//------------------------------// // Day 20: Recovery // Story: The Royal Ponyville Orchestra // by Distaff Pope //------------------------------//         For the first time since I came to Ponyville, I have decided to omit the events of several days, mainly because absolutely nothing of note has happened during my convalescence, so instead of describing exactly how long I stared at the wall, I will instead surmise and say that I have spent the last several days in bed, drifting between varying states of consciousness and having the frequent occasional panic attack/sobbing fit. According to Vinyl it has been about five days since Nightmare Night, and today was the first day that things started… Well, I will start at the beginning.         The day started when I awoke to find a group of cloaked ponies surrounding my bed. “Vinyl,” I groaned, “Why did the Anthropologist’s Society sneak into our room again?” A quick headcount revealed that the society had grown substantially larger since our last meeting and for some reason they had decided to sew images of apples on their cloaks.                  Vinyl rubbed her eyes as she looked around her surroundings. “I don’t know, we don’t meet until tomorrow and Lyra cancelled our meeting because it interferes with our train ride to Anthro Con, speaking of which, do you still want to go?”                  “There are hooded figures surrounding us, and you are asking if I still want to go to Anthro Con?” I said, unsure of my roommates priorities.         “Well, I guess,” Vinyl said, “I mean, if they were going to do anything nefarious or whatever, they would probably have done it by-”         She was cut off as the mare who seemed to be leading the group spoke up, “We ain’t part o’ no silly anthropology club, we’re here to approve Octavia’s entry into the Apple family and ask a few questions.”         “Wait, why did you all have to break into my house at the middle of the night to tell me I am an Apple?” I asked, working to suss out just why they decided to sneak in here and almost give me a heart attack when I woke up.         “Oh, no, we ain’t here for that, sugarcube,” the pony I assumed was Applejack said, her hood barely covering what I assumed to be her typical stetson. “We would’ve just sent you a letter or Ah woulda come down here myself to tell ya. Nah, we are here because I got wind o’ some rumors about your upbringing, and that meant Ah had to assemble the full Apple council.”         “And just what rumors were those?” I asked as I rubbed my head, “My upbringing was fairly standard for a Manehattanite.”         “Yeah!” Vinyl chimed in, “And you know, Tavi is still recovering, so maybe you should rethink the whole sneaking into our room during the middle of the night thing. I mean, she’s had a rough couple of days in case you weren’t aware.”         “We’re well aware of Miss Octavia’s situation,” one of the other hooded ponies said, “But charges like this just can’t be ignored by Apple bylaw. We’ve already done what we can to accommodate her by having the meeting at her house as opposed to the Apple cellar where these meetings normally take place.”         “And exactly what charges am I dealing with, because whatever it is that I did or did not do, I am sure there is a reasonable explanation,” I said after suppressing the shock at seeing a group of hooded ponies in my bedroom.         “We ain’t chargin’ you wit’ nothin, its yer folks that dun earned the Apple family’s ire. We need you to let us know if there’s any truth to the story that they kicked ya out when you was just a filly,” another Apple said.         “Right granny. See Tavi, we Apples are a close knit bunch, so when we hear that one of our own kicked out their child, we have to investigate. So can you please tell me just why they kicked you out?” Applejack said, pulling off her hood and confirming my suspicion that she was indeed Applejack, and that she had somehow managed to keep her Stetson on underneath the hood.         “It’s really not that complicated,” I said, finally sitting up, “They kicked me out because we disagreed over what my optimal career path would be. They thought I should take after my father and become a music producer, while I wanted to pursue a career playing the cello. We were unable to reach a satisfying settlement so they kicked me out. Other than that issue, the terms of our parting were amicable.”         “Tavi, they kicked you out. There is absolutely nothing amicable about that,” Vinyl said, with the Apple clan nodding in agreement, “I mean, what type of person would kick out their own flesh and blood because they don’t want to become a record producer?”         “Ah have to agree with Vinyl,” Applejack said, “And jus’ how old were you when they kicked you out?”         “A few years after getting my cutiemark, so probably before I turned eleven,” I said, “After all, they didn’t just kick me out as soon as I said I wanted to become a cellist. They tried to reason with me for several years before moving to such drastic options, and they said I could come back if I was willing to listen to reason and get rid of my cello,” I said, trying to justify their actions. They were my parents, and even if we disagreed, I wanted to believe that they had my best interests at heart.         The Apples murmured excitedly at that, moving to confer with each other in hushed tones. “Hey Tavi, if we ever adopt a little foal of our own, you won’t treat them like your parents treated you, will you?” Vinyl asked with a concerned look in her eyes.         “Of course not,” I said, patting her back in a manner that I hoped was found to be reassuring, “While I appreciate the values of setting boundaries, it is also important to accept your children for who they are, even if I think they are making a mistake.”         “So, you’d be okay if they wanted to grow up and be a rapper or just not do anything with music at all?” She asked, raising an eyebrow.         My eye twitched, and I did my best to keep my composure, “If that is what they wanted to do, then I would support them in any way possible, even if I personally disagreed with the decision. While I personally turned out fine, no child should have to…” I paused as I felt my eyes begin to water, and my mind filled with images of all the many things that happened in my life. From the cold empty isolation of the years I spent shunning outside companionship to hone and practice my craft to the raw visceral pain that came from defending (and dying for) my friends, all the way back to that first hurt. The one felt by a filly desperate to earn her parent’s love.         It was a coldness that grew in my chest as they spoke, when they said that they wouldn’t allow their child to disgrace the family name by growing up to become filthy plebian musician. A chill that pierced my heart when I was forced to choose between what I knew was my calling and the love of my parents. Every month since they kicked me out, I had sent them a letter detailing my efforts to become a pony they could be proud of, one who was respectable, sophisticated, and admired by her peers. I sacrificed every moment of my adolescence to honing my craft to please them. When I was invited to perform at the Gala, I sent them two invitations to show off just how far I had come, they accepted the invitation and then proceeded to ignore me the rest of the night. And… why? Why wouldn’t they support me? Why wouldn’t they even acknowledge my existence? All I had wanted was for them to say they were proud of me, that I hadn’t tarnished the family name. I didn’t care that they had abandoned me at the age of eleven, I just wanted to earn their acceptance and show them that an earth pony could be an outstanding musician.         My thoughts were interrupted by Vinyl as she stroked my mane in the hopes of reassuring me. “It’s alright, Tavi, it’s fine. You are fantastic and you don’t need to earn anypony’s acceptance, especially not the acceptance of the parents who are too thick headed to see what a wonderful daughter they have.”         As I came back to reality, I suddenly became aware of two things, the first was the now familiar sensation of tears freely running down my cheeks, and the second was that Vinyl was apparently aware of what I had thought was an internal monologue. “Did I just say all of that out loud?”         Everypony in the room nodded, “Yeah, it was… You mean you didn’t know you were talking?” Vinyl asked.         I shook my head, “No, I thought I was just thinking to myself, such an outburst would,” I paused to sniffle and try to regain my composure, “Hardly be dignified. Certainly not in front of company.”         Applejack spoke up at that, “We ain’t company, we’re kin, and after hearing that, I think we can all agree that Record Profit and Landed Money have their names stricken from the Apple Family Tree while confirming Tavi’s addition to it.”         The other Apple’s nodded in agreement while Vinyl and I exchanged looks of utter bewilderment. “Excuse me Applejack, but what exactly is going to happen to them now that their names have been stricken from your records?” I asked.         “Well, the first and most obvious thing is that no Apple is gonna be havin’ even the slightest bit of contact with em, no sales, no transactions, nothin’. As far as we’re concerned they never existed.”         “And besides preventing them from purchasing apples, what else does it do?”         “Right, well, we Apples take care of our own, and when we gotta blacklist somepony, well things tend to get mighty messy,” she said with a straight face, while I was wondering just what they would be doing to my parents.         “Applejack, while I appreciate your concern I want to be very clear about something. I still love my parents, and I can’t approve of you harming them.” Or killing, I thought before my train of thought was derailed by a vivid recollection of all my many experiences with death. The air in my lungs became leaden, and each breath was a struggle as a cold sweat covered my body as I retreated into the fetal position.         “Uhmm… hey, sorry guys, I hate to interrupt your meeting, but Tavi is… Well, whenever something triggers her memory of Nightmare Night, she kind of shuts down, so could we continue this later? Maybe after we get back from our vacation?”         They all nodded at that, and quietly filed out of the room, with Applejack being the last to go. “Is she gonna be alright? I saw what she went through, and if you need any help her family’s nearby.”         Vinyl nodded appreciatively before turning to comfort me. Over the past few days, we had both learned that the best way to deal with my panic attacks was for her to wrap her forelegs around me and draw me towards her, while I wrapped my own hooves around my Miss Melody doll. After thirty minutes of Vinyl’s reassurances, my heart rate began to calm down, and I felt myself regain some control of my body. “Th-thank you, Vinyl.”         “For what?” She asked, lifting up her head.         Really Vinyl? You are going to play coy now and pretend not to know what I am talking about? “For staying with me the last few days and helping to calm me down when I have my episodes. I know I haven’t said a lot, but you are helping, and... These last few days I’ve been well past the brink of madness and despair, but you were always there to help me calm down and pull me back towards something resembling sanity.”         “You mean I was actually helping? I thought I was just being kind of useless, I mean you were crying one day for like four hours, and nothing I did seemed to help. Do you know how painful it was to watch you go through all… that and not be able to do anything? I couldn’t even help you when you recover afterwards.”         I smiled and turned to kiss her on the cheek. “Of course you helped, Vinyl, you’ve pretty much kept me sane these past few days, and I hope I can make it up to you at a later date.”         She stroked my cheek and flashed a rather toothy grin, “Tavi, you don’t have to make anything up to me. We love each other, and it’s enough for me to know that when one of us stumbles we’ll have the other to keep us standing.”         Gazing into the other’s eyes, the two of us were silent for a long while, and I was on the cusp of falling asleep when Vinyl spoke up. “Oh! I mentioned how we have the cruise on the Triumphant right?”         I nodded.         “And that cruise leaves from your home city, right?”         “It leaves from my birth city, yes, but I always felt that I identified more with Canterlot than Manehattan.”         “Okay, sure, well, I was thinking that maybe since we have a day between Anthro Con ending and the cruise leaving, we could maybe see the sights and also I might have written your parents to inform them that you would be in town and that you wanted to see them.”         “You did WHAT?” I yelled, pushing Vinyl away, “Do you have any idea… I mean, first of all, my parents probably won’t even see me, and that would be the best case scenario. The alternative is-” I shook my head before bolting out of bed and running to the mirror, desperately trying to style my mane. “Vinyl, they banished me, they don’t want to see me, and they certainly won’t approve of certain decisions I’ve made, one’s that I doubt I will be able to hide from them.”         “Like what? Do they have a problem with fillyfooling?” She asked while coming over to try and comfort me, “Look, I know the two of you don’t have the best relationship, and I know they are in the wrong about a lot of things they have done with you, but maybe it will do you both good to see each other again.” She tried to smile, “Besides, if things go bad, then at least you have a chance to tell them off or punch them in the face. You know, whatever works for you.”         I laughed, “Vinyl, do you really think I could punch my own parents? You must think me to be completely uncivilized.”         She shook her head, “No, but you do have a habit of punching things when you get upset. Remember that big iron bull? You just knocked it right out, and that is kind of impressive considering it was made of iron.”         My smile vanished as she reminded me of Nightmare Night, but I found that particular memory to be more comforting than traumatizing, “That was different Vinyl, you were in danger and I reacted without thinking. Truth be told, my hoof is still hurting from that incident.”         Vinyl’s smile vanished as well, “That’s weird, cause Discord’s magic should have healed any injuries you sustained during that night and-”         She stopped speaking as the very mention of that draconequus caused me to curl up into the fetal position and rock back and forth while sobbing. Vinyl just sighed, levitated me to the bed, and proceeded to wrap her forelegs around me. It was amazing just how routine such a thing had become for the two of us, and I quickly fell asleep in the security of her embrace.         When I finally awoke, I found that Vinyl had left the bed and the sun was high in the sky. I groaned and checked the clock on the wall, confirming my suspicion that it was well past noon. Distressingly, me sleeping in past Vinyl had become far too common during the last few days as the nights spent sobbing or staring at the ceiling had greatly interfered with my ability to adhere to a normal sleep schedule.         I groaned and debated whether or not it would be worth the effort to get out of bed. On the one hoof, getting out of bed would almost certainly draw whatever doom Ponyville had prepared for me today towards me. On the other hoof, if I stayed in bed one more day I would go absolutely insane and the town would win. Besides, Vinyl would probably be downstairs and I wanted to continue our discussion about why visiting my parents was a monumentally bad ideas.         Thankfully, during my convalescence I had regained the ability to walk short distances without feeling like my chest was about to implode upon itself. I never thought I would miss basic mobility so much, although to give myself some credit, I never imagined myself lacking it either. “Vinyl, are you here?” I asked as I headed downstairs. I didn’t hear a response and a quick survey of the downstairs revealed it was empty. Deciding it would be for the best if I waited for her return in the comfort of my own bed, I turned and walked back up the stairs. However, when I came to the top of the stairs I noticed two things. The first was that the door to Vinyl’s bedroom was cracked ever so slightly and the second was that a faint slurping noise was emanating from her room. A sigh escaped my lips, I really didn’t want to deal with this, but curiosity killed the cat as they say, or in this case, the cellis Taking a tentative step forward, I approached her room, and my suspicion that the source of the noise was in her room was confirmed. “Vinyl, are you in there?” I asked as I knocked on the door, already knowing that the answer wouldn’t be positive. Between the sickening slurps, a voice echoed, “The Deathbringer arrives, please step inside so that we might thank you properly.” Against my better judgment, I opened the door and confirmed that yes, there was indeed a sentient mold monster entity in her room and it was capable of language. “We greet you Deathbringer and welcome you into our domicile. Please make yourself comfortable.” My heart pounded in my chest, and knees almost gave out on me. Of course it remembered me and the fact that I had tried to murder it a week ago. Why wouldn’t it? The alternative of Vinyl simply exaggerating when she said the giant mold beast in her bedroom was sentient was simply silly. I forced a smile and bowed my head slightly at the horrifying monstrosity entity. “You will have to forgive me, when I attempted to murder you several days ago I was unaware that you had achieved a level of sentience. If I was, I assure you things would have gone differently.” For instance, I would have burned this entire house down with a cleansing flame instead of using mere sprays. Still, I thought it best not to tell it that. “There is no need to apologize Deathbringer,” it said, its green bulbous body pulsating with every word. “Your actions have earned our veneration and secured a spot for you next to the Lifegiver in our pantheon.” Well, I certainly cannot say I expected that, but then, I never expected Vinyl to be telling the truth when she discussed the nature of the mold living in her bedroom. “Then, just to be clear, you aren’t upset with me and seeking terrible terrible retribution in some way?” The… thing seemed to laugh at that, its central sack undulated rapidly, and a viscous green substance came out of the hole that I assumed (and hoped, fervently fervently hoped) was its mouth. “You will forgive us, Deathbringer, for finding the idea of seeking vengeance against one of our deities amusing. Your actions strengthened us by purging the weak and allowing the strong to proliferate. There is no spore in our colony that is not descended from the survivors of your sacred cleansing, and because of that we are stronger.” “I… see,” I said, slowly nodding my head and taking a tentative step backwards, “If that will be all then I think I will head back to a world where sanity and reason prevail.” “Wait!” It said just before I slammed the door shut on it, “We have a request that only Octavia Deathbringer can fulfill. Our colony grows weak and decadent, and before the Lifegiver brings us our sustenance, we wish to be reduced to the strongest components so that only the greatest of us may enter into this new era.” “You mean you want me to try to uhmm… clean you again?” I asked, unsure that I was comprehending it. Its body bubbled at that, and several pustules on the central mass burst. “Yes, do not hold back, the more you eradicate, the stronger the survivors will be.” I nodded my head as my mouth twisted into a smile, “Very well, I believe I can honor your request.” Several bottles of bleach, a decontamination suit, and one very relaxing hour of cleaning later, Vinyl’s room was as spotless as I had ever seen it. If I was lucky, I had completely eradicated the monstrosity that lurked in her bedroom, and if not, then at the very least I had fulfilled both the spirit and the letter of its request. I stretched out on my bed and smiled, savoring the satisfaction of a job well done. It’s important to savor the little victories in Ponyville, I thought as I tucked myself into the bed and waited for my roommate to return. Only a few minutes later, I heard the front door open and a few seconds after that Vinyl walked in with two boxes of pizza floating behind her. “Hey Tavi, mind if I ask what happened to Moldy? I promised I would get him a pizza before I left and when I gave it to him he was nowhere to be seen.” “Oh,” I said, rolling over to face her, “It asked me to cleanse it and I was more than happy to oblige. Apparently it venerates me as some sort of goddess of destruction.” She raised an eyebrow. “Really?” “Is the idea that the sentient mold monster living in your bedroom might deify me that much harder to accept than the fact that there is a, and I cannot stress this enough, sentient mold monster living in your bedroom.” “Well, when you put it like that, I guess not, but still the whole thing is kind of weird.” She said, levitating one of the pizzas towards me. “At least we can agree on that,” I said before turning my attention towards the pizza. “I take it this is for us?” Vinyl nodded her head, “Yep, I got one for us and one for Moldy. Didn’t want him to starve while we were away.” “Celestia forbid that happens.” I said, making no attempt to hide my disdain. “Hey, sure he is a giant sentient mold monster thing, but he is MY giant sentient mold thingy and he is a pretty cool… uhmm… thing.” I flipped up the cardboard box containing the pizza, it was a supreme with pretty much every vegetable known to ponydom on it and approximately half the grease known to ponydom as well. “This looks… did they have to use so much grease on this? I feel like just looking at it is giving me a…” I trailed off, as the sentence’s planned conclusion conjured images of Nightmare Night and one particular death that actually caused my heart to burst out from my chest. Before I could properly contain my emotions, a series of loud and undignified sobs wracked my body, and Vinyl had moved to comfort me. “Hey, it’s alright Tavi, I’m here for you if you need to talk,” she said while resting a hoof on my shoulder. Something inside of me snapped then, something dark and angry that I had been doing everything in my power to bury over the last few days. I wish I can say that it wasn’t me that acted next and that instead some spirit of rage and anguish and howling madness temporarily possessed my body, but alas I cannot truthfully make that claim. My eyes narrowed and a harsh bitter laugh escaped my lips, “If I need to talk? IF? Vinyl, I would love to talk, but there is nopony I can talk TO, unless I am gravely mistaken and most of the ponies in this Celestia forsaken town have died multiple times. You saw what happened, you heard my screams but you didn’t feel the blades sink into your flesh, the magic gripping your heart, so if you can think of somepony who has gone through a similar experience then I am all ears.” The laughter was coming out faster now, and had I been in my right mind I might have been concerned by the way Vinyl’s back was sagging, but at that particular moment I was too focused on making somepony, anypony, feel just the faintest fraction of what I felt Nightmare Night. “Oh, but let me spare you the rant because you’ve heard it plenty of times during the last few days. Heard it during my late night sob sessions, my early morning panic attacks, my afternoon screaming fits, so allow me to change the record. I’m broken. I’m broken and while I applaud your efforts, you can’t fix me. You can’t fix being torn apart or burnt to a crisp, you can’t even PRETEND to understand what it feels like. But you try because you’re a good mare and going to help me get better, right? That’s how these stories work, I get hurt, you nurse me back to health and along the way we learn something about each other or life or what have you, but…” I stopped and saw the look of absolute anguish in my marefriend’s eye. No, she didn’t know it felt like to die, but she was willing to do anything to understand, anything to try to make me feel better. All of a sudden my laughter stopped and transformed into desperate sobbing. “I’m sorry Vinyl, I’ve… I’ve tried to be normal, to bury everything and move on with my life, but it won’t stay gone. No matter what I try to do it keeps coming and I... I’m just broken. Earlier today when Moldy asked me to purge it, I didn’t so much as hesitate. In fact, I enjoyed it, I enjoyed doing everything in my power to make it suffer as much as I had. Who does that? What kind of monster am I?” I sniffled and found that my roommate had moved to wrap a foreleg around my shoulder, content to just listen while I vented as much of my frustration and sadness as I could. “I’m sorry Vinyl, I can’t… what if I stay like this? Stay so terribly, irreparably broken, and I don’t know how I can put it all behind me and keep moving on. I don’t know if I’ll ever be back to normal, and this isn’t fair to you. You deserve somepony who won’t wake up screaming in the middle of the night or spend all of her time sobbing.” Vinyl laughed, “You really think I’m going to leave you be just because you got hurt a few times? If you’ll remember, all of those injuries happened because you were trying to help me, and I wouldn’t be much of a friend if I didn’t return the favor and do everything I could to help you out.” She moved to sit in front of me, resting one hoof against my cheek, “Maybe you will never get back to normal, maybe you shouldn’t try to get back to normal and should instead focus on coming to terms with what happened, I don’t know. What I do know is that I’ll be here to help you figure things out every step of the way, even if that means dealing with you when you get to be such a pain in the flank.” Despite my best efforts, I laughed at that, and after another hour of her comforting me, I finally felt ready to face the world, or at least venture out of my bed briefly. “Now if I’m not too terribly mistaken, we have a vacation to prepare for.” “Don’t worry,” she said, trying to draw my focus back to our bed, “I packed up my saddlebag when I got up.” “And how many pairs of clothes did it contain?” “Uhmm… none, we don’t normally wear clothes Tavi.” “Yes, and we normally don’t fly on the premier airship in Equestria, so you’ll pardon me if I think we should prepare properly.” Vinyl let out a groan, “This is going to take a while, isn’t it?” I nodded and she rolled out of bed while I followed after her with the faintest spring in my step, and a small smile forming on my lips. Things were bad, they were terrible, and sometimes I really wanted to bash my head against a wall until I lost all memories of that night, but at least I had Vinyl to keep me going, and maybe that was enough. The rest of the day passed uneventfully as I spent the next several hours helping Vinyl repack our bags and in doing so dramatically increased the amount of luggage she had intended to bring, while only having two… episodes in the process. Baby steps, right? “How are we packing so much stuff for a one week vacation when you moved here with like… four boxes?” She asked as she finished packing the last of our suitcases. “Because, like I said earlier, the HMS Triumphant is Equestria’s premier airship, and we must prepare to look our best. We don’t want to be invited to dine with the captain and not have anything to wear do we?” She shook her head as she levitated our suitcases towards the door, “Fine, but can I just say that I think this is a huge waste of time and that the stuff I packed earlier was fine?” “Vinyl, you only brought along a back up pair of goggles, another one of my bowties and some basic toiletries.” “Yeah, well, that’s all we really need right?” I just shook my head and tutted, “Honestly, sometimes I question how you were able to function before I moved in. And to think, some ponies claim that you are the mature one out of the two of us.” “Hey, it’s like a balance right? I help you out with your crippling phobias and anxieties, and you force me to do a bunch of boring society stuff that nopony has cared about in a century,” she said, smiling as she talked. For my part, I tried to glare at her, but it quickly turned into a grin, “You’re right, we do have a certain way of balancing the other out. Now I think we should retire for the night as we will be departing Ponyville bright and early tomorrow morning, and I want to be well rested.” “But you are finally able to move around on your own, and I thought we could…” She trailed off as I stared at her, continuing to smile. “Wait, when you say retire for the night, you don’t just mean go to sleep do you?” She asked, heading back towards the stairs. I nodded, following after her and soon the two of us were sprinting towards my bed, where we proceeded to celebrate the eve of our vacation in style and for the first time in what felt like an eternity, I managed to sleep until five in the morning without having one of my screaming sobbing fits. Like I wrote earlier, it’s important to celebrate the small victories in Ponyville.