Coloratura awoke, surging upward from her bed. Realizing it was a dream, she took a sigh of her relief. She ran a hoof through her mane, thankful that she was it just a dream. Her heart rate slowed back to normal

She found herself fighting on the inside to crawl out of bed. Would she chance it to take another shot at falling asleep? Would she finally have a nice dream? The lazy part of her wanted her to stay and chance it, but she knew that rolling the dice once more would give way to more nightmares. She spent hours in and out of superficial sleep that reality and dream were becoming difficult to distinguish.

She got up, flicked the light on, and donned a bathrobe. Peering through the fogginess of eyes, she glanced at the clock on the wall. It read that she was up at the uncomely hour of 2:00 in the morning, which, if she remembered correctly, was the hours that REM sleep should be occurring…

She couldn’t remember when she last had a full eight hours of sleep let alone worry about whether or not she was getting REM sleep or not.

She strode to her studio. Even in the darkness of the studio, the outside city lights dazzled and twinkled in an expanse below her, a view that automatically won her heart when she first got this space. She took caution not to let the light on, privacy was a hard thing to come by especially around the most obsessive of fans. Thankfully, she hadn’t had as much trouble in recently as she had in previous years.

She propped up her stand and flicked on the reading light. In the dark, she began practicing her chords, warming up her voice. Even if her walls were soundproofed, she kept her voice low, still adjusting to the shock of being awake. Even if her voice was as ghostly and beautiful, phlegm and gunk tickled her throat and chords due to the dust of the city. Or that could just be because the deficiency in sleep she had.

After hitting the wrong key three times in a row, she shut off the light and stormed towards the couch.

Even if nightmares weren’t real… they were affecting her performance. She wasn’t getting the rest she needed, and the journalists were sensing it like sharks smelling blood in the water.

She stared at the newspapers framed in gold about the room. Even if the darkness forbade her reading, she knew them by heart. They were her moments of triumph, her golden age. After firing Sven Hooves, her productivity had taken a hit, but altogether, this is what many of the newspapers claimed to be another golden age of singer and pianist Coloratura.

Her smile quickly was stolen from her. She felt hot tears run down the sides of her face. Now, here she was, faltering. The peak of her career seemed millions of miles behind her now. Every little bit of practice, every brainstorm, every performance seemed to suck out all her energy like the Sirens of old. She hated to think of her fans as such, but she couldn’t deny how she felt.

Alas, another thought entered into her mind. She had to make a tough decision: Quit now and let millions down, or take the slow, gradual fall into oblivion. She tried to delay the choice, but even now, here it was, at her doorstep.

She looked at her half-reflection through the darkened walls of the studio. Everywhere, she saw a ghostly reflection of herself, life-sized cardboard cutouts and professional portraits of her that fans would want nothing more to get their hooves on. A counterfeit image of herself, posing as an upright, confident, energetic, kind pony.

An there on the couch, the reality: a slouching, indecisive, lethargic, and selfish pony.

She buried her face in her hooves. 

She needed help. But how?

Suddenly, she heard a knock at the door.

Who could be up at this hour?

Coloratura quietly walked through the hall. She paused at a mirror to adjust her image, fixing up her robe, wiping up the last of the tears and conjuring up the warmest smile she could manage.

Cautiously, she peeked through the peephole.

Instantly, she unlocked it and swung the door open. “Applejack? What are you doing here? At this hour, no less?”

“Its a long story. But ah think the better question is what are you doin' up?”



Help came.