"Greetings: my name is Maestro Fortune, and I am the owner and conductor of the Canterlot Royal Orchestra." said the pony in front of me. Surprisingly enough, I wasn't on the ground writhing in agonizing pain after hearing this. My heart immediately started pounding in my chest and I quickly scanned Octavia from the limits of my peripheral vision. Since she seemed to have taken a liking to me, she would have to be supportive; unless she liked Maestro more. Unfortunately, she wore a poker face that would win gambling tournaments by itself. Luckily, I had enough common sense left to answer quickly.

"It is good to meet you Mister Maestro." I say as I extend my hand.

We shook, and after he released my hand, I fought the urge to rub away the pain caused by his impossibly strong grip. He quickly resumed his speech. "As you can probably tell I am here as per your audition to the Canterlot Royal Orchestra. I am sorry to say..."

As those words left his lips I felt a part of me die.

"... that you will have a lot less free time from here on out; as you now are, so long as you accept, the Pianist for our orchestra."

At those words I felt the rest of me die. "I accept, but I doubt that this was the best time to pull a heart wrenching joke on me sir."

"First of all please don't call me sir: as a fellow orchestra member, the most formal expression I will allow you to adress me with is Maestro. Secondly, I apologize, I am so used to doing such jokes that I simply did so without thinking."

"Apology accepted, we all get into some small habits that can cause things like this, it is no problem at all Maestro."

"Very well, now let us deal with business: I thought I would inform you that we do drug tests randomly for our orchestra members. If you have any prescriptions please notify us as soon as possible, or else we will have to terminate your contract early."

"Well I just received a prescription for Vicodin due to chest pains. So after I take this prescription to a pharmacy, how should I go about taking care of that?"

"Well since I am right here, I can take note of it and put it in your file immediately. Now then, have you ever had any problem with drugs before?"

"I would rather not talk about that in public, the story behind this issue is rather personal." Octavia seemed to be shocked by this.

"Well that could be a deal breaker for hiring you dear boy."

"Before any assumptions are made, I wasn't exactly aware of my predicament or that I was being drugged against my knowledge or consent." At this their expressions went from shocked to perplexed. "Maestro, I was hoping we could talk about this in a more...private location. I would prefer not to openly reveal my past, since it is still difficult for me to talk about it."

"Fine then, I know a place where we can talk about it. In order to verify your story however, I will have to get access to the records of these events."

"Of course, if you would like we can go get that now."

"Let's. Octavia, would you be a dear and go get a copy of the sheet music he must learn for our next performance; and deliver them to his abode tomorrow?"

"I wouldn't mind at all Maestro." She seemed both crestfallen and eager at the same time. If she was hoping to hear that story she would have to accept the contrary.

"Thank you Octavia." said Maestro. He then turns back to face me. "Shall we be off?"

"Indeed." We then headed out towards the guard station near the castle to get some papers.

A few hours later of telling my story, getting all the paper work done and getting my prescription filled, I was an official member of the orchestra. I could kick back, relax, and feel the pain of what it means to have been stabbed in the chest. Luckily they combined their Vicodin with some magic to help heal the injury. To make things even better, I had a very large supply of Vicodin since apparently the pain would not just melt away along with the wound. It would be gone in about three weeks, and I four weeks worth of Vicodin. Sometimes life can be fair, although it isn't most of the time.

That night, I had no dreams. I slowly got up and checked the time: I was about twenty minutes late for my next dose. After taking the Vicodin I decided to unwind and play a little piano. It had been a few days since I last played any music and I certainly didn't want to be rusty when I would have to perform with the orchestra. I changed into a new outfit and then went to my sanctuary. I approached my piano bench, sat down, and played a few keys; only to stop when I heard my piano was out of tune. After having finished tuning the piano I sat back down, played a few notes, and lost myself in the music.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBPnfnvXq0E

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjgRhbyBMdI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQ9QOZAPSco&list=PL185B5FDC27ACE83C&index=38

Upon finishing the last few notes, I came out of my reverie and my awareness of the world around me. Thanks to that I noticed, once more, my unexpected audience.Only this time I had an audience of two people, Vinyl and Octavia. They also seemed to be returning from a daydream and after realizing I noticed them, Vinyl spoke. "Welcome back to the world of the living."

"Haha, very funny Vinyl." I said, then turned to face Octavia "Well, sorry about that, I get lost in the music as I play in here. It is hard for me to hear anything else when I play, unfortunately."

"Oh it is quite alright, I myself get lost when I practice on my cello. I can play for hours and never realize that time is passing by. Here is the music by the way." She tries to stand up from one of the many chairs in the room and nearly falters. She had been sitting awkwardly and her legs had half-fallen asleep.

'How long was she sitting there listening?' I wondered. She handed me some music. I have played this particular piece before. Back then it was on the violin and not the piano, but I knew the song so it would not take long to memorize. Overall the piece would take about an hour to play.. It was very similar to Vivaldi's Four Seasons with a follow up selection that seemed to be right from Beethoven's Third Symphony. Neither piece was very hard on the piano thankfully. Then again it was difficult to be a violinist when it looked so simple there too.

"Well, unfortunately, I must be going now; I have to practice my parts of the piece and I need all the time I can get." Octavia said, looking a little sad that she had to go.

"Well Octy, Sam does have a cello sitting over there if you want to practice, you can also get some experience playing with him." At this Octavia's eyes lit up for a moment.

She quickly regained her composure and asked, "Would you mind if I practiced with you?"

"Not at all," I replied, "The more the merrier correct? My cello over there has sadly not been played much recently so it probably needs a good tuning." For the second time her eyes seemed to light up. Before she could grab the cello to begin tuning it Vinyl spoke up.

"Before you guys get lost in your practice, I want to ask you two out tomorrow to meet my coltfriend tomorrow at seven PM, sound alright?"

"Well unless the orchestra has a group practice that day I have nothing planned for a while." I said.

Octavia replied, "The orchestra has group practice all next week, but we have the next few days off for solo practice and recovery from our previous performance."

"Cool, I'll pick you up at six thirty Octavia. As for you Sam, show up at Club Caldera tomorrow at seven." I mentally cringed, Club Caldera had a nasty reputation for where druggies would congregate. Not to mention it is the darker side of town for a reason. Speaking of darker side of town...

"That is fine, but what happened to those guys at the restaurant by the way. No one has decided to inform me of what happened."

"Oh shit, sorry, yeah they got thrown in the dungeon and are awaiting transfer to the dungeons in northern Equestria. They are so gonna pay for what they did and what they tried to do." Vinyl quickly responded.

"Cool. Alright then, I will go grab some extra rosin from my storage cabinet and we can start practicing."

As I heard Vinyl closing the door, I waited a moment to make sure she had left, I even left the studio to make sure she was gone before going back to speak with Octavia.

"Hey Octavia."

"Yes?" The response seemed, different, then I had expected. It seemed to be a little more, sultry, then I would have expected.

"We need to talk about Vinyl and her coltfriend." Now she was the one to look a little surprised.

"Whatever for, I think it is great that she found somepony and that she wants to show him off to her two friends at what sounds like a nice club."

"Club Caldera is famous for the large number of druggies that gather there. You don't go there unless you either want drugs, sell drugs, or are dragging someone out of drugs. This seems more like a call for help than an introduction." Octavia seems shocked by this; she had never even heard of the club before hand apparently. "Vinyl was the one that told me about it in the first place; so if she is there, odds are she's either asking us for help or she's not aware of the gravity of her situation. She may be involved in something very similar to what happened to... no its not important. Just promise me that if I say we are getting Vinyl out of there, you help me get Vinyl out of there, okay?"

Octavia seemed shocked by this, utterly and truly shocked. "Yes, if something is wrong we need to help Vinyl as her friends."

"Indeed, worrying about it now won't do us any good, lets get to practicing and get our minds off of this for now. You never know, I may be reading too much into it, and later I'll be heading to the castle anyway so I'll talk to some of the guard about that place to see if my fears are grounded or not."

Octavia nodded in agreement and we both began to play. Octavia seemed curious as to why I would be visiting the castle again but decided not to pry, for that I am thankful. It seemed that I closed my eyes and opened them again to see we were done. We played through the selection twice, giving each other ideas to make our part sound a little better. It was almost seven PM when we fully finished discussing music. I offered to make Octavia dinner along with mine; however she refused, saying she would rather not be a burden. I said it was not a problem and she relented. After dinner though she headed out to get home before it got too dark. I took some more Vicodin, and headed out to the castle for my meeting with Princess Luna. After three hours of talking I was home and headed off to bed. The next day I got prepared and set out for Club Caldera. I arrived at the club at six fifty-five, just in time to see Vinyl and Octavia arrive on the scene.

"Sup dude, glad you made it! Let's get in there so I can introduce you." Something was odd, and when I figured out what it was I knew something was going wrong. She was wearing a long sleeved shirt. When I first met her she wore sleeveless shirts. Recently she took to some short sleeves, but never sleeves that go to the wrists. Vinyl walked us in as VIPs, and met him. His name was Short Blade. He had a dark blue coat and had a sickly green mane and tail.From his stance, attitude and smug demeanor, I knew this was the kind of guy you didn't want to know. I stayed close to Octavia, fearing what could happen to her should she get separated from me. Then we reached the VIP room. It should be said that things started going wrong from that moment on.

"So you must be Samson. Vinyl has told me a lot about you." She cuddled next to him, but that wasn't the face of a happy pony in the least. I noticed his hand go into his pocket. He probably thought I couldn't see him pull out a vial and needle from my position; but I recognized the drug instantly thanks to the lovely name on the vial, LSD. She was being drugged!

"So you're the elusive coltfriend. So what sort of business you in?"

"Clubs of course. I own this particular club!" He started to draw the drug into the vial and began to angle it toward Vinyl. 'Enough is enough: if he thinks he can do this, he has got another thing coming.' In a sudden and fluid move, I reached across the table and grabbed his arm, forcing him to show the needle.

"So the owner of a club famous for drug users deals drugs. Wow, I would never have seen that one coming." Judging by the looks I was getting, I could tell everypony in the room thought I had just made a dumb move.

"Let go of my hand, and we won't have a problem."

"Correction, if you let go of Vinyl, then we won't have a problem." Vinyl's eyes shot out wide while Blade's grew small and cold.

"So be it. Boys, get in here and teach this trouble maker a lesson." After a few seconds of no change in the room's situation, Blade decided he needed to be more direct. "I said get in here!" He shouted.

He still didn't get that I wasn't an idiot, so I decided to speed this up a bit. "You heard him 'boys' come on in. He only has LSD on him." Blade looked at me quizzically until the door opened, revealing something that he was certainly not ready for. Guards, lots of guards and their captain, Shining Armor. At first Blade still looked confident when he saw the guards; but seeing Shining Armor, however, changed his attitude in a hurry.

"So, the rat finally plays his hand." growled Shining Armor, looking down at the pitiful dealer. Blade had gone from confident, to terrified.

"Yeah, seems like he wants to control everything he can, judging by the look of things, he thought the guards in his pocket would be the only ones to show. Luckily, I still talk with Princess Luna regularly." If Blade was scared before, now he was absolutely terrified.He finally decided that it was over; he could only make his situation worse and he wasn't going to hurt me. He loosened his grip on the needle and Shining Armor took him, and his club, into custody. I still had a favor going from Captain Armor, two if you count the item he lent me.

We arrived at my home with the escort of two of Captain Armor's personal guard, who would be waiting outside to subdue Vinyl in case I am right but unable to stop Vinyl. She had, the whole trip home, just stared blankly ahead, occasionally moving her head to look at me. Not a moment after the door closed to my home, she ran up and started to strangle me. An important thing to note is that she was using her hands, not her magic to do so, meaning that she couldn't think straight. I quickly took the item I was given by Captain Armor and laid it upon her horn. She immediately felt weaker and I was able to, rather easily, push her into sitting on my couch with Octavia. She glared daggers at me the entire time. After a few minutes she finally spoke.

"Why, why do you hate me so much? First you make me fall in love with you, then you deny me, and now that I finally found a guy to share myself with you ruin everything. Why do you hate me so much?"

"Vinyl, I don't hate you. If I did, I would have left you with him or had you dragged off to prison as well."

"Bullshit, you don't care about me!"

"Vinyl, please, you don't know what is going on you--"

"Shut up you fucking pig!" That did it, I had tried to remain calm, but even the Vicodin wouldn't calm me down anymore.

"You don't know what you are talking about!" I say as I start to raise my voice.

"Oh really, and why should I believe you? What gives you the right to tell me what that was!"

"Because I lived it!" That got her attention. She immediately stopped struggling, with Octavia joining in staring at me with absolute shock. "I lived that nightmare for three years before I got rescued, just like you are now. I was trapped, I couldn't get out. Through psychology and secretly drugging me I was manipulated. When I finally snapped out of it I had lost everything." I let myself go; my tirade was going to reveal my entire past to these two mares, and I didn't care.

"I met her one day at a friend's party. She was beautiful, intelligent, funny; everything you could want in someone, she had it. After a few months of dating I trusted her blindly. I hadn't realized that she had started to drug me. I quickly started losing everything. I might have been saved, but mom had passed away not too long beforehand. Meanwhile, my 'girlfriend' started to increase the drugs she was giving me and demeaning me. I was like a lost little puppy that followed her every beck and call. My brother had tried to get to me, but she kept me from getting free, from seeing what she was doing to me. She kept him from succeeding. That bitch even kept me from going to my own concerts and graduation ceremony. I was quickly disowned from the family after my sister blamed mom's death on me."

Taking a breath I walked back over to my chair and sat down. Neither Octavia nor Vinyl had moved since I had started my tirade, but it wasn't over yet. "I started to look more and more like an addict. Police even started to search me for drugs before and after concerts. Eventually, I stopped getting concerts. Then it happened, my brother, now a police officer, had succeeded in finding a definitive link between my girlfriend and my situation. He got a warrant for her arrest, and I was given the lovely title of victim. She had destroyed me. I literally could not live without her." I started to break up, my tirade turning from anger to sorrow.

"It still took me three months to finally realize that she had used me. She had completely destroyed who I was. The scars still to this day prevent me from falling in love or seeking a relationship. It was around the time of my release that the first sign of the portals started to appear. My reputation was so thoroughly destroyed by her that I was unable to get any decent jobs. The best that I could hope for was to get just a few jobs enough to afford a bottom level apartment. To this day I still have to go get psychologically tested to make sure that I don't fall back into the old patterns. To this day I feel the effects but I may never recover. Constantly haunted from a past that I had no control over. I know what I saved you from, and I wouldn't change what I did if you did kill me for it!"

My tirade done. I fell to my knees and just cried. All the pain, all the emotion, simply out there for these two mares to take in and know. I felt arms wrap around me, pulling me into a hug. Seeing black, I understood it to immediately be Octavia. Vinyl soon joined in. Saying she was sorry. A knock at the door pulled us back to reality. It was the guard. I took the ring off of Vinyl's horn, and gave it to the guard saying we would take Vinyl to rehab the next day. As she was a victim, she was asked to give testimony before the court as well. She agreed. That night we decided to stay at my place. None of us were strong enough emotionally to be able to go anywhere. Octavia and Vinyl shared my guest room while I went into my room and fell asleep quickly.

I awoke early the next day, I took my medication and entered my sanctuary. Neither Octavia nor Vinyl had yet awoken. I just had a song I needed to play, and I was going to play it, the notes flowed, and once again, I lost myself in the music.

Author's Notes:

Please do inform me of any errors!