I can’t do this.
It’s the first thought that crosses Vinyl’s mind as she stared down her reflection in the mirror. Roseluck had gotten rid of all the mirrors in the house months ago, after Vinyl began to stop eating after she felt her appearance wasn’t good enough. Still, Vinyl had managed to find one that Roseluck must have missed- a small hoof-mirror discarded in the far corner of their own shared closet.
Was this always what Vinyl looked like?
The mare had dark bags under her magenta eyes and was a bit thinner than most mares… She remembered her bright blue mane as one of her best features, but as she looked at it now it grossed her out. Her mane was way too long— down to her shoulders. It was not groomed (as usual). The worst part, in her opinion, was that her mane colors looked duller.
When she was younger, she could always just fake her emotions. She could pretend to be ecstatic and happy and funny and everypony would fall for it. She had a well-placed mask that allowed her to pretend to be a better pony. It was probably the closest she could get to… feeling normal. She guessed at some point the mask broke, because she didn’t remember her appearance reflecting how she felt inwardly at all.
She shook her head, breaking her thoughts. What she needed to focus on right now… was that she had to meet up with Fluttershy. The idea had excited her so much yesterday. She had walked home after leaving Fluttershy at her cottage with her mind swimming with possibilities and she had actually felt pretty positive. That was gone.
All that filled her mind was doubts and past memories. She wanted none of those, yet they followed her anyway. She was making up stupid metaphors about masks and mirrors when she should be getting ready. She gave another sigh, even though she knew no one would hear her. Maybe she could cancel. What would her excuse be? Vinyl covered the mirror with her hoof in thought. Maybe ‘I’m sick’ would work? It was sort of true. She was sick, in a way.
No, no. She told herself inwardly. If I’m going to cancel, I should at least make a good excuse.
She cleared her throat, uncovering the mirror. “Hey Fluttershy!” She said a little too cheerfully, giving her best attempt at a smile. “I actually don’t want to go through with this because I look like a total mess and have absolutely no idea how to function like a normal pony, I’ll totally be awkward and wishing I was home the entire time, and make you hate me!” Her smile faded instantly.
Fuck.
She wished she hadn’t said that. Had she not acknowledged the feelings maybe she could have smothered them down and ignored them, but she now had basically flung the door wide open. She felt almost like she was being drowned in a flood of negative thoughts and without a chance for her to recover, tears began to fall onto the mirror below. I’m such a mess. Vinyl threw the mirror on the ground angrily. It clattered in protest, maybe it even broke. That’d be just fantastic. Part of herself was yelling that she needed to stop being such a defeatist. Vinyl wanted to listen to that part of herself, she really did.
She slumped against the wall, sniffling and rubbing her eyes with her hooves. “Who am I kidding?” She cried in despair, “What the hell is the point?” Stop crying, stop crying. She scolded herself, but she couldn’t help it. She couldn’t feel like she could stop. It was beyond her control- beyond her grasp. It made her even more frustrated. Why couldn’t she control her emotions?! Why?! Why was it so hard?
This was supposed to be something fun. “You’d love it!” She could still hear Fluttershy’s voice ringing in her ears, even though it sounded far away. She wished Roseluck was here. Roseluck would tell her to stop crying, she’d be so gentle and nice about it. She’d tell her that everything would be okay. That Vinyl was brave enough to conquer anything. She wanted to relax at the thought of it, but it made her feel pathetic.
Did Vinyl… really need that reassurance? Roseluck was right. The earth pony had held Vinyl’s hoof throughout a lot of things. Was Vinyl that childish? That needy? The thought made her sick to her stomach. I should have jumped. She angrily thought, hitting herself with one of the hoofs holding her face.
“Stop crying, you fuck up!” She snapped, rising. She stomped towards the mirror and picked it up. Like she had suspected, there was a large crack in it. Her cheeks were tearstained, her nose looked like a reindeer’s, her eyes were red and puffy. Now she looked twenty times worse than she originally did. Fantastic. She took a deep breath, closing her eyes to try and calm herself down.
Even though every part of her wanted to stay home, she decided to go meet up with Fluttershy. As punishment for being such a cryfilly. Maybe with her appearance, Fluttershy would instantly be horrified and put off and they would never hang out again and that’s exactly what Vinyl deserved. She caught herself smiling at the thought, shaking her head at herself in disappointment. Why did that thought please her so much? Wasn’t Vinyl the one who constantly wanted attention and company?
She could never understand why she wanted to push everypony away.
One of her old marefriends, a pony by the name of Lyra Heartstrings, had been obsessed with personality tests and horoscopes. On every one of those stupid tests, it always had some result like: “You crave companionship!” and “You love being at parties!”. For some reason, she found herself thinking about those stupid tests more and more…
“It says that you scored a fifty on the popularity test!” Lyra had giggled, looking at the magazine.
“So?” Vinyl had replied, yawning. She never was fond of those tests.
“That means that you’re super-duper popular! It means you should be surrounded by friends at all times.”
They were never true, of course— one of them said Lyra was a huge movie goer, when she definitely wasn’t— still… all those tests couldn’t be wrong, could they? If it had maybe been one or two that told her that… But it had been all of them.
Vinyl remembered at some part in her life, she had been the life of the party. She had always loved being the center of attention. What happened? She wondered, tying up her mane with a stray black hair tie she found. It had probably been a number of things, but nothing she really wanted to think about now.
She could hear her clock chime from the living room. She nearly jumped at the sound of it, her heart began to pound again. It was time. Fluttershy would be waiting at the bridge in a few minutes, it was time to leave. Vinyl had wanted to maybe try and fix herself up, but she had wasted all her time. “Nice.” She muttered under breath, glancing at herself again. It would have to do. She just hoped Fluttershy didn’t comment on how bad she looked.
“Now or never,” Vinyl grumbled, setting the mirror down on her dresser before leaving.