If a Pony Catch a Pony

When you're drinking in a bar, especially one filled with body heat from a bunch of dancing ponies, it's easy to find that nice, euphoric kind of drunkenness. You know, the kind where everypony's pretty, the drinks taste sweeter, and the band is the best you've ever heard. That all ends once you walk out into a bitterly cold Manehatten night. By the time Cheerilee and I made it back to the Brandenburger, I was still drunk, but the euphoria was gone. I was dizzy and starting to feel sleepy, and all of a sudden I had Vinyl Scratch on the brain again.

We went up to my room anyway, though, and I could tell Cheerilee was still in the same mood we had been in when we left the bar. She excused herself to go “freshen up” in the bathroom, and that at least got me to smile because I'd never heard anypony say it in real life.

While I waited on her to get back, I took off my scarf and stretched out on the bed. I honestly wasn't trying to look seductive or anything. Actually, I was a little worried that I was going to fall asleep before Cheerilee got back. It didn't take her long, though, and of course when she did she took me being on the bed as an invitation. It's funny, I've never been that forward with anypony before, and when I finally was, it was by accident.

Cheerilee giggled a little as we looked at each other. “I can't believe it's me here and not Golden Harvest,” she said.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Oh, I'm just used to her being the one who gets all the attention.”

“Well, she's pretty and all, but I could tell I'd have more to talk to you about.”

She leaned in and gave me a little peck on the mouth. “You could tell that just by looking at me?”

“Sure. When I first saw the three of you at that table, you looked like you were just taking everything in and enjoying yourself. Golden Harvest looked like she was looking all over the place for the rich and famous ponies. I could tell you'd be able to hold up your end of a conversation, but she would've been too distracted.”

She had kind of started stroking my hoof while I was talking, and I got the impression that she was ready for me to stop. So I leaned over and started kissing her a little. She responded and all of a sudden we were pressed tight up against each other, and that's when everything went wrong.

I was a little dizzy from the drinks, and when I closed my eyes, the room started spinning a little. And I don't know why, but that took me back to the place my brain had really been wanting me to go since we got back to the hotel. It was last summer, at my parents' apartment in Manehatten. A new family had just moved in across the hall, and my mother was all worked up because one of them had a tendency to play music really loud late at night. I admit, I wasn't wild about it, either, but there really wasn't anything I could do, and anyway I was sure they weren't too happy about me practicing my cello in the mornings. It's not exactly a quiet instrument or anything.

One day, though, the music started up again, and my mother went into her usual spiel about them being so rude and not respecting the fact that other ponies live there and don't want to listen to their damned music and all that. So finally, just because I didn't really want to listen to either noise at the moment, I went across the hall and knocked on their door. I had to knock for about twenty minutes, but finally the door opened. I was expecting to see somepony older, but instead it was this white unicorn who was about my age. She had these big magenta eyes and a kind of spiky blue mane, and I was so caught off-guard by seeing her and not another boring rich kid that I think I probably looked like a hydra had opened the door instead.

Anyway, I asked if she could please turn it down a little, and at first she seemed kind of irritated. But she agreed to after I told her I didn't so much give a damn, but I couldn't stand to listen to my mother go crazy about it anymore. That made her laugh, and we introduced ourselves. When she saw my cutie mark, she struck up a conversation about music. After that, we started talking pretty regularly, and even hanging out a little. There was something about her I really liked, something I couldn't put my hoof on. She never seemed to worry about anything—not the future, or other ponies, or any of the stuff I was always getting distracted by. She was always smiling, this big, goofy smile that looked even more out of place when she was wearing her huge, purple sunglasses that covered most of her face.

We spent most of that summer together, to the point that was I was even neglecting Symphony. We never talked about dating or even anything romantic for that matter, but sometimes when we went to hear a band or see a movie or something, we'd kind of hold hooves or even snuggle up to each other a little. I don't know why we didn't ever talk about what we were doing. It just seemed like the right thing to do, like everything was perfect just as it was and if either of us said anything, it would all fall apart.

A couple of weeks before I had to leave for school again, though, that's exactly what happened. Sometimes after dinner, I would go up to the roof to drink coffee and watch the sunset. Vinyl and I hung out up there at night sometimes, but I wasn't sure if she knew about me going up by myself. Still, one night when I went up after dinner, she was already there. I didn't realize anything was wrong, so I went and tried to talk to her. She was wearing her sunglasses, but I immediately saw that there were tears running down her cheeks. I asked what was going on, and she told me not to worry about it, but when she said that, I could tell it was getting worse. Seeing her like that, it was like I'd been bucked right in the chest. Everything was wrong, and all I could think of was how to make it right again. Before I even knew what I was doing, I was kissing her all over her face, everywhere but on the lips. She let me, for a minute, even if she didn't try to reciprocate. Then without saying anything else, she turned and ran back inside. It was the last time I saw her, and the last time that I had kissed anypony.

And when Cheerilee and I were laying there making out, it was the only thing I could think of. All at once, I felt more lonely than I ever have before, so much so that I was sick to my stomach. I was even starting to feel like I couldn't breathe, so I pulled away for a second.

Cheerilee immediately caught on. “What's wrong?” she asked.

“Nothing,” I barely managed to stammer out. Boy had I ever killed the mood. Of course I wanted to, just maybe not so obviously. “I just couldn't breathe there for a second.”

The way she looked at me, I could tell she knew I was lying. I should've known I wouldn't be able to lie to an elementary school teacher, of all ponies.

“It's not just that, is it?” she asked. “I've seen that look before.”

“What look?”

“The look that says you were thinking of somepony else, and now you're regretting bringing me back here. I wish I could say it was the first time I've seen it.”

We were both sitting up, and all of a sudden the bed seemed about seventeen miles wide. The worst part was, I was still so preoccupied that I was hardly even hearing what she was saying.

“So, do you want to pour your heart about about it, or should I just go?”

“I'm really sorry, Cheerilee.”

“Don't be,” she said, getting up and walking toward the door. “I've been there, too. But I'm no more interested in being your solution than you are in having the problem solved.”

I was about to offer to pay for a taxi so she didn't have to walk all the way back to her hotel, but she was out the door before I could say anything else. After she was gone, I laid on the bed for a long time, but I wasn't feeling like I could get any sleep. Now I had to get my mind off of both Vinyl and what an idiot I had just been with Cheerilee. At first I got up and just paced around the room a little, looking out the window whenever I would pass by it. Eventually, though, I decided to go take a bath and see if that would finally relax me.

There was an electrical outlet in the bathroom, so while the tub was filling up, I hooked up my record player and finally started listening to the record I had been trying to play earlier when Twilight Sparkle interrupted me. At first, even after I got into the hot water and felt my muscles start to relax, I wasn't getting a whole lot out of it. But as I lay there feeling the alcohol sweat out of me and letting the embarrassment become a little less intense, I finally started to understand why Symphony had been so excited for me to listen to it.

Like I said before, nopony considered the Trottingham Philharmonic to be the greatest orchestra in Equestria. But the early Equestrian music that they were playing on that record was perfectly suited to them. It wasn't full of the kind of baroque counterpoint that became popular in the classical period. Instead, it was straightforward and almost dirge-like. But there was a delicacy and a tenderness to the melodies that I don't think the more prestigious Equestrian orchestras would have been able to capture. As good as an orchestra like the Canterlot Philharmonic or the Baltimare Symphony Orchestra is at the big, grandiose classical arrangements, they tend to sound a little mechanical when it comes to the more personal stuff. For whatever reason, though, the Trottingham Philharmonic was spot on during those parts.

I couldn't help smiling as I thought of Symphony listening to it for the first time. Her appreciation of music had always been different from mine. I could like something--and I mean, really like it--but nopony would know because I didn't get outwardly excited about it. Symphony, on the other hand, would make sure you knew. She wasn't the type to evangelize or anything--she wouldn't drive you crazy trying to get you to like what she liked. But she certainly didn't try to hide when she was impressed by something. It wasn't just that she would talk your ear off about it, or try to explain to you what some important critic had written about it. No, she would feel what the composer wanted her audience to feel, and more importantly, she would show that she felt it. If a piece was sad, she'd start to look like she was almost in pain the longer she listened to it. If it was happy, she'd smile and maybe close her eyes and kind of nod along to the rhythm. Of course that meant that, in our circles, nopony ever took her that seriously. Almost everypony who likes classical music and fine art and all that thinks that you have to be terribly serious and academic about it all the time, as if the ponies who made the art and music that we're all so serious about appreciating never so much as cracked a smile. Which you know is completely untrue if you've read anything about the lives of the great classical composers, but most of us pretend that we don't know any better, because we think it makes us look smarter, I guess. But really, when I thought about Symphony, I always thought of her as being smarter than all the ponies who were very careful never to show if art actually affected them emotionally.

Eventually the first side of the record ended, and I had to get out of the bath to turn it over. At first I planned to get back in afterward, but once I was out, I just wanted to curl up and keep listening while I fell asleep. Symphony was always right. It never ceased to amaze me.