Play that Funky Music, Ms. Scratch

The music pounded against my entire body like it was trying to push me out of its domain. I vainly covered my ears to protect them from the huge sound, but it hardly muffled it as it continued with its attack. I looked over at the mare and see her lips moving, but I couldn’t make out her words.

“What?” I screamed at her.

She moved her mouth closer to my shielded ear. “I said ‘Too loud?’”

“Can’t you tell?”

She grabbed my arm and tried to pull it away from my head. “Don’t worry. You’ll get used to it.”

I slowly let my ears get accustomed to the loudness of the music (I was doubting if it was music at the time), but I could feel its weight banging straight into my brain. “Sure, when I become deaf.”

She continued to drag me down the long concourse that laid out in front of us. The neon green ceiling domed over the blue flooring, radiating its color over the ponies that walked, conversed, and kissed along the length. She took me over to a spot on the right where a young mare danced along with the music behind the counter. She instantly recognized Vinyl as the two mares waved and hugged each other across the bar.

“How you been?” the mare asked Vinyl.

“I’m doing good!” Vinyl answered as she started to remove her jacket. As she did, I could see that it was a tube top she was wearing underneath. Her shoulders were bare and her white fur extended down her arms to where the long black gloves began at her elbows. Her back was completely nude save for a single strap that held her top in place. It was not wide, only a good finger’s width and it pushed up a small gathering of her fur where it hugged tight against her illuminating body.

“Your jacket?” I brought my eyes up and found her looking at me with a suspicious, yet sly look. I quickly shook from my daze and hurriedly removed my jacket and handed it to her. As she gave it to the girl, the two giggled. I turned my head away to hide the blush forming on my cheeks as I thought that they were talking about me and the possibility that I was checking her out.

I might as well be naked in the place as I felt stupid for wearing the outfit I had as I studied what the other ponies were wearing and I quickly came to the conclusion that I was not appropriately dressed, so to speak, for this sort of venue. There were some ponies that wore clothing that were more revealing than what Vinyl had on. I wanted to get out of there and take my losses, but I felt myself trapped and I did not know what had ensnared me. I doubted that it was the music, though I soon found myself bobbing my head along to the beat. I had never heard anything like that before and wondered what kind of instruments was used to create those elaborate and alien notes.

Vinyl grabbed my hand and continued to drag me down the long concourse. She refused to let go as if I would run out of the place if she did. I doubt myself that I could as my hand was warm from her touch. It definitely felt much nicer than the cold night air outside. I quickly caught up with her and we walked down the corridor side by side. Even then, she never let go of my hand.

“So, you work here?” I asked her curiously.

“Yeah,” she answered. “Three guesses as to what I do here.” She smiled slyly as if I wouldn’t be able to figure it out.

“Alright.” I quickly gave the first thing that popped into my head as my first guess. “Waitress?”

She laughed as if it was the most ridiculous thing she had ever heard. “Yeah, as if I could be a waitress with my temper, right?”

Remembering earlier with the thief, I silently acknowledged her assessment as I thought again. As we moved closer, I could see beams of light shooting everywhere at the end of the tunnel. It gave me another idea. “Are you some kind of technician here?”

She pressed her finger under her chin as she considered my qusai-second guess. “I guess you could say that. And, I won’t count that against you,” she graciously said.

“Well, do you work on the lights or something like that?”

She shook her head. “They help me with what I do, but no.” She smiled at me, knowing that I only had one chance of getting the right answer. She looked as if there was prize if I guessed it right.

I was ready to give up as the loud music was starting to give me a headache when I suddenly remembered how there was supposed to be a beautiful DJ that work here. I looked at her and one look over her headphones still over her shoulders gave me the clue that I needed. “You’re a DJ, aren’t you?”

“Ding, ding, ding, ding!” she giggled. “How’d you figured it out?”

I pointed to her black headphones. “Finally noticed them, huh?” she continued to tease me.

“They looked really expensive.”

“Two thousand bits, and worth every last one of them. Now, it’s my turn to guess.” She studied me real quick before she gave her answer. “Are you a cop?”

“No,” I answered bluntly.

“Really? Could have fooled me after the way you stallion-handled that guy.” She took a couple of seconds to think, which I started to believe that she was just guessing the first thing that came to her mind. “Are you one of those special forces guys I keep hearing about in Canterlot.”

“No,” I said, “but I was in Canterlot.”

“Good. Then I’m on the right track.”

“But, you only have one guess left,” I teased her.

She didn’t seem fazed by it. “That’s more than enough.” She focused her eyes on me more as if she was trying to read my mind, which I wondered if she could. As a unicorn, she can do magic and I had seen unicorns used mind reading spells that I found rather freaky.

“Oh, I know,” she released her hold of my hand and stood in front of me to stop our walk. “You’re one of those crazy martial arts masters who lived up the mountains to study the ancient arts of Equestrian Kung Fu to defeat Equestria’s foes! Hai-ya!” She posed in her best martial arts stance as if she was ready to fight me in the middle of the corridor.

I only looked at her as if she had just gone crazy all of the sudden, which she quickly dropped her stance. “I guess that wasn’t it, huh?”

“You’re on a one-way ticket to the Crystal Empire you’re so cold,” I answered her.

“Well, shit,” she snapped her fingers as she consented to her defeat. “There goes my three guesses. Course, you don’t have anything on you that could tell me what you are.”

“Well, that’s because the answer is that I used to being a Palace Guard.”

Her eyes went big and her lips parted to form a small hole in her mouth as she stared at me with surprise. “You were a Palace Guard?”

“Yeah. Four years.”

“Wow,” she said, clearly impressed by it. “I’ve heard that it was pretty hard to become a guard for the two princesses.”

“It was admittedly hard, but once you learned the secrets, it wasn’t really that bad.”

We continued walking down the concourse side-by-side. She wasn’t holding my hand anymore, but she didn’t need to. I was willfully following her where we both exchanged brief looks that held hints of intimacy as I found myself really liking the mare and her carefree attitude. I hadn’t realized then that she had an invisible hold on me as we finally made it to the main part of the building, the dance hall.

I didn’t know what I was expecting, but I never believed that the place would be as huge as I saw it in front of me. The first thing that caught my attention was the hundreds of lights that flew all over the dark blue atmosphere. Some of them pointed into my eyes, blinding me momentarily. Some parts were using strobe lights, lighting up as if taking pictures. Where we were standing was on the second level of the club, where a walkway swerved on both sides of us down to the first level, where the huge dance floor , which was lighted up with several colors underneath the hundreds of feet of the dancer joined together to lose themselves in this music that I was still getting used to. Along the walkway, many tables were occupied by different groups of ponies, some large group of friends, some just couples. Over to our right there was a bar that situated itself from the walkway on its own flooring. Over to our left, there was a section, much like the bar, that served as a dining area. On the opposite of us where we entered, there was a large part of the wall that was completely bare, which I found to me rather odd as there were no decorations on it. And, because of my ignorance of dance clubs, I did not notice the absence of a DJ stand where Vinyl would play her music. It was hidden and will only appear when it needed to. There was nowhere for me to escape from the sights and sounds that hammered into my brain. I felt like my brain was about to get overloaded from all of these epileptic nonsense.

“Pretty cool, huh?” Vinyl asked.

I was hesitant with my response. “I…guess.” I could not begin to think of what to make out of a place like this. She grabbed my hand again and took me to the left walkway. I actually squeezed her hand tight, afraid that I would lose my life saver and get lost in this sea of chaos.

“I’m feeling a little hungry,” she said. “You want something to eat? My treat.”

“Yeah, sure.”

We walked over to one of the tables near the railing so that I could get a clear view of the dance floor below us. I could see that it was not filled to its capacity, but Vinyl assured me that the night was still young and that more ponies will be joining in soon. I couldn’t help but think that she was implying that we’ll be joining in sometime soon as well. I was secretly dreading it.

A waitress came by and gave Vinyl a hug in hello. When the waitress looked at me, she smilingly whispered into Vinyl’s ear, causing her to laugh. I blushed as I wondered what she was saying about me and I tried to look down at the ponies dancing below us, trying to find them more interesting. They looked so carefree, like the world did not matter to them right then. How anypony could think like that even if it was only for a few minutes, I wondered.

“Hey, Red Badge!”

I turned my eyes to Vinyl and found the waitress was patiently waiting for me, an amused smile on her face. I only ordered water which she wrote down and left the two of us alone.

“I only ordered some preztals. I hope you don’t mind,” Vinyl said.

“No, that's fine.”

“So, how do you like the place so far?”

I gave a quick look around and try to find a word that would sum up everything that the Moonlight Wilderness was showing me. I realized that no word that I know of could do justice of what I felt about it, positive or negative. I gave up, saying that I don’t have an opinion at the moment. She accepted it and we went quiet, letting the music keep our silence from becoming too uncomfortable.

As we waited for our drinks, I would risk a glance at her swayed her upper body rhythmically to the music, which, most likely, she had produced and the ponies down at the dance floor are dancing to. Even though she appeared herself somewhat playful, if not childish, I could definitely sense a form of strong maturity within her. She seemed already content with her life right now, being the DJ of a very popular night club. While I, on the other hoof, just started his first year of college, not knowing what I wanted to do with my life. I felt as if I was at a fork in the road, indecisive in what path I wanted to take while not knowing their destinations.

As I stared at her lustrous snow-white face, I wondered why she would treat me like this, a complete stranger that she had only met out on the street not ten minutes ago. I wondered what she could be thinking about me after knowing the information she had just learned. She seemed kind enough, but I didn’t believe that it was anything much stronger than that out of her thanking the stallion who had helped her. As she said, she was paying me back. Nothing more, nothing less. But, there was that foolish hope that kept my brain active that tonight would be somewhat different, maybe a little bit more. I hadn’t realized just how different it would get.

She turned her head at me and gave me a conscientious smile. I couldn’t help but to smile back at her as my face burn with the simple pleasure that she was giving her attention to me.

“So,” Vinyl started, “you said that you were a palace guard?”

“Yes,” I answered quickly.

“And, you’re out?”

“For about a year and a half now.”

“So, what do you do now?”

“College. Just finishing up my first semester here.”

“At the University of Manehatten?”

I nodded, feeling rather optimistic about myself.

“Well, that makes us enemies.”

I looked up, surprised by her choice of words. Before I could ask, the waitress had arrived with the basket of pretzels and our drinks, a glass of water for me and a shot glass for her, which it was accompanied by a bottle of whiskey which the waitress slammed on the table as if to relieve the weight.

“Enemies?” I asked her, still confused.

“Yeah. I graduated from the University of Los Pegasus a couple of years back.”

“Oh,” I said, feeling a bit silly. Our two universities are rivals in terms of sports teams that I never paid much attention to. “Well, what was your degree?”

She poured herself a glass of the liquor. “Business.”

I gave her a cocked eyebrow at her peculiar answer. She caught it as she smiled, knowing what I was thinking. “Yeah, yeah, I don’t blame you. I get that look all the time. If it makes it a little more believable, I also minored in Music.” She took a sip, her smile still on her face. I just accepted it, still somewhat surprised by her answer. “What about you? What are majoring in?”

I was a bit hesitant with my answer. “Film studies.”

“Really?” she immediately took interest with my answer. “You know, I actually took one of those classes to complete my graduation requirements. Man, that was tough. I barely made it through.”

“Yeah,” I said. I was rather uncomfortable about talking about it because I wasn’t entirely sure about my choice of studies, even though I fully enjoyed it.

“You don’t sound too happy about it.”

“It’s just…” I paused a bit, wondering if she wanted to hear more of it, but she seemed interested so I continued. “My dad…he wasn’t too fond of the idea of me being a film major. In fact, he doesn’t want me to go to college anyway. He said to me that I might as well be a major in uselessness.”

“Geez,” she said, eating some pretzels. “That’s pretty harsh.”

“We sorta have a love-hate relationship. More so on the hate side.”

We went silent, me regretting about mentioning my father, and I was sure she was, too, about asking. We ate our pretzels in silence while the music could only fill up what the uncomfortable air hadn’t filled.

“So,” she began again, “did you ever met with the princesses?”

I accepted the new subject. “Yeah, on a regular basis.”

“What were they like?”

I smiled as the many images that I got to see behind the scenes as they flashed in my mind. “That’s confidential. Believe it or not, I had been sworn to secrecy to never tell anypony of what I had seen during my four years in Canterlot.”

“Aww, no fair,” she said in a playful remark. “Now I’m dying to know what goes on behind those palace doors.”

“Well, whatever rumors you’ve heard, about 99.999% of them are completely false.”

“Well, what about the other 0.001% of the rumors?” she smiled devilishly.

“Highly exaggerated.”

We laughed, glad to have kept the ice from forming between us as I relax and started to enjoy her company. I had never been given the chance to spend time with a girl like her or to actually act calm around one. It felt really nice to be free of this anxiety that had plagued me for nearly all of my life, to feel as if I was being myself in front of her, and she seemed to enjoy it as well.

“I only met Princess Celestia during the Summer Sun Celebration a few years back, when I was finishing my first year of college. I found her to be very regal but I could sense a bit of playfulness about her. But, I was very surprised that she knew my name, even though that was the first time I’ve ever met her.”

“Yeah, I was there myself, in Los Pegasus,” I said. A burning memory came flashing, a darker image that I didn’t want to see again. To see that stallion holding his bloodied knife as he hovered over that poor mare as she was bleeding. I quickly pushed that image from my mind, but I know that could never be able to delete it.

“Are you okay?” she asked, noticing my uneasy look.

“Uh, yeah, I’m fine. Just…” That memory had been bothering me ever since it had happened, almost six months after I became a Palace Guard. It was something that a stallion from a small town of Ponyville would never see in his lifetime unless he was very unfortunate to witness such a thing. And the guilt that came with it because I was a stupid kid. I looked at her and she had an inquisitive look on her face. I quickly wave the conversation away, figuring that it doesn’t matter to bring up a subject like that. I didn’t want it to ruin the evening if I could help it. “Forget it.”

Thankfully, she shrugged her shoulders in acceptance and continued to pour whiskey into her shot glass. “You want a little taste of it?” she asked.

“I’m not a drinking pony,” I answered.

“Well, how about one drink?” she offered. “It’s good.”

I gave in, nodding my head. I did feel like I was stiff as a board and still felt anxious around her. She slid the glass across the table, turning the glass 180 degrees so that the part where she drank from was facing me. I looked at her somewhat accusingly, that I had figured out what she had done. She smiled innocently as she tried not to laugh at my accusing glare, which was turning playful as I smiled.

I picked up the glass, a little hesitant to bring the rim to my mouth. I started to sip a bit, but Vinyl stopped me. “Don’t sip it,” she warned. “You need to swing it down. Let it drop down into your throat like a waterfall. Otherwise, you’ll have that alcohol aftertaste that’ll stay with you for the rest of the night.”

I took her advice, figuring that it sounded almost like when I had to swing some bad tasting medicine when I was a kid. Without thinking, I tipped the glass and I could feel that burning liquid flowing down my throat like a wildfire. Once it was empty, I slammed the glass down on the table, coughing from the burning sensation that lingered on my tongue as I made a grab for my water, downing half a glass to get the taste out.

Vinyl covered her mouth but she failed to suppress her laughter at my stupidity. But, I could tell that she was not laughing at me, but with me as I joined in with her. She reached out for my hand, placing hers on top of mine and giving it a little squeeze as she continued to giggle. I gently squeezed her little fingers back in return as a thank you for this already nice night that was only the precursor to what was about to happen as the night continued.