Vinyl opened her eyes.

The syringe was at her hooves. Sugar was standing in front of her.

The world had the slightest hint of green.

And the sky was turquoise.

And everything was beautiful.

Vinyl fell to her knees.

And then just to her face, she collapsed onto the ground, felt the grass, felt the solidness of Equestrian soil, understood every atom of its essence, and let the essence flood her, becoming all that was, seizing the pain of every being and flinging it into the cosmos, and even the Princesses, and that was somehow possible, and Vinyl had no idea—just because she had thot it, the voice told her. And she had thot everything. And she was done thinking. And she opened her eyes. But you already knew that.

Vinyl Scratch gasped and opened her eyes again. Shortness of breath went nowhere. Her body reassembled. Ground. Grass. Soil. Grass. Physical reality. Grass. Grass. Grass.

“Why am I…” Vinyl said. “Why am I… lying on the… Why am I… I…” her words blurred into each other, no proper version of syntax or semiotics to assist her in saying what she felt she should say. What she had to say.

“How do you feel?” Sugar-Coated Sour asked, her forelegs behind her back, smiling politely.

Vinyl shook her head.

“No more SCS. Sugar, okay?”

Sugar smiled and shook her head.

“You get it already. Good catch.”

“Good catch!” Vinyl yelled, her eyes welling with blissful tears, her heart swelling like a butterfly-balloon. She remembered volume, covered her mouth with a hoof, laughed to herself, tears streaming down the sides of her face. She was alive. And what was alive, Vinyl Scratch?

“I’ll see you again in three months. That’s how long it usually takes, anyway. If you ever want to find me but can’t, there’s a big hill just outside the bounds of Ponyville—‘Headwreath Hill’, I think it’s named, but I’m not great with names all the time. You’re Vinyl Scratch, right?” Sugar looked worried, her eyes wide.

Vinyl Scratch nodded. Reached out to touch Sugar’s shoulder, to pull her into a hug. Sugar sighed, and hugged back.

“You get it!” she said. “Such a good catch. Good hug, friend.”

Vinyl didn’t say anything. She cried the best cry she had ever cried. She hugged another pony. She lived. And what was life, Vinyl Scratch?

“See you in three months,” Vinyl Scratch said.

It had taken twenty-seven days for her to try suicide.

The reason she ‘tried’ suicide instead of succeeded at it was because if she wanted to succeed, she would have picked a method that was 100% guaranteed to succeed. But hanging herself with her curtains half-parted in the evening when Mrs. Featherforth went out to walk her new dog Bernie Spaniels, was not a guaranteed death, and so she had been robbed even of that, to realize that by fate’s cruel whim, her sadness and happiness were just waves—states she could toggle between, that no real emotion could exist. She gave this curse to no one, and tried to take it with her. But her neighbour, Mrs. Featherforth, and her dog, Bernie Spaniels, stopped her. Bernie barked. Mrs. Featherforth broke the window, even tho she normally would have called the police first. She pushed Vinyl up from under her hooves so the noose would no longer cut off her air. She held her there while Bernie grabbed scissors from a first-aid kit in the bathroom (where most ponies kept them anyway) and started to help Mrs. Featherforth cut the rope—which they did, thru teamwork.

And Vinyl couldn’t decide if she loved or hated them.

Because after that she had tried everything.

Here’s your second chance!, the voice said. Mrs. Featherforth truly loves you, or she wouldn’t have saved you.

Anypony would have saved me, that means fuck all.

And the voice was quiet for a moment.

And then it shut up, because it was very hard to prove Vinyl wrong.

After her suicide attempt, Vinyl had tried every method of reinvention possible. She had given up DJing, travelled, cooked, explored the world, herself, her body, and the town of Ponyville down to its last inch, the history embedded in it, mostly thru the head of Twilight Sparkle, who was better than the town library because she could actually think, unlike the Librarian who always seemed to be reading something instead of helping ponies find what they were looking for.

Reinvention looked like a lot of things; for a while, Vinyl had even wondered if she should have a penis, and she’d gone to Canterlot to speak with Princess Celestia, and they’d had a deep and meaningful conversation about what sex meant and how ‘sex’ was both an activity but also what somepony was born with, and ‘gender’ was just a made-up word that ponies didn’t have so they didn’t talk about it. And Princess Celestia agreed to Vinyl that if she truly felt, in her heart-of-hearts, in her true soul, that she was a stallion instead of a mare, Celestia would find a way to change her, and it couldn’t be that hard, because the temporary ones were done all the time, but permanence usually required an artifact of some-kind.

And so Vinyl and Celestia and Luna (because she was wherever Celestia was, and sometimes twice as smart and sometimes whiny for ice-cream even at over a thousand years old, and how did that make any sense) and Twilight had come up with The Mirror of Changing, and Vinyl had volunteered to be its first test subject.

And it had worked perfectly.

And Vinyl had been a stallion for a while. Six months, precisely.

And she had, by happenstance, fucked almost every mare in Ponyville.

Even Granny Smith.

Because everyone needed sex sometimes; just less as time went on, usually.

Or when other things became more important to them, Vinyl learned, like family or career or something other than getting fucked.

So Vinyl sought out ponies who wanted to be fucked, stallions and mares, and had the time of her life; most in the Canterlot nightclub scene, where you could whisper “Meet me in the bathroom,” and sign ‘five’ at somepony with your lips and they would, and you’d be fucking them in five minutes flat, quicker than you could say the word ‘fuck’ you could have your cock inside them, and that was a kind of magic Vinyl understood only sometimes. But she fucked a lot. She got fucked. She became a mare again. She tried everything with sex she could think of—even the things other ponies refused to do. Things she had to do herself involving hot knives and glue and stitches and old records and ritual burning and symbols she’d dug up from old Equestrian archives and branded into her skin (in a dark close place that nopony could see unless she let them), and then touched herself and cum instantly, and that was how messed up she had been.

And that was one month.

“I need Sugar,” she said to herself. Her teeth felt like they were on fire.

So she went to Headwreath Hill.

And there was nopony there.

It was 12:21PM, which meant most ponies were having lunch. Vinyl didn’t each lunch, or really much of anything, other than something fried or sugary before a show to give her energy, and cum if it came from somepony that she happened to like more than a little, which was pretty much everypony, and tasting a pony’s cum was kind of like a privilege anyway, so she treated it like a sweet thing, and licked her lips and said “Yum!” at the end of every blowjob, and half the time that was already enough to get them hard again. Sex was easy, and so was Vinyl. But finding happiness was not.

Vinyl Scratch waited twenty-three minutes for Sugar to show up, which she thot was a considerably long time. It was almost half of an hour, which was a decent amount of time to anyone, seeing as there were only twenty-four in a day. How long was she expected to wait?

“About that long,” a voice behind her said.

Sugar was a pony that was a mix of black, pink, and green, and unless someone nice draws me a commission of her, I won’t be able to properly describe—but imagine a hot-pink outline, black fur mainly, and green highlights on tail and the edges of her mane. She’s pink + green + black, okay? Okay. Her hair was long, almost to the floor, but she tied it up, and did fun styles every day, and sometimes cut it like today, when it was barely down to eyes, but frizzy and tousled and saying ‘fuck me’ with every second of its existence. So Sugar did too. But ponies had to ask first, because that was consent. And if somepony did something to somepony else without their consent, they weren’t even banished to the moon—there was no special dungeon for them either. What happened to them only Celestia and Luna knew, and no pony who was safe or sane wanted to know. And so Equestria had consent, and that was why nobody fought unless they wanted to, and etc. etc.

“How did you know just when to—“

“Masturbate with a cucumber?” Sugar finished, smirking.

“Uh… what? No, I…”

Vinyl had masturbated with a cucumber when she was young. Her father had caught her. Had said it was fine. And he’d even eat it for her after she was done, heh heh, and Vinyl had feared her father from that moment in her life until his death, when she realized he’d just made a bad joke, and that could equal a lifetime of hate if you were stupid like she was. Before she rewrote her brain.

So why did she still feel stupid?

“Because I’m confusing you on purpose. I read your thots and then I give you something completely unrelated, but everything is related. ‘Unrelated’ is an impossible word. Think of something that isn’t related to something else.”

“Nothing,” Vinyl said.

“That’s related to something,” Sugar said. “Check, mate. Game and Set.”

Vinyl felt a feeling like rage, but it turned into her stomach. It was that simple—flipping a coin.

“You’re right,” she said.

“And why did it hurt you to admit that?” Sugar asked, juggling a pink ball between her forelegs, over her head, doing tricks with it perfectly as she spoke, never breaking eye contact. Vinyl fought not to follow it, and mostly succeed, but every now and then would catch it dancing in her periphery, like a piece of cotton-candy waiting to be nommed.

“Because… it hurts to admit you’re… not right…?” Vinyl asked. She felt an immense pain in her stomach, the type that felt like she should go see Nurse Redheart immediately.

Sugar hugged her. The pain lessened, but it didn’t go away.

“It doesn’t have to. But it does if you think you’re right about everything.”

The pain in Vinyl’s stomach worsened. She fell to her knees.

“Do you think you’re perfect, Vinyl Scratch?” Sugar asked.

“No.” Vinyl began to weep. “I’m useless. Nopony wants me. I’m a drug addict. I abuse myself. How could anyone ever love me?”

“Easy.” Sugar clapped her hooves together.

And Vinyl realized that every pony in the world loved each other—they just all had different ways of showing it. Even ways that looked like hate—like fear—might just be bad jokes. And ‘creepy’ was a word for someone who crept, and so if you didn’t creep, you weren’t a creep. But why was that important?

“Because you’ve felt like a creep your whole life, Vinyl Scratch,” Sugar’s voice said in Vinyl’s both ears at once. “Like a weirdo.”

“I don’t belong here,” Vinyl said. She didn’t know where here was. She couldn’t see. Just tears. Just the ground beneath her, and Sugar’s voice.

“The ground is proof you’re on Equestria. Does this make sense?”

Yes or no, Vinyl thot, and she wondered if Sugar and the voice were the same pony, or if the voice was just her talking to herself and using her own voice, and everypony did that anyway, at least if they were sane, because everypony needed someone to talk to even if nopony else was there.

Vinyl nodded.

“Yes,” she said, her voice hoarse.

“You feel physically fine,” Sugar said.

“I do,” Vinyl said.

“Your heart aches,” Sugar said.

“It does,” Vinyl said. Her heart erupted in pain, blossomed like a fountain of knives.

“You must find your true love.”

“What is true love?” Vinyl felt Sugar hand her the syringe, help her place the needle, push forward, it would become familiar some day, now this, like this, in, ruuuuuuuushhh…

“This,” Sugar said.

Vinyl nodded. Hugged. Cried.

Sugar hugged back.

That was love.

“But what is true love, Vinyl Scratch?” Sugar said, breaking the hug.

Vinyl nodded, took a moment, collected her breath. Breath was proof of the physical body. Vinyl closed and opened her eyes. Stretched her neck, exercised every one of her muscles. Her muscles. Nopony else’s. But everypony’s a the same time. So complicated. So beautiful. She started to cry again.

“My stomach hurts!” Vinyl yelled, reaching out from the ground.

Sugar didn’t take her hoof.

“Vinyl Scratch! We are sorry your stomach hurts. What is true love, please?”

Vinyl’s stomach wrenched itself until it could wrench no more, a spiral on a spiral of agony that finally like a door catching unwound like that.

“True love is… wanting another pony… as much as they want them selves… and… wanting to be with them… even when they don’t want to be with themselves… and always wanting to help each other learn… that is true love.”

Sugar nodded.

“I think you’re probably right.”

Vinyl stood up. Her stomach didn’t hurt. Her eye didn’t hurt. She was thirsty. A bottle of water hit her hoof, handed by Sugar. She took sips until her throat felt happy, then a few more for good measure.

Sugar smiled.

“You’re awake now, Vinyl Scratch?”

Vinyl nodded.

“Thank Goddess,” Sugar said. “It was taking a long time.”

“To realize about—“

“Yes, sweetheart. About Eris. But you already know about Eris, correct?”

“I do and I don’t,” Vinyl said, shaking back and forth. Her stomach began to hurt again.

“It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay,” Sugar said, her voice perpetually calm and reassuring. “Eris is just the female form of Discord—the yin to his yang. And you know all about his yang,” Sugar said disdainfully.

“Is ‘yang’ slang for penis?” Scratch asked, rubbing a hoof over her face and head, the Virt pounding thru her system like a set of tribal drums.

Sugar laughed loudly.

“Hahaha! Never heard that one before. But yes, I suppose it kind of is. Yang is the male energy—the dark to the female light. And we don’t know why this is, but it simply is. We merely accept, rather than fight.”

“I think I know a lot about fighting,” Vinyl Scratch said, shaking her head.

“We know,” Sugar said. “Eris made you that way. Eris makes all, tho she has no hand in creation—creation simply is, and Eris says, ‘Aha, quodus erat demonstratum, which is a made up language for “There it is!””.

“I feel like I’m not that confused anymore,” Vinyl said.

“Indeed. Then what does your heart want, Vinyl Scratch?”

“Another heart. Somepony else to have a heart that matches mine.”

“True love, in other words?”

Vinyl nodded. Began to cry.

“And why are you afraid this is impossible?” Sugar asked, scrunching her face up a bit, but also patting Vinyl on the back, keeping her cool, safe, and grounded all at once.

“Because… because everypony I’ve ever loved has run away from me.”

“Well, you used to be very good at scaring people. You’re very good at everything you do, Vinyl, and that’s because you put your whole self into the task. You become a laser beam, focused on a single pixel, and Eris must compensate to make the entropy match your performance. That is why you ache so often. Do you understand, Vinyl?”

Vinyl began to rock back and forth, stomach aching. “No,” she said, seizing as the word escaped her mouth.

“Yes you do.”

Vinyl paused.

Breathed.

Paused.

Steady.

Pause.

Breathe.

Pause.

Be.

Vinyl opened her eyes.

“I do.”

“And now you understand everything—sadly, they used to say, and now gladly, if you believe in glad,” Sugar said.”

Vinyl nodded.

“A good start. So you, Vinyl Scratch, have need of a true love?”

Vinyl nodded again.

“Then that shall be your goal. Do you feel you have the strength to pursue your goal?”

Vinyl nodded.

“And where is not your goal?”

“My room. Alone. Darkness. Yang.”

Sugar smiled a bright smile.

“Very good. You’re an excellent translator. But you already knew that.”

“I already knew that,” Vinyl said, half awake, half-hypnotized.

“And therefore you must seek another translator, like yourself, understand?”

Vinyl nodded.

“And Vinyl, what is a translator?”

“Someone who most clearly articulates reality to another pony. Must be to somepony else. Can’t be to yourself. That’s translation. From old Equestrian, translat, meaning ‘to carry across’. Understand?”

Vinyl nodded.

“You’re very fast, Scratch. Which name do you prefer?”

Vinyl thot a moment.

“Either.”

Sugar smiled even broader.

“Then this may be true love already. But what does your heart ache for?”

“A soulmate.” Vinyl spotted a stream of fireflies lighting the nearby night air, finally, flickers of light in the perpetual darkness of her closed eyes and the cloudless night.

“Then go find one.”