On Hope
Vinyl stopped a few steps up the familiar dirt path, ears perked and swiveled as far behind her as she could make them go. ’One… two… three–’
A light metallic squeak rang out, followed immediately by the ‘clink’ of metal on metal. The old wrought-iron gate used to screech like hooves on a chalkboard, at least until Vinyl had cleaned and oiled it during her last visit. Now the gate sounded less like a banshee’s calling card and more like the white picket gate out front of a friend’s home.
Welcoming instead of frightening. Warm instead of cold.
She didn’t think he – or any of his neighbors – would mind.
Vinyl smiled contentedly, adjusted her saddlebags and continued up the path. Bits and pieces of her upcoming album occupied her mind, and soon her steps began to fall in tune with the melodies in her head. A right turn just before the first hook, two quick lefts when the bass dropped, then slight right at the next transition… with an extra bass kick as she passed that old, roughed up willow tree.
As her destination came into view, she paused her mental playlist and let her surroundings fill her ears. Soft grass underhoof, robins and a few blue jays chirping in the trees, a light breeze blowing through her mane. It sounded peaceful, quiet, serene. That used to bug her to no end and, if she was honest, it was another in a line of excuses she’d used to avoid coming here. Now it was a comfort; a kind of warm embrace, as if the very ground knew she was there and was inviting her to sit down and stay awhile.
And that’s exactly what she planned to do.
“Hey, Dad, how about some brunch?” Vinyl slipped off her saddlebags and began to unpack their contents. Some food containers rose out of the nearest saddlebag, while a bottle of juice, utensils, and a small blanket rose out of the other, all encased in her light blue aura. “Brought your favorites this time: biscuits with butter, honey and jam, some scones with cream, and—” she popped the lid off the last container and set it down, “—chocolate chip muffins.
“Ha! No, I didn’t spend a month’s rent on these, because I baked them myself.” She chuckled a bit. “And before you ask, no, my kitchen is still intact.”
Vinyl paused to concentrate on splitting two biscuits open and slathering them with toppings. Strawberry jam for herself, and one part each honey and butter for the other. Just how he liked it.
“Bon appetit, pops.” She munched quietly on her biscuit for a moment, her eyes scanning the area. No other visitors yet this morning, at least none that she could see. ’Probably all headed uptown,’ she thought as she took another bite. That thought gave her pause though, right before she reached for the juice. Not that she was the only pony there, but why nopony else was around, why they were likely headed uptown, towards the upper reaches of Canterlot.
Today was the day.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Vinyl muttered while pouring out two glasses of juice, “yeah, yeah, I know, I should be happy, and believe me, I am.”
She took a sip of her juice before standing and moving to the still empty spot next to Bright Weld’s grave. Vinyl stood there a moment, staring down at the stone slab that had once been too hard, too painful to even look at. Now though, it was just eternity’s way of letting her keep in touch with the stallion that very literally sacrificed everything for his only foal.
“You noticed it too, huh?” Vinyl ran a hoof along the top of the stone, brushing off a few loose leaves and bits of dust that had floated onto it. “I think we’re both more comfortable here now, after everything. I… I just wish it hadn’t taken me so long to figure that out myself.”
Vinyl sprawled out in the empty section of grass, her head parallel to the stone next to her. A gap in the nearby treeline gave her an unfettered view up to the hills and bluffs that marked the higher levels of Canterlot.
But Vinyl’s red eyes were trained on one specific spot, just on the edge of her vision. A new, tall structure, currently shielded by a bright white tarp and a dome of purple magic. “You like the view?” She asked, glancing over to her left. “As long as that gap isn’t filled, we’ll both have a perfect view from down here.”
“Oh, yeah, about that.” Vinyl rolled to the side and propped herself up on a foreleg. “I’ve been meaning to tell you that I finally reserved this spot. Yep, it’s all mine now, so when the time comes, all three of us can enjoy the view.”
Vinyl levitated a muffin over from the spread of treats and began slowly unwrapping it while she continued. “Yes, I said ‘three of us’, and wh— no, I did not buy his and hers caskets!” She feigned outrage for a moment before breaking into a wry smile.
“Actually, I decided to take a cue from his family and follow pegasi tradition when the time comes. I know it’s not the unicorn thing to do, Dad, and to be honest, I was hesitant at first. But, well…” she nibbled from the muffin, chewing over her words as much as the chocolate chips, “...it just feels right. For both of us.” The distant sound of hoofsteps carried past her ear and she glanced back toward the tree. “Speaking of which…”
A few seconds later, a familiar shock of blue hair crested the top of the path. She watched it disappear beneath the shade of the willow tree’s thick branches before coming into full view. Flash Sentry walked quietly and carefully, head held high and golden armor shining in the mid-morning sun. He nodded and smiled at Vinyl, but otherwise kept a ramrod straight posture as he approached. “Did you save some for me?”
Vinyl stuck her tongue out and blew a raspberry at him. “Why do you think I doubled Velvet’s muffin recipe, hmm? If I hadn’t, you and my old man would have cleaned them out before I even got to try one.”
Flash laughed at that, coming to a stop a few feet away. “Just don’t let his neighbors hear about these muffins. I don’t think we’ve covered ‘Zompony Survival Tactics’ yet in our weekly briefings.”
She rolled her eyes and groaned. “Gosh, and here I thought I married a career guard pony, not a comedian.”
“Was it that bad?”
Vinyl sat up and gave him a quick peck on the lips. “Eh, don’t quit your day job, Bolt Butt.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t,” Flash replied with a smirk, “besides, somepony has to keep watch over Canterlot’s biggest DJ.”
“I can handle a throng of fanponies,” Vinyl deadpanned, “it’s the ball of trouble on your back that you need to be watching out for.”
As if on cue, two tiny hooves clamped onto the tuft of mane sticking out of the top of his helmet, and a small pair of dark blue eyes and a tiny horn peered out from behind Flash’s head. “Why yes, we were just talking about you, Crescendo.” Flash glanced over his shoulder and chuckled. “Barely a year old and you already have your mom’s penchant for mischief.”
Crescendo just giggled in response before launching into one of her favorite activities – tapping her hooves on her father’s helmet like it was a toy drum. “Wh— Ah! Speaking of which—”
“Now, Crescendo, what did I tell you about knocking your father upside the head?” Vinyl shook a hoof in the foal’s direction to get her attention. “Besides, that’s mommy’s job. Now let’s come over here, hmm? There’s somepony I want you to meet.”
Vinyl moved to a more upright position as her magic lifted Crescendo off of Flash’s back and deposited her into her lap. Mother and daughter shared a brief, gentle nuzzle, though Vinyl couldn’t resist ruffling her daughter’s wavy, multi-hued mane a bit for good measure. Her bright pink sunglasses clashed horribly with her outfit, but they were as inseparable from Crescendo as they were for Vinyl. That they kept Crescendo from messing with Vinyl’s nearly identical – and much pricier – pair was an added and much welcomed bonus.
Crescendo looked around a bit before her eyes settled on something interesting. She squirmed about in Vinyl’s grasp, her little hooves flailing in an attempt to move towards the nearby grey slab that now held her attention. “Hey, you, where are you go— Oh.”
Vinyl glanced up at Flash, a pensive, almost nervous look in her eyes. Flash quickly moved to sit beside her, doffing his helmet as he did so. He wrapped a wing around Vinyl’s back, pulling them both in as tight as possible. Vinyl’s hoof reached out on its own and rested on his leg, a gesture that Flash quietly but confidently returned. “Just speak from the heart.” Flash looked into her bright red eyes and smiled. “I think he’d want you to.”
Vinyl took a deep breath and gave his hoof a final squeeze before turning her gaze to the stone marker before them.
“Crescendo, let me tell you a story about Grandpa Bright…”
“No wonder we were alone this morning. The entire city is right here.” Ponies from every walk of life filled every bit of space on the promenade. All Vinyl could see was a sea of manes and tails, everything from frilly hats to dusty overalls. Not a single empty patch of cobblestone in sight.
Flash whistled as he scanned the area with wide eyes of his own. “That explains why they called everypony in for duty today. This is a bigger crowd than even the Summer Sun Celebration gets.”
Vinyl nodded in agreement. “Gotta admit, I’d give my right ear to play a crowd this big— Crescendo, get down!” The foal was standing on the edge of her chair, trying to look out past the raised platform they were all seated on.
Disaster averted, Vinyl glanced up past the back of the crowd and couldn’t help a bit of a double take. Before her was a sight she rarely had a chance to take in – the view from near the top of Canterlot.
Situated only one level down from the Royal Castle itself, the ‘Platinum Promenade’ was as stunning as the queen it was named after. A crystal-clear canal ran through the center of wide open streets that were themselves lined with scores of trees, hedges, and gardens. The sound of babbling water joined the sights and smells emanating from the boutiques and cafes that lined the sidewalks, tempting passerbies with some of the finest food, drink, and wares in all of Equestria.
Vinyl had become a regular sight to the ponies that frequented this glitzy section of the city, but on second glance, she realized just how little she had really seen of the area. Then again, nearly all of her trips through these perfectly smoothed streets were done hastily, usually with Flash galloping behind her to keep up. Back then, she cared nothing for the beauty around her; all that mattered was the next meeting with the princesses, the small radio in her saddlebags, and the single human floating somewhere above them all.
Vinyl sighed at the thought. ’I wanted to show you this, Adi. All of this. Goddess, I still miss you.’ Her eyes glazed over a bit and her mind wandered up to the stars, to all the places she had seen in their brief moments together in the dreamscape. ’Dammit, we were so close...’
A light touch on her shoulder broke her sad reverie. She turned to Flash, a look of quiet concern in his eyes. “Hey, you okay?”
Vinyl blinked back a few tears and took a slightly ragged breath. “Y-yeah, I’m okay. Just thinking.” She leaned into her husband with another sigh. “I just wish it had turned out different.”
“So do I, believe me. I think everypony wished it had turned out different.” Flash wrapped a wing around his wife’s shoulders. “But don’t forget what you said on that pier. Adi did make it home. She found a destination, after so much time alone. And most importantly…” he kissed her on the cheek, “...she found a friend.”
Vinyl smiled through a quiet sob before hugging Flash even tighter. Her eyes drifted past his shoulder to the tall object that lay just beyond the stage, still encased in a protective magic shield. “No, I think… I think she found a family.”
She leaned up and pecked him on the lips. “I love you, Flash.”
“You too, Vinyl.” Flash gently nuzzled her in return. “And in her own way, I think Adi did too.”
The moment was broken by the sound of trumpets. Flash and Vinyl turned and looked to the back of the platform, where a trio of unicorn guards stood shoulder to shoulder, polished trumpets floating in their magical auras. They paused briefly, then raised their trumpets to play the traditional royal fanfare, not a single motion wasted between them. One of them stepped forward as the fanfare’s last notes rang out above the crowd.
“Mares and gentlestallions! Presenting Her Royal Highnesses Princess Celestia, Luna, and Twilight Sparkle, and from the Crystal Empire, Her Royal Highness, Princess Cadance, and Prince Shining Armor!”
The crowd broke into enthusiastic applause as Celestia, Luna, and Twilight took to the stage, the latter two flanking Celestia to either side. The trumpets sounded the fanfare of the Crystal Empire next, and Princess Cadance and Shining Armor soon joined them on the stage.
One by one they filed past Vinyl and her family, each offering hoofshakes and small hugs as they went. Crescendo insisted on waving her hooves through Celestia’s ethereal mane, nearly causing Vinyl to hyperventilate, but a smile and a wink from the princess assuaged her worries.
The royal quintet waved to the applauding crowd before taking their places on the opposite end of the stage. The applause petered out then was silenced completely when Princess Luna rose and stood behind the podium at the center of the stage.
“Thank you everypony for such a warm welcome. On behalf of my fellow monarchs, as well as our honored guests, we are glad to see so many of you here today as we mark this very special occasion.”
“What is hope? The Trotford Dictionary defines hope as ‘to cherish a desire with anticipation’. Put in more modern terms, hope is what we do when we deeply, desperately want something to be true. A promotion at work, a top grade on the next assignment, a yes from the pony you asked on a date, perhaps even more bits than is possible to count.” Luna’s eyes roamed the crowd as she spoke. “We all hope for things from time to time, and whether they be great or small, they are all for things we do not already possess.”
Her voice turned somber. “But what if hope was all that we had? What if the things we desired most were the very things we take for granted, like soft grass under our hooves, a gentle breeze in our manes, or the warmth of the sun on our backs?”
The question seemed to hang in the air like a single dark cloud. Luna turned to her far right and caught Vinyl’s gaze immediately. Vinyl just smiled and nodded, a silent encouragement to a pony that in some ways had understood Adi’s pain better than anypony else. Luna held her stare for a moment before smiling in return and turning back to the crowd.
“These seemingly mundane things were literally the stuff of dreams for Adhiambo Longstaff. Alone and drifting through space for years, a prisoner in the very craft that had ferried her away from a dying, decayed planet that she could no longer call home. While we laid down our heads and dreamt wistfully of better tomorrows, Adi’s hope was for there to be a tomorrow at all.”
She glanced back to Vinyl. “But thanks to the efforts of Miss Vinyl Scratch, along with her friends, my royal sisters, and many of Equestria’s best scientists, Adi was able to hold on. Even in her darkest hours, when the odds were stacked impossibly high, these ponies gave her a reason to continue. A reason to live.
A reason to hope.”
Loud cheers silenced the princess’s next words, and she yielded the moment to the crowd. Vinyl’s ears pivoted forward to soak it all in; she swore she could just make out a gaggle of ponies chanting Adi’s name from the very back of the crowd.
Luna raised a hoof and the crowd grew silent once more. “Sadly, fate chose to deny Adi her dreams, and all of us the chance to come face to face with a being from another world. And so today we remember Adi Longstaff, and honor her courage and conviction in the face of utter despair, and ultimately, in the face of her own death.” Vinyl heard a small sniffle and turned to see Cadance and Twilight dabbing at their eyes with a tissue. Her eyes flowed back over Luna, who was effectively using the podium to hide the slight tremble in her hind legs.
“We do not know much about the customs and traditions of Adi’s people, but with careful planning, and some astounding work from Maud Pie and her team of designers and architects, we found a way to honor Adi and her ideals in a way that we think any pony, or any human, could look upon with pride.”
As if on cue, Celestia stood, followed by the others seated around her. Together they turned to face the statue. Vinyl shifted on her hooves, drawing both Flash and Crescendo as close to her as possible.
The hum of magic filled the air, drawing Vinyl’s attention to the far side of the stage just in time to see Twilight dispel the shield from around the statue. Now only a long white tarp hid it from view.
“Here we go, Flash…”
“Yep. And I think you’ll love how it turned out.”
“Of course I’ll love it,” she whispered, but stopped at the gleam she saw in his eyes. “I went to every design meeting, so I know what it— Wait, you know something, don’t you?” Her eyes widened in panic. “What happened? What’s wrong?”
Flash just winked at her. “Don’t worry, nothing’s wrong. Just wait, you’ll see.”
“See wh—”
“Mares and gentlecolts!” Luna’s booming voice caught Vinyl’s, and the crowd’s attention. “It is my honor to present to you the final fruits of a two year project. Born out of sadness and heartbreak, we hope it will become a lasting reminder to us all that the power of friendship can transcend even the boundaries of space and time, that ultimately, we are not alone in this universe, and most importantly…”
Luna glanced over her shoulder to Vinyl, tears welling in her cyan eyes.
“...that hope is always worth it.”
It took nearly every ounce of Vinyl’s willpower to not gallop across the stage and embrace Luna right there.
“Now, everypony, it is with great pleasure that we present this statue in memory and honor of Adi Longstaff, and the pony who guided her home.”
’No, she can’t be serious...’
A trumpet blast pierced the still air and the white tarp began to rise in a haze of yellow magic as a pair of guards began removing the white covering. Vinyl’s heart was pounding in her chest, her pulse racing faster with each inch of material that was revealed. Flash stood proudly at her side, hoof entwined with hers, and Crescendo nestled safely between his wings. Vinyl felt their presence, but all she could focus on was the slowly rising tarp, and the beauty that emerged from within its its embrace.
With a final burst of magic, the final section of tarp lifted off the top of the statue, revealing it to all in its full glory. The crowd gasped as one. Vinyl’s heart nearly froze in her chest. ’Dear goddess...’
Towering over them was a beautiful representation of Adi, carved entirely from a block of flawless alabaster marble. But instead of standing tall and proud, like Vinyl had expected, she was down on one knee, her smiling face turned towards the sky. Vinyl’s eyes traced every inch of the sculpture, which was easily ten feet tall without the polished granite base it was built on.
She marveled at the attention to detail shown by the artists. Despite having never seen a human before in their lives, Maud and the others had captured Adi perfectly, from her long braided hair to her high cheekbones and smooth skin. Even her eyes, made of stone as they were, looked just as soft and warm as she remembered.
But when her eyes moved to the right side of the sculpture, she saw another form next to Adi. She blinked once, twice, three times in sheer disbelief. She was looking at a figure of a pony.
She was looking at herself.
“What? H-how?” Vinyl nearly jumped out of her fur. She shook her head and looked again, then to Flash, the statue, and back again. “Flash, that... that’s me.” She braced herself against his side, thankful that her heavy breathing was wholly masked by the cheers from the crowd, who clearly approved of the finished product as well.
A few deep breaths, then she looked again at her likeness. Really looked. And what she saw took her breath away again.
Carved in the same perfect white marble, Vinyl was seated to Adi’s left, though with the latter kneeling down, Vinyl’s muzzle was nearly even with her elbow. Adi’s right arm was extended, one of her fingers pointing up to the stars that brought her here. Her left arm, however, was set down to her side, allowing her other hand to rest atop Vinyl’s withers, fingers entwined with her mane.
Everypony gathered saw a beautiful work of art and a fitting memorial to a creature they never met yet knew by name. But Vinyl saw so much more beyond the stone and granite creation. She saw two lives, two dreams, two pasts, and in some indescribable way, two souls.
A human and a pony. Both lost, both searching for answers, for direction. One looking to make peace with her past, the other looking desperately for a future. Two kindred spirits indelibly linked by a story only they could have written.
Two souls frozen in stone, forever staring up to the endless, beautiful sky and the countless stars beyond the furthest horizon.
Forever hopeful.
A river of tears felt as nothing compared to the warm shudder that ran through Vinyl, as if Adi’s fingers were running through her fur all over again. She fell back to her haunches and sobbed. “It… It’s so beautiful… I can’t believe it.”
“Told you you’d love it,” Flash replied before cradling his wife with a wing. “When Princess Luna brought the idea up, we all agreed to keep it a secret. Maud and the others gladly worked overtime to get it done, but they too thought it was a very fitting choice.”
Vinyl couldn’t help but laugh through her tears. “You knew? All this time?”
“State secrets, m’am. Need to know only,” Flash added with a wink.
Crescendo hopped down from her father’s back and turned to look up at Vinyl. “M-Ma?”
Vinyl kneeled down and scooped her up into a big hug. “Mommy’s okay, little one. She— She’s just really happy…” Vinyl looked up to the statue, eyes locked on Adi’s serene gaze.
“...happier than she’s ever been.”