Wildlife

Singing was not an easy career to find a job in. Especially when everyone in Ponyville was talking about her. Murmuring and whispering things like, “Do you remember when that Sweetie Bell lost her voice singing at Mayor Mares 14th inauguration into office.” And Sweetie would cringe as she walked by, because of course she knew; how could she not?

And while singing had brought some embarrassments, making songs was a harder task. Cute rhymes had gotten her bye just fine as a filly, when she was a crusader. But now people really expected things from her, her Cutie Mark had become its own discussion topic. Everyone asked her to sing for them to do a silly cover of their favorite songs. They never seemed to want to hear what she wrote though, and she didn’t want to live her life like a wedding singer. She desperately wanted to create things and give her life purpose. Plenty of ponies could sing, but how many of them could write songs that would be popular.

Her own songs always had things wrong with them. She sang them staccato in places they should have been legato. The genre would twist itself around, and sometimes she would just end up crying into her microphone, and sometimes she had to label the tapes, “Failure Number One” the numbers went up, and sometimes, just when she thought she had something that was good, a note would squeak roughly out of place in her final run.

She would have to title the tape a failure, and curl up in her bed. It just wasn’t worth it to her anymore. No, nothing was worth it. She hadn’t tried to make music in so long, she hadn’t tried to do anything, or at least nothing that could end up being overwhelming. Music was overwhelming.

Now in her room, in Rarities boutique, she stares at herself in the vanity mirror of her en suite bathroom. She finds her eyes looking too yellow, tinted red under them where the skin was inflamed from crying. She couldn’t remember the last time she brushed her teeth or her curly purple and white hair.

She only had one task in that room and that was to take her medicine. The tiny white capsules, that Nurse Redheart had prescribed her when Rarity rushed her to the hospital after her first incident. When she freaked out at the market. When Rarity asked her to get the asparagus but she got green onions. When she raised her voice so every pony could here.

“YOU WANTED ME TO DO THIS RARITY.” She screamed, “YOU JUST WANTED ME TO LOOK STUPID INFRONT OF EVERYONE, DIDN’T YOU, WELL THAT WONT WORK!” The screaming went on two for hours, as onlookers share concerned words to each other. Whispering of the sickness they believed the girl had.

But none of them left, they all crowded around her like she was a show, a spectacle. And then Rarity had her in the hospital, and she was given pills. She never had faith in them though, she thought she knew a lot about pills. She certainty had taken enough.

Feather Weight had started that at a party, Scootaloo edged her on too and It didn’t take long until every party came with a small pill bottle.

Thinking about her silly stories made her drop the pills, drop the bottle to the ground, hearing them all clatter to the linoleum brought a chill up her spine. Staccato and fast, like some kind of holy drum. Or the perfect noise your tongue made when you ended a note with diction.

She takes the pills off the floor, not caring about the grime that was likely there, not caring about the last time she washed the floor, or the things she knew had been on it. She swallows them, just two at first, but then three or four, or maybe six.
And then she is laying on her bed, humming to herself, and thinking about the first time she and Feather Weight surpassed third base. The elegant grinding of flesh and teeth on lips, and the sickly exchange of souls.