Chapter 46: What I'm Feeling Now
The cups of tea and cocoa gently clacked atop the tray Fancy was levitating as he turned down the hallway towards Vinyl’s room. His eyes wandered the photos, record albums, and magazines he’d seen a million times, but they lacked the old weight of his past failings. Instead of focusing on the wayward son standing just out of frame, there was simply his mother that was glad to see him.
The mementos surrounding him felt warmer these days. Summers’ radiant smile sent him back to happier days resting at the edge of a half-forgotten memory. There were times he could almost hear his mother’s singing again. Not the disco queen he’d heard a million times, but his mother’s little songs that she’d made up just for him. A warm blanket, a feathery wing, a tender nuzzle, all while she sang what his teen self considered the heights of emasculating embarrassment. He couldn’t help but hum along to the little ditties in his head.
Sugar Beary, Sugar Beary,
You’re quite extra-ordinary,
You’re my little guy,
There’s no need to be shy.
Fancy’s ears flicked as a pin pricked the back of his mind. “Sugar? Sugar!”
He quickly looked at his tray and lifted the lid off the sugar bowl to double check its contents. He sighed in relief seeing everything in overflowing order and recomposed himself before knocking on the bedroom door.
“It’s open,” Vinyl reported absently from the other side.
Fancy chuckled. “While that’s good to know, I’d rather have your permission.”
“Oh, Fancy! Yeah, come on in.”
As he opened the door, he was met with the equally brilliant and welcoming smile of the DJ on the guest bed, her tail swishing subtly. She was wrapped up in another enormous wooly sweater, surrounded by papers, and had a clipboard resting against her left foreleg. The only detail marring the perfectly cozy scene was the dampening ring still sitting at the base of her horn. Vinyl’s magic couldn’t return soon enough as far as he was concerned.
“Good evening, Vinyl. I’ve brought along a little treat to go with your research.” He hovered the tray to Vinyl’s nightstand while taking the chamomile tea for himself.
“Thanks.” Vinyl shimmied carefully towards the cocoa and noticed the sugar bowl. “I know I like sweets and stuff, but putting sugar in hot chocolate’s a little overkill, isn’t it?”
“Normally I’d agree, but it depends on what form it takes.”
Vinyl shot a quizzical look at him before taking a peek inside. Her smile widened with pure elation at the sight of the container packed to the brim with jumbo marshmallows. Ignoring the tongs, the sweet-toothed mare shook out enough to completely coat the top of her drink in a thick cloud of candies. After applying the avalanche of sugar, Vinyl shook out one last puffy treat into her hoof and popped it in her mouth for good measure. Seeing the pure joy on Vinyl’s face, Fancy made a mental note to thank Éclair for the recommendation.
“I gotta get well enough to start going out again soon. You and Maman are going to make me fit into my sweaters if I have to keep taking it easy,” the comfy mare half-complained as she took a delighted sip of hot chocolate.
“And it’s my turn to help with that.”
“Helping me get better or fattening me up?”
Fancy smirked. “Whichever you’d prefer. Either way, I’m here to ensure you’re taking it easy with your research before bed.”
“Don’t worry, I am,” Vinyl assured as she looked back over her clipboard alongside her new cocoa companion.
“Your small sea of papers tells me otherwise.”
“Relax. It’s not even from the collection. This is for the Crystal Summit.”
Fancy blinked. “The Summit? You’re still attending?”
“If I’m good for it, yeah. You said Princess Luna wanted some more electro swing, but there’s no way I can do what I did at the Showcases if I’m still not at a hundred percent. So, I figured I could try my hoof at composing an easier original than remixing Suede’s stuff all the time.”
Taking one of the pages from the bed at random, Fancy looked over the scrawled sheet music, unable to make heads or tails of it. The only thing he knew for sure was more notes meant more complexity, and the page was littered with them. His lips drew thin with concern as he eyed their composer curiously.
“Trust me, it’s a lot easier than it looks. The only problem is making it sound right.”
“I suppose that would be the struggle all musicians face when plying their craft.”
“It’s not that. What’s there sounds good, but it doesn’t have…” Vinyl paused and took a sip of hot chocolate while lapping a couple marshmallows to buy time to think. “It’s just not the sound I want. There’s too much electro and not enough swing. But when I try to make it more swing-y, it plays like I’m copying Suede’s homework.”
Fancy rubbed his chin as he mulled over the problem. “And so you want it to be more Scratch-y than Suede-y?”
Vinyl nodded and glared at her stubborn clipboard, silently pressuring it to become better. The stubborn page didn’t seem to be phased in the slightest by the DJ’s intimidation tactics. A few more moments of staring, the struggling musician blinked first and sighed in defeat. “Knowing music theory is one thing, but actually applying it? It’s going to take forever to make it sound like me, and I don’t have forever.”
“Why don’t you play some other music then? I know the princesses enjoyed your electro swing performance, but the summit is only two weeks away. An original composition in that span of time is quite a tall order.”
Vinyl patted her hooves on the bed. “Well, you like it better than my other stuff too.”
“You don’t need to trouble yourself with making something before the summit. I’d rather you play whatever best fits you.”
“What fits best for me is what the audience wants to hear. That’s electro swing. I just gotta figure out how to write it without sounding like a knockoff.”
Fancy hummed to himself. “It is a rather unique sound already. Are you sure it’s not just in your head?”
Vinyl shot a quick heated glare out of the corner of her eye, suppressing her frustration with a quiet breath. “Yes. I’ve been listening to Suede and Summers for months now. I think I know when I’m ripping them off.”
“Of course, but don’t pressure yourself needlessly. We are all just amalgamations of our influences,” Fancy assured. “I’m certain most of my diplomatic sensibilities amount to borrowed observations from Princess Celestia.”
“Right. Like how ‘Wonderful Moonlight’ borrowed from ‘Good Morning My Sunshine.’”
“Ah yes, that song about the mare with the pink mane.” He hadn’t believed his ears when hearing the recording for himself. Vinyl always said how important Sunny was in his mother’s life, but he’d never imagined it was to such an extent. “Did you find anything else regarding the song?”
Vinyl set the clipboard down as her ears folded back. “No. The diaries packed away with it didn’t mention anything about the song.” The mare turned to Fancy curiously. “And you’re sure you’ve never heard anything about a pony Summers wrote something like that about?”
Fancy shook his head. “Unfortunately, no. Or mercifully. I haven’t decided which yet. I was quite young at the time of those recordings. Dapper was kept in the dark as well, though such affairs are usually clandestine.”
“Hey! Don’t jump to conclusions,” Vinyl defended. “We don’t know what Summers was thinking when writing it.”
“Or what Suede was thinking when he rewrote it?” Fancy countered.
Any rebuttal Vinyl had died on her lips as she sank into her hooves. “I don’t know, but I don’t think we should read the worst into it.”
“Her version of the song never saw the light of day, so perhaps it was simply a secret she kept close to her heart. That being said, I highly doubt there’s much room for a different interpretation, given the context.”
“And I bet there was more on her earrings, but they’re long gone now.” Vinyl leaned forward into the mattress and muffled a loud, exasperated groan.
“No use dwelling on what’s lost, Vinyl. Best to focus on the road ahead,” Fancy said more for himself than Vinyl.
Once she’d worked it out of her system, she sat back and leaned her head against her hoof. “I wonder how many answers were overwritten so she could remind herself to pick up a prescription.”
“She always claimed those pills were for high blood pressure. ‘Just need a little help keeping the old record spinning.’”
Vinyl smirked and added, “‘Sugar Bear’?”
Fancy chuckled. “To finish the quote, yes.” His face fell as his mind drifted further into the far reaches of his past. “To think she was keeping the truth from me.”
“She probably didn’t want you to worry about it. From what I’ve read, she never told anypony about it unless she was caught.”
“I did catch her, but I never put it together. One of my earliest memories is of her snatching me up into a deep hug somewhere, but I don’t know where. Maybe a store?” Fancy shook his head as he wrestled with the image ingrained in his mind. “All I see are some lights above us as she whispers ‘I know you’ over and over into my ear. I was scared, but only because she was…” Fancy trailed as memory was replaced by his younger self spewing his vitriol into her confused face.
After a moment, Vinyl leaned closer. “Fancy? Are you okay?”
“I caught her so many times, Vinyl, but I thought that’s just how she was. At some point I became annoyed with it and stopped helping. I called her a simpleton, a featherhead, every blasted name my pigheaded brain could come up with rather than simply helping my mother.”
A small, tender touch silenced his thoughts. His eyes were drawn to the caring touch of a hoof. He slowly followed Vinyl’s face with her shimmering magenta gaze. They burned with a shared understanding of unspoken regrets he wished she couldn’t fathom. He felt an urge to grab the hoof in his. To connect to somepony else that wrestled with similar thoughts. He could almost feel himself getting lost within her radiance.
“Thank you, Vinyl.” The stallion retreated from the bedside, putting his mind anywhere besides those expressive orbs of hers. “But I’m here to help you, not upset you.”
“R-right. Sorry.”
“There’s no need to apologize, Vinyl.” He cursed himself silently under his breath. His slip-ups were becoming more frequent as he was getting closer than he should be comfortable with. The mare’s gaze was so intense, he could feel his heart rattle anytime Vinyl offered him a modicum of warmth. And the worst part was that he was starting to indulge in it.
Fancy had to focus. He was a fateweaver. Her fateweaver. His duty was merely providing her this space to find herself again. There was a glorious destiny waiting for the talented DJ to find her stride. He might have a place in it, but his duty was tending the fertile soil and watching from the ground as she bloomed skyward into who she was always meant to be. He used to be able to see it clearly, but each path seemed to collapse one by one as time marched on.
It contradicted everything he knew. Fancy had gotten to know her far more than he’d ever expected to, and he was learning more about the mare each day. But, where more information would give him insight for anything else before, now the way forward became more obscured with each passing day. Door after door slammed in his face, just as they had when Luna first found him in the dreamscape trying to reconcile with that vision of Vinyl.
“Curious. Perhaps your fate has become too entwined with hers to see clearly?” Luna suggested.
Fancy pretended to clear his throat as he pounded his chest with a punch of his hoof. He’d seen his fate many years ago. His optimal outcome. The vision had been clearer than any fate he’d ever woven for anypony else. Two beautiful foals in a rustic house on a hill, surrounded by grapes and pastries, that he and his wife maintained with love. It was a wonderful and ruinous future that he longed to realize that slipped further out of his reach with every passing year. Vinyl had nothing to do with it. Fancy refused to let the echo of a whim drag down a mare with so much more potential than he had.
“Are you alright, Fancy?” Vinyl asked in concern.
“Yes, my—Miss Scratch,” he quickly amended, wincing at his irksome mouth spilling over. “Give me a moment, if you would.”
Instead of listening to that withering thought in the back of his mind, he redirected his energy into the present. Right now, Vinyl was looking at him in deep concern—No! No, that was the wrong observation! Utterly wrong! He almost slapped himself to refocus his insolent thoughts.
Before his interruption, the mare was struggling to come up with her music for the summit. It was a matter of reinventing the wheel as it were, and likely many an artist, had struggled similarly with when they were contemplating their muses. Suede was taught swing along with the many styles he’d pursued in his life. Mother on the other hoof said many times that her voice was only as good as what Fath—Suede had helped her find. Vinyl had backed that claim up with proof in the record collection.
In fact, the song he had heard, a predecessor of sorts to that blasted song “Wonderful Moonlight,” sounded far more like a Suede composition than anything that his mother had arrived to on her own. Perhaps Summers herself had developed her own style of swing before her song had ended.
With a hardened heart, he turned to Fleur’s sister and smiled diplomatically. “A thought just occurred to me. Have you ever considered listening to the record collection in reverse order?”
“No? Why would I do that? I’m trying to archive the collection chronologically, not mess up the order like the corner over there.”
“For your own musical edification, of course.” Fancy lifted the discarded score sheet in his magic and turned it to Éclair’s daughter. “This ‘Good Morning My Sunshine’ song didn’t just come from nowhere. Suede had some influence on it. Whether it was from teaching her or composing the music himself, he shared his knowledge with her at one point. Perhaps those lessons lie within those old records?”
Vinyl’s eyes sparkled at the idea briefly, but the light dimmed as a frown crossed her face. “Yeah, but when? All we have is an earring. There are no dates to match up with the records.”
“Maybe not written down, but there was a troublesome foal there who could help,” Fancy remarked knowingly as he laid a hoof over his heart and bowed. “Sugar Bear is at your service.”
Vinyl carefully walked with her delicious drink in tow as she followed Fancy to the record collection. Earth ponies made three-legged walking look so easy. Meanwhile, she was struggling to keep her cocoa from spilling a single precious drop. She lapped up another marshmallow to save it from a potentially swift death upon the floor. After all, setting the drink down and picking it up off the ground would take far longer than five seconds without magic.
You’re not above lapping one up off the ground though. Eat another one before you drop it!
Vinyl groaned quietly to herself. In her mad scramble to read every scrap of paper Summers had put a quill to, she’d almost forgotten she was slowly losing her mind. Now that she wasn’t filling every waking moment with somepony else’s words, she was starting to hear her own desires again. Vinyl already knew what she wanted to do. If she hadn’t promised to take it easy, she’d still be nose-deep in Summers’ diaries searching for clues with reckless abandon. It felt good to be satisfying such urges, but a nagging dread loomed behind her thoughts. At any moment, if Vinyl wasn’t careful, she would come back.
“Vinyl?”
The DJ snapped to attention at her name, going completely still mid-chew of her marshmallow. Fancy chuckled to himself seeing the reaction and audibly shimmered his magic near Vinyl’s mug. Giving her hot chocolate one last sip goodbye, she gently released, allowing his golden aura to take over as he placed it and his teacup on the nearby table.
Stop getting distracted, Desire complained.
“And who’s fault is that?” Vinyl shot back under her breath, only to remind herself that it was herself she was angry at. Either she’d scramble her thoughts in a sleepless dive into information or her brain would scramble itself for her.
“Now, let’s see if my hunch is correct.” Fancy opened the door and stepped through while holding it long enough for her to catch. Vinyl wasn’t sure if he remembered from the Labyrinthiyum or if he was more concerned with what he wanted to show her, but she appreciated him not holding the door open for her all the same.
Vinyl caught up to him as Fancy ran a hoof along the white boxes of the more recent recordings. While still made of cardboard, they opened like trunks, with flat bottoms and backs with faces that rounded outward towards the center aisle.
“Have you tried recording anything on the studio’s equipment and found that your master record was missing when you were done?” Fancy asked.
“I usually record everything to crystals and master them before committing them to vinyl. The vintage stuff can’t do that.”
“Perhaps it’s just as well you didn’t. If you had decided to use the old Frontier equipment outside, you might’ve missed the sorting enchantment.”
“Summers always did like having the top of the line stuff.”
“Oh, no. This was better than the line. It has a unique enchantment. With only a few ponies to help out at the time during their more private recording sessions, my parents invested in enchantments to help.” Fancy dipped his hoof towards the base of the box. “If it detects a record running out of space, it teleports it into the next available slot and stamps a date on the outside.” He tapped on the side, pointing to a small printed marking that read like a book stamp. “11.03.963. Or the third of the eleventh moon, year nine-sixty-three of Celestia’s Reign. This was before I was born.”
Vinyl nodded along. She sparked with excitement as she caught onto his idea. “So, if you were a foal when she was working on the song…”
“Brilliant deduction, my fair Vinyl. Let’s assume I was two or three at the time. That would make this somewhere in the realm of CR 966 or 67.”
Vinyl followed the markings on the boxes as she walked down the years. At first, they were tightly packed together with mere days passing between them. However, the dates grew further and farther between as they walked down the line. By the time they reached the late ’60s, they were nearing the very end of the collection.
“There’s not a whole lot of boxes after these.”
“No there isn’t,” Fancy remarked with a dour frown. “Summers worked on and off on her music through the years, but she likely put it aside to deal with me.”
He’s sad again.
Vinyl nudged the stallion, trying to shake a smile back onto him. “Hey! Lucky you, right? Lots of quality time with Summers.”
Surprised by the sudden jab, a curious smirk worked its way back underneath his mustache as a puff escaped his nose. “Indeed.”
A small, joyous rush filled her heart again as she appeased the nagging muse rolling around in her mind. At least it felt good to give into what she wanted. Now if she could just teach her demanding urges to stay put.
Fancy leaned into the boxes and peered through his reading glasses at the little numbers marking the records. “We have three 07.22.967 records. Assuming both sides are full, that would mean this and the one next to it are a little over two hours.”
“Why include the fourth?”
“The arrow,” Fancy explained while pointing to the crude, red marking in question. “The date would be written by hoof if they bothered writing one down. How likely would you say that this is what we’re looking for?”
“Your guess is as good as mine,” Vinyl said with a shrug.
“I must disagree. You’ve devoted the most time to this collection. Being the more seasoned archivist out of us, what does two hours usually signal in the collection?”
The praise brought a smile to Vinyl’s face. She scratched her chin as she considered the question in earnest. “If it was a continuous recording, then that’s a meeting. A jam session trying to find a new song, ironing out the sound or lyrics, or just something that they forgot to turn the recording off for.”
Fancy flipped open a box, revealing several cleanly sorted master records with enough space to slip two or three more discs into each wide sleeve. It was much easier to see and grab a record than the tightly compacted albums filed away in the older collections
“Then shall we give this a whirl?” he asked as he pulled the first of the set out.
Absolutely yes!
“Didn’t you say you were making sure I ‘take it easy’ before bed?”
Desire groaned. Oh, come on!
“I’m not saying we should listen to the whole thing right now.” He flipped it around to the back and smiled. “How about we sample the b-side for a bit to see if we’re on the right track? It would be a good bellwether if Summers was working on this reunion tour concept with Suede.”
“Alright. But only for a little bit. Maman will throw a fit if I’m not shutting this all down by nine.”
Fancy shuddered at the thought. “The last thing I’d want to do is upset her. Trust me.”
Vinyl giggled. “Okay. I will.”
A suave smile crossed the stallion’s face as he whisked the disk to his side with his magic and led Vinyl out. He stopped at the door and held it open for her to step through. At least she had her answer now. Old habits died hard, it seemed.
“You’re the one with the goods, Fancy.”
“Oh! Right. My mistake.” The gentlestallion slipped past, but spared a hind leg in kicking the door open long enough for Vinyl to catch it.
Fancy flicked the equipment on, searching and failing to find the buttons to activate the studio’s record player. Vinyl stepped past him and turned the control room’s sound system while flicking off the console Fancy had stopped in front of.
“That’s all for the live room. The control room equipment is over here.”
The stallion’s smile strained as he cleared his throat. “So it is. It would appear I’m too out of practice.”
“You actually ran the sound board before?”
“Briefly, for Suede. When he was working on the Moondance album. But I didn’t do much of anything aside from watch the green bar here.”
Vinyl tapped the clear top of the record player and then turned to her hopeless copilot and held out her hoof. “May I?”
With a nod, he passed it with his magic. She threaded the record over its towering needle, turned it on, and watched with anticipation for whatever was on the master to start playing.
“—n’t what I meant, and you know it!” Summers cried.
“I know, I know,” Suede’s velvety voice calmly assured. “Just because it didn’t play out how you expected doesn’t mean you should give up.”
“Don’t be trippin now. What’s the point if Springs’s gonna sit on it? There ain’t time enough for her to be flying out here when she’s got another gig going on.”
“But she sounded happy in the letter. She said as much herself.”
“But she gave up, Suede! She shoulda shined like the sun she was, but never had the chance cause I was all those chumps wanted! Why didn’t I tell ‘em cats to keep on steppin’?”
“You’re looking at this the wrong way, love.” There was a rustling of papers. “She accepted your apology and asked for one in return. And just look at all of these letters from her students. They were so excited to know she was your friend. She’s happy that you found her.”
“Students?” Vinyl asked in a moment of silence.
“Sounds as if this Springstep character took up a different profession after her musical career,” Fancy remarked.
The microphone picked up the sharp squeak of a chair. “It’s too late. I was too late,” Summers mourned, her voice muffled by fabric. “It was her dream, and I threw a wet towel all over it.”
“No, darling, no. She's doing just fine, just like we are,” he promised. “Furthermore, this doesn’t mean she's completely against touring for a semester. And choirs are known to travel.”
“A choir teacher,” Fancy noted over the recording while nodding in approval. “A noble calling if I’d ever heard one, wouldn’t you say Vinyl?”
Vinyl shushed the noisy stallion. “I’m trying to listen.” She reversed the record a few seconds to catch what Fancy had talked over.
“—own to travel.” Vinyl could hear a few loving hoof pats against his wife’s back. “Besides, if Springstep can’t move back to Canterlot, there’s still Autumn and Sunny out there.” There was a slight pause before a jingle of keys rang out. “We made plenty of space for them and whomever might be along for the ride.”
Summers took a deep breath before the recording went silent again. The soft smack of two pairs of lips pulling away broke the stillness along with more shifting of fur. “I love you, Suede babe. You’re so good to me.”
“I love you too, my darling Sauna Summers. Shall we try again from the top?”
The mare loosed a deep, airy breath before diving back into another kiss from the sounds of their lips. They parted once more as she moaned in thought. “I dunno. The mail call made me feel like Spring’s song ain’t steppin’ right to what I thought it needed.”
“Alright then,” the crooner replied. “What do you want to do then?”
“I just wanna be for a bit longer.”
“Of course. Just relax.” There was a rustling of mane with the occasional smooch that rang through the speakers. Their deep affection for each echoed from the past with each sensual sound.
Meanwhile in the present, Vinyl was doing everything in her power not to make eye contact with Fancy. Her face was already on fire listening to Summers and Suede sharing a private moment. While the noises and breathing on the other side was still chaste, there was no telling if it’d escalate into something else before long. Against her better judgment, she stole a quick glance out of her periphery. Fancy sat slack-jawed as he listened to his parent’s tender lovemaking. Vinyl had never felt so self-conscious about anything in her entire life.
Another creak of a chair followed by a suggestive purr was enough to send the DJ over the edge. She slammed her hoof on the fast-forward as she perked her ears for the sound of anything actually music related. As the record quietly spun, she squirmed under the urge to say something, anything, to get her mind out of the gutter Summers had shoved it in.
“You sure did take after your dad!” Vinyl blurted, her inner filly screaming for her to stop.
“P-pardon?”
She kept her gaze locked on the console, unable to bear even looking at Fancy. Instead, Vinyl said the first words that came to mind. “Words! Your words! You use words and Suede uses words. They’re both the most words!”
The sharp sounds of a record skipping ahead filled what palpable silence was there, leaving the two ponies to stew in the curdling awkwardness.
This is the end. I think I’m going to die, Desire declared flatly.
The stallion cleared his throat, but failed to muster a reply. Instead, he rolled his seat over to the desk and knocked back the rest of his tea cup like a whiskey shot.
Piano keystrokes speeding by on the disk made Vinyl release the skip button as she raised the volume on the speakers. There was no digging their way out of the bottomless pit of awkwardness they were both screaming down. The only option was to move on and pretend it never happened. As the record settled back into a proper pace, a swift melody played up and down the keys. The jazzy tune raced down a river of smooth and rocky tunes with the ebb and flow of the music.
“This ain’t the flow I meant getting caught up in, Suede,” Summers remarked.
“You can’t mean that you want all of the songs to be somber. This is a call to your old friends. Don’t you want them to be excited to see you?”
“It’s about telling them they were right, Suede! You’re not supposed to be lighting up the dance floor, cuttin’ the rug, or whatever you’re doing here when I’m trying to say I’m sorry for being blind.”
“Are you certain? Springstep appears to be doing well. Would you not want them to feel the same about you?”
“They know I’m doing good, but they don’t know how much better they made me feel. I miss them. Every day. And every day that goes by, I can’t help but feel like I coulda done more. If everypony kept saying I was the queen, why didn’t I just shout out orders like Celly?”
“You still are the Queen of Disco, Summers. Nopony can take that away from you.”
Summers laughed wistfully. “That last thing I want is for the disco to be anywhere near this. Let’s just see what we can do to put a lil’ more autumn and a lil’ less aria into your groove there, Suede. You feel me?”
The piano stopped playing. “So you’re saying that there should be fewer lyrics then?” he joked.
“Don’t be trippin on definition, Suede!” The mare growled with emotional exhaustion. “We want a-pol-o-gy, not re-vel-ry. Get it, hepcat?”
“Got it!” Suede squeaked nervously at the mare’s fire.
“Good!” Summers paused and breathed through her nose. “Good. I need something. I don’t know what that something is yet, but some—”
Fancy lifted the player’s needle off the record, bringing an early end to the show. “I believe that is more than enough for now.”
Vinyl nodded absently and vowed right then and there to never in a million years listen to a Summers and Suede recording with another pony in the room again. Her head was still burning hot, and she couldn’t even douse it in water without risking getting her stitches wet.
“Barring their more... private moments, you might find something to help you out of your creative slump from those two working together.” He retrieved the record by hoof. While his trained, stalwart stance didn’t falter, she could tell from his lack of magic that he was still as frazzled by the more intimate audio. “Mother’s apology album appears to have been a united effort. Perhaps you’ll learn a helpful thing or two about Suede’s process if nothing else.”
“Yeah.” There were more than a few processes running through her head right now. None of them were good. “I’m going to get ready for bed I think.”
“Good idea. Don’t forget your cocoa.” Fancy quickly trotted to the table behind them and retrieved it. He tried to spark his horn to warm it back up, but failed to even get his aura around the cup. “Apologies. It seems the recording has negatively impacted my concentration.”
“You and me both,” Vinyl admitted, trying to cut a hole in the tension to let the pressure out. She took a comforting sip from the lukewarm sweetness and savored a half melted marshmallows sliding across her tongue. “Thanks for the drink, Fancy. It’s delicious.”
“Of course. Just let me know if I can do anything else.”
“No. No thanks. Just, put that disk back where you found it,” Vinyl quickly stammered before Desire could start running in her imagination. “I’m going to get ready for bed.”
“I can at least manage that last chore,” he said as he bowed with the disk resting against his chest. “Pleasant dreams, Vinyl.”
“You too, Fancy.”
As he walked into the storage closet, Fancy let the door close behind him and slumped into it as his magic enveloped the quartz in his sweater pocket. He could finally drop his guard and let his face flush as red as Vinyl’s. He’d considered his parents to be just his parents for the longest time, completely neglecting the fact that they were also lovers. At least what they’d listened to together had been on the tamer side. He didn’t want to think about their further escapades knowing how intense her song “Hot Trot” was.
Though the stallion was no stranger to the concept, he'd abstained from reaching the ultimate levels of intimacy with anypony. Most of his business partners and acquaintances were busying themselves with their families after having foals of their own. Those didn’t just fall from the sky. He knew that. It was completely natural. He shouldn’t be feeling so embarrassed as a grown stallion, but he couldn’t help it.
“Of all the ponies to walk in on you two with, why did it have to be Vinyl?” the fuming son complained to his loving parents’ memories. He could almost hear his parents laughing all the way from Elysium over the soft thrum of his aura channeling into his support crystal.
It took a few quiet moments to stabilize his magic. Fancy took advantage of the soundproofed studio by venting his embarrassment into unintelligible curses shouted within the closet. Shaking the last vestiges from his system, he fired up his horn and snatched the stupid record off the floor with ease. He stood to his hooves and shoved it into its proper slot with his magic.
Fancy placed his hoof over his heart, feeling it still beating with flustered vigor. “Why did it have to be her?”
Vinyl curled in under the covers of her bed. She wanted nothing more than to fall asleep, but her brain had been pulling in every direction possible since she’d lain down. It didn’t help that her sleep schedule was already in tatters, leaving her wide awake alone with her thoughts and Desire. The little figment of her imagination had shrunken down to the size of a toy and was making herself comfortable resting against Vinyl’s chest.
Hey, it could’ve been worse.
“How could it have possibly been worse?”
We could’ve listened to Summers and Suede making out and not have somewhere to start from tomorrow. Desire’s tail flicked. Or maybe tonight?
“Tomorrow,” she rebuked her wild thoughts. “In the afternoon. Late afternoon.”
Fine. Her tiny desire snuggled deeply into Vinyl’s chest, pressing herself deeper into Vinyl’s fur until she could feel her desires beating in her heart. Do you think you want to get intimate with Fancy?
“Why don’t you know? You’re supposed to be me, remember?”
You haven’t thought about it much. You want safety and family. You want him to be around. He makes you feel warm, even when you’re not next to him. You’ve risked touching and even cuddling up next to him when you can get away with it. But you haven’t thought about what Éclair talked about. And it’s not like you’ve never knocked hooves with another pony before.
“Don’t remind me,” Vinyl grumbled bitterly.
Can’t help it when you’re the one thinking it.
And Vinyl was thinking of it. It was drumming in her head with what fleeting fun she could remember from those nights. Unlike being with Fancy, the height of those highs had been followed immediately by deep lows. They’d all just been clubbers from Cantrips. Closing her eyes, she could see their outlines lying next to them. The rippling backs of the stallions, the supple curves of the mares, the smell of their sweat, the texture of their hair, and the warmth of their embraces.
But beyond the physical, there was nothing. Vinyl had never made a connection with any of them. She couldn’t even remember some of their names, and the thought made her sick to her stomach. No matter how lovely or charming they had or hadn’t been, it only made things worse when she’d eventually crash out and burn it all away. All of the pointless experimentations had left her empty and alone.
You don’t want to try—
“because I don’t know if—”
You’ll get hurt again.
“What if—”
You hurt him—
“Like the others?”
The speedy dates, the casual hookups, the attempts to feel something real. Each relationship had ended in an utter disaster. If the pattern continued, she’d finally get close to what she thought was good, what she thought things were supposed to be like, what she thought she wanted, and then annihilate it.
You’re scared.
Vinyl was scared.
You always mess things up.
She always messed things up.
But, don’t worry, dear…
Her skin began to crawl.
… Mommy loves you.
Vinyl shot out of bed and looked at the clock. Ten O’ two. She dove for the closest box in Summers’ collection that she could get her hooves on and clutched onto it for dear life. She hummed the first song that came to mind, Wonderful Moonlight, Good Morning My Sunshine, she wasn’t sure what to call it anymore. All she knew was that she needed help.
“It’s okay. Summers needed help too,” she whispered to reassure herself. “It’s okay.”
“Qu’est-ce que tu fiches?” Éclair yelled moments later from down the hall. Her galloping drew closer until it skidded to a halt. The irritated baker slammed open the door in a huff. “You are to be in bed, Vinyle!”
Vinyl pushed herself off the box and scrambled to her hooves. Without a second thought, she rushed into Maman’s fur. Éclair was real. They shared a connection she always yearned for. Vinyl knew her name, Éclair de Lune’s beautiful name. A little leg reached around and pulled her closer into a pudgy barrel as she felt a cascade of mane draped down her back.
“Oh, ma précieuse fleur de vinyle. I am here,” the tender mare whispered as she shut the door behind her. “I am here.”
Vinyl smiled and sighed in relief. She wrapped her hooves tighter around her maman, refusing to break down again.
“Do you need Maman to stay tonight?”
Vinyl sighed in relief at the offer and nodded.
“Okay,” Éclair said softly while patting her daughter’s back. Vinyl couldn’t help but smile as she leaned into the hug, savoring the warm silence.
Mother was gone, Maman was here, and Vinyl was safe.
If you find a simple mistake in the GSP (Grammar, Spelling, or Punctuation), please let me know through a private message rather than leaving it in the comment section. Leave the discussions to discussions. Thank you for reading.
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Well. That was awkward.
But correct, it could have been worse.
Somehow.
Excellent.
Unfortunately, it's looking more and more like I'm not wrong:
"All I see are some lights above us as she whispers ‘I know you’ over and over into my ear."
Those aren't the words of a mother who briefly lost sight of her son. They're the words of a mother who briefly forgot she had a son, until she saw him and everything came rushing back. I feel that was when the earrings came into play: Before then, if she forgot, it wasn't that big of a deal; she'd get home and see all her notes and remember. She had lists while she was at the store, or wherever it was she was at. Handy, convenient reminders. But who puts their son on a shopping list?
So, the earrings. Live memos that she could easily take with her and make on the go, that were attached to her ears so she wouldn't inadvertently put them down and walk away, that she could replay every hour, or quarter hour, or even just in a panicked moment of "Did I forget something?"
Poor Fancy. How long has he gone through life wondering, when his mother passed, if she remembered anything about him other than the very last time he told her off?
ETA:
Hold up. In your profile picture, is that Eclair that Fancy is waltzing with?
This is my favorite ongoing story and it makes my day every time it updates. This story is especially relevant to me as I have suffered from chronic dementia all my life. I am a trained musician ( congregational song leader) and could remember thousands of songs, and yet despite learning to read music on three different occasions, it would not stick in my head for more than a month or so. Music is processed by a different part of the brain than speech, so it is quite possible to never forget a song and yet be clueless as to what you had for breakfast that morning.
Context clues and routine are everything. It is quite possible to know and love people quite intensely, and never think of them when they are not present unless something in the environment reminds you of them. Dementia gets worse as time goes by. As middle age has caught up with me, new symptoms have appeared. Aphasia is my current bane. I forget common words at random (e.g. the word “experience” will disappear from my brain for 20-30 minutes).
Anyway, just my two cents worth. Love the story.
Nuclear pasta is less dense than you.
Christ Vinyl needs therapy. And Upper Crust needs a vacation to Anywhere Vinyl Isn't. Permanently.
Loved how the two of them reacted to his parents make out session
Also, i feel so bad for summers and her memory issues.
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Wanted some levity and to get some other thoughts going. Glad you enjoyed it and hopefully listened to the mood music at the end.
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I'll make a note to talk more about this later in the post-fic blog. I can't figure out a way to talk about this without potential metatextual spoilers.
I'm glad you find comfort in Summers. I feel like I should've known that chronic lifelong dementia was a thing. I've struggled with remembering things all my life, but not to such an extent. Often times, the characters you write will teach you things about themselves more than you had originally planned.
Also, yes, but not a waltz. Specifically, it's Fancy and Eclair dancing to Wonderful Moonlight. Check out this blog post about the art I commissioned from Doodle-Mark on Twitter. You can find the HQ version there if you want to download it.
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He do be lookin' pretty thicc tho...
11555699
The dance is irrelevant!
What is relevant is who she is, the color of her mane, and the song that became Wonderful Moonlight!
I'm onto you! I'm onto something! It could be a psychotic break, sure, but I'm onto something!
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Before you jump to wild conclusions, remember that Suede Shoes is also in the picture behind Eclair. He's cropped out because they'd be too small in the pfp.
11555826
I have already jumped to conclusions, and they are wild.
But they're probably not the conclusions your expecting....
The hits keep on coming in this story!
There were so many feels over the Springstep situation. So glad she's happy with where she is now, but I also totally get Summer's feelings of self-recrimination. Argh, that's a tough place to be.
Also wow, um. Yeah that's only a little awkward. Poor Fancy!
11555699
I don't think you're using that word right.
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All the roads not travelled. As the author, it makes me wonder how many paths I either didn't take or was cut off from before I could take the first step. How many people have I done the same to if any?
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Nonsense! I looked up all the words. I'm thicc and based!
blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_RJnXRm9Ry119JKuLPrm-55Hu75wJWYWaFiEvOXup7yiGUl-ixVReVf7gN1t_d5Sx1fJt8IxOMvBf3YM5tFmo5c42JTUfQ1NFeKne01HWVmxgrV_0fimNFtNuBQTSMQ2xQ3SmACCeLS4kNKolHioIgDLSl3BJnAVLGvgpHlstq58SKVJUeKGnBayHMg/s536/2706758.gif
Thanks books!
Fancy, kiss the girl!!!!!
I want Vinyl to find Summer's old bandmates and Fancy invite them to the summit. But I think the timeline is way too tight to make that possible even in fiction.
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I don't remember details, but it mostly mis-interpretation of what Rousseau wrote. He joked that Marie can't tell people eat cake because there was general shortage of bread. What old Queen did wouldn't work in this case.
Out of context it is understood as if she actually did.
And yeah, at least in this form it's just a reference to myth. Quite possible this one is also a myth and in reality Knights finally had told Riche go **** herself.
My absolute favorite part of this chapter is still just the fact that when faced with the shadow of her "mother", Vinyl immediately summons her family by the fastest method she can. It's such progress.
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What made it doubly fun for me was that I believe I realized it in the moment while writing it that the solution was there and I had already set it up for the payoff being the enchantment. I was teh geenus 4 tru.