It All Pays Off in the End
Late Into the Night, Early in the Mourning
Fresh, cool, night air floated through an open window in the dark room of the dormitory. A stack of coffee cups sat on what somepony might call a vandalized desk. Next to it sat a stack of papers and notebooks with various titles written on them. Among them was "psychology", "buisness management", "Calculus", and various other courses that many ponies would classify as very, very hard and boring. Across the desk lay a record player, currently stopped with the needle laying in the middle of the LP that sat inside the device. Papers and writing utensils lay scattered across the table in a very unorganized and somewhat stained fashion.
On top of it all lay a pony. The white unicorn was sleeping deeply, her face pressed sideways against the surface of the desk, and therefore the papers on top. Her ruffled blue hair, striped dark and light blue, spread itself out across the school materials and got a nice soak in a puddle of spilled coffee. One of her hooves lay on the table, reaching out as if being stretched, the other dangling at the mare's side.
A particularly cold breath of wind blew in through the window, chilling the sleeping mare to the bone and jolting her awake. Stretching one of her hooves, the other reached up and rubbed her eyes in an attempt to wake up. Ugh, I fell asleep. *Again***. The light from the lamp forced her to squint her eyes shut and turn around toward the rest of the room. A wall clock kindly informed her that it was only a few minutes past eleven at night.
"This early? What the hay, all this damn work..." Gripping the back of her chair in her hooves, the unicorn twister herself and felt a crack in her spine. "Aahhh... nice." Finally, she glanced back at her desk and noticed the spillage creeping toward her work. "Aww, horseapples!" A blue aura encircled the pages and moved them in a rough heap towards the tower of binders, seven tall. Examining the damage already done, she moaned. "There goes my damn calc work. Buck!" Magic enveloped her ruined work and she threw it violently into the trash can.
Standing up, she trotted to the can and kicked it hard with a forehoof, sending it toppling over. The contents stayed in, surprisingly, and she groaned in anxiety yet again. School is just so damnhard!
This is what it was like every few weeks, but every time was just as bad as the last. Stress would build up, and build up, and build up, until finally she snapped. Usually she would get a knock on the wall, a few complaints the next day, but she didn't care. She didn't care about any other ponies, with one exception.
Stopping herself before her tirade could be unleashed on the horribly abused trash can, the unicorn took a deep breath. I guess this time... I'll call Octy. The only friend she had throughout high school and into college, she knew she would be the pony to call, so to speak. The phone lay on her desk, where she had left it before falling asleep trying to finish her metric tonne of work and studying. She sat back down and sighed, knowing that the mare would be asleep already.
Picking the phone up in her magic, the unicorn punched in the unlock code and went to her contacts. Finding Octavia's number, she hit the dial button and pulled the phone up to her ear. The ringing was a lot louder than she had anticipated, and she pulled it back from her head, letting her headache dissipate a little bit. After a few rings, she was getting much too distressed.
But before she could hang up, the connection was made and a tired, but angry voice came through the other side. "Ugh... hello? Who's calling me at... eleven in the evening?" The somewhat sophisticated accent was music to the white mare's ears.
"Hey, Octy. It's Viny-"
"What the buck are you doing calling me at eleven at night?! You know I go to bed at nine," Octavia snapped at her, sending Vinyl reeling even with the phone a half hoof away from her ear.
But Vinyl wasn't in the mood to listen to her best friend yell at her about getting sleep. "Octavia, shut up and come over here. I need to talk to you. It's really important." At the silence on the other end, Vinyl continued. "Pleeeeeease?"
Octavia just snorted in amusement and said, "Last time you said that, you were blasted off your flank and ready to get me in bed." That pulled a chuckle from Vinyl, and she kept on. "Why the hay would I need to go down there now?"
Vinyl just sighed, a very emotional and deep sigh that Octavia could feel on the other end of the line. "Octy, please. Can you just come talk to me?"
"Fine. I'll be down there in a minute, leave the door unlocked." The line clicked and left the white unicorn with a straight tone.
True to her word, the grey mare arrived at the door ten minutes later and allowed herself in. She was greeted with the sight of Vinyl at her desk, busily writing away on some paper and punching numbers into a calculator with her horn's skill. Octavia let herself be known by shutting the door.
Vinyl jumped in her seat and dropped the calculator and pencil, turning to see the intruder in her room. But it was Octavia, not anypony unwanted, and she just sighed and let her shoulders drop. "Hey, Octy."
"Vinyl, what's the matter? Need some more tutoring? Because this is hardly the time for it." Octavia joked while scanning the room, but returned her gaze to the white mare. Their eyes met, and Octavia could see the look of pure exhaustion and sadness in Vinyl's eyes. She realized this was more than a little problem with some math or theoretical concepts. "What's the matter, Vinyl? You look absolutely-"
"Tired? Sleepy? Dreadful? Depressed? Stressed? Because I am, Octy." She emphasized this with a wave of her hoof at the work on her desk, the empty coffee cups, the overturned trash can, and the ruined homework inside.
Octavia just trotted over to the bed and sat on it, patting the space next to her. "Come here, silly filly. Tell me what's on your mind. I'm all ears," she said, flicking her ears for emphasis.
Vinyl missed the humor in the corny joke, and just went to join her friend on the bed. They sat there for what felt like a few hours, but was closer to around five minutes. "Sorry I made you come down here."
With a wave of her hoof, the grey mare replied, "No, it's fine, really. You're really upset about something, and I'm happy to help in whatever way I can."
Vinyl just looked at her and sighed again. "Everypony nowadays has to get a fancy-shamncy degree in something really high end, otherwise they can't get a good job. I took all those classes," she said, waving at the binders and notebooks on her desk, "because I need to get a good degree and everything. I don't like being forced to do something so boring and hard, just to be able to do what I want!" She crossed her hooves and 'hmmph'd.
Octavia raised her hoof and rubbed Vinyl's shoulder with it. "Listen, I know how you feel. I was like that in high school for almost every year, but I finally got it down in the end. What do you do during the day?"
"Mostly I just take my seven courses each weekday, then I go back here and practice my DJ'ing. Then around eight I grab dinner, and at nine I start my work."
Her friend looked shocked. "Why don you start so late? And I highly doubt you only practice your DJ'ing. What else do you do?"
Vinyl blushed, which easily showed through her white coat, and she refused to look at Octavia anymore. "Uh, I, um, just DJ. Nothing else."
...
"Okay, fine. I... I study music theory. As in, the whole "science behind the art" of music. Stuff you like to do. And between that and all of my courses, I can't get a good night's sleep." She scoffed at the whole thing. "Last time I got more than five hours of sleep was towards the beginning of the year when I passed out in your dorm room drunk off my flank."
Octavia sighed and shook her head. "Vinyl, you don't need to take seven classes, especially if you want to do music as a career!" Gesturing to the binders and notebooks on the table, she said, "can you bring those over here?"
"Why? I'm pretty sure I don't need help with any of it. And your handwriting's so much different from mine, it wouldn't get past the professor." Vinyl looked confused and dejected at the same time at that realization.
"No, silly filly! Let's weed out the classes you don't have to take!" She glanced through the names of the courses and put four of them aside. "Alright, you don't need to take psychology. That's just not even related to music. Aaaand... Calculus, that's not necessary. You don't need math to get a good music degree. Why were you taking home ec. and physiology?"
Vinyl shrugged and groaned. "I don't know. I was just taking classes I thought would help in the long run." She looked up and grinnned. "See how well that turned out?"
They shared a quick laugh, and Octavia nodded. "Yes, I think we both learned a little something here, right?"
"Yeah, let your friends pick your classes for you."
The grey mare groaned, to the pleasing of Vinyl. "Alright. Next time you need help, ask the counselor or something. Especially if it's this late at night. Call a hotline or something." She stood up and began towards the door.
Vinyl stopped her, however. "Octy..."
Octavia opened the door and turned around. "You're welcome, Vin'. Now forget about those classes and just get a good night's sleep." As she closed the door, she added, "and stop drinking so much damn coffee!"
The white mare chuckled and shook her head. Using her magic, she righted the trash can and brought it over to the edge of the desk. With a sweep of her magic, the hours of painful, useless work was swept into the bin and Vinyl promptly forgot about it. After shutting off the light, she trotted back over to her bed and crawled inside.
"Finally, I can sleep, for Celestia's sake!"
Right before she could doze off, however, a creaking of wood and a loud thumping on the ceiling woke her right up again. She faintly head somepony's voice above her. "Oh, yes! YES! HARDER!"
Are you bucking kidding me?