Sweet Sauce took a few moments to recover from the explosion of sonic force. He stumbled backward, legs flung wildly in all directions. Eventually he found purchase on a nearby couch, and finally collected his wits. For once the sturdiness of these useless mudpony bodies actually amounted to something—a pegasus might've been rendered instantly unconscious upon impact. His ears rang, sound returning only after a few seconds. And when he heard it...

It wasn't some incredibly overpowered music box, playing ancient unicorn melodies from old Equestria. Rather, it was something he'd never heard before, at least here. But in the world he'd come from...

"Vinyl, dear. I think you may've broken him." Something nudged his side, a gentle hoof helping him to a standing position. He accepted the help, though he didn't turn to look in Octavia's direction. He took one step closer to the speaker, letting the bass shake his whole body.

"Not just a wall of noise," he said. "There's... complexity here. You play... dubstep?" That wasn't quite the word—but here in his homeland, what else was he supposed to call it?

Vinyl lowered the volume—apparently all that had come from a record. One of hers, he had to guess. And I can start to understand why the city had noise complaints.

"Dunno what that is, but yeah! Music! It's not the thinking kind of music, Tavi has the bases covered on that stuff. It's the kind of music that makes you rock." She banged her head along with it for a few seconds, though he wasn't sure that was quite what the song called for. Her enthusiasm was almost infectious, even if the music was a little intense.

And the sophisticated earth pony still wants to be with her? He watched as Octavia cut sidelong over to the speakers then gently turned the volume down. The music settled into the background, the way a normal pony might listen without breaking their ears. Still loud enough to enjoy, at least.

"You'll have plenty of time to appreciate that living with us, Sweet Sauce. But Vinyl's music is something that many ponies need to... develop a taste for, rather than appreciating right away."

"It's awesome," he said, grinning at the magical speakers. "I had no idea we had anything like it. I thought I might never hear it again. But... of course ponies would come up with it. We're so much more sensible. Don't waste time pointlessly killing things."

The two adults shared a look, though he was barely even aware of their attention. "You play that kind of thing all the time? Do you do it all, or do you have a synth replaying some of the background beats for you? How much magic does it take to work the speaker?"

"Woah there, Sweet." Vinyl rested one hoof on his forehead, stopping him just before he could cross behind it all and inspect the machine for himself. "If you wanna check it out some time, I respect that. But we should probably get you settled first. And I've got some old training stuff stashed away for you to jam on before getting near my production stuff."

Sweet stopped in place, ears flattening in a sudden wave of embarrassment. Had he seriously just let himself enjoy something? Clean up your act. You're on a mission, remember? You don't live here.

"Right." He nodded once, settling onto his haunches. "Sorry. I don't want to... hurt your stuff."

"Don't feel so down about it," Octavia said. "If you have a musical interest, you've found the right household. Honeydew didn't mention anything about that. But your room is this way. Why don't we take a look?"

He wasn't exactly eager to leave the music behind, even if it was just playing in the background. I could really enjoy living here. Yet almost the instant he thought it, Sweet brought himself up short, then hurried after Octavia. He could not let himself get taken in by these two and their unnatural union of tribes. How upset the ancients would've been to see something like this. He could dwell on that, and not get curious about what other kinds of music Vinyl could play.

They took him through the house, an utterly mundane and uninteresting affair beyond its centrally eclectic design. His own room was located in a loft section, above the two clearly decided living areas. It showed subtle signs of previous use as storage—deep scratches on the floor for shelves, and a persistent smell of dust. But other than that, it was more than adequate.

The furniture within was everything a young pony might need—somewhere to sleep, a desk for their schoolwork, a few bookshelves for personal study, and a window to look out and appreciate the wonders of their perfect world.

How many ponies grow up somewhere just like this, and have no idea of the horrors that they could be banished to? All of them, he supposed. It wouldn't be perfect if they lived in fear of banishment.

"Do you like it?" Vinyl asked. She lingered in the doorway, just beside Octavia. "We can pick up anything you need—but most foals aren't big on things, you know? It's about experiences."

"I don't think foals know what that means, dearest," Octavia chided, though her voice was friendly. She followed him inside, passing colorful walls covered in a musical mural.

She dropped down to one knee, meeting his eyes. "I know how overwhelming it can be to have everything change, and end up in an unfamiliar place. But you should know, you can always talk to us. If you need something, if you're frightened or stressed. If there's anything whatsoever bothering you, then please tell us. We'll do everything we can to help you."

"Even if that means you don't like staying with us," Vinyl said. "We want you to love being here as much as we love being together. But we hope you'll give us a little time to find that jam, you know? You gotta give the opening act a chance."

"I don't think he knows what that is either, sweetheart."

But Sweet Sauce wasn't thinking of that. "Do you mean it?" he asked, voice dead serious. He looked up, meeting Octavia's eyes. Strange to be giving such a sincere request to an earth pony of all creatures. Yet in some ways that made the most sense. Whatever might be true of his mind, his body really was just another dirthorse. She was a dignified, sophisticated earth pony—in some ways, he wasn't any different. "Will you listen?"

She blinked, taken aback by his sincerity. She glanced once at Vinyl, before nodding seriously. "Of course, Sweet. Anything you want to tell us."

"I know how it can be not wanting to talk to social services," Vinyl added, settling in beside them, leaning up against the bed. "Ponies whose job it is to care. Honeydew is great, but still. It can feel weird, I remember."

Her music still drifted up from downstairs, thumping rhythm echoing slowly. The bass shook the ground under his hooves, though not enough to dislodge him.

"I have a problem," he said. "It's the most important thing for me in the whole world. I tried to tell her, I tried to tell Princess Twilight. But nopony listened."

The two of them glanced nervously between each other before replying. Octavia, this time. "What kind of problem?"

"A... something I did wrong, a long time ago. Back before Equestria was even called that by everypony. The kind of wrong that's so bad you never, ever live it down."

They showed no sign of recognition—but they didn't interrupt him. Maybe he didn't need to steal a train ticket. He could just ask for help. "I'm not sure when they wanted me to come back—maybe I was supposed to be banished forever for my crimes. Maybe it was just about staying until I figured out how to get back, which could take forever. And it felt like bloody forever, let me tell you."

Only Vinyl's music broke the silence. No vocals to interrupt his thoughts. Or to give him a break. The silence weighed on him as heavy as their eyes, ever watchful.

"I can't take it anymore. I couldn't live in that world. I couldn't be surrounded by all the... awfulness, not for one more second."

"What do you need?" Octavia asked. Not judgmental, not with any emotion at all in fact. Simply curious.

"I need to tell them I'm back. I need to say that I've had a long time to think about what happened, and they're right. I was wrong. They can accept me back here, or they can dispatch me. Either way, I'm ready to face justice. I deserve whatever punishment they allot to me."

The two ponies were silent long enough for the record to finish with whatever it was playing and start on the next tune. He no longer cared. "Who are you talking about?" Vinyl asked.

"Princess Celestia and Princess Luna," he said. "They're the only ones qualified to judge what I've done. The only ones who remember my crimes. Maybe that's part of my punishment too... all my glories and triumphs erased. All my follies and mistakes... gone. Unrecorded by history. Unloved, unhated. Unworthy of a spot on the page."

Despite centuries of practice, Sweet Sauce found he could not read their expressions anymore. But it wasn't the naked skepticism of Honeydew either, who had only one chance to hear the truth from him and missed it. Maybe they would be different.

"I appreciate what you're doing by helping me," he continued. "It's... noble. But all you really have to do is take me to the princess for judgement. What happens after that is providence."

Finally Vinyl spoke. "That's... real heavy, kid." With every word, he felt himself sinking into the floor. But the carpet couldn't grow up high enough to hide his shame. "Heavy stuff. It's no fun to feel like you did something wrong."

"But sometimes, uh... apologizing isn't the best way to do things," Octavia added. The two of them looked away from him, in a second of desperate silent communication. And just like that, he could read their intentions exactly. "Sometimes the ones we hurt are gonna be okay just moving on. And trying to dredge up old wounds for an apology, it's... really not helping them. They don't need to hear that as much as we need to say it. But if they did hear it, uh..." She shuffled back from him, glancing back and forth around the room. As though one of the wall paintings was going to give her a better excuse.

Of course, it didn't. But Vinyl tried to help. "I'm sure you did your best to make it right," she said. "And now, it's really just about... accepting the way the world is. You've got to flow with the life you have, not try and change it into something else. The princesses love all of us, but they expect us to grow on our own."

Sweet slumped his head forward onto the carpet, and stopped watching them. He didn't have the energy left for resistance anymore.

It wasn't so much that they hadn't believed him—that was expected. Of course an adult wouldn't believe a foal who insisted they needed to see the princess. He had tried and failed to tell so many of them now, he half believed he'd been cursed for his trouble. Were these last few hours an inherited curse, waiting for all this time for his return from another world?

But he had dared to hope that they would believe him. How many lifetimes had he lived? How many ponies had he known?

They won't listen to me, no one will. If I want to end this, I have to do it myself. He had no unicorn magic to check if he'd really been cursed, or if he was just running afoul of adult after adult disregarding an extraordinary claim. He could try to push against it, perhaps summoning increasingly outrageous knowledge until he forced them to see the truth—

Or ended up locked away in Tartarus, without ever meeting Celestia. He knew the mare well—she wouldn't be above imprisoning a foal, if they were dangerous enough. Maybe even without meeting him for a personal judgement.

There's another way, he realized, staring up into those fake smiles. I don't have to fight directly. I can play along, wait for my opportunity. I can find allies, manipulate the local earth ponies until I get near the princess by chance.

Curse or no curse, Sweet Sauce had never been a pony to do more work than he had to. Fighting fate directly took so much effort. But playing along, waiting until exactly the right moment, that he could do. He already had some promising local recruits.

Sweet stood suddenly, grinning the fakest of fake smiles. "Thanks for listening to me! I feel much better now. By the way, do you have any Mt. Dew? I like the blue flavor best... can I have some, please? Nothing makes me feel better like unhealthy chemicals other people call food!"

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