To Be

by Nyronus

Rating: everyone
Tags: Slice of Life, DJ P0N-3, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Romance, Octavia
Length: 5482

Vinyl Scratch is just a normal pony—for the most part.

Yo, the name's Vinyl Scratch, and all told, I've got it pretty good.

I do what I love, I love what I do, and what I do is make music that gets ponies pumped. I mean, you've probably seen me around. Truth be told I'm kind of everywhere—from Canterlot to Manehatten—doing fashion shows, clubs, weddings, and at least two royal shindigs post-changeling invasion. Funny thing about that though...

Special thanks to Dreams of Ponies, The Masked Ferret, and Skeeter the Lurker for their editing and support.

Published 2017-09-05 03:50:06 UTC
Last updated 2017-09-05 03:50:06 UTC

To Be

“Thank you, Baltimare!” I shouted into the mic, and the crowd roared back. I let them die down before I leaned back in. “It’s always been a pleasure to be at the Double Down, but that’s all for tonight. I had a blast, and if you did too, make your way back here next time I’m in town, all right?” They roared again. “All right, consider it a date—P0N-3 out!” And with that, I hopped away from the deck as they went wild one last time.

“Great show, P0N-3,” the staffer said as he fell in beside me.

“Yeah, killed it, P0N-3!” A hoof whipped into my view and I locked it with mine, giving it a firm shake as I passed.

“Not bad yourself, Maus,” I shot back as I kept moving on.

“Yeah, well, that’s to be expected.”

I chuckled as I went on back stage.

“Need anything, P0N-3?”

“Nah, buddy. I think I’m just gonna crash in the green room for a bit. You guys got my rig?”

“Just the way you specified, ma’am.”

“Cool, cool. I’ll double check that in a few.”

“All right, anything you need?”

“Not at all. Go make sure everyone else is doing fine.”

I closed the door and flopped backwards onto the couch. After a moment, I just started shaking—rattling really. I let out a huge sigh and laughed as a big, dopey grin split my face.

That had been great. Better than great, you know? Everyone had been alive that night. Every sound, every beat—they felt it, and I felt them feeling it, you know? Boom, boom, boom, everyone was there—in that moment, alive and together—and ahhh. Damn. Nothing gets me pumped like that and tonight it was…

It was perfect.

You know what? I needed a drink to celebrate, and I knew just the place.

“Miss Scratch?” Good Show said, opening the door. “I realized there was one thing I need to run…”

Good Show stared at the empty room, and blinked in confusion.

He could have sworn he had just left her in here.

After a moment, he shrugged and closed the door. What he needed wasn’t of pressing importance, and performers would be performers.

“Why hello there, Miss P0N-3.” Tall Glass grinned ear to ear as I threw myself onto the stool in front of the bar and tossed my glasses to the side.

“Hello yourself, man.” I grinned just as big myself. “I just had a hell of a show and I realized just what I wanted to celebrate!”

“The house Griffon Stout?”

“The house Griffon Stout!”

“Heh, one Black and Red Alicorn Stout, coming right up!”

“Hell yeah!” I pounded the counter.

“Heh, glad to see you enthusiastic as always, P0N-3, although I’m surprised to see you here. I hadn’t heard you were Manehatten. You usually play at that club on Saddle Row, right?”

Oh, oh shit.

“Yeah, but I decided to do a bit at a party for some friends in town.”

“Ah, heh. Not quite the royal wedding, huh?”

“What? Nah! I mean, the wedding was great—nothing gets the crowd pumped like narrowly escaped enslavement by foreign invaders. Heck, you should have see the party we had in Ponyville after Tirek got pasted, but this... jeez. This was one of my best shows yet. Everyone was just… there, you know. I felt them as I played, and they felt me and we were just, like, there, together just, like, being, you know?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard the DJ thing before.”

“Oh, shut up. This was… this was just, great.”

“Heh, well, no wonder you wanted your traditional victory drink. Here you go.” A glass of cold, black, frothy goodness plopped down in front of me. I snatched it in a hoof and raised it high.

“To life and to living!” I shouted. A few other patrons gave startled confirmations. Then down the hatch it went, tangy and dark and biting. It was good.

“So, where’s your marefriend?”

The shame of having forgotten your other half in another city to catch a beer? Not so good.

“Plffpt!” I swallowed what was left in my mouth and began coughing and beating my chest while swearing with what little breath I could manage.

“Wow, wow. You okay.”

“No!” I hacked. “Mind putting this on my tab, Glass?”

“Sure, no prob. You take care, P0N-3”

“You’re a lifesaver, Glass!” I bolted from the bar and out into the street. Down a corner and into an alleyway—and ran up to the backstage exit for the club I left back in Baltimare, throwing the door open.

“Octy.” I said with an awkward grin. There she was, waiting for me in the cold, wrapped up in a purple scarf and brown winter cap, roses in a bundle under one hoof. She gave me a smirk.

“What’s the matter, Vinyl? Left me in the cold hoping to outlast your fanfillies again?”

“Ah, no I—shit, Octy, I got so caught up after the show. I forgot.”

She laughed.

“It’s all right, Vinyl.” She smiled and lifted the roses towards me. “Here.”

“Ah, aww thanks.”

“You always get me roses at my concerts.”

“I know, but still, thanks. Still, sorry to leave you in the cold out here.”

“It’s fine. A stage hand was looking for you and checked back here. He offered to let me in, but I said I’d wait.”

“Ah, damn.”

“It’s no trouble, Vinyl, really.” She smirked. “I’m honestly touched that you rushed out here when you remembered so fast that you forgot your glasses.”

My glasses—crap!

“One sec!” I started to close the door—

“Take you time!” She shouted back to me.

—and threw open the door to Tall Glass’s joint.

“Glasses!”

“On the table where you left them, P0N-3.”

“Thanks, man!” I snatched them up with my telekinesis, and closed the door behind me—

—before popping the door in Baltimare back open.

“Back!” I said, chipper as could be.

“I see!” Octy chuckled. Sweet Celestia I loved to hear her laugh, even if it costs me being a doofus.

“All right, so, I need to go check on the pack job on my rig, and then we can head out. Wanna wait in the Green Room?”

“Sure,” she said as she started coming up the stairs. I held the door open for her and let her in. I breathed a sigh of relief as I closed the door behind her. Just a minor slip-up, you know?

It’s just kind of hard to keep track of everything when you can be anywhere.

“You’ve been awfully pensive.”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, just some stuff on my mind?”

“Oh, what’s up? It’s not the concert, was it? As far as I could tell, it was one of your best yet.”

“Oh, no.” I was just debating how to explain… well, what was really up with me. “Not that. Just some stuff I had on my mind for a while.”

Octavia smiled, and I melted a little.

“Whatever it is, it must be important. I’ve rarely seen you like this.” Her smile got a little sad.

“I mean, it is, but…”

“But?” She seemed concerned.

“Just… I dunno, give me a minute.”

“Vinyl, is this about us?”

Oh, oh shit, shit shit shit.

“I mean—yes? No?”

“Vinyl,” She stopped and pivoted to look at me on the cold Baltimare sidewalk, “what’s wrong? Please, tell me.”

“Look, it’s complicated I—” I was making this sound worse is what I was doing “—all right, I’m not going to break up with you, okay? This isn’t about our relationship, we’re cool. There’s just—something that happened to me as a kid, and it came up tonight, and... I just have it on my mind.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

No? Maybe? Ah, jeez, how do I even begin to answer that? Honestly?

“Trying to figure out if I wanted to talk about it is what’s on my mind, mostly.”

“I see.” She flicked her eyes to the right and back. “All right. I’ll listen, whatever it is, okay? I’m sorry if I put you in a corner.”

“Nah, Tavi, it’s fine.” I smiled. “I just get a little…” Anxious and self-loathing about my personal identity crisis and how it might affect us? “...worked up. I promise I’ll tell you about it, okay?”

She smiled at me.

“All right, I understand. You don’t have to if you don’t want to. I certainly have my fair share of odd or embarrassing things in my past that I’d rather just leave there.”

“Oh really?” I smirked. “Like what?”

“If I was willing to tell you, I wouldn’t have alluded to them existing as reasons to be sympathetic to you not wanting to bring up some kind embarrassing macaroni related disaster, or something like that.

“So, is that just, like, a hypothetical example you made up, or is that something you actually did that you threw on the down low hoping context would make me think it was hypothetical—”

“Vinyl.”

“—because that would have to be a pretty hardcore macaroni screw up to haunt you to this day. Like, Nightmare Moon levels of bad. Like, some kind of crazy noodle based massacre of which you were the only survivor. A massacaroni, if you will—” I flung up hoof up in time to block the snowball, laughing as it hit. Unfortunately, Octavia made the same tactical mistake she always makes when she gets into a snow-ball-fighty mood with me.

In Equestrian history, the pegasi are the real terrors of the battlefield. It’s hard to argue when they can drag hurricanes over your invasion fleet and set tornados on your infantry. There is one form of warfare though that the unicorn race prevails at above all others. One I am a master in; a warrior without peer. One Octavia had foolishly engaged me in, yet again.

Octavia ran laughing down the street, and I chased close behind, cackling as a cloud of snowballs perpetually formed and fired off around me.

By the time we got tired out from running in the cold wet air of the city, Octavia had forgotten about my bad mood. I hadn’t though.

Thankfully, I’d made a resolution.

“Hey, Tavi. I made up my mind.”

“About what, Vinyl?” She asked as she vigorously toweled snow from her mane and coat.

“Remember what I had on my mind? I think I want to talk about it.”

“Oh? You don’t have to if you don’t want to, Vinyl, especially if it’s just bad memories. You don’t have to dig up old wounds for me.”

“No, it’s not like that. It’s something else, and I wanted to talk with you about it.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, come out here.”

“Moment.” She shook her mane and threw the towel back onto the hotel rack. “Can I brush my hair while we talk?”

“Sure, but I wanted to show you something first.”

“All right then.” She came trotting out into the hotel room. “What is it.”

“All right.” I walked so my back was to the window. “Close your eyes.”

“All right.” She smiled and did so. “Now what?”

“Now, just listen carefully.”

I started walking backwards, whistling to myself as I did so. It only took me a few steps to get back there. I whistled for a few more seconds, watching as Octavia’s ears tracked my position.

I then stopped whistling and knocked on the hotel door.

The one behind Octavia.

From the outside.

I waited a few seconds, and then knocked again. I heard Octavia call out my name inside, and then shuffling around. She called out for me to hold on a moment, and I waited as I heard latches being turned and deadbolts opened. Naturally, she was a little surprised to find me waiting in wall for her.

“Hey.” I gave an awkward grin.

She looked behind her and then back at me.

“You told me you couldn’t teleport.”

“Can’t. Barely have the power for it and… well, never had reason to learn.”

“But you just teleported!”

“No, I didn’t, it’s something else.”

“What are you talking about?”

I rolled my eyes.

“Name something on the nightstand at home.”

“Why?”

“Just, come up with something.”

“The Con Mane novel I was reading. I forgot it there.”

“One sec.” I pulled the door closed, turned to my side, ruffled around a bit, and then turned back and knocked on the door. When she opened it, I hoofed the novel to her. “Here.”

“I—that’s—this is a prank!”

“It’s dogeared just like you do it.”

“I—A very good prank!”

“Name something from the pantry.”

“Vinyl, please.”

“Please, Octy? I need you to believe me.”

“Fine—my biscuits.”

“We’re out.”

“We aren’t.”

“I’m telling you—fine, hold on.” I closed the door, flicked the light switch in our kitchen on and set to rummaging through the trash. It took me a few minutes, but I found the wrapper for her cookies. I went to knock on the hotel door only to find her there, searching the hallway for me after I left. She screamed in surprised. Granted, I would too if she’d just suddenly been there when she hadn’t been before.

This is why I was using the door trick. Hoped it would go down easier.

“Sorry, Octy! Look, here are the—are you okay?”

“You! You were just—there! And you weren’t before!”

“Yeah, I know, that’s—that’s kind of what I was trying to show you.”

“I mean—how?!”

“So you believe me?”

“Of course I—are those my biscuits?”

She was staring at the wrapper in my hoof.

“Uh, yeah. What’s left. Told you we were out.”

Octavia just sort of… stared at me.

“So, wanna know what kind of wacky hijinks lead to this mess?” I gave my best, pleading grin.

“I mean—did you eat my biscuits?”

“Of course I did, although that was before we left. I didn’t just eat your cookies to win a hallway argument or anything like that.”

She seemed unsure what to say.

“Will you be better if I go get you some more?”

“S-sure.” She paused. “You aren’t going to do that… thing, are you?”

“I mean… it would be faster?”

She just kept, you know, staring at me. Then she quietly closed the door.

I took that as tacit permission to do this as fast as equinely possible, which I was grateful for. This hadn’t been off to the best start.

“So, this teleportation thing you do... It isn’t normal unicorn magic, is it?”

She had taken the time to brush out her mane, and once I showed back up with her cookies and a kettle of her favorite tea (straight from our stove) she seemed calmer, more collected.

“Nope. Something else.”

“And I take it your ability to just… be somewhere, it’s part of what you wanted to talk about?”

“Yeah, basically. I just wanted to show you something so it would be easier to talk about the rest of it.” I passed her a cup and a tray of the cinnamon cookies. I flopped down on the floor next to the bed, the folder laying to rest at my side.

“All right.” She took the cup and gave a grateful drink. “What happened, then?”

I honestly didn’t know what would be the hardest part of choosing to do this, but this ranked pretty highly on my list. The folder opened up in a magenta aura and a laminated newspaper clipping floated into the air next to her. She picked it up and her eyes widened, although, perhaps not as much as I feared.

“It says you died, Vinyl,” she said softly, “in a lab accident fifteen years ago. According to this, there was a scandal and… and I remember it now.” Her eyes seem to wander outside the room. “At the school, a filly had gotten into an experiment and…” She looked up at me. “How?”

“I, uh, don’t know honestly.” I rubbed the back of my neck. “Celestia tried to explain it to me a few times after I, uh, came back, but it’s…”

“Did you die?”

“Kind of?” I rolled my head and sort of drifted out of focus of the room. “I’m not like—undead, or anything like that. I’m alive, now. According to Celestia, I’m probably more alive than most ponies are, from a certain point of view. But I’m not exactly a pony anymore either, although I’m still just kind of a pony, too.”

“You’re rambling,” she said it softly, and when I looked back, she looked concerned, not angry. “What happened?”

“From my perspective? I was just sort of sneaking around the school, looking for something to do, when I ended up somewhere I shouldn’t have. The building wasn’t even technically part of the campus, I had wandered off grounds to an adjacent research facility. There was this light and… it hurt, at first, and I was scared, and then everything got really confusing for me. I didn’t know where I was. I’m not even sure I knew who I was. I knew something was wrong, and I tried really hard to fix it, and then...” I let out a breath. “I heard this song.

“My old man used to play it for me on his record player, this swingy jazz thing he had been into as a colt. I loved that song, and I loved watching him dance to it. I loved how happy it made him, you know? I’m not sure he realized how much I liked that song himself, otherwise I don’t think he would have been able to play it. But I heard it. I even heard the exact scratches his exact copy had. I just started going for it. It was hard, but I wanted so much to hear that song and see my dad again that I just pushed and pushed and—boom! I was there in his office.”

I sat up. “He looked like he’d, well, seen a ghost. He started asking me questions and sobbing and it was so terrifying for me because I didn’t even remember the accident at that point. I just try to hug him and ask him what’s wrong, but, well, that only made it worse… Hey, mind if I get a cup for myself?”

“Go ahead.”

I went and got my cup and drank it down. I tried not to show it, but focusing the telekinesis was hard. I realized aside from Celestia, Octavia was the only outsider I ever really told this stuff to and it… it hurt more than I thought it would, throwing it all out there.

“Thanks,” I said, sitting down with a second cup.

“It’s all right, Vinyl. I didn’t realize what I was asking you…”

“No, it’s all right, Tavi. I knew I should have told you, but it never seemed… important is all, you know?”

“It didn’t?”

“Think about it. You’ve known me for a while now, and when has this ever been super relevant for you to know?”

She sat back and seemed to give it some thought.

“There was that time you forgot to give me the house key before getting on the train—”

“Okay, fair enough—”

“You also once delayed me fixing dinner by a full hour because you’d gotten the wrong ingredients from Barnyard Bargains.”

“I mean, yeah, I can see the utility—”

“Also in college I had to wait, thinking you’d stood me up because you didn’t know there were two restaurants in town named ‘Istallion Flavor.’”

“I mean, like, emotionally, Tavi! How often has me being this freaky—pony—thing, come up in our day to day lives!”

“I’m teasing, Vinyl.” She smiled. “Just trying to lighten the mood.”

Oh, crap. Well, now I felt like a heel.

“It’s all right. You’re right though. To me, you’ve just been a normal pony. A normal, obnoxious, loud—”

I rolled my eyes.

“—crazy, hiding an incredibly useful talent from me—”

I rolled my eyes again, the electric boogaloo.

“—normal pony, who I love, dearly.”

“Aww, thanks, Tavi.”

“You’re welcome, dear.”

“All right, so yeah, I died, and then I came back, sporting a cutie mark, too.”

“This is how you got your cutie mark?” She raised her voice, slightly.

“I mean, yeah—wow, that’s actually really far out now that I think about it. What do you think the CMCs would think?”

“I would shudder to imagine.”

“Think we should tell them?”

“Let’s not. They got theirs already but I hate to imagine them deciding to subject their markless peers to disincorporation as a form of therapy.”

“See, Octy, this is why I come up with the big ideas.”

“This is why I’m going to have to tell the local constabulary not to allow you within shouting distance of the schoolhouse.”

“Hah! Let them stop—Ze Phantom! The Mare—Who Can Be Anywhere!”

Octavia cradled her face in her hoof.

“You’re hopeless.”

“That’s why you love me. Girls love lost causes they can dedicate their lives to tragically failing to fix.”

She shook her head, but she was smiling.

“All right, all right. So, you said you talked with Celestia afterwards?’

Ah, mood killer.

“Yeah, once my folks kind of got it together after their dead daughter just… appeared in their house, tapping her hoof to some old swing record, they took me to see her. She did some tests, and I was kept in the castle for a while under observation. What she explained to me was that… you know, when a pony dies, right? Their soul leaves their body? Well, normally there is a lot of stuff that happens, but ponies do come back. I didn’t leave entirely, so it was just… easier for me to come back?”

“That… seems sound and oddly simple.”

“I mean, there was a lot of techno-speak despite all that the other mages tried to explain to me, but that was the easiest to grasp. The spell I walked into didn’t entirely boot me off to the hereafter, so it was easier for me to just get back my way instead of the roundabout everyone else uses. She also said there were a lot of other factors involved, like getting my cutie mark as part of the process. That might not have been true for other ponies, but that was the long and short of it. I was gone… and I came back.” I took another drink.

“That doesn’t explain your ability though.”

“Oh, no, it’s the same deal.”

“You die when you teleport?!”

Ah, damn, should have thought that line through.

“No, not really. I mean, I guess from a certain perspective? I just—I just sort of take a step back, and choose to be somewhere else. It’s something I can do because of the weird thing that happened to me. My body is real but it’s not tied to—stuff, reality, my soul—all that stuff, the same way. So I just… sort of pack it up and put it somewhere else.”

“That’s… morbid.”

“I mean, from the scale of eternity, ponies do that all that time. I’m just more… active in the process.”

Octavia was massaging her temple.

“I get it,” I said, looking down at me tea. “This is all really weird and kind of crazy. It’s part of why I got so mopey about telling you. I’m sorry if this bothers you.”

“No, Vinyl, really. It’s fine, it’s just a lot to take in.”

“Yeah.” I went back to staring at my cup. “Honestly? This was all a lot for me as a kid. I barely understood or remembered what happened. The official record was it was discovered that a teleportation and time travel accident had shunted me around a bit, but that I was fine. They hid the truth and even went to the trouble of keeping the lie on the down low to spare me the embarrassment of being a freak. My parents didn’t really know how to take it. One minute they were almost manic with joy at me being back, and others they’d just about lose it when they thought I was in danger. Celestia promised me she’d help, but she was busy with a million other things. It’s not like I could just waltz into the palace and talk to her like she was my guidance counselor. I started getting depressed, and that’s when I… I first faded.”

“Faded?”

“Yeah. See, I wasn’t all there, not like a normal pony, even after coming back. I only came back because of my love of music—of what music did for ponies—and my love for my dad. So when I got depressed so often, those connections got weak, and I just vanished one day, in my room.”

“Vinyl…”

“I was scared. I was suddenly back in that between place, losing my mind and myself. I heard my dad screaming for me and I came back, but it was hours later and they’d been searching the neighborhood for me. He was so scared, and so was I. That didn’t make it any better. Celestia got us all a therapist when she figured out what happened, but things didn’t get better right away. Sometimes the stress of it all: my parents overprotectiveness, the way I felt like they blamed me for what happened sometimes, or just the anxiety of having to deal with that—it got too much and I’d shut down again. Sometimes it would take hours or days. Sometimes it would happen instantly and I would just… go. Since no one knew if it would be permanently next time my parents got desperate and—geez, sorry, this is all a bit heavy.”

“It’s fine, Vinyl. I’m listening. You obviously didn’t fade forever. What happened?”

“Like I said, it got worse first, and then, there was one time I faded really deep. Just got lost in that gray place again. I got so frustrated. I was angry at how lost I’d felt since coming back, and how nothing seemed right anymore. Then, I don’t know what happened, but I started kinda hearing something. Something just called to me. So I went. I was so desperate for things to make sense, I just kind of ran for it. I popped back in and I was at a fence, and there were these older colts, listening to a cassette. There was this stallion wailing about how they could do anything, and they were there, throwing their hooves out, wailing along with him. In that moment they could do anything; the music made them believe that. That their time was now and their youth and passion could make anything for them.”

I took a drink and smiled.

“It sounds sappy. I got my cutie mark when I first came back… but I think I finally started to understand it when I saw those colts just rocking out to youth and love and the power of rock and roll. Music is what gets me going, Octy. Hell, everyone does. The reason I care so much though is what music does for ponies. It makes them feel alive. It allows one soul to cry out to another; I care! Be happy! Fight the world and win!—and the other soul believes it for just a few minutes. That’s power, Octy, real power. The power to lift people up, let them cry out their sorrows, and in my case, bring back the dead. That’s why I DJ besides all the composing I do—when you DJ, you make the music as alive as the listener, changing it for them, changing it to match them. It’s why I hold concerts, it’s why I—mmph!” I stood up, shaking with excitement. “It’s why I’m alive, right?!”

“All right, Vinyl!” Octavia laughed. “That was beautiful.”

“Not as beautiful as your face, babe.”

“Oh, stop!”

“Hah, couldn’t resist!”

“So… you exist to make music?”

“Yeah, basically! We all exist for a reason, right? It’s why fate gives us these bitching flank stickers.” I wiggled mine towards her to demonstrate, which got a laugh. “So, yeah, I’m the same as everyone else, but different.”

“Everything work all right with your parents, then?”

“What? Oh yeah. The counselor got through to them that they needed to trust me and not take all their fear out on me so much, and when I finally found my way back, I started working on stuff! Music! When they saw how happy it made me, they got me enrolled in a musical education, and that’s history, basically.”

“I see.”

“So, yeah, that’s my story.”

“So, that’s why you do what you do, because music is your life?”

“Yeah. Once I got the hang of fading and coming back I started abusing it to be in as many places as I could. I’d give a concert in one city, and then do a jam session with a pen pal later. I started being everywhere I could, just soaking it in: music, ponies, concerts! It lit my life on fire.”

“I see.” She leaned back and seemed to think. “You know, I was always amazed at your schedule. Even before we met, I knew about the famous DJ P0N-3, because she honestly seemed to be everywhere. Sometimes your output seemed unreal, and I guess that was true, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, heh.” I rubbed the back of my head and grinned.

“But you had to slow down, didn’t you? For me?”

“Oh, I mean—yeah.”

“Why?”

I blinked.

“I mean, why not?”

“You had this wonderful power to be anywhere in the world to follow your passion and you spent time and money to make it look like you couldn’t, just to keep it from me?”

Oh, wow. When you say it like that it sounds kind of bad.

“I mean—that wasn’t—crap.” I stepped up to the bed and took her hoof in mine. “That wasn’t time and money wasted, Octy. I wanted to be with you, and your terms. Like we agreed, I’m just a normal pony at the end of the day. One with a little more extreme existence, but still normal at the root, and it’s not like I wasn’t used to walking places with ponies I liked before that. I didn’t even really think about it, honestly. I’d gotten so used to living without it when other ponies were involved, it honestly would have been harder to remember I had it at first.”

“I see… so what’s it like then? Can you just be places now, when you want? Is that all?”

“What’s it like? For the most part, normal I guess. I don’t exactly have a point of reference other than being some kind of freaky rock and roll ghost-sage pony. There is one thing, though.”

“Oh?”

“Come here,” I pulled her up and lead her towards the window, drawing the curtain back. Snow was coming down, the white flicker in and out of existence as it passed between the lights of a city falling asleep. I closed my eyes and my ears began flicking around. “Part of how I can be where I want to be—I can fade now, just a bit. Draw back to that between place, and while I’m there? I start to listen, and I start to hear the sounds of all the music in the world and the ponies listening. The sound of their hooves stomping, their shouts, their tears, their laughter. It’s… like a million lights calling me home. I use them to light my way back, but sometimes I just like to… sit, and take it all in.”

“A million lights calling you home, huh?” She seemed happy and… sad?

Oh, oh I knew what this was about.

Here’s where I just have to theatrically sigh. You can’t just reveal your musical godhead to a girl without her getting all insecure about how she fits into your cosmos. Typical.

“That’s not all that calls me home.” I smiled and turned towards her.

“Oh?”

That’s when I kissed her.

“You’re part of my music now too, Tavi. You’re the soul that calls out to me.” I said as we broke contact. “Plus, I’d only get into half as much trouble without you, and where’s the fun in that?”

It must have worked, because she totally kissed me back.

Author's Note

So, for everyone confused why this story exists: I noticed a trend in both the fandom and the show to just have Vinyl Scratch randomly and conveniently be in a place when the writers need something musically related to happen. She seemed to just be omnipresent. So I came up with the idea for a story where she was literally omnipresent. Then this happened because I have a problem.

Also, for the curious, The Black and Red Alicorn Stout is based off of the Ohio Unidragon Imperial Stout, and Octavia's beloved cinnamon biscuits are Biscoff, Europe's favorite cookie.