wanted to or not, I could hear it, clear as day. I pushed that thought away though, and pushed myself to my hooves. “I’m coming over there, okay?” I spoke low and calm. She nodded. I walked over to her and brushed the one side of the blanket, silently asking permission to join her. She didn’t move. I nodded to myself understandingly before lying down beside her, ordering my thoughts.
“I mean nothing against you, little one,” I whispered, “it’s just I think…I know that we aren’t the ponies to look after a filly like you.”
She didn’t move as she said, dead and flat, “I’m blind. I’m broken.”
I looked across the gulch at the slowly breathing grey forms that were Riff and Tech on the other side of our camp. I looked down at my own ashen forelegs as I answered, “No, you aren’t. You’re hurt now, but you aren’t broken yet. You will be an amazing pony one day, I know. Better than me.”
“I’m a blind Earth Pony,” she snarled into the homespun wrapped around her, eyes sparkling with tears, “I don’t have magic to feel with, I don’t have feathers like a pegasus. I’m useless.”
“N-no,” I cut in, but couldn’t think of anything to add. I gasped like a fish as the filly turned to face away. Then, my eyes settled on Tech, “No…You are and Earth Pony; you are strong, you are resourceful, and above all else, the Earth itself can be your eyes.” I impulsively touched her exposed hoof. She flinched, but I was stronger, pushing it down and into the loamy ground, “I have…had and Earth Pony friend not too long ago. She played…well, she played everything with strings. She always said she could feel the vibrations in the strings through her hooves, through the bow, and that’s why she was able to get pitches just right. Imagine one day, when you get as good as her, just what you’ll be able to see just by standing in one place?”
She didn’t answer me, but, after a few minutes of silence, I felt the blanket shift against my side. I wriggled under it, and felt her bare skin through my coat. She was freezing as she snuggled into me, her head against my chest. Her cheeks were wet.
“Y-you’re cold.”
I flinched and pulled back self-consciously, looking at my dull grey hooves, “Well, I’m sorry, there’s nothing I can do about-“
“N-no! I meant…” The filly withdrew a bit as well, but not enough to break the contact, “Th-the last thing I remember clearly…is the fire. The last thing I saw was…f-flames and…the last thing I left before the hospital was…burning. You’re…cool, not c-cold. Soothing.”
I gaped down at her. I didn’t know what to say to that, there weren’t any words after all. So I just relaxed into her; if she thought that soothing, then she could have as much as she needed. She snuggled into me a bit as we lay in silence. Silence I could handle, but it didn’t last.
“W-what are you going to do with me?”
“Take you somewhere safe.” I said simply, nuzzling the top of her head, where a little bristle foretold a full mane after a few months, “You just need to tell us where that is.”
“I don’t have a home…” She muttered, “I don’t have a family. N-not anym-more…”
She looked…resigned. Scared, lost confused, and a whole bunch of other stuff besides. I was never good with the words, or reading emotions, but I knew that look on a pony’s face; the moment when they’re teetering on the edge, about to lose all hope.
I suddenly imagined her with a faded grey coat and mane.
“Hey now,” I said, soft but strong, “You listen to me; I…I know how hard things must look right now. I really do. I lost somepony really important to me, too, along with my home, my friends…I lost what made me me. I lost my identity. But the thing is, so long as you can believe in something, there’s nothing to say you can’t get back up and do it all again. For you, all you have to do is believe that things will get better, and they really, really will. All you need is that hope.”
“Oh, yeah?” She asked bitterly, heckling against me, “Did you lose your parents? Your home? Y-your eyes? You have no idea! W-what do I have to hope for?!”
“I lost my special talent. I lost my name.”
That seemed to stun her for a moment.
“You’ve got everything to live for, if you know where to lo- where to find it.” Luckily, she seemed to not hear my slip, “You know the story of how the first snowflakes were made?”
She nodded, ever so slightly.
“One day, you’ll do something amazing. You’ll know then, that even though it was hard, life couldn’t keep you down. You’ve been through it all already; There is nothing left that can stop you, if you just keep hope.” I couldn’t believe what I was saying. In a way, it didn’t feel like me at all.
“Y-you sound just like my mother…” The filly muttered. For a second an old part of me jokingly hoped that I didn’t, but that died quickly enough.
“I need to know where we can take you,” I prompted again, “Somewhere you will be safe. Family? Friends?”
“M-my parents...they didn’t say at the hospital but...I-I know…” The filly sniffled a little, to distraught to answer immediately. I hated having to do this to her. But really, we had to know I touched my snout to her cheek tenderly to try and comfort her, but instead she leaned up and whispered a name into my ear. The name of a village. My eyes widened in recognition..
“M-my uncle lives there…” She whispered, too quietly to hear clearly. She shufled, I shuffled, and neither said a word. She, not wanting to admit to herself that in that moment she had finally accepted that her old life was gone, and me not accepting that mine was coming back to bite me yet again.
“How do you do it?” She finally asked, voice laden with so much sorrow I felt the weight of the world on my own shoulders, “ What do you hope for?”
“I don’t have Hope,” I muttered, tracing the outline of the pitted scar on my neck, “I’m…Taken. We all are.”
Nothing seemed to change, not really. Her breathing still pulsed slowly beside me, the soft nightsounds slowly gave way as more and more dawn light crept into our streambed. But I felt it; a chill was riding that light in the wake of my words, and the filly didn’t answer me.
“Y-you know what that means, right?” I asked, hoping that she didn’t, that I hadn’t just gone and said that, and scared her right when I’d almost felt like I was building a normal connection with a normal pony.
I knew I’d lost her. She pulled away slightly, not even enough to have done it on purpose, but she did. “Can I… feel one of the scars?” She asked so innocently, so timidly, I couldn’t even feel shocked. I lowered my neck to her nose, and she slowly reached forward. Her breath and then her touch chilled the sensitive scar as she traced its shape as softly as a butterfly. When she pulled away, she pulled away for good, wrapping herself back up in the blanket and trembling.
“I j-just want to go home…” She sobbed.
“I’m…I’m so sorry.” I whispered helplessly. After a few more cold silent minutes, I stood and turned away. I’d leave the filly to what rest she could claim. She deserved all the escape she could get. Me though, I turned and brought my eyes up to look straight into the grey misty eyes of Elderberry.
The older mare looked at the filly, then at me, her expression stony yet stricken. She leaned forward and gave me one light touch on the forehead with her snout, saying, “One day, when she makes the next Snowflake, she will look back, and she will thank you.” Elderberry smiled and nodded, “Thank you.”
She walked past me then, curling up protectively around the filly and sitting, watching vigil, leaving me standing and watching the warm dawn. But the chill never really left my bones.
Congratulations, you scarred her worse than she already was.
This is why I never ever wanted kids…
“Hey.”
My head snapped up and I glared at the pale eyes looking back at me. I stomped over bristled down at the huddled shape of Riff Pick. “Lemme guess, you were eavesdropping too.”
“Not like I had a choice,” Riff hissed back, standing, “That Song...Well, at least we know that filly’s stronger than we thought.”
“What song?” I asked, confused at first, but then I remembered; Riff and I were similar enough, both Virtuosos. Ponies and Songs were our curse and currency.
“You didn’t hear that?” He asked dully, looking at me askance, “I’m pretty sure that little heart-to-heart can be picked up on all major networks countrywide.” When he saw my gasp of surprise, he quickly added, “That was a joke. But seriously, how could you be so caught up in a conversation you miss that? I could just about feel the static. Elderberry was glowing.”
“I didn’t hear it,” I muttered, turning away. But I had. I’d heard it, and it had drawn me to her, no matter how I denied it. That dream was pretty hard to ignore.
“Doesn’t matter,” Riff said in a way that meant it clearly did, “We need to move soon. Did she tell you where she would be safe? Where we can take her?”
“...Yeah,” I answered, the words coming out sour on my tongue. I turned and looked up at the barely outlined silhouette of the Great Canterlot on it’s mountainside, or more specifically a hidden valley hidden beneath it that only those who’d lived there could even find, “We need to take her to Fetlock.”
I would live to regret this.