Stuck

by NickyD

Block Party Plans

The carriage takes an easy landing right in front of the library. I quickly hop off and head up to the pegasus guards. “Thank you very much sirs,” I say. Don’t want them to leave without me thanking them. The two guards nod in appreciation and take off back to Canterlot.

I head inside real quick. I should tell Twi what happened and show her what the princesses gave me. After that, I need to see a certain music mare. Said mare gave me a proposition the other day and I want to see if that is still on the table.

I open the library door and the first thing I see is Twilight at a table. A book is propped up by a holder. It looks like its the same spell book she used to make that enhancer. Poor mare is still not happy with what happened.

“Hey Twilight,” I say. Her ears perk up and she looks up from her book.

“Hey Nick,” she says, not very enthusiastically. “How was your meeting with the princesses?” I walk up to her and take a knee. I make sure to have direct eye contact with her.

“Everything’s fine Twi. They gave me this.” I extend my hand with the orb resting in my palm. Twilight gazes at the Dream Orb in curiosity. I can see the little stars in the orb twinkle in her eyes.

“What is it?”

“Princess Luna said it’s a Dream Orb. It’ll allow me to talk to my family and friends back home. I have to hold this when I’m asleep, and then I’ll talk to them in their dreams.” Twilight just dawes in amazement.

“That’s amazing,” she whispers.

“We also talked about… well… you know.” Twilight shifts her eyes from the orb to the floor. “They knew Twilight. They wanted you to learn and they aren’t angry at you. I guess the princesses just wanted to teach you that everyone makes mistakes.” Her head is lowered a little and her ears fall flat. I really feel bad for her.

I put the orb on the table or moment and I wrap my arms around Twilight to hug her tightly. “You need to stop beating yourself up over this Twi. Like what I said the yesterday, I don’t hate you and I’m not mad either. You learned, we can move on.” I keep my arms around her for a while. A few moments later, she wraps her forelegs around me in, almost, a vice grip. She nuzzles her muzzle into my shoulder too. Guess she’s thankful for what I’m trying to tell her.

“I needed to hear that Nick. It’s going to take some time to get out of this.... phase, I guess you could call it, but I do feel a lot better. Thank you.”

“No problem Twi. You’re my home girl, I want to look out for you.” Speaking of home girls… “Hey Twi, I have a little errand I need to run. Can you keep your eye on the orb?” She nods, smiling. There’s the Twilight I know and love. “Alrighty, I’ll be back later.” I let go of the unicorn and get up. I make my way outside. To save time, I decide to jog to to my destination,

I pass by many ponies and I hear them whisper comments like: “What’s Nick still doing here?” “Isn’t he supposed to be back on his home planet?” “Did something happen?” Stuff of that nature. I’ll talk to ‘em later and explain, if I have time.

I make it to my destination and knock on the door very quickly. I move my hand from the door for a few seconds, then knock again. Almost immediately after my second set of knocks, Octavia opens up. Looking at me, she seems very surprised. Then again, so does everyone else in Ponyville.

“Nick?!” She exclaims.

“Surprised?” I ask.

“I thought you were-”

“I know. Let’s just say there have been compilations. Don’t really feel like talking about it much.”

“Umm... alright… so what brings you here?” She doesn't want to press and is straight to the point. I appreciate that.

“I want to talk to Vinyl. She offered me something the other day and I want to see if it’s still on the table. Is she here?”

“Just a second.” Octavia turns her head inside. “Vinyl, the doors for you!”

“Be there in a sec!” I hear the disk jockey's voice call from somewhere else in the house.

“She’s in the kitchen right now. She’ll be-”

“Octavia, I am a genius!” Vinyl turns a corner to face the door frame. She has something caught in her magic telekinesis. It kind of looks like a burger. “I have constructed the ultimate breakfast hay burger. Hay topped with cheese, eggs an-” She cuts herself off when she takes notice of me. “Nick?”

“Howdy.”

“Dude!” Vinyl exclaims, somewhat enthusiastic. “What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be-”

“Like what I told Octavia, there have been some complications. So I’m here for a while.” Longer than a while really. “I came here ‘cause I wanted to ask you something.”

“Uh, sure! What do you need to know?”

“Do you remember what you offered me when we first met?” Vinyl puts her hoof to her chin, trying to remember what she asked me. Then her face lights up when she remembers.

“Yeah! I remember asking you about the block party on Tuesday and if you were interested in doing something with me.”

“Can we still do that?” Vinyl's eyes go wide and drops her “breakfast burger” out of surprise and gladness.

“Really!” She responds to my inquiry first, then she looks down at the ground to see her breakfast burger is in ruins, splattered on the floor. “Dang it… was looking forward to eating that.” She looks so disappointed. But her face lights back up. “Eh, I can just make another one later.”

“You’re the one cleaning it up,” Octavia says. Vinyl swats a dismissive hoof and brings her attention back to me. That was a quick recovery.

“So, you wanna do something for the block party?”

“Yeah!”

“Alright, how about we finish breakfast and then we can talk.”

---

“So we have to establish what we’re doing. I doubt you know anything from our planet.”

“And I’d be more comfortable doing stuff from my planet.” Vinyl rubs her chin with her hoof. Looks like she’s thinking.

“Can I see that music box thing? What you brought the other day?” She wants to see my cell phone? I wonder where she’s going with this. A little reluctantly, I pull out my cell phone and unlock it. My phone opens to my music app.

I hold it out and she takes hold of it in her magical aura. She inspects it for a few moments, looking at if from different angles, and then nods. She may have an idea. I hope she knows what she’s doing.

Vinyl goes over to one of her wub machines and stands behind it. Vinyl places a record in the player and makes some adjustments on the equipment. She closes her eyes and her horn starts to glow. It starts off as a soft light, but then it gets brighter, and brighter. It’s at the point where light blinding. The record and my phone are starting to flash bright lights too. I shield my eyes and I hear a soft pop. I move my hands and see a satisfied smile on Vinyl's muzzle.

“What just happened?” I ask. Vinyl reduces her smile to a smirk and doesn’t tell me anything. All she does is move a needle to to record and her wubs start playing music.... My music!

“Oh my god!” I exclaim. “How’d you do that?”

“Magic.” oh...duh. But anyway, this is real cool! She put my music on that record. “It’s a converting spell. All I had to do is copy the music from your uh… whatchamacallit and put them on a blank record with tons of space on it.”

“Are the instrumentals on there?” She expands her smirk a little and moves the needle away from the current track it's on and moves it to a different one.

A-freaking-mazing! She was able to convert all the music on my iPhone and put it on a vinyl record. It’s like burning music to a CD from a computer. Man, magic is cool!

She lifts the needle from the record and the music stops. “Vinyl, I have to say, that is pretty dope.”

“Well it is me who did it, so it has to be,” she says rubbing the edge of her hoof on her chest. I roll my eyes at her. She’s sounding like Rainbow Dash. “So, any ideas on what you want to do?”

“I think I have a couple songs in mind.”

---

As Vinyl and Nick rehearse, Octavia is sitting by the kitchen table, reading the local newspaper, not paying any mind to the two. Nothing too interesting in the news. One article about the new movie at the cinema, another one about how Celestia needs to lose weight, the cartoons parodying politics. The usual.

“Eh, nothing too interesting,” she says aloud. She closes the paper and places it back on the table, in case Vinyl wants to read it later.

She leans back in her chair and idly stares at the ceiling. She’s getting awfully bored. There isn’t anything to do, but she would like to do something. That is until her ears perk up. Leaning into the sound, she can hear Vinyl and Nick’s rehearsing. Though it sounds too… energetic, for her taste, Octavia’s curiosity rises after each passing beat.

She gets out of her chair and trots to the source of the sound, that being the living room where Vinyl’s equipment is.

She peeks around the corner and tries to hold a slight giggle. She sees her human friend using a spare mane brush to substitute for a microphone.

As she continues to listen in, she takes note of every detail of their performance. The beat is catchy, no doubt about that. But the words Nick are saying seem to be ridiculous. He’s talking about “losing yourself”, a rabbit, and then it somehow goes to how all types of girls should go to the dance floor.

“What even is this?” Octavia asks over the music.

---

SCRATCH

Vinyl and I stop mid song and see Octavia by the living room entrance, looking at us as if we had twelve heads. An eyebrow of hers is raised and a look of confusion is plastered on her face. Vinyl and I share a glance, then back to Octavia, back to us, and then back to Octavia. I’m not gonna lie, me holding this hairbrush like a mic is a little embarrassing. It’s almost like having a solo dance party in your room and your brother catches you mid act when all they wanted was to borrow something.

“We’re just going over some potential material,” Vinyl says. Then she folds her forelegs almost disapprovingly. “Nick was killin’ it and you threw off his grove. The heck Octy?”

“Know what, yeah,” I join in. Might as well try to save face from looking like a fool with that brush. I fold my arms and say, “The heck Octy?” almost imitating Vinyl. Octavia’s mouth gapes open in shock, like she is offended. I glance to my side and see Vinyl snicker and grin.

“Well I never!” The gray mare turns around, nose high and stops off to somewhere else in the house. When she’s out of earshot, I can’t help but let out a few laughs, same goes for Vinyl.

“Hopefully she isn’t angry with us.”

“Nah, she’ll be okay. She knows we’re just messing with her.”

“Alright… let’s see if we can get some other ideas together for the block party.”

---

2:08 P.M.

“Think we really got a lot of material covered today,” I say, walking up to the front door.

“Tomorrow, we should narrow down what you’re gonna do for the block party bro,” says Vinyl. I’ve been here for a few hours now. We’ve been going through all of my instrumentals, going over songs I may want to perform at the party.

Octavia, who got over what transpired earlier, generously made lunch for us. She even was our practice audience. Though she was cringing at some of the music, I can tell she enjoyed the energy and passion I put into my performance.

“Sounds good,” I say to the disk jockey. “What time?”

“Will one be okay?” I nod my head to answer. “Great! I’ll see you then.”

“Alright! I’ll see you then.” I lay my hand on the doorknob, but before I turn it, I turn my head around and give Vinyl one more smile, which she returns. It’s starting to become a habit to smile at the ponies after I leave. It’s kind of like a thank you smile or a gratitude smile. Anyway, I leave her home and head back to the library.

I want to try to get to bed early tonight. I want to give the Dream Orb a test run. The question is, who should I talk to first?

Comments

[DrD1msum]

During the part where Vinyl is downloading Nick's music onto the wubs, there was an ice cream truck going down the street playing it's tunes. I can imagine Nick's tunes are an ice cream truck tunes. LOL