This is not pain. This is something else, and I hate it.
I wander like an idiot in the darkness, fumbling, searching, doing everything but sobbing.
I don't want to be here. I don't want to be anywhere.
That vinyl...
That color...
Blue is a damning thing, but only one shade of it screams at me...
I flounder and fumble around for the better part of a minute before I feel a pair of hooves brushing against my fetlocks. My limbs feel the cold plastic chill of my shades, and I snatch them up in an instant, summoning an auburn gasp from a stallion in front of me.
"Whoah! Whoah! Take it easy, DJ-P0N3!" It's Simon Neighs. He's in front of me, and yet leagues and leagues away across a rippling red sea. "Are you okay? Do you need some water or—?"
Once I have the shades securely over my face, I jump to my hooves, turn completely around, and gallop straight for the exit. I practically shove my way past a still-stumbling Harmonicide.
"Hey! Jeez! Heh... who spit in her oatmeal?"
"Dude, put a damned sock in it!" I hear Beau growl. His crimson salvo is devoured in amber bells. "V! Yo, V! Wait up!"
"I... I'm so terribly sorry..." Trailing burgundy, fading. "I... I had no clue—"
"I don't get it though—" Simon starts to stammer, then there's a familiar auburn explosion.
"V!" Beau's hoofsteps pick up, but I'm miles ahead of him.
I scamper out of the bar and into the adjacent hallway. I stumble around the corner, offset by magenta breaths. Nevertheless, I make it to the far end of the corridor and slap my hoof over an elevator's console. I lean against the cold marble wall, panting, shivering. I sense tiny brown voices rippling in the distance. Wandering ponies are staring at this crazed mare beyond the midnight hour, murmuring, gossiping.
I try to shut them out. I clench my eyes shut and pretend I'm treading water in a purple, satin sea. Time and time again, I fail, and that's what nearly makes me sob.
There's the tell-tale golden ding of the elevator doors opening. With a jolt, I shuffle on through.
That's when a strong fetlock gracefully touches my shoulder. "Vinyl... hold up, girl—"
I hiss through my teeth. Magenta daggers glint between us, and I spin around with a slap of the hoof.
Beau takes it like a champ. He stands squarely in place, staring at me. I deserve to be frowned at, but he's a bigger... better pony. His expression is soft, sympathetic, and his orange voice even kinder.
"Vinyl, just chillax. She didn't know. Nopony knows, okay?"
I linger in the elevator's entrance, shivering in place.
"It's alright. Everythang's gonna be alright." The zebra smiles. He inches forward, reaching a hoof out. "Just stop runnin' like a crazy mule for one sec, a'ight? You know that never ever works out well for ya..."
With a shudder, I lower my head. My eyes clench shut, but it's not enough to shut the colors out. It's never enough.
The first whimper is like a gunshot. The magenta cloud nearly toppels me. Thankfully, Beau is there, and his hooves steady me... my shoulders.
"I know a lotta things really stink, girl. But you know as well as I do that they could be a lost worse. You've got friends. You've got me. You've got Tavi back home."
A sore lump forms in my throat.
"See? It ain't all that bad. And what's so cruddy about gainin' new friends, ya feel me?" His smile is a golden thing, even when I'm not looking at it. "DJ Capricorn's a cool cat. I'm sure she'll understand. Ya just gotta stop runnin' all the time. It's okay."
I breathe calmer... easier. My limbs grow more and more still.
"So... we good?" He leans in, nuzzling me gently. "We done bein' all crazy-like?"
I finally swallow the lump down my throat. I lean in, hugging him close. I share a gentle, friendly nuzzle... and then I shove off. Beau stumbles as I backtrot into the elevator and slap a hoof over the upper floor buttons. Ding!
"Awwwwwww, V..." His ears wilt as hard as his voice. "Dun be like th—" The doors shut.
I slump against the opposite wall, hugging myself as the car lifts up, up, up through a tunnel of voices. Golden voices. Brown voices. All of the time, voices. The entire esophagus of the world gurgles around me and there's nothing I can do to stop it.
Just as I think the hotel's about to swallow me whole, the doors open, and I stumble straight out in a shivering gait. I take two lefts, a right, and arrive at my hotel room door. After an extraordinary amount of fumbling, I open my room and throw myself in. It's pitch black dark, but it makes no difference to me. I make a bee-line for my belongings, nearly tripping over an open suitcase in the process.
I practically rip a bag open, shove my hooves in, and rummage around. At last, I find my music player, along with a rattling set of headphones. Tripping over myself, I finally fit the clamshells over my aching ears. I must drown everything away before I go under. I must...
It's a veritable century of struggling before I can get the mana-based contraption to function like I want it to. At last, I cycle through the available tracks, and I switch to an orchestral suite with a specific pony's name on it.
I plop down on the bed... shivering... quivering... needing...
And at last... at last the music plays, and I am serenaded by violet strings, rich and succulent, enriching... like her words... like her voice...
And even as my body calms down, and the haunting tan strings of the past dissolve, I can see through it all... feel through it all... and I know that it's all an artifice, just like everything I've ever made with my own hooves, my own horn...
For what it is all worth...
And that's what produces the first few sobs. I'm already dizzy, so I catch the nearest notes of purple music and hold on as the magenta cyclone spins me around, dragging me to an unconscious place where even my darkest fears are too nervous to follow.
And there I find a unicorn foal, curled up on a hospital bed with headphones, crying herself to sleep. I crawl over and join her, and everything is almost okay.
Almost.
Well, that happened. Hope Vine and Capricorn make up. She seems cool.
...Well, that escalated quickly. And that last bit is interesting. Possible childhood trauma?
find
Also, WHOA!
o.o
LOVE IT!
Man, girl has issues. Not only in her past, but in her prospective future. She's got to learn to function without Octavia at some point. I'd suggest therapy or something, but... y'know... she's a Skirts character, so she'll probably just keep it to herself and suffer in silence, with only the occasional "episode" for punctuation.
Also, I wonder about the significance of that shade of blue (cyan?). Part of me wonders if that was the color of her own voice (though these days, at least, her various whimpers and hisses and breathy chuckles induce magenta). I also wonder if the blue Sweetie Belle conjures is the same shade, which might explain why the filly seemed to throw Vinyl for a loop (though [again] the fact that the reaction wasn't nearly as drastic might rule that out). And finally, I wonder if all this has anything to do with her seeing Rainbow's (a cyan pony) voice as black.
You know things have hit the fan when Idioteque pops up.
Ahhh, I want to hug Vinyl so much Dx poor girl, she needs some help, big time.
Nice job once more man.
Vinyl needs a hug so badly.
6370046 Omfg get out
... damn. That's frigging harsh. Poor Vinyl...
Tavi, fly all the way to Vinyl, and give her a big hug.
What, you thought I was gonna hug her?
I wonder if the unicorn filly is her own younger self or a friend or relative?
At the moment I'd hypothesise that her first musical talent was singing but then some illness or injury made her mute. She couldn't take it and tried to commit suicide and was talked down by Tavi. However, I'm not sure where her light sensitivity and Synesthesia come into it, whether they are another part of the same condition which makes her mute or a separate thing maybe a side effect of the suicide attempt.
I guess time and more story will tell.
And to think that last night I had on my mind: "Well I guess all us readers will find out tomorrow night what has Vinyl so shaken."
....guess I forgot who is authoring this story!
Events wrapped up quicker than winter? In a Skirts story? Ha! What was I thinking?
I don't know what conflicted thoughts you have about this story, Skirts, but you are correct when you say many people find it an enjoyable read.
Keep it up!
I... I... wow...
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Really good theories guys, I like the idea that singing could have been her special talent before 'The Event' and that such event is what caused her to lose it. Her voice being blue/cyan would be a significant enough thing to cause her to react like this, it's a better explanation than I was thinking which was the music album was playing at the time of 'The Event'.
As for the black color she sees Rainbow as, we've associated black to meaning harmony and it's been speculated by both others and myself in previous chapters that Rainbow being black is a nod to Skirt's other stories.
The first song I bother listening to in the playlist, and mow I regret skipping all the other ones.
Also… I cry inside.
I think that Beau is more than a little in love with Vinyl but, whilst his heart is good and his friendship is true, he needs to understand that there is only one mare in his best friend's life. She's also the only safe harbour in the storm her gift... her curse is to her every day of her life.
6413813 I see what you mean, but I also think he does know that, He cares about her deeply, and he can't hide it, he's not that kinda guy, But he also knows What Tavi means to her, and that that's not his place in her life. I mean he as much as says it here
6413813 I'm pretty sure his barn door doesn't swing that way.
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6413813
Most likely true. From ch9:
That's not to say he doesn't love her in his own way, just not like that.