Not Trixie sat on a bench, out of the way, ponies moving past her on their way towards things. They all had things to do and places to be, unlike her. She tapped her hooves together faintly, barely touching. She could dimly remember having fingers. They'd be interwoven right about then, holding and squeezing as if giving herself a little tiny hug.

She could use a little hug. Such a luxury was not coming. Did she deserve that? She was not Trixie... She could remember that much. She was not Trixie, then she was Trixie. She had a job before this job. It was not a fun one. She had friends, on the Internet she barely remembered. They were as good as gone.

Not Trixie had come, taking up someone else's likeness and powers, and they had come to remedy that. She smiled awkwardly, considering things. At least Trixie didn't seem angry? She looked almost happy to have a chance to prove just how Trixie she was.

But she was Trixie! A Trixie? Maybe not that Trixie... People had her name before. Did every name have to belong to only one pony? What kind of stupid rule was that!?

Trixie felt an ear rising of its own volition. She could hear music coming closer. Not the harmony of many ponies swept up in song magic, but muffled electronic beats that didn't match most of what she'd heard since coming to Equestria. A white head bobbed to the time of the music, moving through the crowd with confidence.

Trixie smiled, recognizing the pony. "Vinyl Scratch," she declared out loud.

Vinyl didn't stop, she turned smoothly, navigating the crowd, coming towards Trixie with the rhythmic bobbing of her head. "'Sup?" she called, peering at Trixie through her red goggles. "Hey, there's..." She rolled a hoof in the air as her horn plucked her headphones free, dropping them around her neck. "You have a familiar vibe."

Trixie glanced left and right at the crowd moving past them. "Vibe?" She hadn't pegged Vinyl as a hippy. "Do you mean musically?"

"Nah." She hopped up easily onto the bench next to Trixie, sitting down on her haunches as if she had come just to do that. "You know a doctor?"

Trixie felt a flinch run through her. A memory that had been so easily forgotten came to the fore. "Fetlock?"

"That's the one." Vinyl nodded. "Two legs or four?"

Trixie tilted her head, eyes going to those moving past, but they weren't paying attention to the two showponies. "What do you mean?"

Vinyl reached forward and booped Trixie on the nose. "Ten years ago. Two legs or four?"

Trixie shrank back from the touch, but her attention was squarely on Vinyl. "T..." She glanced again, but the crowd still had no interest in her or her problems. Despite this, she leaned in close and whispered in one of those ears, "two."

Vinyl held out a hoof, hovering in the air. "Hey, radical. I don't meet Fetlock sisters often."

Trixie raised a hoof, barely making contact with the Vinyl. "You... too?"

"Yeah, not a single regret." She moved her hoof away from the clop to nudge at her headphones. "I get to make sweet music. I have a boyfriend that hangs on my everything. We have a little apartment that works for me. What do I have to complain about?"

Trixie lifted an ear at the fellow once-human. What were even the odds of them meeting in a city as populace as Manehatten? Approximately 100%, Trixie decided. Equestria was thick with the magic of destiny and fate. They met because they had to. The universe literally tossed her a bone.

Trixie smiled, her mood lifting. The universe cared. That was not a thing she remembered ever having evidence of before. Maybe things could work out. "So... hello. Trixie is in a bit of a... bind. May I share it with you?"

Vinyl nodded, grinning at her. "Hey, you look happier. Yeah, lay it on me. If I have an answer, you got it. If I don't, well, at least you have a friend, right?"

"Yes, a friend." Trixie suddenly launched forward. She was hugging Vinyl tightly, perhaps a little desperately. "Thank you."

"Hey, keep it chill." Vinyl gently pushed back at Trixie, laughing despite the attack of intimacy. "So what has you in a knot?"

"Ooo!" called a passing mare, though she was still walking. "Trixie and DJ-Pon3? They're never gonna believe it." She passed with a new rumor to spread.

Even as Trixie went red at the implication, Vinyl was laughing. She waved away in the direction of the mare. "Don't even sweat it. We attract rumors, just a hazard of the game. Besides, I'm a married mare, and happily so, so let them say what they want."

Trixie nodded quickly. "Yes, right, so... The problem is Trixie." She glanced left and right. "The original," she added in a hushed whisper.

Vinyl's ears went down, but sprang up almost as quickly. "Rough, but face it. You have to. Vinyl caught me pretty fast." She pointed at herself. "Red-hoofed, one music pony too many! But it wasn't so bad."

"No?" Trixie tilted her head. "You still call yourself Vinyl, right?"

"Or DJ-Pon3, depends on if I'm performing or not," agreed Vinyl easily. "We had a rocking music competition, and she liked my music." She grinned widely. "I was so stoked. She basically gave me permission to be another her. We even talk once in a while, when she's in town. She tours, you know. I'm a married mare, as I mentioned, so I don't."

Trixie bobbed her head, spirits lifting higher. "So... if I do really good, maybe she'll... let me be what I am?"

Vinyl booped Trixie's nose, a habit she seemed to have. "What are you?"

Trixie frowned a little. "What are you?"

"I am Vinyl Scratch." She sat up tall. "I make with the music and have a ball doing it. You?"

Trixie almost repeated the words back, but realized that wasn't entirely true. "Vinyl, may I hire you?"

Vinyl blinked owlishly through her goggles, a hoof raising to push them up, revealing her brilliant eyes. "Wait what?"

"I am serious." She tapped at the bench they were sitting on. "Trixie has challenged Trixie to a magic contest. Some awesome music could help put her show over the edge." She tapped at her chest. "I am... not exactly Trixie. Mostly Trixie. I do things... my way. Help me show my way isn't a bad way."

Vinyl cocked a brow. "Hey, this is your business. I can't give a freebie to a pony do--"

With a pop of magic, Trixie's coinpurse appeared, jingling as she shook it in the air. "I will pay."

"Well..." Vinyl peered at the bag curiously as she lowered her goggles back into place. "I'm not poor, but I'm not rich enough to casually say no to that. So... what's the plan?"

Trixie hopped up to all fours on the bench. "We get a soundtrack, then I will perfect my story to go along with it."

Vinyl tilted her head. "You're not doing a magic show?"

Trixie darkened at that, looking away. "I already said I will do it my own way..."

"Alright, alright." Vinyl slipped to the ground. "But you should make your story first." Her horn glowed as a small business card slipped free of her pocket and flew towards Trixie. "Call me when you have it, then I'll make a slamming music track to go with it. We'll make a rock opera the ponies never saw."

Trixie hopped down beside Vinyl, pocketing the card offered to her. "Yes, I will do just that. Thank you! You've... Thank you."

"Hey, it ain't no thang," assured Vinyl, already turning away, only to be grabbed from behind. She burst into laughter. "Trix, my mare, you're hugging my butt."

"Don't care." She released Vinyl despite the words. "I'll call you when I'm ready."

Vinyl raised a hoof in a sloppy salute as she vanished into the crowd, her music heard over the noise of rolling carts and clopping ponies, though already fading.

Trixie felt a smile stuck on her face, but concentrated on taming it to a more casual smirk. She felt that she had been given a weapon to do battle with. She got to trotting as she considered what story she would weave. Something exciting, something mysterious. Should it involve humans? The ponies seemed fascinated by those stories.

She slowed a moment, just to get bumped into by a pony. "Sorry!" She rushed ahead, rejoining the flow of the crowd before she spotted a little Italian, or the pony equivalent, place. Food sounded good. She ducked in to do some writing and eating. She had a contest to prepare for, and she planned on doing it right.

She sat in a small apartment. Vinyl was there, standing on two legs behind her DJ equipment. She waved at Trixie as the music began.

Trixie spoke in turn with the music she had never heard before, timing her words to it as best she could. It wasn't as easy as she imagined, but she was determined and kept pushing forward, at least until Vinyl cut the music.

She was shaking her head. "You're not embracing the song magic." She tapped at her chest with a hoof. "It's in here. You're a pony now, so you have it. That's just the way that works. Don't worry about matching the music, just tell your story."

Trixie tilted her head at her new friend. "If you're sure..." She didn't remember being musically inclined, but she had felt the touch of song magic before, carrying her along almost as a puppet, dancing and singing to the beat that overwhelmed her for brief periods.

The music resumed, electronic notes tingling as they pierced her equine form. Trixie nodded her head in time with it, but tried to do as she was told, speaking her story instead of trying to sing it.

A new pony poked his head in. "How's it going?" He was a stallion, smiling nervously.

"Hubby!" Exclaimed Vinyl with a grin. "Oh, shoot, I forgot to mention." She pointed at Trixie. "Say hello to a fellow once-human."

Trixie sputtered. "You didn't say your husband was a once-human too!"

Robert rolled his eyes as he approached Trixie. "She forgets to mention a lot of things, you get used to it." He offered a hoof towards Trixie, but it hesitated. "Oh... are you alright?" His eyes followed the faint marks of her troubled flight through the void.

Trixie winced back, shrinking. "I made... a slight miscalculation. Um... hello..."

"Robert," he provided. "I'm not replacing a pony, unlike the two of you. You look just like her, just a bit edgier."

Trixie shrank all the more. She didn't want to be an edgy Trixie.

Vinyl casually lobbed a stuffed animal at Robert's head. "You're crushing her. Say something nice."

Robert tilted his head left and right, looking over Trixie anew. "Did you do something to get those?"

Trixie looked up at him, wondering how callous he could be, still... "Yes. Trixie performed a trick of great magic to escape an impossible situation." She sat up, looking more confident. "When others thought she would fail, she came through, to the accolades of her peers." She casually didn't mention who her 'peers' were at the moment.

Robert stamped on the floor in pony applause. The gesture was rapidly returned with a thumping from downstairs. "Watch it up there," called up a cranky male voice.

"Ah, yeah, thin walls," explained Robert with a sheepish smile. "Still, cool! So, uh, what are you two doing?"

Vinyl stuck out her tongue. "Now that I know I said. We're working on a music number. Trix here has the vocals, I got the wubs." She ran a hoof over her precious equipment. "It's a paying gig."

Robert looked at her, then Trixie. "Paying? You must be doing well."

"I..." Financially, she was, Trixie realized. "Yes, and sharing a little with fellow once-humans..." She had found friends.

Author's Note

Behold as old faces return! Anyone remember Robert and Not-Vinyl?

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