> Scarred Vinyl
>  by Belgianchief
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Rather Be Left Alone?
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I woke up, sweating. Moonlight poured through my window, but I didn't need the absence of the Sun to know that it was still dark outside. As every night for the last few years, I woke up from a nightmare, about one hour from sunrise. Knowing that I wouldn't be able to fall asleep again, getting up and going to the kitchen seemed the best thing to do. Hungry, I opened the cupboard, but failed to see any type of food. All I had remaining was a bag of flour, but even I was not as desperate to try and eat pure flour. Shopping had somehow dropped itself from my to-do list yesterday, and I wondered what had kept me busy. No answer sprang to mind, for what does a pony without a job do, apart from caring for herself and herself alone. Yet, I had even failed that aspect of my life. I shrugged. "Well, no breakfast for me today." I said to myself. Clearly my stomach did not agree with this statement and started to growl loudly. "Oh shut up you!" I grumbled. I went back upstairs to get my backpack to check what kind of money I still had. 3 bits. "Huh, well this'll be fun, with this I can buy some eggs some milk and maybe an apple or two. I guess it's apple pancakes for the remainder of the week. I'll graze a bit here and there, and I think we can make it till next month." Talking to myself had become natural, even though I knew other ponies would consider me crazy for doing it.

So, that was going to be it, huh? One more month with money and then having to start begging. I didn't want to, but there was nothing that could have been done, being a unicorn without talent, who had tried many a job, if not all of them, but not a single one could keep my interest longer than a week. Hence why I never got paid more than a couple of bits. Some ponies had even given me more than I had earned, just to get rid of me. "Whatever, I'll find something." Knowing I wasn't going to. Getting to the point where little foals were a more welcome help in companies or shops than me was not a comforting thought. Trying to pull my mind off things, I grabbed a towel and went outside down to the river. Even though the crystal clear water was cold, it woke me up and, best of all, it was free. I dried myself after, now noticing the moon was descending. So I made my way to the town square and sat down. I had nothing else to do anyway. Not having a job did have its advantages, you could say, as long as I could remember to take care of myself once in a while.

Waiting for the sun to rise, I realised that coming here was more a force of habit than anything else. Ever since the first time my sleep had abandoned me, I came here to watch the sunrise, hoping to see the spectacle I once thought was so great.  Back then, my gramps explained to me that all of this was the work of a single alicorn, Celestia. As if she had heard his words, the sun first peeked over the horizon with its rays of lights going in every direction you could imagine. I looked around to see the darkness of the shadows creep away from over house, over the rooftops, until the darkness was nowhere to be seen anymore. Now I realised that it was just the sun setting, that there could be no shadow where there was light, that everything that I had seen back then, had been just an illusion of sorts. And so, the sun rose to the sky and apart from the fact that it was a massive ball of fire and light, suddenly floating in the sky, it never had been as special as that one time, so long ago, when my grandparents had shared it with me. "Huh, another waste of time" I yawned. Not wanting to waste more of my not so precious time, I got back on my hooves and returned home, preparing for another day of nothing, as had been the case for the last 2 years. I came home, went to lie on my bed, put on a record and just laid there. Music. Every symphony, every harmony was different. Every genre had its rules and emotions, yet every one of them could bring out the best in me. Even if there were over a million songs, every one would be different. Every one was beautiful in its own way. It could be cheerful, happy music that made me happy, but even dark, sad music sometimes could. Sometimes, I even would get up from bed and start dancing. Music could forget my sorrows. If it could make me forget all the things I'd been through, for a fraction of a second, it was worth it. For that very fraction of a second made me feel I had a life worth living for.

Even though I'd lost my talent at being a DJ, I still enjoyed listening to music. Being able to improve music, though, that was my real passion. A couple of years ago, you could put on a record and I would write down what could, and should, be changed in that very song. And when I played that new version at performances, the music sounded as it should have in the first place. People would be carried by its melody, be moved by its words. They would stop where it stopped, only to start the cycle again when it continued or even when the next song played. But I needed to give up on that aspect. I just couldn't anymore. The events that had transpired two years ago had made me lose all faith in music. I, myself knew that it was just a trauma, but even if I copied what I used to do, I just couldn't change anything to the music, for it might drag me in as it had done that one day. The music as it was, would carry and comfort me in its melody, and everything was perfect. I didn't dare to change anything to it, because I could not have  When ponies found out I couldn't DJ any better than any given pony, I soon stopped getting requests to play at parties, because I was famous, and therefore expensive, and so, I was forced to do other jobs, which I could not handle.

Suddenly, my reminiscing stopped with a loud growl from my stomach. Looking outside, the sun had risen completely. I stopped the record from playing, took my backpack and went to the store. I bought a bread, some eggs, some milk and a couple of apples with the last of my bits. For whatever reason, I decided to take a walk around town. There wasn't much to see, just an average day, as all the past days had been. There were, however, not many ponies on the streets. "Huh, that's odd, did I miss a forecast of bad weather or something?" I heard myself ask. It wouldn't have surprised me if I had. I lived from day to day, and tomorrow didn't really interest me, because I knew it was going to be more of the same old, same old. I quickly turned back home, not wanted to be caught in the rain, because even though it was sunny now, weather could change rapidly in Equestria. I got home, checked my mailbox -empty of course- And opened my door.

"SURPRISE!"

At first, I was startled. Then it came to me, it was my twentieth birthday. Not caring, I put my groceries in the cupboard, went up to the turntable, shut it off and yelled "Party's over" Without even waiting for a response, I went upstairs to my room. The guests would leave soon enough, because they knew it wasn't going to be a good party if the host didn't participate. As I opened the door to my bedroom, Pinkie Pie came charging at me "No, no, no, no, no, not this time. You have no idea how much I had to plan for this day, let aside all the cakes I baked. Now, you're going back downstairs, you're going to turn on that turntable and you are going to have fun, understand?!" She looked desperate, furious, hopeful, and serious all at the same time. A mix only Pinkie Pie could accomplish.
"If you know what I did, and I know you do, you should know that I have no reason to ever celebrate my birthday, I shouldn't even be alive." With that cold response, I pulled her out of my room, went in myself, and locked the door. I needed to calm down. Relax. I needed music.
"Oh no, I'm going to get you out of th..." Silence. I had enchanted the door with a soundproof spell, which I had used on my headphones whenever I performed in the past. I was glad I still could use magic, even though my talent as a DJ was gone. Music. Oh how the symphony carried me, it was like being a small child again, being rocked from one side to another. It felt wondrous, I felt my my entire body calming down, it was all I wanted. Looking through the window, I saw that the guests were leaving. To me, that only meant that I would be able to finally be left in peace. Surely, after two years of failed parties, guests would stop coming and just leave me alone, like I wanted. I listened to the remainder of the record, which lasted about an hour, but for me it made me feel safe, made me feel alive, and it seemed to last forever. A growl of my stomach broke me out of that feeling, remembering me I still hadn't eaten. I went out my door and saw Pinkie Pie.

"What are you still doing here?" I asked her, I looked around and saw that every other pony had left. "Just go away, leave me alone."
"No, you are not going to be alone on your birthday. I'm Pinkie Pie, and for the last two years I've planned more than ten  parties for you, and this always happened. Well not this time, you are going to celebrate your birthday, and you are going to like it!"
I was so angry with her, how could she want me to celebrate this day? "Just leave, I'm only saying this one more time"
"No" She stood her ground. "I'm not going to let you turn into some grumpy old woman, just because you feel like it. No."
"Leave me alone!" I yelled, blindly charging her. I turned my head and felt the impact of my head on her side, hearing a crack, then a thud. When I opened my eyes, I saw that the railing had been crushed. I looked down and saw Pinkie lying on the floor below.
"I'm sorry. Pinkie, I don't know what came over..." She stood up, went outside and closed the door. I was alone. What I wanted. No, what I deserved. I kept staring at the floor from my stairs, looking at where the railing was less than a minute ago.

I took a deep breath, went downstairs and looked through one of the windows. Pinkie was nowhere to be seen. "Why did I do that? Why did I want to be alone? I don't want to be alone." I had lost my appetite. I went back upstairs, closed my door, and put on a record. This time the music could not carry me in its melody. I looked at my bedside table. The picture of my parents, the only picture I had of them, was looking me straight in the eye. "I'm sorry" I whispered. Tears were flowing in my eyes. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry" I kept stammering those words. By now, the tears were accompanied by sobbing and yelling. "I'm sorry ok!? Don't make me go through this any more, Please don't. Please. I'm sorry."

I woke up, thirsty. I went to the kitchen to grab a glass of water. It was dark, but I knew my way around the house. I went downstairs and heard gran and gramps talking.
"She'll have to find out once, we can't wait too long." "Oh please Gerald, she's only 6, 6! You want to tell a 6 year old filly something like that?" "I know Anna, I know. I'm just saying that one of these days she has to know that her parents are dead"
I froze in my tracks. My parents were dead? They weren't coming back? Ever? I saw tears forming in my eyes, and before I knew it, I was crying. Gran and Gramps heard me and rushed to the hallway. I was lying on the floor, crying with everything I had in me. "Mommy, Daddy no!" I shouted at the top of my lungs. They picked me off the floor and carried me to bed. "Mommy... Daddy..."

I woke up. The last remnants of the sunlight were pouring through my window. I had a look at my pillow only to see that it was no longer there. Only a few shreds remained. Ugh, I hated that dream, yet every time it seemed to creep up on me. For some reason, I couldn't control my magic when I was in that dream, it had cost me hundreds of pillows, a couple of sheets, and even one time, my entire bed. It gave me the shivers. It really wasn't necessary to dream the events that happened that night, for it was engraved in my mind, the images kept flashing through my brain, every minute of every day that I lived. But it was only a few years later that I found out how they had actually died. My mother died giving birth to me, my father went insane from the loss and later killed himself. I had a look at the picture on the bedside table. They looked so happy. They were so happy, and I destroyed them. I killed my mother and my father, killed the two people that would care about me the most. I killed them. 
> A Dreamy Night
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I had tried to sleep after that fiasco, but sleep eluded me. So I decided to turn on some music and tried to relax. It didn't help. Every time I started drifting away, The image of Pinkie lying on the floor below me flashed through my mind. Every time it struck me with a pang of guilt. I wouldn't have been surprised if I never slept again. Not that I slept much anyway. Yup, this was going to be one of those nightmares that would keep haunting me for the rest of my life. I sighed, now wanting to get away from this all, from everything. Then I remembered that I was completely broke. I was going to be stuck here, not even going to be able to fix that railing which would remind me of that image every time I went up or down the stairs. My stomach growled, reminding me that I hadn't eaten at all today. I walked to the kitchen, but I really didn't want to put in the effort to make anything, so I just had a slice of dry bread. I heard the clock ding 9 times. I still had some time before I normally went to sleep so I went outside, to the river, to take a cold bath, hoping that it at least would relieve some of the stress.

When I arrived at the river, everything seemed pointless. I walked over to the edge, and saw my reflection staring back at me with a bruise on its forehead. I rubbed it, to test whether it hurt or not. It stung. "I must have hit Pinkie real hard..." Again, a pang of guilt struck me as if it were a thunderbolt, and the image of Pinkie flashed in front of my eyes again. I sat down with a deep sigh, right on the riverside, my hooves in the cold water. Suddenly, even the thought of a swim didn't appeal to me anymore. I didn't know what to do right now, or even in the future. I laid down on my back, my head in the grass. Luna's moon looked down on me, as well as the yellow stars in the otherwise fully black night.
"How did you survive 1000 years on your own? I'm alone for 2 years and I have no more feelings, I'm nothing more than an empty shell, only destroying other ponies' lives as I'm destroying my own." I pleaded to the moon. Pinkie Pie flashed in front of my eyes again. I went back inside, put on a record and just listened, as I drifted away to sleep.

When I woke up, I was outside. It was a beautiful day. A day I hadn't seen in a long time. And for the first time in years, I was happy. Not incredibly happy, but happy. I walked through the streets, greeting every pony I saw. It felt good being so relieved. I walked past the record store and heard a whisper. I immediately knew what it was. It was the whisper of music. It felt so warm, I had to go inside. "Hey Vinyl, feeling the music again? By the way, I heard you had a great gig at the Gala", the shopkeeper said. I nodded and said "Just gonna look around a bit."
"Just do what you gotta do, I can trust you." He could. Music was my soul, I would never do anything to hurt it. It was my life, I lived for it, and I felt it existed for me to perfect it. I felt it was my job, my duty, to alter the music as best I could, so it could be enjoyed more then it already was. Feeling all the music, knowing what music needed to be played when, and how it should be played. Next thing I knew the shopkeeper yelled: "Hey Vinyl, It's closing time!" I cursed to myself, for I should have been home hours ago. I hastily ran out the shop, said bye to the shopkeeper, gave him some tips about the music and made my way towards home. The thought of being late for dinner was not one I liked, for two reasons. Gran's cooking was the best, so I wouldn't miss it for the world. And gramps, however cool he was with everything, couldn't stand ponies being late. I'd received many a spanking back in the day. With that in mind, I picked up the pace.

Halfway home, I smelled something, a light scent of smoke. It was going to be cold tonight, So ponies were probably heating up their stove. I ran up the hill looking over my home, and I froze. My house was on fire. I stood there for what I thought was an eternity, scared enough to run away, but brave enough to go and help. Coming back to my senses, I ran as fast as I could, but when I got close to the driveway, the house, my home, collapsed. I looked everywhere around the house, yelled at the top of my lungs for my gramps and gran, but they weren't there. All I found were two old pictures, one of my parents and one of my grandparents. When the fire brigade arrived, they managed to put out the fire quickly, but it was all too late. Everything I had, Everything I knew, was lost. They told me my grandparents were most likely too old to get out of a fire of that size on their own. Then I knew, if I was there, they would have made it out. But I wasn't. Because I was in some stupid record store, they died. Because of music, they died. I stood up, ran to the town, up to the record store, smashed in the window and destroyed all the records.

"Quite the violent dream" I heard a voice whisper in my ear. I jumped and looked to see Princess Luna standing right behind me. 
"Princess, I... What?.." I looked around. I could suddenly see that I was nothing but a third-person spectator in my own dream. "How did you get here?" I turned to her face and, remembering who I was speaking to, I quickly added "Your Ladyship"

"Please, titles mean nothing in a place like this. As for how I got here, I rule Equestria by night, and therefore take care of it's ponies. Because most ponies are asleep at night, and therefore I cannot take care of them as effectively, I have the ability to enter one's dream."

"Why wait so long before coming to me then? I mean it has been a couple of years since you were released from Nightmare Moon?" I asked, getting annoyed.

"Even though titles do not matter, I would respect some common courtesy. I am still your princess, even though we are in your dream. As for your question" she continued, seemingly ignoring my apologies, "Even though I can enter every ponies dream whenever I want to, would you not consider it rude for me to transgress on something as private as one's dreams, without them inviting me first?"

"I never asked you" I countered. "I don't mean you're not welcome, I mean..." I stopped. What do I want? I mean this is my mind, which is kinda private, and I wish no pony saw this...

"Whatever secrets you have will be safe with me." I gave her a look of doubt. "Yes, I can read minds, at least in conversations through the dream world. As for your invitation..."

She brought up a sphere, showing me looking at the moon that night. "How did you survive 1000 years on your own? I'm alone for 2 years and I have no more feelings, I'm nothing more than an empty shell, only destroying other ponies' lives as I'm destroying my own."

"I assumed you had invited me." 

It's a clearly an excuse, and a bad one at that, but I suppose she is the princess, and if she wants to visit my dreams, I can't really do anything about it. I looked up at her to see her frowning.
"Oh right, you can read minds, Princess. I'm sorry, I'm not really used to controlling my thoughts."

She waved it away, clearly teasing me. "Let's get to business then, shall we?"

"Uhm, business?" I didn't quite know what to expect, this being my first time in... Where were we anyway? Where my dream was playing not a few minutes ago, now was... nothing. A black void, going as far as the eye could see, in every direction possible. I turned around looking for a way out, but all I could see was nothing.

"This is your mind. I think I have never seen such an empty place before." She was talking in her teasing, playful voice. "Also, it's been the first time that I've actually seen it empty here, usually, this place is crowded with horrible memories."

"Wait, I thought you said that you didn't intrude on ponies' dreams unless they invited you. How have you been here before?"

"Did I really say that?" It made me smile, I guess even she couldn't resist peeking into ponies' minds. The thought made me blush.
"Don't think about anything you don't want me to see! Remember I can read your mind." Luna quickly said.
I quickly emptied my mind before I got to some humiliating dreams that I'd rather not have the Princess see.

"Now, you want to get rid of those nightmares right? Well then, have a seat." Suddenly two seats and a table appeared out of nowhere, they just popped into my mind. "Would you like something to drink?" I just stood there, dumbfounded. "Coffee it is then, because I don't think you are that sophisticated that you would drink tea" Luna said with a smile. "And let's do something about this grim background" And sure enough, a kettle and two cups appeared out of nowhere. The black everywhere had made place for the garden at Canterlot Castle. The strange thing was that it felt like all of this had always been there, and nothing was conjured at all.
"It isn't. Now come take a seat please." Luna said

"Oh right" I sat down in front of the princess, and sipped from my cup.

"How is the coffee?"

It was excellent, not too strong, not too weak, yet a very powerful taste. Just the way I liked it. "Perfect. I had no idea you could conjure up coffee that great, I always thought conjured food was the worst."

Luna chuckled. "I didn't conjure it." I was confused. Luna continued "Conjuration is the skill of magic that converts magical energy into matter. Usually it takes too much energy to make something out of pure magic, so the course of action is to dismantle a magical item into magical energy, then using that same magical energy to make the item you want. The more details, the more magical energy required. Even for an alicorn as powerful as me, conjuring all these items would have been too much."

"How did all those things appear then, if they are not conjured?"

Luna took a sip of her cup. "It's the power of imagination." I gave her a sceptical look.
"Go on, try it. Try making a cake, I love cake with my coffee"

I still did not quite believe her, so I quickly thought of a cake, covered in whipped cream. Nothing happened. I sighed.
"I tried it, it's not w-" Splat! Luna spat out her coffee and fell off her chair laughing. Clearly not even she had seen the cake pop into existence, a couple of feet above my head.

"You... Hahahaha... You need to specify the... location where the cake appears. Else it will just pop somewhere in your mind." She was panting, trying her best to catch her breath. I was not going to let her off that easy.

"And of course, I had to take a cake with whipped cream!" I heard the laughing well up again from under the table. I waited for her to climb back onto her chair. When she looked at me again, tears in her eyes from all the laughter, I licked my face. "Hmmmmm, it's still warm." This made her fall off her chair again. "S-S-Stop, you're killing me. Hahahaha!"
I imagined a paper towel -on the table- to wipe all the whipped cream from my face, and waited for Luna to recover. When she got back up her chair, I asked her how this was going to help me with my nightmares.

"This alone will not be enough to help you with your nightmares. The second thing you have to learn is how to step back from a nightmare. All you have to do to step back is to remember that you are in a dream. This is not as easy as it sounds, since all nightmares start happy and fun, and they start the same way aswell. But only in the happy part you can step back. Once you get to the bad parts, the mind is lulled into believing the dream is real aswell and you can't step back into it, unless you are aided by somepony. Do you understand?"
I nodded slowly, still thinking things through.
"Good. Practice." She touched me with my horn, then a dark blue flash.

I woke up, I was outside. It was a beautiful day. A day I hadn't seen in a long time. And for the first time in years, I was happy. Not incredibly happy, but happy. I walked through the streets, greeting every pony I saw. It felt good being so relieved. I walked past the record store and heard a whisper. I immediately knew what it was. It was the whisper of music. It felt so warm, I had to go inside...

I was pulled out. "That was too far. Try again and remember."

I woke up, I was outside. It was a beautiful day. A day I hadn't seen in a long time. And for the first time in years, I was happy. Not incredibly happy, but happy. I walked through the streets, greeting every pony I saw. It felt good being so relieved.
"This is a dream!"
I spinned round and round and round...
All of a sudden I stood right next to Luna. She was levitating a bucket in front of me. I gratefully took it from her and threw up. "That was excellent. Are you ok?" I waved her away. "I'm fine, just a little dizzy." 
"The more you do it the better it gets."
She touched me again and again, pulling me back whenever I needed and kept handing me buckets until I had gotten used to the spinning. 
"Ok, I think I got it now. Say, how long have we been doing this?"

"About five minutes. The mind works in mysterious ways" Luna said smiling, clearly seeing the confused look on my face, mouth agape.

"So, what do I do after I step back from the nightmares?"

"You imagine!" I looked at her, confused. "Do I have to do everything for you? Fine." She cleared everything and yelled "Music!"

Suddenly the entire, well, mind, was transformed into one big party. I was behind the turntables, playing my favourite music. Everypony was cheering, dancing, having fun. When I looked around to see Luna, she was gone.
I woke up. It was still early in the night. I looked up to the moon and whispered "Thank you, Princess Luna, you are always welcome in my dreams" I went back to sleep, with a smile on my face.
> Planning a Party
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I woke up with the sun shining on my face. It looked like it was going to be a fine day... "Wait. Sun? What time is it?" I quickly had a gander at the clock and saw that it was nine o'clock in the morning. I had actually slept till 9. It put a huge smile on my face. My stomach gave a small growl. Clearly not even it was used to sleeping till 9. By the time I'd arrived at the kitchen, the growl had turned into a thundering roar. "Woah there, easy, fellow. Sheesh, thank heavens I did my groceries yesterday." I took out the milk, eggs and flour and started mixing them. Whistling a tune, I started making my pancakes. I took out the apples and started cutting them up into slices. I loved eating apples with my pancakes, even though ponies always had a puzzled look in their eyes when they saw me eating those two together. It didn't matter. They didn't know what they were missing.

I looked at the apple slices on the table "You know, I always wondered how..." I looked around "Ah, why not?" I cut up the apple in even smaller pieces and put them in the frying pan. I took another frying pan out of my cupboard, washed it, and poured the pancake dough into that one. It had been a while since I used two frying pans at the same time. I just used the same frying pan all the time. Thinking about it, ever since I discovered the apple-pancake combination, I had made nothing else. That kinda bothered me. But then the smell of sweet apples filled the room. Now that the apples were heating up, they were starting to spread their divine aroma. I quickly took a spoon and took a tiny piece of apple. It was an explosion for my taste buds. It tasted ten times better than the regular apples, but not only that. Now the crunchy, hard part of the apple was gone too, and in it's place had come a flowing, soft sweetness that suited the pancakes so much better. How had no one come up with such a simple idea? The combination of the two was superb. "I gotta remember this" I mused after finishing my breakfast. I sat back, rubbing my belly with a glee sense of fulfilment. Looking at the window, I saw that the day was as clear as it could be, not a cloud in sight. Feeing great, I decided to go for a little walk around town. 

Closing the door behind me, I took a deep breath of fresh air. How simple things like feeling the sun's warmth on your face, having a good breakfast and breathing the fresh air of Ponyville could make your day. I had a walk around, wanting to greet all the ponies, wanting to show that I had a good side too, which they hadn't seen too much of. Except everypony seemed to ignore me, some were even avoiding me, I was sure. This kinda brought me down, but it still was a wonderful day, and I was not going to things like that bring me down. I passed Sugarcube Corner and thought of Pinkie. "I really should check up on her and apologize. I hope I didn't hurt her too bad." As I approached the door, I saw a note hanging.

Closed

Nothing more, nothing less. Sugarcube Corner was never closed during the day. Never. "Did I do this?" I looked around. Ponies were staring at me and once I saw them, they turned their head and went their way. If I wasn't already in the dumps, I was now. I could take being ignored or even avoided. Ponies have been doing it since I came here. But the look in their eyes saying that I was the cause of everything, it was too much. I made my way to home. In the distance I heard somepony mutter "That filly is going to destroy us all someday" I started running, tears now flowing freely over my cheeks. When I got home, I quickly shut the door behind me, crashed into my couch and started crying. "I'm such a stupid filly, why did I do all of that? Why am I destroying everypony?" I lied there for a couple of minutes, crying, until the tears wouldn't flow anymore.

"There, there, everything's going to be fine" I heard a soft voice whisper. Fluttershy's. She laid a hoof on my back, and just kept whispering "There, there" It actually felt really comforting, and after a minute I went to sit on the couch, still sobbing a bit, but feeling better overall. "Thanks Fluttershy, that really helped." When I tried to look her in the face, she shied away, saying "I'm sorry. I uhm.... I-I wanted to talk to you, and the door was open, so I went in but you weren't there, so I wanted to leave again, but then you ran straight..."

"It's ok, I always leave my door open. I shouldn't, but I do. So don't worry about it. What did you want to talk about?"
"Pinkie"
I sighed. "I figured as much. Would you like some tea?" I really didn't like its weak taste compared to coffee, but I knew from previous experiences that drinking tea was way more common in this town, so I always offered tea instead of coffee, when... if I got visitors.
"No... I mean you don't have to, I mean if you want to..." I'd already gone up and gotten the kettle and two cups. "Thank you" she whispered, and gave me a smile.
After sipping from our tea for a bit, I broke the silence. "Do you know what's..." I wanted to ask what was wrong with Pinkie, but I knew, I had hurt her. "Do you know what I can do to help Pinkie?"
"She's sad, she locked herself inside her room, and the girls and I really have no idea what to do. We're really worried. Could you tell me what happened here?"
"Well, uhm... After you guys had all left my party, Pinkie stayed. She tried to make me see that she was trying to help... But then... I don't know, I lost it, I don't know why, and the next thing I knew..." I pointed at the stairway. "I was up there, and she was down there. I think I hurt her. Bad. I'm sorry" I said with a voice that was dying. "She got up and left without saying a word. I'm sorry" I looked up to see Fluttershy looking at me with sympathy in her eyes. "I shouldn't even try to help, I'll only hurt her more. I'm useless either way." I continued. Sighing, I took a sip another sip of my tea, while thinking what I could do to help Pinkie, like she tried to help me before.

"I got it!" I shouted while jumping from the bench with such intensity that I knocked over the table. After hearing my cup and the kettle crash to the ground, I asked Fluttershy whether she was available tomorrow evening.
"Uhm sure, I guess"
"Good, because we're gonna have a party for Pinkie." She looked at me with doubt. 
"Uhm... I don't know how to make a party, usually Pinkie does everything..."
"We'll manage, I've been to plenty of parties as a DJ, so I know what's needed." I tried to sound confident, but it'd been so long ago that I had actually been to a party. "So, let's get started, shall we?" Looking at her, I saw that she was still holding her teacup. "Just throw it away for all I care, the set's gone anyway." As I made my way to the front door, I couldn't help but notice how Fluttershy floated to the kitchen table to carefully put down the cup, before heading out.

"Okay, we need a few things: music, decorations, invitations and food. I can take care of the music, so that's settled. I think the first thing we need to do is to make sure we have food, since that will take the longest to prepare. Any ideas?"
"Well usually we go to Sugarcube corner, but it's closed now, so I don't know, sorry"
"That's ok, I wasn't planning to go there anyway, I was planning to make it a surprise party. Do you know anyone else who can make like cupcakes or cakes or any other sort of pastry?"
"Well, the Apple family made apple pies in the past, but they stopped doing it about a year ago."
"Okay, let's go there first and see if they can still make them."
We rushed to Sweet Apple Acres as fast as we could, talking about other possibilities if the Apple family wouldn't make pies for us, but there weren't many. If we couldn't find anything, we decided we would make the pies ourselves. I knew that that wasn't going to work out that well, so I was desperately hoping that the Apple family would make us at least a couple of pies.

I knocked on the door when we arrived, still hoping for at least a couple of pies. Applejack opened the door.
"Hello... Oh, it's you. Can Ah help ya with anything?" Her tone implied that I wasn't really welcome, but I couldn't blame her for it. I was, after all, the cause of Pinkie's sadness, which had caused sadness with every other pony in town. "Hey Applejack, I kinda need your help-" She shut the door in my face. "I guess I deserved that" I said to the door, hoping that Applejack was still there. "Look, I know I messed up with Pinkie, real bad this time, but I'm trying to make things right. I'm trying to help Pinkie, but I need your help to do it, Applejack. Please give me another chance, I won't mess up this time." The door opened again."
"All right, but lemme make this clear. Ah'm doin' this for Pinkie, not for you."
"I got it, that's fine by me. I'll prove to you that I can change some other time. Now, Fluttershy told me that you used to make apple pies. Can you still make them?"
"Why? Ah mean sure. Sugarcube Corner made better pies than ours, so we just stopped makin' them. Doesn't mean that we can't anymore."
"Well, Sugarcube Corner is closed..." Fluttershy started.
"Sugarcube Corner is closed?!" Applejack shouted. "Gosh, it's even worse than Ah thought." My face was looking at the ground, ashamed of what I'd done.
"Listen, I know what I did was bad, but I'm gonna make it up to everypony." I started stumbling to the ground. I looked Applejack in the eye. "Every single pony."
"Sure, ok, Ah guess." I could tell that she didn't know what to think of me.
"One more thing" I added "Do you still have some barrels of cider?"
"Sure, Ah've got a couple in the cellar. Whatcha gunna do with apple pies and cider?"
"Well, we're going to make a party for Pinkie!" Fluttershy squeaked. I had a look at her and saw that she was really excited. I smiled. It seemed she really liked organizing something for once.
"One more thing though" I said, not sure how to address the situation. "Straight to the point I guess" I sighed. "I'm broke." Before Applejack could say anything, I added "I'm not taking the pies and cider for free, even if you insist. I'm going to work in the orchard or anywhere else you need help until I paid off everything. Whether you like it or not."
"Sure, Ah can live with that." To my surprise, she seemed rather pleased with that offer. "So, when's the party gunna be?"
"As soon as possible. Would tomorrow evening be okay?"
"Tomorrow evening? Sure, Ah guess."
"Good, see you then. Good luck with the pies."

I left the orchard immediately after, now thinking about what the next thing should be we should go after.
"Vinyl, maybe Applejack can help us convincing the others." Fluttershy said.
"No, trust me, she's going to need her time making those pies. If she hasn't made them in a couple of years, it'll take a few tries before she gets them the way she wants them. Now, I think we best go for the decorations next, but who do we go to for that?"
"Well... Rarity can decorate, but I don't know if she can make decorations herself."
"Right... Well I guess it's the best we got." Rarity. Now there's a pony I can't stand, and she can't stand me. She's so pretentious, she's The Great Fashion Designer of Equestria, she's better than anypony. She just was lucky. I could have been just as great as she is, but she got lucky, and I didn't. I called her out on it, and she knew it. And I knew how she felt about me, I was a lowlife scum. I listened to techno, I wasn't sophisticated. She couldn't even stand the look of me. I was so ordinary. She always said my red eyes stood out like a sore thumb. Maybe they don't really suit me, but I was born with them.
I shrugged the thoughts away. Clearly, they were the last thing I needed if I wanted Rarity to help me.

We arrived at her boutique. I was still thinking if there was somepony we forgot, who might be able to decorate a party, but no one jumped to mind. I sighed, and knocked on Rarity's door.
"Yes?" That voice, so elegant, so posh, can't she just be normal? "Who is it?"
"It's me" I responded, trying to bite down all the negative thoughts about her. "Fluttershy's here too. Can we come in?"
"Naturally" she said while opening the door. Can't she just say "Of course" "Please do wipe your hooves though." Why, am I that dirty, perhaps?
After closing the door behind me, and wiping my hooves, I looked around the shop. As always, it was flawless. Not a single speck of dirt, everything perfectly tidy... I sighed. You can't be this perfect. It's just wrong... somehow...
"Now, how can I help you?"
"Well, as you probably may know, Pinkie is sad..."
"Yes, quite the unfortunate series of events, I might add" Rarity interrupted me. It's as if she doesn't think I feel responsible at all.
"...As I was saying, Pinkie is sad, so we're planning a party to cheer her up."
"And how can I help with this party?" Rarity asked. 
"We were wondering if you could make the decorations."
"Well, I don't know. I am rather busy, you see..."
I see. Well, here goes."Listen Rarity. I know you and I are not the best of friends, so this makes this even harder to say. I'm an idiot of a pony, I don't consider other ponies feelings. There's probably a million more things I should say, but here's the deal. I need you to make those decorations. I know it's below your standard work, but this is not for me. This is for Pinkie. So, could you please make those decorations?"
"Well I suppose I could. For Pinkie. When do you need them?"
"By tomorrow evening if that's possible"
"Tomorrow evening?! Fine, but you'll have to leave now. I have a lot of work to do."
I knew it, she just wanted to hear me beg, insult myself and all the other things I did there. Well, I guess it worked. Someday, however, I am going to show her that she is not as perfect as she thinks. I sighed.

"Everything ok, Vinyl?" Fluttershy asked.
"Yeah, it's just harder than I thought. I didn't realise just how much everypony disliked me."
"They don't, Vinyl, they just don't know you. You never said anything to anypony. Ponies don't know anything about you. All we knew, was that you were a DJ. And when that stopped, you did... nothing... sorry."
"Thanks for the comfort, Fluttershy, but they really hate me. When I look at them in the street, all I can see in their eyes is contempt. And if I ever look somepony in the eye, they're scared of my red, 'monstrous' eyes. Why do you think Applejack agreed to my deal? I looked her in the eye, and she backed away."
"That's not true!" Fluttershy had stopped walking. I turned around to see her face. "Applejack did not agree to some deal just because your eyes happen to be red! When Applejack looked into your eyes, she saw a honest pony, who had made a deal, and who was going to uphold that deal no matter what!"
I was speechless, I didn't know Fluttershy had a side like that. She never spoke her mind like that. She was right, though. If I ever made a promise, I kept it, no matter what. I was going to make things better with Pinkie, I promised myself that. I was going to do everything I could to do so. If this party was going to fail, then I wouldn't stop trying, just as Pinkie never stopped trying for me.
"Uhm... where do we go next?" Fluttershy asked.
"What? Oh right." As fast as her outburst appeared, it had left. "All we have left to do is make the invitations. And since we want to have the party tomorrow, I don't think Ditzy can get all the invitations to everypony. Do you think you can get Rainbow Dash to come to the library? I'll be waiting there, explaining the situation to Twilight. Perhaps it's better to not mention me, if we want Dash to come."

Fluttershy took off to look for Dash, while I headed for the library. I didn't know much about Twilight, since she was always in that library of hers. I sighed. I hoped that she would understand that I was genuinely sorry about what happened to Pinkie. I knocked on the door. Spike answered it. "Oh. Vinyl, right?" I nodded. "Twilight, Vinyl's here!" Spike shouted. "She'll be right here." he said to me. "I have to say though, I really liked your beats on the Gala that couple of years ago. Why haven't I heard of you ever since? I mean, playing on the Great Galloping Gala must have given your reputation a boost?"
"Well, ever since... I kinda lost my touch, the music I'm making now isn't all that great anymore. Thanks for the compliment though"
"I'm sorry, ever since when did you lose your touch?"
"I don't really wanna talk about it. If you really want to know, just ask somepony else when I'm not around ok?"

Crash! "Ouch! Spike, remind me not to read books while going downstairs."
"You know, for being such a smart pony, you sure don't learn from past experiences. You fall down the stairs at least once every week, and every time it's because you were reading a book."
"Well, they're just so interesting... Oh, hi Vinyl."
"Uhm... hi." Wow, she's actually friendly to me "Twilight, I kinda need your help with something."
"Sure, what's the matter?"
"Uhm, you probably know that I hurt Pinkie, and I never meant to, I mean, it was an accident, I would never..."
"You don't have to apologize to me. You seem willing to do something about it and that's enough for me. So, what do you need." Twilight said in her cheerful voice.
"Well, Fluttershy and I had the idea of organizing a party for Pinkie. Would you mind writing the invitations?"
"Spike, grab a quill, some ink and some paper for me please. So, Vinyl, how many invitations do you need?"
"Uhm... I actually hadn't thought of the number yet... How many ponies usually come to one of Pinkie's parties?"
"It varies a lot. It's usually between twenty and fifty ponies."
"Let's make fifty invitations then. I doubt that all fifty ponies are gonna show up, since the party's gonna be tomorrow evening, and some ponies are gonna have plans already. Some ponies are probably gonna bring friends, which are welcome too."
"I guess that's okay. Spike, take note please."
"Hey Twilight, you wanted to see me?" I looked over at the door to see Rainbow Dash standing. At the same time she saw me. Then, nothing...

"She's coming to." I heard somepony say. "Vinyl, are you okay?"
I opened my eyes to see that I was laying on the couch, with a bag of ice on my head. "What happened? Where am I?"
"You're in my library" The voice was Twilight's
"Right, so Twilight, could you write those fifty invitations." I tried to get up from the couch, but Fluttershy held me down.
"You really need to rest a bit more." she whispered
"I'm fine, really" I waved her off. I still had a lot to do, and whatever had happened couldn't hold me back more from practising for the party. I got up from the couch, my head hurting like somepony had dropped an anvil on me.
"I've written all the invitations already."
"How long have I been out? Wait, never mind, still have a lot of work to do. Is Rainbow Dash here?"
"You don't remember?"
"Remember what?" Then I saw Dash. "Hey Dash" I started to feel dizzy. "Sorry about Pinkie, could you deliver these invitations? I don't think Ditzy..."
"She's passing out again. I'm getting a doc-"
Nothing

When I came to, I was in the hospital. Fluttershy and Twilight were next to my bed.
"How are you feeling, Vinyl?" Twilight asked when she noticed I was awake.
"I'm fine, though my head is hurting like a stampede of cows ran right on my head." I tried climbing out of bed, but Fluttershy placed her hoof on me.
"No, you need to rest." she whispered.
"No, I don't have time, I need to practise for the party tomorrow." I tried climbing out of bed again, but Fluttershy kept her hoof on my chest.
"No, you need to rest." she now said, loudly. She was in her other state. I smiled, there was no way I could get her to change her mind now, so I stopped trying.
"What happened exactly? I'm sorry but I can't remember."
Fluttershy put her hoof off my chest. "Well, Rainbow Dash... she uhm..." Fluttershy started.
Twilight continued."When Dash saw you, she got angry, and well... She charged you into a wall, after which you had a ton of books fall on your head. We put you on the couch, and you came to half an hour later. You then said Dash needed to deliver the invitations, and then you fainted again. We took you to the hospital. You seem to have a concussion. She's sorry Vinyl, she lost her temper, you know how she can be, but she's really sorry. She's delivering the invitations now."

I smiled. "When you see her tomorrow, tell her that I know how it feels when you lose your temper, and do things you didn't want to do." The image of Pinkie flashed through my head again, accompanied by a sudden jolt of pain. I grunted and Fluttershy called for the nurse. She entered with a pill and a glass of water.
"Now girls, she needs her rest" she said to the two fillies. "Here, this will help you sleep." she said to me as I took the pill and glass from her. "A nice sleep will make you feel better in no time." She said as I swallowed the pill. The ponies left the room, and I felt the headache slowly fade, until it was gone, and so was I not very long after.
> From Scratch
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I found myself in the Dreamworld, which probably was not how it was called, but it was what I named it, cliché as it may sound. Imagining a chair and seating myself, I wondered what to do. It suddenly came to me that I would miss the party tomorrow, for there was no way a pony with a concussion could go to a party. But, alas, there was nothing to do about that. "I hope Rainbow Dash doesn't feel too guilty and that Applejack manages to make her pies and hope whoever they can find for the music does a great job... I really hope that Pinkie Pie enjoys the party, she really deserves it." Helplessly I sat on the floor of this black void in my mind. Though time flowed differently here, from what I could understand, it wasn't just the pace that was different, for five minutes here could be a second outside, or more than an hour. "While I'm here, I might as well imagine some music, maybe time will go faster." Then an idea popped into my mind. Considering the place where I resided, I looked around, hoping to see something, well, pop. Rather disappointingly, nothing happened, but the idea was still in my mind. Perhaps, instead of wasting my time here, I could practice my skills here, at night, where I had both the time and the material at my disposal. So I imagined my turntable, some boxes and a couple of records to practise with. Suddenly dizzy, I wondered if this was an effect of the concussion.

After a while, not being sure about the time exactly, I gave up on trying to play music, because it was impossible with a headache to focus in the slightest. So, I shut down the turntable. I felt tired, strangely enough, considering I was sleeping. Imagining a bed, my headache increased, so I went to lie on it.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you." I heard a voice from the other side of my mind. Princess Luna. "Please, don't call me Princess in this place, after all, I am a guest here."
"I'm sorry Princess, I just think my concussion made me weaker, just let me get a rest..."
"I really wouldn't do that if I were you, here I made you some coffee"
"Just one more minute..."
"Vinyl, if you fall asleep in this place, there's no way you can save yourself from the nightmares, not even I can do anything then. Now get up."
"Fine, where's that coffee, it better be good." Suddenly, reminding who I was speaking to, I sat straight up. "I'm sorry, Princess, I'm really sorry you have to see me in this state of mind." She handed me a cup of black goodness. The smell alone of it awakened my senses, and the taste was superb, as always. Looking over, I saw that she had summoned a table and two chairs, and asked me to come sit with her.

As soon as I stepped from the bed, she waved her hoof to make it disappear. Walking over to the table, My strength wavered again and I felt dizzy. Taking a sip from the coffee, I immediately felt my strength return. Has the Princess done anything special with this coffee, it's so invigorating.
"My, you catch on quick. However, if you don't stop calling me Princess in this place, I will have to start calling you... Lady Scratch perhaps?"
Suddenly the coffee that had just entered my mouth was now all over the table and over the Pr-... Luna. "I'm sorry... Luna, that just sounded so wrong, I..." While I was looking for words, the paper towel that Luna had imagined was cleaning everything, so I decided to pour myself another cup of coffee. When the... Luna was done, I asked her "So, you were saying that there was something in this coffee?"
"Yes, something to restore your magic powers."
"Magic? But I haven't use magic in a while." I looked around, seeing all the stuff that I imagined. I facehoofed.
Luna sighed. "Even though imagining objects is less difficult than conjuring them, it's still magic. When I arrived here, I saw all the things you had imagined and I knew that you had overexerted yourself. Plus you mentioned you had a concussion?" I nodded "It's quite a feat that you managed to imagine all of this and didn't fall asleep. I'm impressed."

I didn't quite know what to think, or how to respond to that, so I just took another sip of my coffee, which strengthened me again. "Thank you for the coffee, Luna, it really gave back my strength. I'm going to need it if I want to practise some more. With that, I stood up from the table and went to the turntable."
"Practise?"
"Well, I lost my talent for being a DJ, so yeah... Trying to find it again."
"What about your bigger talent?"
"Bigger talent? What in the name of Celestia do you mean?"
"You really think your talent is being a DJ. Well explain to me then, why isn't your cutiemark that of a record or whatever, but rather one of the most-used notes in any form of music?"
"What?"
"I know what that cutiemark means, I've seen it so many times over the years, but I think you too know what it means."
I got a headache, trying to remember... something. Something happened so many years ago, but what? The headache became so bad that I first grunted, then wanted to scream out of pure agony. Luna ran over to me and hold her horn to my head. "I'll help you." Then, a white flash.

I was in the classroom, paying attention to the teacher. Today's lesson was about music. I loved music, it was so nice and warm. There were many kinds of music, but every kind was fun. Looking over my side, I noticed that my cutiemark still wasn't there, but it wouldn't take long anymore. I knew that it had something to do with music, I could feel it. The other fillies didn't understand music as much as I did, and none of them were interested in the lesson, apart from Octavia, but she already had her cutiemark. Then came the moment I had been waiting for, we went to the music class to look at the instruments.

This is a dream. Nothing happened though.
"No, trust me, Vinyl, you want to see this through" Luna's voice spoke in my head.
No, I don't
"Please, Vinyl, I'm doing this for you, please see this through. It will help you."
I don't need your help!
"Yes, you do, and this is the last thing I will say about this subject."
The voice left my head as abruptly as it entered.

We arrived at the music class, and I tried out all the instruments. I could play every one of them, but nothing felt... right. After every attempt I looked at my side, hoping to see a cutiemark, but to no avail. I sat down, completely in the dumps. Music was one of the few things that felt special to me, but apparently, even there I was wrong. The teacher came sitting down next to me, and asked what was wrong.
"Well, I always thought that music was going to be my cutiemark, because I care about it so much, but... I've tried all the instruments and... nothing..."
"Maybe you could ask Octavia how she got hers? She's a musical pony, just like you."
I looked over to see Octavia at the cello. "She doesn't like me... No one does. And besides, I might as well not be a musical pony..."
"She likes you enough to answer a simple question, I suppose?" the teacher nudged me.
"I guess" I stood up and walked over to her.

"Uhm, Octavia? H-How did you get your cutiemark?"
"Well, my father is a great artist and he has a lot of instruments at home. I went into his study, and the first thing that caught my eye was the big cello standing there. I stood next to it and played it and Bam! I got my cutiemark."
"That's what I figured. Thanks anyway."
"You'll get it soon, Vinyl, I just know you will, You just got to believe in yourself."
"Would you mind playing a bit for me? I've always wondered how you could play such a big instrument."
"I'd love to, but I don't have any sheet music with me."
"Just play something, I don't really care what."
"I'm sorry, I can't... at least not yet..."
"I'll go see if I can find something here."

I couldn't find anything, but I really wanted her to play something for me, so I took some piece of paper and wrote down what seemed like a good combination of notes. I had been given a few lessons, so I knew what notes were, but not much more.
I gave her the piece of paper, saying that it was the only thing I could find. She thanked me, and started playing.
Beautiful music filled the room, and everypony came to see Octavia playing. I got pushed to the back of the audience, but I could still hear the music emanate from the strings. It was stunning. She received a big applause and I smiled. Now there was a musical pony if there ever was one. She came to me, receiving many a compliment along the way, and gave me the piece of paper back. "That was beautiful, Octavia, you really have talent."

She pointed at my flank and said, "Look Vinyl" I looked to see that my cutiemark had appeared. "Hey everyone" she called out, "Vinyl got her cutiemark!" To me she asked "What did you do to get it?"
"Well, there was no sheet music anywhere, so I just wrote down some notes from scratch, because I really wanted to hear you play."
"I thought it was sloppy writing, that explains it. But you wrote that in one minute? That was beautiful. No, Vinyl, you have talent. You are going to be a great composer, like Beethoofen."
A composer... Like Beethoofen... I smiled. "I always knew it, somehow"

Another white flash.

School was out. They would be waiting for me at the front gate, but I had no choice. The only way in or out of the school was through that gate. So, I made a run for it, hoping that they weren't there yet. As I came close to touching the gate, I suddenly felt something hit my hind leg. Not being able to hold my balance, I smacked against the ground. So close.
"I'm sorry, did the little unicorn trip? Can't it walk alone when big sis Octavia isn't around?"
"Could you guys just leave me alone for once?"
"I'm sorry, Vinyl, no can do. You know the rules, if you don't give us your lunch bits, we have to take them from you."
"I told you guys, I don't have any bits."
"We'll be the judges of that. Now, your backpack please?"
"No" My gramps told me I should fight them off, and so I will.
"Wow, you guys, maybe she grew something between her legs. Let me check." A quick jab in my belly sucked all the air from me as I fell down, gasping. "Nope, felt nothing." I could hear the others chuckle at their boss. My backpack was taken from me and turned upside down. "Huh, seems that she was speaking the truth. No bits in here. Not that we expected anything else from you, being the useless unicorn you are. You know, it all makes sense now..."
"What makes sense?" I hissed a question.
"You know, why your parents are dead. They were like so disappointed at your birth, that they like died, from just looking at you."

Something snapped in me, as I tried to charge him. His two lackeys barely could hold me, but they managed long enough for the boss to notice me.
"Easy there" He jabbed me in the stomach once more. Again, I felt the air leaving my body, and fell back on the ground. "That's a good girl, now stay" He had another look at my backpack. "Now, what's this?" He pulled out some sheets of paper.
"No, keep your filthy hooves off those." Those are the sheet music I made for Octavia
"Shut up!" He sucker punched me in the face. "Ugh, they're just pieces of paper with some scribbling on them. You know what's cool about paper? It burns." A spark sprang from his horn and fell on the paper, immediately setting it on fire.
Then, something snapped in me again. I managed to break from the hold of the two lackeys and charged at him. This time, however, he saw it coming. He easily sidestepped my charge and jabbed me in the stomach. I turned and charged at him again, this time managing to hit him, then I punched him in the face. Blood dripped from his mouth.
"Girl, now you've done it. Grab her, boys." They grabbed hold of me and put me on my hind legs. I took hit after hit from him. I lost the count, but they kept coming, one after another. I fell down on the ground once the lackeys released their grip.
"Let's go guys, she learned her lesson."
I just laid there, broken, shattered, next to the charred remains of my papers, an empty look on my scarlet eyes. Way later, my gramps found me, still lying in the same spot. He lifted me on his back and carried me home.

Another flash.

It finally was Octavia's turn to audition. As always, she had asked me to write her a piece, and I gladly had, because she really deserved to be accepted in the Royal Equestrian Academy for Music. Apart from worried parents and the judges, I was the only spectator. Octavia was my only friend, and we shared our interest for music. Whenever we were together, we discussed music, we listened to music, we played music. We shared a bond that could not be broken.
I saw her going up on stage, clearly nervous. "Go Octavia!" I yelled. She saw me and smiled, and seemed more confident afterwards, just from the fact that I was there. She bowed and said "The song I will be playing is written by my friend, Vinyl Scratch. It's called An ode to Friendship." I chuckled, the name was based on Beethoofen's "Ode to Joy", my idol ever since that one day I discovered my cutiemark. I wanted to be just like him, apart from being deaf, of course. Then she started playing, and even though I knew what was coming, her music kept surprising me with its pure tone.
When she was finished, the judges stood up and gave her an applause. She was immediately accepted in the Academy, and rightfully so. I went backstage to congratulate her.
"Again, that was beautiful, as always." She ran up to me and gave me a hug.
"Thank you for everything, for writing that beautiful piece, for supporting me, for everything."
"Hey, that's what friends are for, right? Besides, if it wasn't for you, I might have never found out what my talent was. So thank you too, Octavia, for being my friend."

Another white flash.

It had been a year since Octavia had joined the Academy, and I had heard nothing from her. During that entire year, I had tried getting into the School, but never had. Almost every time a pony played my pieces, they were accepted, but I never heard anything from the School. My gramps always said jokingly that great composers were only great after they died. But I wanted to be famous now. I wanted to write pieces that would make ponies to recognize me on the street as they did with many artists. So I gave up on composing classical music, and laid myself on more modern types of music. Techno was the new thing, so I used all the remaining bits I had to buy a synthesizer, and became a DJ. I could finally play the music I wrote myself, and after a few hard years, I became a hit. I became famous. Ponies recognized me on the streets. But my personality changed alongside the music I made. I now was a wild, drunk party animal, and I liked it. Soon, I became as notorious as I was famous, which only helped my reputation to play in clubs. Gigs would pay me hundreds of bits just to play a few songs. I didn't care that Octavia had dropped me, I didn't need her anymore. I was famous, and becoming rich very fast.

Another white flash. How long was this going to continue?

Great Galloping Gala. The musicians were cleaning up after everypony had left. I was done pretty fast, so I went to the bar for a drink. That drink quickly became a dozen, till the barman didn't want to serve me anymore. I cussed and looked around to see somepony come over to me. Octavia. "Hello Vinyl, it's been a while."
"What do you want?" I slurred.
"I want to talk, like in the old days. I miss those days, Vinyl."
"The old days." I laughed. "Which old days, Octavia? Huh?! The ones where we talked? Those were the old days. Old, as in dead. Or the days since you joined the Royal Equestrian Academy for Music? For one entire year I tried to get in there. I had over twenty ponies audition with one of my works. Eighteen of them got accepted. For one entire year I waited for a message from the Academy. I got nothing. Nothing! But the thing that hit me the most, I got nothing from you. Not a single letter, not a single word. My best friend. Pah." I spat at her, jumped from my stool, and walked off.
"Vinyl, I'm sorry..."
"Is she bothering you, Octavia?" the pianist came in asking.
"Why don't you explain everything to your friends from the Academy, huh?" I yelled behind my shoulder. "Get me home" I told the carriage rider, and rode off into the night.

I was back in the Dreamworld, an exhausted Luna standing next to me. "Are you okay?" I asked her.
"Coffee" was the faint whisper I got in return.
I quickly went to grab a cup, and saw her strength return as soon as she started sipping.
"Wow, I've never had to battle so much willpower to exit a dream. I had to push everything to keep you in there."
"I'm sorry"
"It's okay, I see why you wanted to leave. Wow, your life wasn't easy."
"No, I shouldn't have spat, I shouldn't have gone away. She was my only friend ever, and I spat in her face and left her standing. I was a drunk foal." I started crying. "It wasn't supposed to be this way. She wanted to apologize to me. I betrayed her... I'm a monster."

Suddenly I heard familiar music. "Beethoofen" I whispered. "The Ode to Joy. No wait... That's... me. The Ode to Friendship."
"Do you remember what your dream was?"
"To be like Beethoofen..."
"Let's see if you can remember you musical history. Tell me, was Beethoofen accepted immediately?"
"No, his music was strange, it was completely new, ponies thought he was weird" I fell silent.
"Tell me, when he did gain success, did he start drinking like a madpony? He lived for music, he got deaf and music was still his life, even if he couldn't enjoy it anymore himself!"
"I-I..." Words escaped me, how could I have been so blind?
"Yet a couple of seconds ago, you couldn't recognize the music you had written from his music. It was basically a clone of Beethoofen's work. However, when you started to write techno, it was new. Tell me, did ponies immediately accept you for your music?"
I kept silent. They hadn't. It had taken more than two years for me to actually gain publicity. Those might have been the two hardest years of my life, but I kept trying, and I was happy.
"Which were Beethoven best works? The ones in the begin of his career or the ones at the end?"
"The ones at the end."
"How about yours? Were your best works in the begin or the end of your career?"
"The very begin."
"Do you remember how you wrote those first ones? Do you remember how you wrote that very first sheet music?"
I smiled. "My gramps always used to joke about that. From Scratch. I started with blank pieces of paper, and when I was done, I played it for him and I only played it on parties only if he liked it. Else, I would go back to the paper and start all over again."
I looked over to see that Luna was gone. I thanked her silently, now realising that I had only started actually composing once I played techno, how strange that may sound. My works before that were shameless copies of Beethoofen. Once I got famous, the bits were rolling in, and I started abusing my fame. I made songs with less and less effort, altering my songs just a little, just to get more bits, to be more famous. I only cared about the fame, not about the music, like I had those two years, when I wanted the music to be perfect. I disgusted myself. How could I have been so stupid?

I woke up, wondering where I was. Remembering I was in the hospital, I rubbed my head. My headache was gone I could feel a bump on the back of my head though. Though it was still dark outside, I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep again. So, I stood up and went on a walk inside the hospital, thinking about what Luna had showed me in my own dreams. I wandered past the counter, lost in thought. Nurse Redheart saw me walking about.
"Can't sleep?" she asked. "I can get you another one of those pills if you want."
"No, I'm fine, thank you." I stopped walking. "Do you think I could get some paper, a quill and some ink?" I asked her.
"Sure. If you want I can write a letter for you?" She gave me what I had asked.
"No, it's not going to be a letter, but thanks for the offer."
"Don't overexert yourself, though, if you feel dizzy, call for me. What are you going to write though, if not a letter?"
Turning back to my room, I answered over my shoulder. "Music" I smiled.
As I got to my room, I went to sit on my bed and started writing the title.

From Scratch
> Esther Bowstrings
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I was stopped from writing by a gleam of light coming through the window on the opposite side of the room, above an empty bed. It was a nice touch to have windows above the bed, and one across the room, just so that the one who lied there could see straight ahead, through the window opposite of him. The windows were pointed south and north, so the afternoon sun would be straight on my face. Now, however, under the condition I was in, the light was too strong, as concussions often have the effect that they increase the sensitivity from light. So I quickly stepped out of bed, and out of the sunlight. I could use a walk, so I went to the northern wing of the hospital, getting away from the sun, and where the light wouldn’t be as intense. I entered a few hallways until I came upon a sign which read:

Music Room

I heard a soft melody. Music. I entered it, to find it almost completely deserted, apart from a young filly with her violin. She was very young, had a brown coat and a bright white mane. She was practising, so trying to not disturb her, I sat down and just listened to her. She hadn’t seen me enter, so I had a closer look at her. The coat I thought was brown, was more of a dark red with a reddish brown undertone. The white mane jumped out immediately. It had been kept short, her tail mane was very basic and short. Her eyes were a darker, browner tone than her coat. Listening to her playing, I could tell that she still had a long way to go, but I could feel that she had talent. Especially if she kept practising like she was now. When she stopped, I gave her an applause. She jumped up in surprise, then she blushed, and mumbled something.
“Excuse me, what was that you just said? I couldn’t hear.”
“Thank you” I barely managed to determine from her silent whisper.
“No, no, that won’t do. When you receive an applause, you should be proud of yourself. You need to accept an applause with grace, like this.”
I bowed before her, then stood up straight, and then I wove to the “audience” as I “left the stage”. I could hear a giggle escaping from her. I went back to my chair and said “Now you try” as I started applauding again. She bowed, stood up straight and wove to me, the audience, giggling all the way while doing so.

I smiled at her. “And what might your name be, young filly?”
“I’m Esther. Esther Bowstrings.”
“Very nice to meet you Esther. I’m Vinyl Scratch.”
“Hey, haven’t you made some music like a couple of years ago? I’ve seen that name on those records over there.” She pointed at a shelf next to to an old gramophone. I walked over and saw that indeed, one of my records was there. I smiled. “Yes, indeed. This was my very first record. Do you mind if I put it on?”
“Not at all, please go ahead.”
As I put it on, I smiled with nostalgia. It was very soft techno, not the type of music I had played the last couple of years. No, this had melody, not just beats. Classical techno, I called it. It never became very popular, because it wasn’t classic enough according to the elite in Canterlot, yet not hardcore enough for techno fans. So I had decided to quit the genre. And since I wasn’t good enough to be accepted by the classicists, I threw myself on techno, which was pretty much unexplored terrain, and it had made me rich... But what I had made, was just beats, no feeling to it.

“That was beautiful. Why haven’t you made more records?” Esther asked.
“Even though it’s beautiful music, it never was a good seller. So I threw myself on hard techno. You might have heard of my stage name: DJ PON-3” I noticed that whenever I said that name, it was with disgust.
“I’m sorry, I haven’t heard of you.” She said apologizing.
“That’s no problem, you are probably too young to know me. I haven’t made music in a few years, so yeah. Now, let me ask you a question. Why do you play music?”
“It’s my cutiemark” she said with a doubtful look on her face, wondering if she misunderstood me. I had a look at her cutiemark to see it was a bow, clearly meaning she would be good at playing a bowed string instrument. And looking at her instrument, she had chosen the violin. I smiled.
“Your cutiemark is not the reason why you do something. It’s the means with which you want to reach your dreams. Maybe I should ask my question differently. What is your dream?”
She mumbled something under her breath. “C’mon, speak up. No dream is embarrassing, dreams are the most wonderful thing. Now, again, what is your dream?”
“I want to play my violin in front of the biggest crowd ever. I want them to throw flowers at me,and then...” She mumbled something else after that.
“C’mon, I want to hear the full dream, I’m sitting on the edge of my seat here!”
She smiled. “I want... Octavia to congratulate me. She’s my idol, she’s so great!”
“Ah” I said. The little filly looked up at me, waiting for a response. “I suppose that would be Octavia Philharmonic, right? That’s a wonderful dream, but you are going to have to practise a lot more before you can play at her level. But you have talent, so I’ll be rooting for you.”

“Esther!” I heard a shout from the hallway.
“I have to go, feel better soon from whatever reason you’re here, Vinyl” She dashed through the door.
“I already do.”
“Esther, there you are!” I heard an angry mare shout. “You should have been back twenty minutes ago, yet here you still are! I don’t know what I’m going to do with you.” I stood up and went to the hall quickly, to see the mare shouting at Esther.
“I’m sorry, ma’am. It is my fault that Esther is late. I had no idea she had somepony waiting for her.” The mare looked at me with big eyes, then hurried along with Esther. It left me broken, those hadn’t been eyes I wanted to see. Those had been eyes of fear and disgust. I sighed, and returned to my bed. The sun had parted along enough so that it wouldn’t shine in my eyes any more. Just as I had lifted myself in bed, nurse Redheart came into the room.

“Vinyl, there you are, where have you been?” she said.
“Well the sun was shining in my eyes, and I couldn’t really handle it. so I went for a walk, and then I got to the Music Room.”
“Oh, so that was you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Did you meet Esther there?”
“Yes, we had a nice talk about music and dreams. She can play the violin pretty good.” I smiled. “What’s wrong with her? She seems healthy.”
“She is. She comes to the Music Room in the Hospital every day after school because they can’t afford a violin at the orphanage.”
Orphanage. “She’s an orphan? I had no idea...” Then I noticed something about nurse Redheart. She wasn’t telling me something. “Tell me what’s the matter.”
“Well, you don’t have a very good reputation. The matron told Esther that you... That you were a dangerous pony and that she shouldn’t be talking to you, she threatened Esther to not allow her to come here any more. I overheard them shouting in the hallway.”
“Ah” That’s about all I could say. Thoughts were racing through my mind. Am I really such a terrible pony. I probably ruined Esther’s only chance at playing the violin. I destroyed her dream.
“But Esther said that you were the first pony to be actually nice to her, the first pony to ever treat her normally. And if she wasn’t allowed to come here any more, she would come anyway.”
That brightened up my face immediately. “She looked like such a sweet girl. What happened to her family?”
“No one knows. She was left on the doorstep of the orphanage as a little foal, with a letter only saying her first name: Esther.”
“To me she introduced herself as Esther Bowstrings. Ah, It’s because of the violin.” I smiled.
“Yes, that’s how she calls herself these days, as she has no actual last name. It suits her, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, yes it does” I said, still smiling. “Say, nurse, when can I get out of the hospital?”
“We’re gonna keep you here for the remainder of the night, since you still seem to be a bit sensitive of light. Normally, you can get out tomorrow morning. Can I get you anything else?” I looked around. There were paper scraps everywhere.
“Some more paper, please?” Nurse Redheart laughed, went out the room, and came back with a huge pile of papers, as well as a trash can. “Enjoy yourself” she said, walking out of the room, still laughing.

I went straight back to work, as it was far from finished, I still had a lot of work to do, but I enjoyed every second of writing and improving it. I hummed the the symphony to test where it wasn’t coherent, what parts needed to be changed, and what parts were good. A knock on the door interrupted me. The door opened and nurse Redheart poked her head in.
“Vinyl? You have some visitors.”
“Okay, just let me put away all these notes.” I levitated my notes on the bedside table. “They can come in.”
Fluttershy and Twilight came through the door, followed by a slowly floating Rainbow Dash. Nurse Redheart closed the door behind them, allowing us to have some privacy.
“Hi everypony, thanks for dropping by to visit. So, how’s the party coming along?”
“Well, a lot of ponies have declined our invitation. Apparently, many of them had planned anything already.” Twilight said.
“I saw that coming, to be honest. That’s why I let you made that many invitations, so that we didn’t have to take chances with ponies coming or not. I hope there are still enough for a good party?”
“I’d say about 15 ponies are coming, and then us, so we’d be around twenty in total.”
“That should be fine, it might be a little small, but there’s nothing we can do about that.”
“How are you, Vinyl? Still having headaches?” Fluttershy asked with a worried voice.
“No, not really, the headaches are gone. I’m still a bit oversensitive to light, but that should wear off soon enough. How are you, yourself?”
“Oh, I’m fine, thank you.”
“Good to hear” I said with a smile. I then saw Twilight staring at the huge pile of papers next to my bed. “Those are only some music sheets I’ve been working on, Twilight, I’m not much of a reader, myself. I have to do something to keep me busy though.”
“I didn’t know you could write music, Vinyl, mind if I take a look?” She asked.
“No, go ahead. I didn’t know you could read music though” I said.
“I’ve read about the basics in a book, but this is too complicated for me.” She asked.
“Yeah, it’s a sheet for a synthesizer, so there are a lot of lines.”

After I said those words, there was an awkward silence. I sighed, deciding I’d be the one to break it. “Rainbow Dash, I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry? For what?” she blurted out.
“I’m sorry for making you hit me. I’ve been a bitch the last few years, yet all of your friends never stopped trying to cheer me up. Then, I hurt Pinkie, so really, I can’t blame you at all for hitting me. You made me realise my life had been so bad, that ponies wanted to hit me. Because of you, I realised I needed to turn my life around more than I ever would have realised. So thank you, for making me see the things the way that I see them today.”
“No, no, I never should have hit you.”
“You should have a long time ago. And if you ever see me doing something stupid, hit me again. Just don’t give me a concussion, a simple punch will do. Deal?” I smiled at her.
“Deal.”

Knocking on the door, nurse Redheart entered. “I’m sorry, but I need a word with Vinyl. Would you ladies mind waiting outside?”
“They can stay.”
“I’m sorry, Vinyl, but what I want to talk about, is something private about you. I don’t know if you want to let your friends hear about this.”
“I know what you want to talk about. It’s the scar, right?” Nurse Redheart nodded. “They can stay, if they want.”
“Do you want us to stay, Vinyl? None of us want to intrude on your privacy.” Twilight asked.
“Yes, I think it’s time that I share a part of my history with my friends.”
“I have your medical records right here, so if you ever need me to take over from telling, I’ll gladly do so.”
Lying down on my back, I removed the sheets from the bed. I heard three gasps. A huge scar ran from my chest all the way through the underside of my abdomen.

“My story begins eleven years ago. I just had been in detention for drawing in class. Actually, I think I had been writing one of my first symphonies, but the teacher couldn’t stand me, and he used every possibility he had to punish me. Anyways, I was going to be late for dinner if I didn’t hurry, so I ran towards the gate. On the way there, somepony made me trip. I fell hard, but I immediately got up. Three colts blocked my way... they took my backpack and threw everything out. I tried to fight my way out, but they just punched me down. Then the boss of the three found the symphonies I had written, but not being able to understand them, he just threw them away. I tried to grab them, but he punched me down again. He then realised they were important to me. Because he still couldn’t understand them, he just... burned them using his horn. I lost it, I charged him and hit him, making him bleed. For revenge, he had his two minions hold me on my hind legs so he could punch me freely. After so many punches, they just dropped me, and left. I couldn’t do anything, my entire body was broken, so I just laid there. Then nothing... I woke up in the hospital, a week later.

The entire room had gone quiet. “You can tell them all the medical stuff, nurse”
“Do you need some time alone?” she asked
“No, please stay.” I needed support, to not be alone. I’d been alone for far too long, I realised.
“Well ladies, from what I can tell from these medical files, Vinyl suffered very heavy internal damage. A team of doctors managed to save most organs through intense magic. Vinyl was living on an edge for that entire time. She’s very lucky to still be alive.”
“Most organs?” Twilight asked.
“Most organs. Every organ but one. They couldn’t save my ovaries... I’ll never be a mother...”
I started sobbing. “Why am I crying? This... This happened eleven years ago, I shouldn’t be crying. It’s too long ago, I can’t...”
“There, there, it’ll be okay.” Fluttershy tried to comfort me. I pushed her away.
“No, it won’t be okay!” I yelled at her. “Don’t you see? I’ll never be a mother.”
“There are other ways to-” Twilight started.
“It’s not the same! Don’t you see? You all have no idea how this feels, you-”
SMACK!

Rainbow Dash had closed the distance between her and me in less than the blink of the eye. “Snap to it, will you? Yes, you had a bad youth, so what? You can either sit there and mope about it, or do something about it. What are you going to do?”
“I-I-I... I don’t know”
“It’s no use moping around, trust me on that. You nearly died, you’ve been given another chance. Use that chance for something, and don’t just sit around being pathetic.”
“That’s easy for you to say.”
“Maybe. But it’s easy for you to do as well. Just go outside and enjoy. Just live. Just... do.”
I kept silent for a moment. “You’re right. I’m sorry.” I rubbed my cheek. “Thanks, Rainbow, though a little less hard next time would be nice.”
“I’m sorry, I guess I overreacted a bit.” she said sheepishly.
“All right ladies, she needs her rest. If I’ve heard correctly, you all have a party to enjoy.”
“One more thing” I said. “Don’t tell this to anypony who you think doesn’t need to know”
“Of course not” the three of them said in unison.
“And I’m bound by my pledge of secrecy.” Nurse Redheart stated.
“Thank you” I whispered, suddenly feeling tired. “Have fun” I managed to say, right before falling asleep.

I woke up to the soft sound of music. Clearly the party is going on. What time is it? I looked around, hoping to find a clock, but there was none to be seen. I decided to go ask nurse Redheart. But upon arriving at her counter, I noticed she was gone. There was a note there.

Went to Pinkie's party.

I sighed. Looking at the clock behind the counter, I noticed it was only 8 o'clock. Which meant that the party had only begun half an hour ago. I sighed. I wished I could be there, I felt a lot better, but it maybe was for the best that I stayed the night in the hospital. I walked back to my room, noticing that the music had stopped. Huh, that's odd. I walked back into my room.

SURPRISE!

I jumped in surprise.
How does she do it. I've been out of this room for not even five minutes, and she manages to set up a surprise party.
Pinkie Pie came running to me. "Hi Vinyl, this party is for you. I thought it was really nice to throw me a party, but then I realised "Pinkie, you don't need a party, Vinyl does" so I moved all the stuff from Sugercube Corner to here. By the way, it was a very good idea to hold the party in Sugarcube Corner, I totally didn't see it coming. It really cheered me up again, and then everypony said that it was your idea, and I was like "really?" and they were like "Yeah, but he's in the hospital now" and then I was like "Let's go ponies, to the hospital" and everyone followed, and we waited outside the window, but nurse Redheart had seen us, so we invited her too, and then we saw you leave your room, and then we prepared everything for you here, and then you entered and then we shouted SURPRISE!"
I tried to make sense of what Pinkie had just said to me. I couldn't. "What?"
Pinkie giggled. "You silly pony. C'mon let's party!" She wanted to go to the dance floor, but I stopped her.
"Pinkie, I have to say you something... I'm really, really sorry I hurt you. I didn't mean to, I lost control. I'm sorry."
"Apologies accepted. Now let's party." She pulled me to the dance floor. "Pinkie, I don't dance... please don't."
"Pinkie, if she doesn't want to dance, she doesn't have to." Twilight interjected. "Should we tell her, Vinyl?"
"Yeah" I turned to Pinkie. "I have big scar on my belly, I don't really want to show it to anyone."
"Then dance on all fours, silly, if you have fun, no one will think it's strange." She then proceeded to dance, on all fours.
I turned to Twilight. "She's the silly one here!" I said to her, laughing, as I went to dance on all fours, having a great time overall. The party lasted until after midnight, and it was the best party I ever had, even if it was in a hospital.

As we were cleaning up the party, Applejack approached me. "Ah'll be expecting ya tomorrow at noon at the farm. Don't be late." She then left, saying she had to be up early tomorrow, thanked both Pinkie and me for the party.
After the clean up, I was so tired, that I could barely drag myself to bed. I went to lie, when Pinkie approached me and gave me a hug. "Thank you for the party, it was great." She said.
"It wouldn't have been a party without Pinkie." I replied.
"Can I see your scar?" she suddenly said.
"Pinkie!" Rainbow, Fluttershy and Twilight all shouted at the same time.
"It's fine." I said to them. I lifted up the sheets to show her my scar.
"Wow, that's a big one." Pinkie said, seemingly in a voice full of admiration. "Scars are sooooo cool. I want one too."
I facehoofed. I didn't quite know how to respond to that. "I guess so." I said, yawning. I pulled the sheets back over my body. I turned my head and heard the door close one final time. With one more yawn, I fell in a deep sleep.