Being the Lesser Evil

by Pascoite

Rating: everyone
Tags: Nightmare Moon, Princess Luna, Drama, Octavia, DJ P0N-3, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark
Length: 5967

Years ago, Octavia still loved music. Years ago, Luna thought she might yet do some good from her prison. Years ago, Vinyl Scratch found herself in an interminable dream. One night could set them all free.

Years ago, Octavia still loved music. Years ago, Luna thought she might yet do some good from her prison. Years ago, Vinyl Scratch found herself in an interminable dream.

One night could set them all free.

Silver medalist in the Writeoff Association's "On the Wings of a Dream" event.

Featured on Equestria Daily!

Published 2019-11-21 01:40:01 UTC
Last updated 2019-11-21 01:40:01 UTC

Being the Lesser Evil

Luna huddled under the bed, barely trembled, and peered into the dark. If she remained quiet, maybe the beast would not notice her. Or so she’d taken great pains to convince herself.

From the other room, a sweet melody sounded, all violins and cellos and harps and a great many more instruments that she should have learned the names of centuries ago, but she never took much of an interest, and time was fleeting, far more fleeting than she ever would have considered, and now…

Alone. For the first time ever, so alone. Perhaps it would stay that way.

Above her, soft crying sounded, and more than music carried in from down the hall. Voices, angry ones. Accusations flung like darts, and the instruments’ volume rose in response, drowning them out. But it couldn’t hold; the voices only dripped with more venom, taking center stage once again.

A screeching horn, a shrieking whistle, the orchestra and screaming battled for dominance until neither was discernible from the other. Yet quiet tears bored through it all, a whispered “stop!” seemingly coming from right next to Luna’s ear.

She crept forward, abandoning her concealment in fits and starts as she peered around the room, into every moonlight-mottled shadow twisting across the rug, into each corner where predatory jaws might lurk. Nothing revealed itself.

Finally, she relaxed her knotted shoulders and slowly stood. She might actually be able to do her job tonight, for the first time in… she didn’t know how long.

“Greetings, child,” she said as she turned around. The filly on the bed only gradually uncovered her ears and blinked, the remnants of her tears still splashing on the pillow. Another exchange of insults echoed down the hall.

“Wh-who are you?” the filly responded, all wide-eyed, in her attempt to rub the tear streaks away.

In years past, Luna would have known the child’s name, but it seemed that power would be denied her now. “That is not important,” Luna answered. Not yet, anyway. If this worked, she—

No. Her help must remain anonymous.

So Luna approached her and ran a hoof through the filly’s charcoal-black mane. “I sensed your distress. I wish to assist, if I may.”

But the filly only wrinkled her nose and stared up at Luna the way Luna used to stare up at Star Swirl when he’d ask her a question whose answer she couldn’t even begin to fathom. The voices raised once more, the music played louder.

“They think I can’t hear them if they turn the radio up,” she said. A strip of wallpaper peeled, a sheaf of staff paper slid off a music stand and scattered across the floor. And by the closet door, a cello gathered dust, almost as gray as the filly’s coat.

“I am sorry—what shall I call thee?”

“Octavia,” she mumbled back, and she staggered to the cello, her head shaking as if fighting off a feverish delirium. “If—if I can just practice, loud enough…”

She took bow in hoof, and the dust stirred in a miasma around her. “At five-thirty, they always play a waltz on the radio, right when—when everypony gets home from work, a-and—” She gulped, and she trained impossibly deep blue eyes on Luna. “I know them all by now. This one is Morning Papers.”

Her cello rang out, perfectly following the melody, but not mechanically. No, she made music, not just notes, beyond what a filly should be capable of. The yelling increased, the music intensified, not enough, not nearly enough to mask the voices, then she didn’t even try anymore, clasping her hooves to her ears and adding her own shriek to the din.

“Child,” Luna began. “Octavia. I am here to help thee.” She gathered up the filly in her hooves and held her as she trembled. “We will face this together. But the first thing thou must understand is—”

No. No! That accursed fire started up in Luna’s chest, and she was here. She was here!

Octavia peered up, her brow creased and her mouth hanging open. And a smirk carved itself across Luna’s lips. “The first thing to understand is that this is all your fault,” she said so softly, so glazed with a sugary sheen, but it still pierced the wall of music and shouting.

“You’ve let them down. If only you’d practiced more, maybe you would have returned their investment in you.”

Young eyes quivered. Her jaw clenched.

“Maybe you could have justified all the sacrifices they made for you.”

Tears ran into the spaces between the floorboards, leaving smears of gray behind.

“Maybe—” No! Luna tried to snap her saw-like teeth together, wrest her forelegs up, strangle the words from her throat before they could erupt, but in the end, she only watched, as useless as a corpse on the floor. “Maybe if you’d been a better daughter, they would love you.”

Octavia crumpled. Just an inconsolable heap against the wall.

What fun!

But as the room blurred and faded… who was that other filly watching from the hallway?

How many years now? Only a few, if Luna listened to the logical part of her mind, but it felt like decades. The only time she’d ever been blissfully alone in centuries, truly alone, but of course it couldn’t last.

She kept coming here, but she never ventured out from under the bed. The same thing would certainly happen again, but at least Octavia didn’t cry much anymore. Not that her lack of tears made anything better.

Quite the opposite. So why continue torturing herself? Some manner of self-flagellation? Now that she thought about it, the idea had its appeal. Yes, she should return, every day, if possible.

What did it solve, though? Octavia would sit motionless on the bed, her cello propped against the wall and gathering an ever-increasing pile of dust and debris around it. She wouldn’t attempt to play it. Not after that night. Only the radio music played, waltz after waltz after waltz, what of it she could even hear over the shouting, and both would get continually more bombastic until she had to cover her own ears as tightly as Octavia did.

And then there was the closet. The detritus surrounding the cello had covered much of the door by now. Not that Luna would ever want to open it.

But as she continued to spend time here, Luna noticed more and more that other filly peering in from the hallway. She always seemed as if she wanted to say something, but if she tried, it didn’t make it over the cacophony.

“Are you okay?”

Who had spoken? Not Octavia’s voice, though Luna had only heard it once. The filly in the hall hadn’t moved her mouth. Almost a white coat, with just a trace of yellow to it, and a lightning shock of blue mane, brilliant magenta eyes, looking… at Luna?

“Are you okay?” The filly blinked and leaned forward as if to punctuate her words, but her mouth still hadn’t moved.

“Didst thou say that?” Luna asked, barely above a whisper.

“Yeah.” She must have anticipated that a verbal response wouldn’t have cleared things up; she nodded as well.

Curious, but stranger things had happened in this place. “I am not important.”

Just as Octavia had done years ago, this filly wrinkled her brow. “Who told you that?” When Luna didn’t answer, the filly said, “My name’s Vinyl Scratch.” Then she took one step into the room. “And I think you’re important.”

Wait, constructs of this place should remain oblivious to Luna’s presence. Was this not Octavia’s dream? Then perhaps Luna hadn’t ruined Octavia’s—

No, Octavia had interacted with her as well.

“I thank thee for thy concern,” Luna breathed. Were they both real?

Vinyl strode closer and bent down. “Why don’t you come out of there?”

“It would be better if I did not become involved.”

“C’mon,” Vinyl not-said, wearing a big-sister smile and reaching a hoof out. Only then did Luna glance down her own body. Did she appear a foal as well? No, full-size, but that didn’t guarantee what Vinyl would perceive.

Luna shook her head. “No. I-I have to stay here. I can only observe, or she might notice.”

Vinyl rolled her eyes up toward Octavia, unspoken questions dangling from her lips, but one did emerge: “Octavia?”

“No.”

“Then who?”

Once again, Luna shook her head, and she fixed her gaze on a swirl of wood grain in front of her nose. “I am not important.”

Vinyl frowned, but she didn’t say anything further.

“Dost thou know her?” Luna asked as she finally raised her eyes, but Vinyl hadn’t looked away from Octavia.

A half-shrug met her. “Kinda, I guess. She’s in my class. Dunno why I keep ending up in here with her.” Then she poked a hoof above the mattress. “Octavia? You okay?”

Deep in Vinyl’s eyes, something shone—what did it remind Luna of? When had she seen it before?

The image nipped at the edges of her brain, but at the very least, Octavia must have finally acknowledged Vinyl. “Can you tell me what’s wrong?”

Another waltz sounded, but… sharp, grotesque. It tripped and tumbled over itself. And some rather choice insults invaded the house. Octavia didn’t reply.

“Here, why don’t you play your cello? You always come back from music class looking like you feel better.”

Only hind legs and that electric blue tail showed below the bed, but they leaned toward that grimy instrument. “C’mon. I’ll help you get it cleaned up, and maybe you can teach me how to play.”

No, leave the cello alone! The more dirt congealed around it, the more it would seal the closet shut.

The center of the bed creaked and groaned and sagged, and tears pooled underneath. Whatever Vinyl was trying to cajole Octavia into, it wasn’t working.

That… that look Vinyl had flashed like a beacon. She remembered! That farsighted hope, buried in a child’s eyes. Luna had constantly seen it after a storm, when the clouds broke right at the last vestiges of daylight, and the sun gleamed on the horizon. The sun.

The sun, that treacherous ball of naked flame, and those fools all latched onto it as if it granted them their hearts’ desires. A growl lurched up her throat, and Vinyl flinched from it, crouched down again—

“I have to go,” Luna spat.

“No, don’t—”

“I have to go!” reverberated in a banshee wail.

Today, Vinyl crawled under the bed with Luna. “Are you trapped here like me?” Vinyl asked, her lips never forming a syllable of it.

“Trapped?”

Vinyl waved a hoof around the room. “I end up here every night. I see you all the time, too.”

“Oh. In a way, yes, but not as thou wouldst understand it. I am here because it remindeth me of what I have lost. And thee? I do not know. Perhaps I have somehow brought thee here.”

With a well-hidden sigh, Vinyl rolled her eyes up at the mattress’s underside. “So you need help too?”

Vinyl misunderstood, but that would have to do. “I am not important.”

Another sigh. “Her I get. She always looked so happy when her mom or dad would walk her to school. I didn’t know about that—” she scowled toward the open door “—until lately.”

If Luna dared, she might have covered Vinyl’s ears to ward off the foul language biting into the hall’s stale air. “She stopped playing, I take it.”

A grim smile gave the story’s ending first. “On the first day of school, the teacher asked her to play something for us. So the next day, she brought her cello to class. Not my style, but I know good when I hear it. My mom’s a record producer, and…” The rest of it hung in the air with the motes of dust, dancing to whatever tune graced Vinyl’s memory. “She’s good. Good good.”

When her mom or dad would walk her to school…

“Her parents never both accompanied her?”

“No, but—well…” With a squint, Vinyl pursed her lips. “I heard her talking about her dad playing violin with her once.”

“I meant accompanied her to school.”

Vinyl’s eyes widened. “Oh. Yeah, once. They got into a fight outside.”

Unsurprising. “Why dost thou care so much?”

“I love music too.” Vinyl struggled to keep her lip from trembling, and the same far sight of hope returned to her eyes. Luna swallowed hard, but perhaps here, hidden away, she wouldn’t notice. “She did too, or used to. I don’t hear her play when I walk by her house anymore.”

For a few years now, unless Luna missed her guess. “I am sorry.”

Vinyl clambered out from under the bed and, as before, leaned over the mattress. “Hey. Would you play something for me? You did once. I really liked it.”

No, she could not let Vinyl encourage her! Let the cello remain buried, along with everything else. Fortunately, neither of them made a move for her instrument. Only that infernal arguing and radio answered.

“Please? Nothing’s more important to me than music, so I’m not just trying to act interested. I don’t want you to lose that.”

The bed shook slightly, and Vinyl let out a sigh, ducked her head down again. “I don’t know why I’m bothering. This is all in my head, right?”

She… she deserved to know. “Dreams can overlap. I do not know what hath pulled thine and hers together, but… it happened.”

Vinyl’s face became even paler, and she gaped at Luna. “You mean this is real?”

Try as she might, Luna couldn’t meet her gaze. The insipid, parasitic waltzes kept circling in her ears. “Yes, in the ways that matter.”

“And you?” Vinyl warbled, her voice becoming shrill. “Are you real too?”

“I-I have to go.”

“Why are you doing this to her!?”

Luna shook her head, hard, and withdrew into the shadows. “I am not important.”

“Come on out here and help her!”

“NO!” Luna roared in the Royal Canterlot Voice.

Vinyl backed off momentarily, then rolled her eyes. “I get it. You’re not real. You’re just some kind of nightmare.”

“How little you understand,” Luna replied, crawling out and standing up to her full height. Insolent foals soon learned not to tamper with—no, she choked down what she was about to say. An insignificant filly, but that closet. Yes, a rather tempting—

No, no, no! Anything else, focus on that hapless Vinyl, whatever it took! Vinyl had insulted her! Yes, that simply couldn’t go unpunished. Her snake-like tongue licking against her sharpened teeth, she reared up to tower over her prey while Vinyl cowered beside the rubble pile.

“Nightmare or no, you will learn to fear me!”

Stop, stop, she couldn’t control it, wake up, wake up, wake—

“Will you play something for me?”

“Do not ask her that, child,” Luna spat from under the bed. “Leave her alone.” Normally, Luna could hold her temper in check, but lately everything just set her teeth on edge.

“I promise I’ll like it. I don’t think you could play anything I wouldn’t like.”

Luna snorted. “Do not ignore me. Only a fool would plod ahead without understanding.”

With a stomp, Vinyl brought the glow of her horn into the gloom of Luna’s realm. “Then why don’t you explain it to me?”

“Stupid whelp,” Luna muttered. “Better to make do than to exacerbate things. Just leave her instrument where it is. Do not disturb it.” Or the mound of wreckage in front of the closet.

“You call this making do?” Vinyl said, rolling her eyes up toward Octavia.

“Far worse could have befallen her.”

And the little cur actually sneered at her. “Well, aren’t you just a ray of sunshine?”

Had Vinyl not immediately climbed onto the bed, Luna might have squeezed the breath from her neck. How dare she invoke the sun? With the creak of springs, the lumps in the mattress shifted around. If Luna concentrated, she could hear a faint whimper. And then… humming?

“Hm hm hmmmmmmmmmm…” It rang out starkly, as a nightingale’s song carrying above the thunder. Luna even indulged in closing her eyes and listening to it. Vinyl Scratch had a very lovely voice.

Had… had Luna just been angry about something? An ember still burned in her mind, but without purpose or direction.

“Do you know that one?” Vinyl said. “I bet you do. ‘Vocalise,’ I think it’s called. I heard it once. I’m sorry, I don’t really know the technical names for anything. I just kinda picked it all up from hearing it.”

Luna peeked as one of the depressions in the mattress moved to the edge, and pale legs tottered over to the cello in the corner. Wrestled with it, tried to haul it free of the splintered boards and twisted wire and crumbled stone that confined it. When she finally possessed her prize, the side of it had caved in, and half the strings had frayed and snapped.

At least the heap of debris continued to block the closet door. It needed to remain shut, but thankfully Vinyl ignored it in favor of lighting upon the instrument as some means of inspiration. No matter. The blockage had grown too large for dislodging the cello to remove any significant part of it.

“I’m sorry. Again,” Vinyl said as she dragged the ruined cello back over. She propped it against the bed, and without a bow, she resorted to plucking the remaining strings, but… the hollow sound reminded Luna of dead bones. “See? Some of it still works. I remember an old music teacher of mine saying you could improvise a jazz tune using only one note. So three strings—they can still be beautiful.”

Vinyl had composed variations on that theme every night for a week, but she never made any progress. Luna would merely listen until her throat and chest hurt an appropriate amount, which meant staying through dawn, when this world dissipated. No amount of pain could ever compensate for her crime, much less rebuild what had collapsed.

But instead of allowing Luna to be alone, Vinyl crouched down and glared at her.

“I don’t know what else to do,” Vinyl said. Luna fluffed her feathers and attempted to look away, but the filly’s spear-sharp stare pinned her in place. “I mean… what do you even want from me? I used to pop in here once a week, just long enough to peek in the door, but now I’m here all night, every night. I don’t know what it means!”

Luna squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. If she answered, who else might commandeer her voice and make things worse?

“She doesn’t talk at school anymore, either. She used to love music, but now I can’t get her to do anything with it. If the teacher’s noticed, she’s just hoping it goes away on its own.”

Why would she trouble herself so for a classmate who was a mere acquaintance? Vinyl had no responsibility in this matter.

“How do I fix this? And why won’t you help? You just sit there all the time feeling sorry for yourself! It doesn’t make her the tiniest bit less miserable!” Vinyl shouted above the noise from down the hall. She practically had her nose pressed to Luna’s.

Luna opened her mouth. “It would be better if I stayed out of—”

“No!” Vinyl spat. “Do something! Why is it okay for you to watch this…” She waggled a hoof in the air as she fought against the word she couldn’t cough up.

A dreadful heat spread over Luna’s face, an army of ants clambering over each other’s bodies, higher and higher, until they surmounted the obstacle in their path and erupted onward.

Vinyl sucked in another breath. “This… broken—”

“Because I am the one who broke her!”

Wide, empty eyes glinted back at her, like a searchlight failing to find its quarry. Only a single weary word leaked out: “Why?”

“Because I wanted to help.” That answer wouldn’t do, but Luna had to shudder against its acerbic flavor first. “Because I found out the hard way that I am not somepony who can control her baser impulses.”

Luna glanced toward the closet door, behind the pile of rubble. “So I keep to the shadows, lest I turn a break into a shatter,” she finished.

But Vinyl had caught the hint of motion. “There?” she asked, pointing at the door.

“No, stay away!” Luna yelled as her teeth sharpened. Help? Did she actually say she had tried to help? No, breaking Octavia had proven an entertaining momentary diversion.

Vinyl rushed over, swiped at the debris, and Luna immediately snared her rear hooves in a magical grip, yanking her away. But Vinyl rolled onto her back and placed a kick squarely at the base of Luna’s horn.

A white flash—her vision swam, and she tried to scramble out from under the bed, but she scraped her shoulder on the springs. Treacherous imp! Of course a unicorn would have known right where to hit her. Everything spun and swirled, and she lanced a beam at a vague white shape, but only succeeded in punching a hole through the wall. Foolish and reckless! She might have hit the door! But… why not? If she opened it, she could have even more fun—

Luna shrieked and clutched at her skull. No, absolutely nopony should open it, least of all her!

As Luna closed one eye and squinted the other against the pain, she could see Vinyl gallop away. The meddler tugged on the knob, bucked it, flared her horn to throw the concrete at it, but it wouldn’t budge. It couldn’t. Luna should have known Vinyl was no threat.

“I am not important,” Luna muttered as she withdrew.

Vinyl already had the wreckage shoved free of the closet door before Luna appeared. A brilliant werelight shone from Vinyl’s horn, and she peered into the keyhole. Almost as an afterthought, she turned to face the bed, and she jumped at seeing Luna there.

“Help me get this open.”

“I cannot.”

Stomping over, Vinyl fixed her with a set jaw and an immolating gaze. “Don’t lie to me.”

Luna narrowed her eyes. Of all the insolent—“If I do anything but watch, she will take control.”

“Who? And so what?”

No, no, Luna could feel her mind circling the drain already. The filly meant well, but she had no idea what she dared to stir up. “Her… unbridled rage w-would…”

“Would what?” Vinyl yelled. “Break something?”

“Yes. I fear thou art taking it too lightly—”

“All I hear is you making excuses!” Vinyl’s chest heaved. “Make her—whoever—break something useful!” she screamed, flinging a hoof at the closet.

“No.”

Vinyl plopped to her haunches. “I don’t know about you, but I’m sick of coming here every night.”

“That is precisely the point.”

“And her?” Vinyl pointed at Octavia. “What are the chances you care whether she ever sees the light of day again?”

Fire, sparking, flaring. Luna clenched her teeth. How dare she! “Watch thy tongue, child.”

“Always a ray of sunshine, aren’t you?” Vinyl spat.

Luna balled up her magic and shoved Vinyl against the wall. At first, Vinyl flinched, but then she gaped and got a curious glint to her eye.

“Why does that make you mad? Are you afraid of a little sun? A beautiful sunrise, a clear day, a—”

Luna bared her teeth. Teeth less rounded than they should be. The light of the sun, the orb in the sky so revered by everypony, wielded by a usurper. What fools would buy that display, all flash and no substance, no peace and quietude. Bluster over contemplation, and if they could not be made to see reason—

She lurched out into the open, and she lashed out an untrained whip of energy, slashing through the walls and cracking the rafters overhead. Glass exploded outward, and she wrenched her head this way and that, the beam from her horn crushing whatever it encountered. Like a cobra in its death throes, her sinuous neck twisted and curled and inflicted her tantrum on anything living or dead, and then the door.

There it hung limply on its ruined hinges. Only darkness beyond—cool, sweet darkness. She gathered up what remained of her rage and vomited a guttural roar that obliterated anything left to obstruct her path to darkness.

As she breathlessly surveyed the smoking cinders, a pale smudge of ash separated from the mounds of detritus and dragged a crushed cello into the black portal. Luna narrowed her eyes at it. The devious urchin!

Then the room folded in on itself, two, four, eight ways, through the other side, unfolded again.

Blackness. Calming blackness everywhere, and whatever this form was, Luna watched. In the center, a faint aura of moonlight bled into the oppressive dark, and in it sat the ashy smudge. Vinyl. Was her name Vinyl?

Oh no, if Luna was in here, then…

Could Vinyl do anything though? Could she end this? If Luna awoke, the dreams would separate, and Octavia would remain alone. If Luna stayed, Vinyl might help Octavia. But staying also meant risking—

Luna’s body jerked. Ah yes, her favorite plaything. She’d barely caught a glimpse of Octavia in ages, only long enough to scare off a particular nosy unicorn before abruptly leaving. What a lovely place! She wouldn’t even have to guess at a pony’s loves and fears in here. Dreams provided a window to the soul, but windows got smudged. If she’d known she could burst into dreamers’ closets before…

Except that weakling would try to suppress her just long enough until they awoke. She had an annoying track record of success at that tactic. For now, she would wait.

Vinyl sat next to a gray filly, much younger than her, who had a crayon in her mouth. She silently scribbled across a piece of paper, and while Vinyl watched, Luna took a step closer.

It was a picture of a concert. On stage stood a short gray stick figure, and a packed house wore smiles. Every one of them, the same smile, the same color, but for two who sat across an aisle from each other.

Vinyl peered at the page, but when the filly’s lip started to tremble, Vinyl patted her shoulder.

“Can I color some, too?” Vinyl asked. The filly didn’t answer, so Vinyl took a red crayon in her own mouth and began giving a few of the spectators dresses. But the filly pushed Vinyl’s muzzle away and shook her head, returning to shading in the brown velvet curtain.

Vinyl pursed her lips for a moment, then tapped a hoof on one of the oddball ponies. “Can I give this one a smile?”

The filly shook her head harder, took a black crayon, and darkened a frown on the figure’s face.

“Don’t they like the performance?” Vinyl asked, but the filly only shrugged. Vinyl blinked at her, then smiled and leaned over. “Here,” she said, her lips not moving, as ever. She creased the paper and folded it across the aisle’s gap. “Now they’re sitting together. Won’t that make them happy?”

The gray filly shook her head yet again and smoothed the paper out, then continued to draw notes emanating from the stage.

Odd. As young as Octavia was, she still saw herself at an even younger age, if she manifested this way. Or maybe not so surprising—her life really had stagnated then.

As more of the drawing took shape, the light spread up into the darkness, and something like a sepia-toned zoetrope projection displayed Octavia on stage, playing her cello, smiling and oblivious to all around her. More notes floated upward, hovered above the audience, then flitted away like butterflies until they dissipated among the chandeliers.

The animation faded, Octavia’s expression soured, and she flipped to a clean sheet, broadly sketching out herself in front of a schoolhouse with two larger ponies. Again, the darkness overhead flickered and the drawing came to life. The larger ponies yelled and pulled her this way and that, but she soon abandoned the drawing and crumpled it up.

Luna’s memory itched, and yes, yes, this pathetic filly, this Octavia. Nopony loved her. Luna could hear it as clear as if it had happened yesterday, the voices echoing down the hall, above the sound of the radio.

Slowly, Vinyl spread the drawing back out. “Are those the same ponies who couldn’t sit together at the concert?” she asked. They had the same colors at least, but Octavia made no response.

And Vinyl put an arm around her shoulder. “It’s okay. I don’t think they mean to hurt her. They just don’t realize—”

“Of course they do,” Luna said, baring her fangs. “Who would want a child like that? Then they argue and argue about what to do with her. I cannot blame them.”

Vinyl’s jaw dropped. “How could you—?”

“Oh, do not be so naive. Fine instruments are expensive, and ferrying her around to auditions and lessons? It would stress any family.” She added a snort.

“Don’t listen to her,” Vinyl said into Octavia’s ear. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you were drawing your parents. But they don’t do all that for you because they expect to get something back for it.”

Luna’s grin split her face wide. “So if she did not practice at all, they would not care? Nonsense!”

“Well… okay.” Vinyl stood, glared at Luna, and squinted. “But I know Octavia. She’s no slacker.”

“Irrelevant. Practice, practice, practice, and maybe they can parade thee around for whatever bits it will earn them. If not, then surely they will be delighted to see all that effort come to nothing.”

And Vinyl wore a rather impish grin. She took a step forward. “I can tell you don’t have any kids. I’ll admit not all parents are good ones, but that doesn’t mean—”

Something else had clicked with Vinyl. She frowned at it, rolled it around in her brain. She hadn’t realized quite what yet, but unless Luna snuffed this out quickly…

“They resent thee, child! They put everything into thee, and they have nothing to show for it! Hide in thy corner, throw thine instrument away. Even touching it will only remind thee of the utter failure thou hast been!”

What had the zoetrope switched to? Octavia playing her cello in an empty classroom.

Vinyl bent low beside her. “Keep drawing, Octavia. That looks very nice!”

Not quite an empty room. Some sort of instructor there, and they put away her sheet music. She walked out, and the lone pony waiting outside… hugged her?

“Is that your mom? She likes listening.”

No.

“See? It doesn’t matter that you’re not on a big stage. She likes to listen, just because it’s you playing.”

No.

Luna stared at the paper now, another picture forming, the same as before, but a different figure listening outside the classroom, tapping a hoof.

“Your dad now?” Vinyl said. “He likes listening just as much. It looks like he loves his daughter.”

Octavia nodded, faintly, but it was there.

“No, they hate—” Luna coughed as she forced a hoof against her neck. One piece, just one more piece—stop—keep going—stop!—no, help Vinyl, help Octavia!

Her breathing quickened, and her heart clamored against her armor. Words, it—Luna needed words. She strained against her chest, the feeling of criss-crossed chains digging into her flesh, but she shoved a full breath into each word. “Fought… when… together…” she rasped as if a timberwolf barking.

Vinyl’s ears perked. She leaned over the drawings of the music lessons, pointing out the full-grown figures. “They were happy when they listened by themselves? If you were the problem, they would have been just as angry then, too.”

Slowly, Octavia looked up and searched Vinyl’s eyes.

“It’s not your fault.”

Yes it is, thou useless child! Thou hast caused their marriage to fail, thou hast caused thy family to fall apart. It screeched through her mind like a train whistle, but she didn’t say it. She held it back until her neck ached and felt like it might burst, but she did not say it.

“Sometimes ponies just don’t get along,” Vinyl said. She stooped down to hug Octavia, and the flickering ponies on the wall danced to the music, each in their own space, but smiling, humming along, notes flowing from cello and throat alike. Even Octavia began to twirl around Vinyl, and Luna had never seen her laugh before.

Luna covered her head, dug her fangs into her lip, whimpered, and held her tongue for all she was worth. And the movie shone brighter, projected by a ray of sun. It was beautiful.

Then Vinyl tore the concert picture in two, down the aisle, adding the smiles back to the two audience members. When Octavia didn’t object, only peering closer, Vinyl tore the schoolhouse picture as well. “It’s alright if they don’t love each other. I know you wish they did, but they still love you. Music is the gift they gave you so you could be happy. It makes them happy to see you enjoy it. Practice, practice, practice for the love of it, and no other reason. Then you will repay them. That’s all they’ve ever wanted.” And the split projection—no more shouting. Each parent bent down to hug her separately. They smiled, and they mouthed something.

“What did they say to you?” Vinyl asked.

Octavia didn’t answer. She just watched raptly, her mouth hanging open.

“They make each other angry, but you don’t. They love you. They love your playing.” Vinyl put the lesson pictures back on top, and she picked up the tattered cello she’d brought with her. “See?” she asked, drawing a hoof along the last intact string. It sang out, a lovely mellow tone, and the parents smiled, in their individual frames.

Octavia’s breath caught, and she reached out to touch the instrument. Gingerly at first, but then she took hold. A rich red maple stain, gleaming steel strings, ebony bow. She drew the bow over the first string, and the parent figures, they each went into the classroom, to their own Octavias, and hugged her tightly. Then they sat back to listen, and she played. She played in the room and at the concert and here, the tune, the vocalise Vinyl had hummed to her.

She played, and Luna wept.

When the piece had ended, Vinyl glanced over. She even approached and gave Luna a hug. “Thank you,” she said. “I wouldn’t have known how to help her without you.”

Yet another surge of sooty flame burgeoned in Luna’s chest, and she could scarcely choke off what it wanted to say, but Octavia had already begun to etherealize. She would wake up soon, and Vinyl had learned not to fall prey to any further barbs. There was nothing else Luna could do.

And the fact it had happened at all turned her stomach, if not silence the hissing voice in her head. This contagion must not be allowed to continue. She would never intrude upon the dream realm again.

“Who are you?” Vinyl asked.

“I am not important,” Luna replied as she faded back to what must remain her home.

Author's Note

I borrowed this concept of talking someone through their childhood trauma while drawing pictures with a younger memory of them from a wonderful anime called Iroduku: The World in Colors. It leans toward slice of life, though there is an overall plot arc that gets introduced at the beginning and picks back up at the end. I enjoyed it very much, and I'd highly recommend it.