//------------------------------//
// A Story To Tell 
// Story: The Tunes Are A-Changin' 
// by ShadeJak 
//------------------------------//

	Where to begin this… how does one even explain such… I don’t know how to describe it… phenomena? Insanity? No. There’s only one word I can think of…

Chaos. How else does one describe suddenly turning into fictional talking equines from a fictional cartoon series that aired several years ago?

Yes, chaos. That is the word that may well best suit this from what Vic and I have gone through over the last few days, and it only grew even more maddening the more we learned why it all happened. It sounds like utter rubbish when one tries to explain it but I will do the best I can under these circumstances. I had a lot of dreams, and I can say being a small, talking gray horse with a penchant for music was not one of them.

Where are my manners? I was brought up to know better then this.

My name is Olivia Ravensdale. Olivia for short, or as my boyfriend whom I’ll get to later always liked to call me, Livvy. I was as what you’d call one of the ‘haves’ of the world for much of my life. I grew up in a family that had what many call ‘old money’ tracing back to British roots, with my parents having been the first in our line to move overseas into the New England area. I was, of course, raised to be a proper and sophisticated young lady. You know, the kind that my parents could easily sell off to the first heir from one of the rich families they knew as soon as they decided I was presentable enough to take to one of those parties the upper class had to pretend to find fun at but any rational mind would find insufferably boring; another thing I will get back to shortly.

To say things did not go as they’d have liked would be an understatement. I was at the top of my class in academics, and did not have to work while I was in high school thanks to my parents’ money, so neither of those were an issue; rather it was because I had something they did not approve of: my own interests. I suppose there were some who thought me the rebellious princess of sorts, but to me it was more a feeling of discontentment from that I always felt more like a wind-up doll or marionette then a person, really. My parents had me planned out from the beginning, and if I wanted any help or support from them I had to do exactly as they said, when they said, with no arguments. I didn’t want to do any of that. Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve always loved classical music. It soothed me and helped me forget the stress that only seemed to grow as I did. By the time I was in high school; a private institute of course, I had found myself wanting to create classical music of my own.

String instruments in particular had taken my attention; namely the cello. My parents would have none of it, of course. They said that was not what I was meant for. Mum was a philanthropist, nothing more. I’d be the same, but that felt like spending one’s life just standing around and looking pretty, and I know if I did that I’d explode with so much going on inside my head. I remember when I pleaded them to let me learn…

~	

“Olivia, dear, it’s nothing but a waste of time and money! Musicians of that nature are a dying breed, it’s us who keep them alive now through supporting them. We don’t become them!” my mum would say.

“I don’t care! I can’t at least have a hobby?” I asked. “It wouldn’t even be that expensive to you! I love classical music and I want to make some of my own one day! You think I’m going to take another day having to stand outside the music classes while they practice, wishing I could be there learning and practicing like they are?”

“This conversation’s over, Olivia,” my father said firmly. “If you want to learn so badly, you’ll have to earn it your own way, you’ll get no support from us on frivolous spending!”

~

Frivolous spending? I had thought. Says the two people who buy things solely meant to be shown off… I knew he was being sarcastic, I knew he was expecting that would put an end to what they both thought as silly childhood dreams that had no place in the real world anymore. How wrong they both were.

The very next day after school, I’d not arrived at the entrance to be picked up from classes, and instead had marched right over to a decent-enough quality diner not far down the street that had a help wanted sign and applied. Needless to say, the manager probably had not expected one such as myself to be applying for a job when I had a family that had been independently wealthy for some time. I explained my situation, and how it had given me all the motivation to work hard to get some level of control on my life, as I had a feeling my college choices were going to be a far worse fight with my parents. I’m not sure if my story or how determined I presented myself to be came across… or maybe just that my family’s efforts and money ensured I’d be attractive enough to be given to any would-be suitor made me appropriately good-looking enough for that sort of work environment was what did it, but I had a job immediately after.

Needless to say, my parents were displeased, and had half a mind to go right down there and demand they fire me, but decided I’d have quitted on my own once I experienced such a ‘menial labor’ form of work. They were, again, proven wrong. I worked whenever I could, after school, on weekends, always offering to stay extra and cover for others when it was need; vowing all the while I’d save up and make my dreams come true, and if need be, I’d make sure I could follow them after high school if my parents weren’t going to support me.

When I could finally afford it, I studied as hard as I could, knowing my parents would never pay for lessons. I suppose now I have an explanation for why, but back then I was surprised at how quickly I caught on to it after trial and error. It was as though I was a natural at this sort of thing! Needless to say, it was not long before I’d take my study hall sessions in school to practice, and come senior year I had caught the ear of the school orchestra teacher, who invited me in; and it was then I felt a step closer to realizing my dream.

My parents did not attend my concert that came at the end of the year, with graduation not too far off. The most they’d done was send our chauffeur to take me home when it was over. The concert, mind you. The drama was only just beginning…

“We’ve played along with this long enough, Olivia. It’s time to put an end to it and remember what you’re meant for in this family,” my father said.

“If you’d been there, you might have seen how wonderfully I did, father!” I protested. “I got enough flowers to make a bloody garden with! They loved my solo!”

“Every musician has their peak, and it ends soon after, dear,” my mother said. “We will not support this, it’s a waste of time and it would distract you from any obligations you’ll have once you’ve gotten married.”

“Well I’ve done quite well without your support, haven’t I?” I asked. “I’m well aware I have gotten scholarships to any college I wish, I’ve worked a job that bought me this cello. How can those things mean nothing to you?”

“Watch your cheek, young lady,” my father said firmly. “You will go to the party next Saturday, and meet the Standford’s son, and be attending Harvard with him once an engagement has been made.”

“Oh yes, be the little wind-up doll you bought eighteen years ago! Can’t disappoint mum and dad by actually having my own interests!” I said. On a normal day, I’d never be so uncivil with my parents, but by now I was far too angry to keep my mouth shut.

One second later, I was nursing the stinging mark on my cheek as my father glared at me.

“If that’s how you wish to be, then so be it! Follow this path to ruin instead of letting your mum and dad make sure you live a life of privilege and wealth! Do what you wish but don’t expect even a cent from either of us!” my father said, leaving my room immediately after, followed by my mum, who just looked at me with disappointment.

I’d kept true to my word, and did not attend the party. Rather, I spent the night looking at colleges that had a decent program in entertainment, namely music. Finding one, I knew I’d have to work hard to save money as I knew I’d have to move there, no chance would my parents have me here let alone let me be driven to and from such distance for a cause they did not believe in. No doubt once again, they expected me to fail, to come crying back and live under their law again.

Again, I proved them wrong. After graduation, my manager at my job had known a restaurant near the college and got a word in for me so I could work right near the campus, allowing me to afford to be able to stay at a campus apartment. That was where I met Vic…

I suspect one of his friends… Cale, was it? I can’t remember, but Vic had said the guy was like a real-life Hitch from that Will Smith movie he’d shown me some time later. He’d taught him what to say, how to present himself, and he’d disregarded all of it but it still gave him the confidence to approach me when I had been dragged by some friends I’d made to a bar just off campus as a sort of 'birthday surprise' so to speak… something I also suspect this Cale fellow had a hand in as I swear they waved to him when they’d spotted him alongside Vic the first time I saw him…

“Okay, I know this sounds way cliché but what’s a pretty girl like you doing in a place like this?” he asks me when he comes over. To say the two of us are as different as night and day in appearance would be putting it mildly. I still had on my white blouse, black skirt and pumps since I'd literally been ambushed by my friends the moment I stepped out of orchestra practice while Vic was wearing faded jeans, a white tanktop and an open silvery-white button-down shirt with some odd lightning-looking patterns on the sides and back, his spiky brown hair pushed back by the pair of sunglasses on his forehead, giving him the look of someone who might have belonged at a rock and roll concert or perhaps… well… this place, I suppose. “Sorry, just… you don't exactly look like someone I'd see drop in on this place, let alone a fan of its music!”

He wasn’t wrong. The loud, pulsing music that was so popular with most people my age these days blared all around me, practically assaulting my ears and reminding me of why I’d had such reluctance even coming here. I’d say for want of better words I was kidnapped to this place, and laid into whatever trap this Cale fellow had set. I guess my friends all felt they owed him one for getting them dates for the last dance the college had. It was evident this was the sort of place Vic was prone to going to, as he seemed otherwise right at home. I guess his friend had thought it out to help him feel more comfortable approaching me.

“Yes, yes it is odd to find one such as myself here, perhaps,” I said. He promptly smiled widely. “My friends were… most insistent I be here.”

“Wow… pretty and cultured. I love the accent, by the way,” he said. Normally I’d feel offended, or suspect it was an attempt to impress me, but as blunt as he was he seemed quite sincere about it, so I let it slide.

"My British dialect goes back several generations, I'll have you know; so it never seemed that big of a matter to me. And you are…?” I asked.

“Oh, right! Name’s Vic Spencer. Call me Vic though,” he said. “So, I gave my name, can you tell me yours?"

"Olivia," I replied. "Olivia Ravensdale."

I expected him to freak out, or maybe be shocked that I was the daughter of such a wealthy family most knew of. But he showed no sign of it. Either he didn't know or maybe, just maybe, he didn't care. It made me curious enough to continue conversation with him. "So..." he began. "What do you think? This music’s pretty happening, huh?”

“It’s absolutely, positively ghastly,” I said. "It just sounds like random noises done to random beats I don't see how anyone can dance to it." Strangely, he just laughed in response.

“I guess I can’t always get upvotes, can I?” he asked, rubbing his chin thoughtfully and smirking. “I actually mixed the track they’re playing here! Normally I’m deejaying, but it’s my night off.”

“Mixed? Deejaying?” I asked.

“I’ll get you a drink, your choice, and I’ll tell you about it, but you gotta tell me about yourself, too,” he said. Well, isn’t he ever the bold one? I ended up thinking. A few tables away, I noticed the guy Vic was talking with earlier, enjoying a drink and watching us; likely for evaluation.

I sighed and chose a sweet margarita. Nothing on the wine list was something my parents would have touched, and the proper lady in me had made me choosy.

As the night wore on I learned Vic was… eccentric, to say the least; eccentric and crude in speech. Yet he was always well-meaning.  He still is, but with the changes he went through he’s been understandably less upbeat then before… He apparently worked as a disc jockey for the place we’d met. He’d noticed me at one of the concerts I was in, apparently one Cale had brought him to after losing a bet and while normally he hated “that sleeping aid music”, he considered mine an exception, “beautiful music by a beautiful girl” and wanted to learn more about me. When I told him my story, it seemed to make us connect even more. He had grown up in a middle-class family, having to work for a lot of what he had, including getting into college. He, however, also had a talent for music… if one could call that screeching, stuttering, ear-bleeding noise that people my age seemed to like these days a form of music. I didn’t understand this techno or dubstep rubbish but it seemed to matter to him and got him to where he was now. In a way, we’d both decided we wanted to be more then what life had in mind for us, and Vic’s carefree, rebellious personality intrigued me, and my willingness to choose my own life had only made him like me even more. I guess opposites can attract after all… and it was, I admit, rather surprising to learn we both had the same birthday! Now, however, Vic and I have come to learn that our meeting and falling for eachother against all odds and logic was no coincidence. As absurd as it sounds, it literally was fate. Fate caused by a mad god from a faraway world that we had until now not realized we were also from…

~

I sighed as I looked at the computer screen. It was hard to type with these hooves but a memoir seemed like a good idea at the time. I had seen it on the news that others had been disappearing and there were claims on the internet of a similar affliction, or at least that was the most likely theory to connect so many disappearances around the same few days.

I looked over at the sleeping white unicorn laying next to me. Her ear twitched, and her legs began kicking lightly before she opened her large, magenta eyes and brushed back her wild blue mane with her hoof.

“Oh, Vinyl, you’re awake now?” I asked.

“Yeah… geez, it’s STILL not a dream?” she asked, feeling around her hind legs for what had been lost a few days ago. “I can’t believe this! It’s been days and we still look like this!” she protested, looking at her forehoof in annoyance. “I should have been a big-time deejay now, not a small talking girl horse!”

I facepalmed… or is it facehoofed now? It didn’t matter. “Vinyl—I mean Vic, if I knew a way to reverse this I’d have done it. You expect me, the one who didn’t get a magic horn, to have a way to do so?”

The unicorn let out an angry snort, her blue tail flicking back and forth. “I know it’s not your fault… it’s that damn Discord guy’s! I swear I’m gonna kick his ass so hard for this he’ll never be able to sit, shit, or shake it ever again!”

I put my forelegs around her and held her tight. She was tense for a second, but slowly melted into my embrace and, seconds later, returned it. What had happened to us had literally cost us everything we had in our lives, and worse yet we had no idea what to do next.

“Wow, you really know how to cool me down, baby!” she said with a small smile, a blush on her cheeks as I rolled my eyes. “Still, it’s been a crazy couple of days, hasn’t it?” the mare asked, bringing up her forehoof and brushing back my mane.

Oh, have they ever… I thought to myself. My boyfriend wasn't the only one dealing with some rather... unsettling changes. We both remembered the days that lead to this point far better then we’d have wished to…