I stared out into the abyss. The abyss of ponies. As I did, the abyss stared back... and I felt nothing. Not fear nor trepidation nor excitement. I just felt... nothing. I looked past them to the ponies that mattered the most to me; the ones I knew. Seeing those girls made me feel once again and let me push forwards.
"Hello all you fine guests! As Celestia just announced, my name is Seth and I'll be performing several songs for you tonight. They will be broken into two sections; a classical style and a non-classical style. However, I will be blending the two in the middle to get you acclimated to the difference. Hopefully you will all be entertained by the selection I have chosen. Now, without further ado, the classical section for the evening."
I waved my hand to my right and a grand piano slowly materialized from the ground up. Three stage lights from above now shone on the sleek black frame. I walked around the edge of the piano and took a seat on the small bench in front of the keys. I rocked my neck from side to side to feel some pops, stretched my arms out in front of me, and placed my fingers on the keys to begin playing.
It was funny to me. I had never actually played the piano before. I mean, sure I dinked around with the keys before, but I never sat down and learned how to play an actual melody on one. Both of my sisters know how to, though, and thanks to all the Christmas get-togethers my mom's side of the family had I could fuse that knowledge into the ability of my magical recall and become able to play it all on my own.
I thought back to that as was playing the first song. My family. Time was really different here so I wouldn't even be missed by the time I got back from this little vacation I was taking. Somehow, I didn't really feel anything other than indifference. I was having a nice time here. It wasn't everything I expected it to be, but things often don't go the same way in your head as they do in real life. It's the little things that throw you off. If you change one note, oftentimes things just don't sound right.
Playing in front of all the ponies felt similar to that. What I mean is that I had to play these songs just right. If I played anything wrong they wouldn't know, but I would. They would remember this as the way it was supposed to be even if I knew that it was wrong. Their perceptions would be different than mine and things would never sync up.
It kind of sounds stupid, but that's what I think anyway. Thoughts don't always lead down a path you can follow. I mean thoughts like 'have you ever wondered just what the fourth flavor of ice cream tastes like?' If you know what I'm talking about then bravo to you. It's just that some things are not going to give you an answer and this is one of those.
Even as I continued on, I realized that I almost didn't even need to concentrate to play the piano correctly despite being concerned at the beginning. Tapping the keys correctly felt like second nature to me. All the times I spent listening to the CD that these piano solos were on while I fell asleep at night had ingrained the notes inside of me. It felt a bit silly that I might mess up something I knew so well.
As I began the second piano song, I decided to use the time to think about just how this memory thing worked. It was really bugging me. I mean, I was parlaying my collective knowledge of the piano and my time listening to a CD into a working piano concert. Despite that, I thought about coming here beforehand and somehow didn't remember that this place was the same location as the Grand Galloping Gala from season one.
"Although I will say that I did give you a bit of a boost when it came to your memory. It will come and go, but it can give you much better clarity for certain events when it does work."
Oh sure, I can invoke it some of the time. That flashback was word for word what Discord told me through the coin before our chaos duel. The problem is that I don't know just how reliable it is. From how he said it I don't know if I can trust my own memory even if it is magically enhanced in some manner. Would that also mean if I lost my magic that I could have memory lapses or amnesia? Not knowing this can be a serious problem. I should bring it up with him the next time I see him.
In fact, there are a whole slew of things that I needed to talk to him about. I have the basic knowledge of my magic from when we had the crash course in the Everfree Forest, but that was just a few things that we went over; namely a history lesson, a combat lesson, and again the chat about just how chaos magic works in general. While those were helpful I feel that I should get more knowledge of just how to use what I have.
As I continued on, I really didn't realize just how boring sitting there would be. I figured that I would have to concentrate a great deal more during the piano section because it wouldn't be as active and chaotic as the next part. I was sorely mistaken. The amount of effort was nearly trivial. That brought me a seriously dumb problem of what to do up there while I was playing the piano. I was stuck in that section with only my thoughts free to do anything.
I couldn't get anywhere as the third song started playing. Trying to think of something without trying to think of something was a bit of a weird issue. If I were to just drift into my thoughts then I could lose concentration and stop playing. If I concentrate too hard on it then I ran the chance of switching to something else in the middle of the song. It's like if you were thinking of something and then got distracted and thought of something else, but you couldn't remember what the thought before that was anymore. If that doesn't really make any sense, well I don't know what else to tell you.
At that point, I glanced sideways at the crowd. I hadn't heard a peep from them since I had started this entire show. A sea of ponies and other creat- er, beings were watching my performance with a mixture of looks. Gratefully, none of their looks were negative. I count bored as neutral as there were a few that looked that way. Overall, it looked as though I was at least keeping them entertained. If only I could do the same for myself.
I looked down and concentrated more on playing the piano to see if it might help me with my problem. It kind of did. Keeping my eyes focused on the keys as I played felt a bit relaxing. If I had to describe it then I guess it was kind of a small numb or peaceful sensation. A serene state of mind perhaps? Is that what it might have been?
It certainly helped me get into the fourth song without any problems occurring. It was a rather good feeling if I do say so myself. The kind of rare blissful feeling like when you accomplish something really important after giving an extreme amount of effort towards it. Moments like that are generally fleeting and mine was not an exception. I snapped back to my sounds of music and kept playing like I had the whole time. Nothing really changed. Passing time while sitting there was difficult. The fact that I had a bit of a short attention span when I became bored made it worse.
I managed to settle back on just thinking about things about my life. I found a yard full of snakes in Arkansas. I discovered my love of football while in Indiana. I distastefully found out what racism was while in North Carolina. I found myself confused about myself when I hit puberty. My attitude changed when I discovered I had Asperger's Syndrome and I distanced myself from others when I went back to Kansas after my parent's divorce. Then, I went to college and my Pepsi habit went uncontrolled causing my diabetes that went undiagnosed for years-
Ah crap. My eyes started to water right then. That was not what I needed to happen. I may have shut off the part of my brain that kept me from being nervous, but that didn't stop any of my other feelings from coming out at any time they wished to. Thinking of those events made me understand why I wanted to go to Equestria in the first place. There wasn't a history of bad things that I had associated with Equestria as opposed to Earth. Both good and bad things happened to me while I was there, but my negative attitude had made me focus on the negative things only. As such, I was only too eager to come to Equestria when the opportunity presented itself in the form of Discord.
I took the time between the fourth and fifth songs to adjust my glasses and wipe at my eyes. The show must go on, after all. I could tough out another few minutes without getting all weepy eyed about stupid things. It's what I do. Besides, after this is done with I can get up and get more active with my next set of songs. That will definitely be more fun. If I have to do something like this again then I'll really have to take this into account. I could pretend to put sheet music down, but actually put a monitor in front of me with an episode of Dragonball on it; or a comic book, or something else to entertain me as I entertain others.
I put thoughts to actions as I kept playing the last song on the piano for that section. I certainly did love these songs. I especially loved the game that they were based off of. Perhaps that was what I should have been doing up here the whole time. Thinking back, Radiant Historia was an excellent game. It was kind of like Chrono Trigger where you bounced around your timelines and tried to save the world. Combat was clever where your position on the battlefield was important and your ability to control your opponent's position was equally important if not more so. It had several endings to it and I kept trying to figure out how to unlock the true ending for several months. Worth it.
I snapped back to my piano playing. I had about a minute or so to go before the next group. That would be more fun in my eyes. The piano, when played by itself, is melodic, but not really something that can sustain attention by itself in most instances. The songs I played were more upbeat on the last two. Overall, though, they only took me so far as a musical accoutrement went. Well, maybe accoutrement isn't the right word. Companion sounds more accurate. A piano should compliment a song and not just be the entire focus; at least for energetic songs anyway.
Ah, there we go. The last few notes flowed through my hands and I rested my fingers on the lisp in front of the keys for a few moments. I then stood up, turned to the audience, and took a bow. The response I got was a nice stomping of hooves from those in attendance. It sounded more polite from most, but there were several places that seemed more enthusiastic in their efforts. I guess that was fine. It felt like I hadn't really done anything yet anyway.
The next section would be a bit different.