//------------------------------//
// Esther Bowstrings 
// Story: Scarred Vinyl 
// by Belgianchief 
//------------------------------//

I was stopped from writing by a gleam of light coming through the window on the opposite side of the room, above an empty bed. It was a nice touch to have windows above the bed, and one across the room, just so that the one who lied there could see straight ahead, through the window opposite of him. The windows were pointed south and north, so the afternoon sun would be straight on my face. Now, however, under the condition I was in, the light was too strong, as concussions often have the effect that they increase the sensitivity from light. So I quickly stepped out of bed, and out of the sunlight. I could use a walk, so I went to the northern wing of the hospital, getting away from the sun, and where the light wouldn’t be as intense. I entered a few hallways until I came upon a sign which read:

Music Room

I heard a soft melody. Music. I entered it, to find it almost completely deserted, apart from a young filly with her violin. She was very young, had a brown coat and a bright white mane. She was practising, so trying to not disturb her, I sat down and just listened to her. She hadn’t seen me enter, so I had a closer look at her. The coat I thought was brown, was more of a dark red with a reddish brown undertone. The white mane jumped out immediately. It had been kept short, her tail mane was very basic and short. Her eyes were a darker, browner tone than her coat. Listening to her playing, I could tell that she still had a long way to go, but I could feel that she had talent. Especially if she kept practising like she was now. When she stopped, I gave her an applause. She jumped up in surprise, then she blushed, and mumbled something.
“Excuse me, what was that you just said? I couldn’t hear.”
“Thank you” I barely managed to determine from her silent whisper.
“No, no, that won’t do. When you receive an applause, you should be proud of yourself. You need to accept an applause with grace, like this.”
I bowed before her, then stood up straight, and then I wove to the “audience” as I “left the stage”. I could hear a giggle escaping from her. I went back to my chair and said “Now you try” as I started applauding again. She bowed, stood up straight and wove to me, the audience, giggling all the way while doing so.

I smiled at her. “And what might your name be, young filly?”
“I’m Esther. Esther Bowstrings.”
“Very nice to meet you Esther. I’m Vinyl Scratch.”
“Hey, haven’t you made some music like a couple of years ago? I’ve seen that name on those records over there.” She pointed at a shelf next to to an old gramophone. I walked over and saw that indeed, one of my records was there. I smiled. “Yes, indeed. This was my very first record. Do you mind if I put it on?”
“Not at all, please go ahead.”
As I put it on, I smiled with nostalgia. It was very soft techno, not the type of music I had played the last couple of years. No, this had melody, not just beats. Classical techno, I called it. It never became very popular, because it wasn’t classic enough according to the elite in Canterlot, yet not hardcore enough for techno fans. So I had decided to quit the genre. And since I wasn’t good enough to be accepted by the classicists, I threw myself on techno, which was pretty much unexplored terrain, and it had made me rich... But what I had made, was just beats, no feeling to it.

“That was beautiful. Why haven’t you made more records?” Esther asked.
“Even though it’s beautiful music, it never was a good seller. So I threw myself on hard techno. You might have heard of my stage name: DJ PON-3” I noticed that whenever I said that name, it was with disgust.
“I’m sorry, I haven’t heard of you.” She said apologizing.
“That’s no problem, you are probably too young to know me. I haven’t made music in a few years, so yeah. Now, let me ask you a question. Why do you play music?”
“It’s my cutiemark” she said with a doubtful look on her face, wondering if she misunderstood me. I had a look at her cutiemark to see it was a bow, clearly meaning she would be good at playing a bowed string instrument. And looking at her instrument, she had chosen the violin. I smiled.
“Your cutiemark is not the reason why you do something. It’s the means with which you want to reach your dreams. Maybe I should ask my question differently. What is your dream?”
She mumbled something under her breath. “C’mon, speak up. No dream is embarrassing, dreams are the most wonderful thing. Now, again, what is your dream?”
“I want to play my violin in front of the biggest crowd ever. I want them to throw flowers at me,and then...” She mumbled something else after that.
“C’mon, I want to hear the full dream, I’m sitting on the edge of my seat here!”
She smiled. “I want... Octavia to congratulate me. She’s my idol, she’s so great!”
“Ah” I said. The little filly looked up at me, waiting for a response. “I suppose that would be Octavia Philharmonic, right? That’s a wonderful dream, but you are going to have to practise a lot more before you can play at her level. But you have talent, so I’ll be rooting for you.”

“Esther!” I heard a shout from the hallway.
“I have to go, feel better soon from whatever reason you’re here, Vinyl” She dashed through the door.
“I already do.”
“Esther, there you are!” I heard an angry mare shout. “You should have been back twenty minutes ago, yet here you still are! I don’t know what I’m going to do with you.” I stood up and went to the hall quickly, to see the mare shouting at Esther.
“I’m sorry, ma’am. It is my fault that Esther is late. I had no idea she had somepony waiting for her.” The mare looked at me with big eyes, then hurried along with Esther. It left me broken, those hadn’t been eyes I wanted to see. Those had been eyes of fear and disgust. I sighed, and returned to my bed. The sun had parted along enough so that it wouldn’t shine in my eyes any more. Just as I had lifted myself in bed, nurse Redheart came into the room.

“Vinyl, there you are, where have you been?” she said.
“Well the sun was shining in my eyes, and I couldn’t really handle it. so I went for a walk, and then I got to the Music Room.”
“Oh, so that was you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Did you meet Esther there?”
“Yes, we had a nice talk about music and dreams. She can play the violin pretty good.” I smiled. “What’s wrong with her? She seems healthy.”
“She is. She comes to the Music Room in the Hospital every day after school because they can’t afford a violin at the orphanage.”
Orphanage. “She’s an orphan? I had no idea...” Then I noticed something about nurse Redheart. She wasn’t telling me something. “Tell me what’s the matter.”
“Well, you don’t have a very good reputation. The matron told Esther that you... That you were a dangerous pony and that she shouldn’t be talking to you, she threatened Esther to not allow her to come here any more. I overheard them shouting in the hallway.”
“Ah” That’s about all I could say. Thoughts were racing through my mind. Am I really such a terrible pony. I probably ruined Esther’s only chance at playing the violin. I destroyed her dream.
“But Esther said that you were the first pony to be actually nice to her, the first pony to ever treat her normally. And if she wasn’t allowed to come here any more, she would come anyway.”
That brightened up my face immediately. “She looked like such a sweet girl. What happened to her family?”
“No one knows. She was left on the doorstep of the orphanage as a little foal, with a letter only saying her first name: Esther.”
“To me she introduced herself as Esther Bowstrings. Ah, It’s because of the violin.” I smiled.
“Yes, that’s how she calls herself these days, as she has no actual last name. It suits her, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, yes it does” I said, still smiling. “Say, nurse, when can I get out of the hospital?”
“We’re gonna keep you here for the remainder of the night, since you still seem to be a bit sensitive of light. Normally, you can get out tomorrow morning. Can I get you anything else?” I looked around. There were paper scraps everywhere.
“Some more paper, please?” Nurse Redheart laughed, went out the room, and came back with a huge pile of papers, as well as a trash can. “Enjoy yourself” she said, walking out of the room, still laughing.

I went straight back to work, as it was far from finished, I still had a lot of work to do, but I enjoyed every second of writing and improving it. I hummed the the symphony to test where it wasn’t coherent, what parts needed to be changed, and what parts were good. A knock on the door interrupted me. The door opened and nurse Redheart poked her head in.
“Vinyl? You have some visitors.”
“Okay, just let me put away all these notes.” I levitated my notes on the bedside table. “They can come in.”
Fluttershy and Twilight came through the door, followed by a slowly floating Rainbow Dash. Nurse Redheart closed the door behind them, allowing us to have some privacy.
“Hi everypony, thanks for dropping by to visit. So, how’s the party coming along?”
“Well, a lot of ponies have declined our invitation. Apparently, many of them had planned anything already.” Twilight said.
“I saw that coming, to be honest. That’s why I let you made that many invitations, so that we didn’t have to take chances with ponies coming or not. I hope there are still enough for a good party?”
“I’d say about 15 ponies are coming, and then us, so we’d be around twenty in total.”
“That should be fine, it might be a little small, but there’s nothing we can do about that.”
“How are you, Vinyl? Still having headaches?” Fluttershy asked with a worried voice.
“No, not really, the headaches are gone. I’m still a bit oversensitive to light, but that should wear off soon enough. How are you, yourself?”
“Oh, I’m fine, thank you.”
“Good to hear” I said with a smile. I then saw Twilight staring at the huge pile of papers next to my bed. “Those are only some music sheets I’ve been working on, Twilight, I’m not much of a reader, myself. I have to do something to keep me busy though.”
“I didn’t know you could write music, Vinyl, mind if I take a look?” She asked.
“No, go ahead. I didn’t know you could read music though” I said.
“I’ve read about the basics in a book, but this is too complicated for me.” She asked.
“Yeah, it’s a sheet for a synthesizer, so there are a lot of lines.”

After I said those words, there was an awkward silence. I sighed, deciding I’d be the one to break it. “Rainbow Dash, I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry? For what?” she blurted out.
“I’m sorry for making you hit me. I’ve been a bitch the last few years, yet all of your friends never stopped trying to cheer me up. Then, I hurt Pinkie, so really, I can’t blame you at all for hitting me. You made me realise my life had been so bad, that ponies wanted to hit me. Because of you, I realised I needed to turn my life around more than I ever would have realised. So thank you, for making me see the things the way that I see them today.”
“No, no, I never should have hit you.”
“You should have a long time ago. And if you ever see me doing something stupid, hit me again. Just don’t give me a concussion, a simple punch will do. Deal?” I smiled at her.
“Deal.”

Knocking on the door, nurse Redheart entered. “I’m sorry, but I need a word with Vinyl. Would you ladies mind waiting outside?”
“They can stay.”
“I’m sorry, Vinyl, but what I want to talk about, is something private about you. I don’t know if you want to let your friends hear about this.”
“I know what you want to talk about. It’s the scar, right?” Nurse Redheart nodded. “They can stay, if they want.”
“Do you want us to stay, Vinyl? None of us want to intrude on your privacy.” Twilight asked.
“Yes, I think it’s time that I share a part of my history with my friends.”
“I have your medical records right here, so if you ever need me to take over from telling, I’ll gladly do so.”
Lying down on my back, I removed the sheets from the bed. I heard three gasps. A huge scar ran from my chest all the way through the underside of my abdomen.

“My story begins eleven years ago. I just had been in detention for drawing in class. Actually, I think I had been writing one of my first symphonies, but the teacher couldn’t stand me, and he used every possibility he had to punish me. Anyways, I was going to be late for dinner if I didn’t hurry, so I ran towards the gate. On the way there, somepony made me trip. I fell hard, but I immediately got up. Three colts blocked my way... they took my backpack and threw everything out. I tried to fight my way out, but they just punched me down. Then the boss of the three found the symphonies I had written, but not being able to understand them, he just threw them away. I tried to grab them, but he punched me down again. He then realised they were important to me. Because he still couldn’t understand them, he just... burned them using his horn. I lost it, I charged him and hit him, making him bleed. For revenge, he had his two minions hold me on my hind legs so he could punch me freely. After so many punches, they just dropped me, and left. I couldn’t do anything, my entire body was broken, so I just laid there. Then nothing... I woke up in the hospital, a week later.

The entire room had gone quiet. “You can tell them all the medical stuff, nurse”
“Do you need some time alone?” she asked
“No, please stay.” I needed support, to not be alone. I’d been alone for far too long, I realised.
“Well ladies, from what I can tell from these medical files, Vinyl suffered very heavy internal damage. A team of doctors managed to save most organs through intense magic. Vinyl was living on an edge for that entire time. She’s very lucky to still be alive.”
“Most organs?” Twilight asked.
“Most organs. Every organ but one. They couldn’t save my ovaries... I’ll never be a mother...”
I started sobbing. “Why am I crying? This... This happened eleven years ago, I shouldn’t be crying. It’s too long ago, I can’t...”
“There, there, it’ll be okay.” Fluttershy tried to comfort me. I pushed her away.
“No, it won’t be okay!” I yelled at her. “Don’t you see? I’ll never be a mother.”
“There are other ways to-” Twilight started.
“It’s not the same! Don’t you see? You all have no idea how this feels, you-”
SMACK!

Rainbow Dash had closed the distance between her and me in less than the blink of the eye. “Snap to it, will you? Yes, you had a bad youth, so what? You can either sit there and mope about it, or do something about it. What are you going to do?”
“I-I-I... I don’t know”
“It’s no use moping around, trust me on that. You nearly died, you’ve been given another chance. Use that chance for something, and don’t just sit around being pathetic.”
“That’s easy for you to say.”
“Maybe. But it’s easy for you to do as well. Just go outside and enjoy. Just live. Just... do.”
I kept silent for a moment. “You’re right. I’m sorry.” I rubbed my cheek. “Thanks, Rainbow, though a little less hard next time would be nice.”
“I’m sorry, I guess I overreacted a bit.” she said sheepishly.
“All right ladies, she needs her rest. If I’ve heard correctly, you all have a party to enjoy.”
“One more thing” I said. “Don’t tell this to anypony who you think doesn’t need to know”
“Of course not” the three of them said in unison.
“And I’m bound by my pledge of secrecy.” Nurse Redheart stated.
“Thank you” I whispered, suddenly feeling tired. “Have fun” I managed to say, right before falling asleep.

I woke up to the soft sound of music. Clearly the party is going on. What time is it? I looked around, hoping to find a clock, but there was none to be seen. I decided to go ask nurse Redheart. But upon arriving at her counter, I noticed she was gone. There was a note there.

Went to Pinkie's party.

I sighed. Looking at the clock behind the counter, I noticed it was only 8 o'clock. Which meant that the party had only begun half an hour ago. I sighed. I wished I could be there, I felt a lot better, but it maybe was for the best that I stayed the night in the hospital. I walked back to my room, noticing that the music had stopped. Huh, that's odd. I walked back into my room.

SURPRISE!

I jumped in surprise.
How does she do it. I've been out of this room for not even five minutes, and she manages to set up a surprise party.
Pinkie Pie came running to me. "Hi Vinyl, this party is for you. I thought it was really nice to throw me a party, but then I realised "Pinkie, you don't need a party, Vinyl does" so I moved all the stuff from Sugercube Corner to here. By the way, it was a very good idea to hold the party in Sugarcube Corner, I totally didn't see it coming. It really cheered me up again, and then everypony said that it was your idea, and I was like "really?" and they were like "Yeah, but he's in the hospital now" and then I was like "Let's go ponies, to the hospital" and everyone followed, and we waited outside the window, but nurse Redheart had seen us, so we invited her too, and then we saw you leave your room, and then we prepared everything for you here, and then you entered and then we shouted SURPRISE!"
I tried to make sense of what Pinkie had just said to me. I couldn't. "What?"
Pinkie giggled. "You silly pony. C'mon let's party!" She wanted to go to the dance floor, but I stopped her.
"Pinkie, I have to say you something... I'm really, really sorry I hurt you. I didn't mean to, I lost control. I'm sorry."
"Apologies accepted. Now let's party." She pulled me to the dance floor. "Pinkie, I don't dance... please don't."
"Pinkie, if she doesn't want to dance, she doesn't have to." Twilight interjected. "Should we tell her, Vinyl?"
"Yeah" I turned to Pinkie. "I have big scar on my belly, I don't really want to show it to anyone."
"Then dance on all fours, silly, if you have fun, no one will think it's strange." She then proceeded to dance, on all fours.
I turned to Twilight. "She's the silly one here!" I said to her, laughing, as I went to dance on all fours, having a great time overall. The party lasted until after midnight, and it was the best party I ever had, even if it was in a hospital.

As we were cleaning up the party, Applejack approached me. "Ah'll be expecting ya tomorrow at noon at the farm. Don't be late." She then left, saying she had to be up early tomorrow, thanked both Pinkie and me for the party.
After the clean up, I was so tired, that I could barely drag myself to bed. I went to lie, when Pinkie approached me and gave me a hug. "Thank you for the party, it was great." She said.
"It wouldn't have been a party without Pinkie." I replied.
"Can I see your scar?" she suddenly said.
"Pinkie!" Rainbow, Fluttershy and Twilight all shouted at the same time.
"It's fine." I said to them. I lifted up the sheets to show her my scar.
"Wow, that's a big one." Pinkie said, seemingly in a voice full of admiration. "Scars are sooooo cool. I want one too."
I facehoofed. I didn't quite know how to respond to that. "I guess so." I said, yawning. I pulled the sheets back over my body. I turned my head and heard the door close one final time. With one more yawn, I fell in a deep sleep.