It would have been easier with medication, Twilight Sparkle thought.
The thought wasn’t new to her. It crept up her spine every time the babble of her friends grew loud, then louder still, until the world was a riot of noise and pain and searing thoughts that lanced through her skull like needlepoint daggers through the eyelids.
It would have been easier, Twilight thought as she locked the door to her bedroom behind her and turned off the lights.
The thought crept up to the base of her neck every time the colors got too intense, the fanfare and the ruckus in every primary and secondary and tertiary and everything-ary hue and shade and saturation boiled away her aqueous humor down to nothing at all.
It would have been easier, Twilight thought as she staggered through the darkness, feeling around on the little bookshelf beneath the nightstand until she felt a small metal box. It was the box that was no larger than her foreleg had been before she grew her wings and the box that had a speaker on one face and a tiny little hole near the speaker and the box that had a wire coming out of the hole and headphones attached to the wire and a box, the box, the box.
The thoughts echoed in her head as her brain tried to process the emotions that had surged over her thirty minutes or one hour or two hours or whenever ago. It was difficult to keep track when the sound and the light and the emotion got too intense but it had happened at some point hit the peak at some point it happened and everything—
Twilight staggered over towards a corner of the room. It was a familiar corner, near her bed and near the little bookshelf beneath the nightstand and not all that far away now, just a little bit closer, and it was difficult to discern any sounds but the voices in her head and the corner seemed so very far away—
And then she was there, her name was Twilight Sparkle and she was curling up in the corner of the room by the bed and the little bookshelf and the headphones were slipping themselves over her head, magic or hooves it was difficult to tell didn’t want to tell and then a button was pressed on the box and the music came on.
The music.
The beautiful music.
Twilight let the memories submerge her.
***************************
“It’s not a major concern, I mean. I wouldn’t want to bother Princess Celestia about it.”
Twilight chewed on her lip as the doctor looked down at his clipboard, scribbled something out with the pen between his teeth and looked back up at her again. Gulping, Twilight continued.
“I guess that when I came here, I was thinking about asking you if there was any medicine I could take to help me with this. But I sort of realized while I was describing this to you that I’m not exactly a unicorn, anymore. I’m not sure what medicine would help.”
The doctor set the pen down on a tray next to him. “And you’re absolutely certain you don’t want to discuss this with another alicorn?”
“Correct.” Twilight reached up and brushed her bangs away from her eyes. “They don’t need to know about this, and I don’t want to distract them from their Princess duties because of it.”
“Well, I’m afraid I can’t help you all that much. I specialize in pediatric medicine, after all, and even as a primary care physician — you know that I don’t know very much about alicorn medicine, right? It’s not a well-known subject.”
“I’m aware.” Twilight sighed. “So is there anything I can do?”
“Well, I’d advise against taking medication. You can take over-the-counter supplements if you think that might help, but I don’t want to write up any prescriptions that might have negative effects on your well-being. Similarly, I don’t want to schedule any surgery or other invasive procedures. Now, what I can do — if you think it will help — is refer you to a mental therapist. There’s one I know of in particular who has a fair amount of experience with meditation and meditative techniques. She might not be able to ‘fix’ things, per se, but she should help you learn to manage the reactions you’ve described to me.”
“I’ll give it a shot. Who is she?”
****************************************
It started with the riff. It always started with the riff. Nothing fast, nothing aggressive - just the plodding chug-chug-chug of a bass guitar. Smooth, rhythmic, mellow.
Twilight had asked a friend, a DJ of great renown and few words, if she could do her a favor and remix the original song. The original song was too heavy, too loud, too abrupt — not enough buildup, not enough mellow to savor between the climaxes that hit like synaptic convulsions. With few words, the DJ had taken the disk with the track on it and disappeared into the too-rich air in the too-bright sky. Two days later she had returned with a disc full of tranquility, full of the long rhythmic riff that rolled out before her like a transplanetary road through a night sky teeming with brilliant stars.
It was ten seconds after Twilight had started playing the disk that she understood why the DJ was so widely renowned.
It was the disk that she was listening to, now, in the dark, body clenched fetal and eyelids slammed shut. The chug-chug-chug filled the space between her ears and trickled down to her stomach, growing and growing until Twilight’s entire body felt suffused with rhythm.
When the lead guitar kicked in, it almost felt like a letdown. The most beautiful sort of letdown, one that sang a ballad more pure than any opera diva could hope to achieve, a tale full of heartbreak and hope and wanderlust. Twilight let her brain follow it, let the babble of her friends and the madness of crowds dissolve from sensation into memory, then from memory into nothingness, until only the bass and lead guitars remained.
Twilight’s breath hitched in her throat as she counted the notes. There weren’t that many chugs left until the voice spoke to her, and she reached blindly in the dark for the volume knob on the box, desperate to drink the voice until she had drunk her fill. Her hoof knocked against a knob, then clutched it, turning it slowly, slowly…
And as the guitars washed out the world around her, the voice began.
“My oh my, how this filly can fly
Once she starts rollin’ beneath you…”
*********************************************
“I’m confused, Zecora. I thought I was supposed to handle these emotion spikes by removing myself from loud noises.”
Zecora shook her head. “That is one way, it is true;
But it may not work for you.
Many tactics must be tried
To find the ones best applied.”
“So what am I supposed to do? What else might work?”
“Maximalism.” Zecora grinned. “A way
To keep unwanted thoughts at bay—”
“What, so I should counter loud noise with more loud noise? How is that supposed to make any sense? Won’t it just make the problem even worse?”
Zecora pursed her lips, frowning, then continued. “It should not compound at all
If you use it as a wall.
Drink it down in memory
Or out loud, if you are free
To do such things. Let it ride
Your senses up from inside
Until you’re filled up, then wait.
Soon your stresses should abate.”
“I’m still not sure, but...okay. I’ll give it a try. So what sort of noise should I use?”
“Not to slight you in the least, but…” A smile returned to Zecora’s face. “Music soothes the savage beast.”
**********************************
Twilight shivered. The room felt colder than it had ten seconds ago, though she was positive that the temperature had not objectively changed.
The shivers weren’t bad shivers. They weren’t sickness shivers, nor true chill shivers — not really. They were sensation shivers, but not the bad kind, not the kind that had threatened to overwhelm her.
These were the good kind. The kind that protected her from herself.
Twilight felt her lips mouth the song’s words as her body started to uncurl.
“It’s not a big surprise to let your temperature rise,
When you’ve got a touch of redline fever…”
That was it, Twilight realized. It was the sole touch on her, the music and nothing else, the one thing she could focus on while the rest of the world blocked itself out for her.
Focus on one iota at a time, puzzle piece by puzzle piece, until the picture started to come together again in a way that didn’t feel so fundamentally wrong.
Twilight’s eyelids slid open as she spread herself prone on the floor, headphones cradling her skull as she stared upwards at an unlit ceiling. Minutes and minutes passed, the chugging bass filling her from tip to tail, and as it built up Twilight felt herself let go.
And this was it, the chorus, the full impact, ready to obliterate the light and the noise and the disharmony from somewhere between a half-hour and two hours ago.
There it…
Was.
“Won’t you take a ride…”
************************************
“Isn’t this exciting?”
Pinkie Pie bounced up and down like a rabbit, covered in confetti and accompanied by the overwhelming blare of carnival music.
“It’s...not bad, Pinkie.” Twilight put on a smile, hoping it would be wide enough and happy enough for Pinkie. As Pinkie beamed, Twilight tried to tune out the torrent of noise and the garish array of colors that assaulted her: violent blues and stifling whites, overly rich yellows and bloody reds, and the pinks, pinks, pinks, pinks, pinks…
“I know!” Pinkie Pie chirped. “In fact, it’s better than not bad! It’s the total super-mega-opposite of bad! It’s the perfect pinnacle party level of not-bad! It’s amazing!” Pinkie waved a hoof in the air, triggering a motion sensor and sending another burst of confetti into the air. “Can you believe that Ponyville was lucky enough to sponsor the rose parade this year? Can you believe that I was lucky enough to be chosen as the party planner for the parade? This is the most super extra amazing thing ever!”
Without warning, Pinkie Pie reached over and crushed Twilight’s forelegs to her body in an overzealous hug.
“Ohhhhhhh my gosh, Twilight, and I can’t wait for all of my friends to help me out with this!” Pinkie pulled back, giggling with delight. “I’m going to get Rarity for the fashiony bits and Rainbow Dash for the awesome bits, and Applejack and Fluttershy…”
Twilight blinked, then blinked again. Something wasn’t right. The colors seemed to be getting brighter, the music seemed to be getting louder, everything seemed to be getting more everything. Pinkie should have looked like the embodiment of joy, but the way she gamboled and grinned reminded Twilight of a cackling imp, plotting out torture.
“They’re going to help with the plant-bits and the flower-bits—”
Torture.
“—and allllll the little bits are going to come together into one big, big, big, big bit!”
Torture.
“And Twilight, you—”
“Have to go to the bathroom,” Twilight stammered.
“Huh?”
“I have to go. Like, really really bad. Sorry about that! I’ll catch up with you later, okay?”
“Twilight, wait—”
Twilight scrabbled backwards, then ran, back towards Ponyville Castle, color and light and sound threatening to squeeze her lungs until they popped.
**************************
Twilight felt her lungs begin to work properly again.
She was breathing, of course: she hadn’t exactly stopped. But now she began to feel each actual breath, felt the air actually cycling through her, felt the oxygen seep into her system like a soothing mist.
She felt alive, now, or slowly becoming more alive again. Not lacking in sensation, not choking on a riot of color and noise, but tangible.
Music continued to trickle through her headphones, but it seemed less enveloping. Slowly, Twilight reached up and tugged the headphones off. She’d reset the song later, now that it felt like a later might actually exist, now that she was capable of handling the here and the now.
Weakly, in the darkness, Twilight staggered to her hooves. Just like she had seven days ago. Just like she most likely would in the future — two days? Seven? Fourteen? It would happen, inevitably.
But she could handle it now. She could ride it out. That’s all she needed to do.
For the rest of her life.
