“Clef! Come on. Please open the door.” I felt the door pounding at my back. I heard the pounding of my heart.

My back was to the bathroom door, empty bottle in hoof, performance suit still on.

I didn’t know how long I was there. The reason was profoundly ridiculous. On a back page of the New Canterlot Times, secluded to a side blurb, was a story about a changeling who had gotten so used to being a pony undercover, they had thought themselves to be one.

From this, a singular thought came about. I chuckled at first, laughed at its mere existence. It stuck with me through my sleep, through waking, through work. I had gotten home with a beating heart and decided to ruin Vinyl’s day as well.

The tie tight around my neck left a mark. The world spinning left me dizzy. The drink probably did too.

“You’re not a changeling man. Please come out.” How did Vinyl even take me seriously anymore?

I was sick. I’ve known about it for a long time. It was always crawling at my heart, biting into it, scratching. A disease whose thought brought a sickly feeling to the edge of my throat. Something I was taught to be above.

I took a deep breath in. The air filled the guilt in my stomach. “I know. That's stupid.” I said quietly.

Her pounding stopped and she went quiet. My heart had finally cooled down. The wave receded, leaving the destruction behind. The hatred seeped in afterward. I had thrown such a fuss over something so silly. I had believed something so stupid. The logic was dumb, the thought of me not knowing of my own identity, ridiculous.

I was supposed to be a stallion of rationality. Yet I could convince myself to be a pony of mistaken identity, not a pony at all. I had broken down completely as my brain kept hyper-focusing on the one silly thought, it wasn’t until I locked myself in here I could finally calm down.

I was supposed to be better than this. I was a successful artist, not some manic.

“Hey dude. I know you need a minute, but like, can you at least unlock the door? Just so I know you’re okay in there.” My heart sank further. The worst of it all was to whom I broke down in front. Fear, terror, had become reality. She always suspected something was wrong with me, but never the extent. The extent had been stripped bare completely for her, of all ponies. I was naked, for her eyes to see, to judge.

She was going to stare at me with judgemental thoughts each and every day from here on out. Just as I deserved. Just as I needed.

I raised my hoof above my head and turned the lock on the bathroom door. The door let out a quiet click. She didn’t immediately push the door in. She gave me time.

I let time pass. I let my hate fester into each crevice of my body. I wanted nothing but for it to completely consume me. For the outside world to become completely muted until it disappeared into nothing. Being alone here was comfortable. I could stay forever.

But I wasn’t alone. She was waiting outside the door for me.

I shuffled away from the door giving it room to open.“You don’t have to do this. You could just leave me alone.”

The door creaked slowly open. I turned my head away from the light which filled the dark void of the room. My pathetic self was presented in full display, drunk, in a ripped performance suit, huddled on the bathroom floor. Over an idea so stupid.

“Clef.” My ears twitched. “Hey man.” Little reaction.

My eyes were fixed on the cold tiled floor, unable to look at her. She stood over me for a moment, judging, seeing the pony I really was under the facade of civility. Then I felt her fur brush up against mine as she sat down. She said nothing. No insincere smile, no empty words, just silence.

I felt the steadiness of her breath slowly increasing. I knew what I was doing to her. My shoulder had been a place for many ponies to cry on over the years. But I never would burden another pony with that. I’ve always been perfectly happy. I was supposed to be.

I wanted nothing more than for her to just go away. Even if I'd leave me here forever.

I felt her body shift as she looked over to me and then back to the floor. She muttered under her breath, “Shit.”

“Please. Don’t have me keep you here.”

“I’m not judging you. If that’s what you think.” It was easy for her to say.

We fell back into another silence. I felt a tingling warmth rise in my stomach as she sat so close to me. I pushed it away immediately. Not now. Never.

“Tell me. I won’t judge.”

The thoughts in my mind swirled but begged to remain inside. I wished I could’ve kept them there, but I also knew she wouldn’t leave until they were let out. Maybe just a little bit would be fine. So I finally opened my mouth and spoke.

“I’m sick. I have been for a long time.” I paused, “The thought. It made sense in a weird way. I’m sorry. I was just stupid.”

“You’re not stupid. And you’re not sick.”

“But I am. Some manic.”

“It was just an episode.” Vinyl put a hoof on my leg.

“Just an episode… ” An aberration, a difference from my normal state. I remembered the panic suddenly rising, the beating heart, the overwhelming feeling. But it felt like it was rising from something. “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to say sorry.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Please stop.”

I went quiet. We sat there in silence together, for another long moment. Her warmth against me made the twisting hatred feel more real and yet somehow more bearable. The duality of experiencing hurt with another pony I never understood.

Then she leaned over to the side and I felt her plop her head on my shoulder. My eyes widened as I finally turned to look at her without thinking. “Vinyl.”

“We’re going to be here a while. Might as well be comfortable.” She said looking up at me with a little smile on her face. “Now let me tell you about my own little episode, a year ago now.” She began, “So I gotten this big gig at some music festival. Planned out this huge routine with a big finale using one of my signature songs. I practiced that same disk over and over again, but when the day came… One of my mates broke it.”

She let out a sigh and pushed a little bit on my neck. I looked down at her.

“Now I was a bit of a perfectionist back then. Even if we had a backup, he broke the disk I practiced on over and over. I became so focused on that.” She paused, “There were words shared with each other, some broken objects.”

She looked away from me, almost, shamefully?

“We haven’t talked since.”

She lifted the weight of her head from my shoulder and wrapped a comforting hoof around my neck. “What I'm trying to say is that. You’re not stupid, weird, or sick. You’re just a pony. And I have had way worse freakouts than you over shit much more silly. So don’t go moping around here hating yourself over it.”

I allowed her little story to rest in my mind. I had a hard time imagining what Vinyl was like when she was furious, but in all fairness, she probably would have trouble imagining me like this. It was just, not like her, not like the window of her I get to peek into. She opened her window up just a little more, to make me feel better.

There was that temptation in my mind. My whole body felt lighter, like a balloon filled with air. It'd be so easy to let that air out. So easy to speak my mind. I knew she’d listen, of course she would. The problem was if she understood.

“Vinyl… I’m afraid. No, I'm terrified. I’m terrified a feeling is… real.”

She lowered her hoof from my neck and looked at me. “It's okay. After all we’ve been through, you can tell me anything.”

A blank check. The worst kind. I weighed it in my mind, feeling out the consequences of it. Then finally, I opened my mouth to speak.

“When I look in a mirror. I don’t see an I. I was always blind to myself, but I don’t think I know how blind. I go about my day, drink coffee, work on my music, sleep. But each and every day I never think of the pony doing these things. I don’t think about it often, but when I do.”

I paused, taking a moment to catch my breath. I felt my heart become light and beat quickly again. I felt my muscles shake and tremble. I felt my eyes water. It was happening again. The feeling of my mind racing faster and faster, the blood rushing to my ears. I had let out too much air already. But the pressure in my chest demanded more. I had already gone too far and it needed relieving.

“Whenever I'm reminded of him. I’m reminded of what I am. Each smile is wrong, each note credited incorrectly, each greeting for a pony I should be. What is this? Some sort of cruel joke? My mind playing games?”

I felt Vinyl’s hoof touch my own. That warm feeling rose inside me again, of course in my most vulnerable moment. I closed my eyes and tried to banish it again, but all it accomplished was making me aware of the stinging water dripping from their lids.

“Am I some sort of husk? A third-person observer? I look in a mirror and I realize I might not even be able to begin to imagine what it must be like to be a pony. The picture of me growing into an old stallion is terrifying, utterly horrific, my skin wrinkling, cementing my life spent as the fake I always was.”

“Please breathe.” I heard Vinyl’s voice in the distance. I didn’t understand the statement. I felt like all I was doing was breathing. My lungs were working overtime, pumping oxygen in and out faster than it could be used. I was becoming light-headed and tired. I felt a sharp pain in my rising and falling chest. “You need to breathe!” She shouted. I was back in the dark bathroom. Her hooves were wrapped around me. Her warmth was on my skin. Our furs were tangling together. That feeling…

“I’m sorry,” was all I could manage.

“I said stop saying that.”

“I’m sorry.”

Vinyl let out a sigh and squeezed me tighter. “It's okay.” A regular response, all she could think of when glimpsing at my rotten core. A part of me sighed in relief, she listened, she hugged me, and cared, but she didn’t understand. Nothing would have to change. “So that's why? That idea made sense in your panic?”

I nodded. “Yes.”

Her grip slowly softened as my breathing calmed and finally she let go. I stared at the floor, letting the water from my eyes stick and curl the fur around them. I felt her gaze drift between me and the wall. I heard the slow taps of her hooves. She was mulling over what I had told her, trying to make sense of it.

In the silence I savored the lightness in my chest, like a weight was finally released from it. The air was easier to breathe and at last a sense of calm finally rested on me. I just had to let a little out, then I could go back to life, taking it one day at a time, until it faded again.

“Well… If not Clef… is there something else you want to be?” And the calm shattered. The air grew still and my heart froze. Creeping out at the depths of my mind was a truth I knew yet never thought. I imagined their faces, thousands in number, frowning.

“What are you suggesting?” A pointless question. I had gone into the depths of research before, late nights at the back of the library. Deep down I knew exactly what silly and horrifying idea had popped into her head.

“I’ve had a pony tell me something similar, their name was Elusive. Until they…”

I immediately cut her off, “I’m not saying these things are actually real. It's just… it's just my brain messing with me. It's not like I’m burdened everyday with some sort of innate desire to be something else.” I tried to steady my breathing, suppressing the thoughts rising within.

“I don’t know. That sounds like exactly what you told me.”

“It was just a trick of the mind. Just like me thinking I’m a Changeling. It's stupid.” The thought lingered in my throat.

She let out a small chuckle. “You really thought you were a Changeling before even thinking-”

“Shut up!” I snapped at her suddenly. She paused mid-sentence and fell into silence, taken aback with her mouth slightly agape.

“Sorry. It's just. I’m not that.”

“You’re not what?!” She said suddenly. I felt my stomach twist.

But there was also venom at the tip of my lip. How dare she suggest that? “I know it can happen in your scene. But I’m not some depressed stallion with nothing to lose. I have a reputation, family, and patrons. I am Clef Melody for goodness sake.”

Her eyes twitched, “The ponies in my ‘scene’ are happy. You are not.”

“I am perfectly happy.”

“You’re on the bathroom floor with a bottle of wine.” My heart beated faster. My thoughts swirled again. My mind worked quickly raising the walls, closing the gates, locking the dungeon down.

“I was born this way and I made it this way. I’m not going to let some stupid intrusive thoughts change that.”

I felt their weight, even alone with her. Their number was uncountable. It is the state in which I truly existed. In their passing thoughts of judgment in which I was familiar. I was a good pony as was.

“I’m just trying to help you. Its just… it sounds like you don’t feel like Clef… Maybe try something other then Clef?”

How dare she defy them.

I felt the disgusting venom rising in my mouth. I couldn’t handle its course sticky taste running along my tongue any longer. So I spat it out.

“It's just some fetish! I’m sure you filly fool around with plenty of ponies who love to indulge in that degeneracy at Celestia knows what hours. I am a pony of decency. I have self control. Not some underground spike collar wearing nobody! Not some stallion who goes outside dressed in makeup like a clown. Stop trying to make me into one!”

The room was silent. My tongue was left dry, desolate, empty. The silence's weight fell upon me. The weight of my disgust was left out bare. Now all there was left was stinging regret.

Vinyl looked away from me, her eyes planted on the floor. “I’m sorry Sir Clef. I tried to help.” I was stunned into silence, as I watched her rise from the floor, away from me, water in her eyes. “I like you. Because I know you’re better than that.”

“I… I didn’t mean that.”

“I know you didn’t. You spoke from the heart.” She walked past me, moving towards the door. I felt an urge to get up, chase after her, apologize. Instead, I looked away, staring at my familiar friend, the bathroom floor. I allowed myself to melt into it again, completely alone.

Her hooves paused in the doorway and she looked back at me. I felt her gaze lingering on my pathetic form, left sitting down in the cold darkness, empty drink in hoof. “One day. You’ll stop hating yourself.” Then I heard her steps drift away. My face collapsed into the hard bottems of my hooves.

I slid down, along the cold wall, until I fell completely to the floor. My head rested on the frigid titles again. My stomach was heavy. My mind was full. I was comfortable. She would hate me more now. But she wouldn’t leave. She knew I was a judgmental asshole already.

Even now I felt the disgusting warmth in my body. For that pony whom I considered to be different, and somehow, better then. The desire to be with, but more so the desire to be. To be free as her, to feel like her, to look like her. Isn’t that what this was? The desire to control a mare so strong you wish to embody it in form.

Isn’t that what you really were? A desire.

I remembered their faces when they first saw you. Little Clef in mother’s makeup. They all grinned, large shit eating grins as they pointed and laughed. Little clown. I smiled. I loved the attention. I loved them saying how pretty I looked even if they couldn’t do it with a straight face. But bits got old and eventually they grew tired and then concerned.

They tell you how you should really feel. What you do when a clown becomes so delusional they believe their act to be reality. To those you should not laugh, not encourage. You should feel your stomach roll. You should feel vomit at the edge of your throat. You should feel that primal disgust at those who dare defile their expectations.

I remembered them bringing home the images, showing the disgusting physical reality of my circus act. In vivid detail, they’d show you. You would see the natural beauty of a pony, then you’d see how they ruined it. The faces which didn’t look right, the parts missing, the pieces unnaturally added on. Then they look at you and ask, ‘Are you this pony?’

I was shaking again on the floor, breathing faster than I could use the air, trapped between two. No matter how I thought of my body the only emotion I felt was disgust, one natural, one trained.

I knew the truth for a long time. But it simply didn’t matter, as it wasn’t real.

Clef Melody was an idea, an abstraction of perspectives created by the ponies around him. But when an idea takes the form of flesh it becomes indistinguishable from reality. When you could feel, touch, and see an idea, who was anypony to say the idea doesn’t exist?

Somewhere in the distance I could see it. But even if it was real. I was a reality no one pony would observe. Like a tree falling alone in a forest.

The problem was this time the tree didn’t fall alone. She actually sat down, listened, and understood. It was terror. Terror so strong my only reaction was to yell and drive her away. Thinking about it made me want to recede, run away, sink into a void.

But there was something else. A thought long ago condemned to my darkest dungeon.

Would it be so bad?

Maybe I could remain Clef Melody, but what if, just to this one pony, just once? An opportunity to leave the husk only sometimes, just be seen for a little bit. Would that be too much to ask?

Yes I was a degenerate, a facade of a pony, a liar. My thoughts reminded me of that. They got louder and louder as the fantasy to grew in my head. Maybe just maybe I could make a deal with those thoughts, to adhere to their demands, but in return be allowed to be me in the darkness of my home, with only one pony.

The waterfall lessened, as the rainstorm cleared overhead. I watched the little drops of water move into the lines between the tiles. They poured into the little spaces and ran along them, turning into flowing rivers whose currents went towards the light of the doorway.

Clef looked at the bargain, scoffed, and threw it away out of hand. It was a stepping stone to a path of degeneracy. You ugly little thing, did you want to be a clown?

I looked at myself shaking and crying on the bathroom floor, and I realized, ‘Maybe I really could use a visit to the circus.’

Clef grinned that shit-eating grin, pointed at me, and laughed. He laughed his ass off, at my patheticness, at my mockery of my own body, at my choice of friends. I felt his laugh reverberate in my stomach and I couldn’t help myself but chuckle just a little bit myself. But I wasn’t chuckling at me, or him, or her. I was chuckling because I realized, only now, when I could see him most clearly that I could see…

In the foggy depths of my mind, out in the distance, there was a blurry figure. At this sight, my throat reviled in disgust. I felt vomit build at the edge of it and beg to be released. I reached a hoof out to it to shoo it away only for me to realize its hoof moved with mine. Its hoof was my own.

The feeling of vomit at the edge of my throat was strong. But the beautiful emanating warmth on my cheeks and in my stomach was so much more. My heart beated lighter. I touched my own soft cheeks and felt them as my own.

I looked up and finally saw its face in a reflection.

On the tiled floor, in a fantasy stolen from my deepest dungeon. She smiled.

I shut my eyes, tried to shake the thoughts away. I had to focus on one thing at a time, not think too hard about the future. Eventually they’ll go away and from there I could hope they don’t come back. Even if I knew they would. I had to live the next day.

I tried.

Author's Note

Thank you to Smoking for helping me with this.

I hope you all have a good day.

Constructive criticism is welcome.