The Dancer

by Yip

VII - Alto

‘Good morning, Viv!’

Vivace turned over on a well-sized bed, seeing Octavia standing over her, smiling. She rubbed her eyes and blinked three times.

‘You... you’re awfully chipper this morning,’ Vivace said groggily. ‘Did the extra sleep mutate you or something?’

Octavia chuckled and shook her head. ‘No, but I do feel a lot better. You ready to impress Star Gazer today?’

Vivace smiled. ‘Of course I am, Octy. Before we go, though, you might want to see your bags and some of the food I stocked up in the pantry.’

‘I already unpacked all of my things,’ Octavia said cheerfully. ‘And I already made breakfast. I was coming in here to tell you that there are pancakes waiting for us on the dining table.’

‘Sounds delicious.’ Vivace rubbed her eyes once more and got out of bed slowly. ‘Plain pancakes?’

‘And a few strawberries. You sure stocked up last night.’

‘Heh, yeah.’ Vivace’s eyes brightened. ‘You wanna talk about some upcoming stuff over breakfast?’

‘Well, I wasn’t going to eat in silence. At least, I certainly hope I wasn’t.’

The two made their way to one corner of the apartment, close to the kitchen, with a square wooden table and a chair surrounding each side. They sat down in front of two small plates with golden brown pancakes and strawberries awaiting them.

‘What do you think we’ll do if we don’t make it, Octy?’ Vivace said, grasping a nearby fork with her wrist joint and taking a slice of pancake. ‘All of this food would have been bought for nothing. Just more luggage to bring back home.’

‘I’m sure we’ll do fine.’ Octavia didn’t so much as look at her food. She was too busy staring off into the distance, occasionally shaking her head but always keeping her smile intact. ‘We’re a good group.’

‘I’ll say.’ Vivace took a bite of the pancake, and quickly her mouth sought to reject it. It tasted like burnt bread left out overnight, but Vivace kept smiling and forced it down her throat anyway. The outside may have been golden brown, but the inside was black. ‘N... nice pancakes, Octavia.’

‘Not a fan, I’m guessing?’ Octavia said, chuckling.

Vivace shook her head and pushed the plate aside.

‘It’s fine, we’ll go grab something to eat later. I’m not a very good cook, even for something as easy as pancakes.’

‘What about after the show?’

‘It doesn’t matter when we get food, Viv—’

‘No, I mean what happens if we get invited to be a performer at the Amphitheatre?’ Vivace asked, losing her smile.

‘I guess we’ll become a more popular group. Maybe we’ll go enjoy ourselves some nights, sometimes we’ll have a show, and maybe once in a blue moon we’ll go visit Ponyville.’ Octavia paused. ‘Why?’

‘What if you get like you did last night, Octy? I was really worried about you.’

Octavia paused once more. ‘It won’t happen again, Vivace. Everything’s fine with me.’

Vivace leaned forward. ‘Can you at least tell me what was wrong?’

Octavia pondered for a moment, then, in a sincere voice, said: ‘I don’t know, Vivace. I honestly, truly, don’t know.’

The two sat in silence for several moments. The pancakes were forgotten.

Vivace was the first to chipper up. ‘Well, in any case, let’s go rock that performance.’

‘Yes,’ Octavia replied, breathing a sigh of relief. ‘Let’s do that.’

~|D|~

Staccato, with his head in his hooves, sat in the Manehattan Amphitheatre’s back room.

‘Are we going to do the piece we rehearsed?’ Staccato said, sighing soon after. ‘I mean, we haven’t performed it live yet, but it would certainly be the one to knock his socks off.’

‘Gazer wanted us to perform something with an edge,’ Octavia added. ‘I think it’s our only shot.’

‘Well—’Sonata said, frowning ‘—he’s waiting out there with the Lonely Hooves for us to walk onto the stage, so we should probably stick with the usual measure and then try the special one afterwards if he needs more convincing—why would it be a good idea to change what we’ve already planned right before we hit the stage?’

‘She's not wrong, but it hardly fixes the problem that they might get bored before we get a chance to show off,’ Staccato replied. ‘Changing things up seconds before you perform seems rather unprofessional, though. Then again, we’ve never really been "professional" before in the big name sense of the word.’

‘All of the stuff is on the stage,’ Treble said, putting on her treble earrings as her twin sister put on ones adorned with bass clefs. ‘We can just substitute on the fly if we need to. It’s just a tryout, I’m sure changes wouldn’t be looked down upon if we did them to make Gazer happy.’

‘Alright then, Players. Let’s go out there and play.’ Blood rushing through every musician's ears made it impossible to tell who said the words, but it rang through everyone’s minds all the same.

Vivace shivered and her legs buckled.

'Vivace?' Octavia said, placing a hoof on Vivace's shoulder. Their eyes locked. 'Are you alright?'

Vivace looked down to the floor. 'N-Nerves. I... it's not Gazer I'm worried about impressing, I'm worried about playing in front of the Lonely Hooves. I had no idea they'd watch us play—what will they think of me if I played a note too high? Too low?' The rest of the musicians turned to the duo. 'They would never make any kind of mistake like that.'

'They've been playing for decades, Vivace,' Staccato replied sharply. 'Of course they wouldn't. Their opinion of us will be just fine—let's go, we shouldn't waste any more time.'

Staccato hurried out the back room door, soon followed by the rest of the Players. Octavia put her hoof on Vivace's chest before she could leave.

'I worked hard to feel like myself again, Vivace. Try to do the same when you're playing your music—you can definitely do it. For all of us.'

Vivace blinked several times, then nodded.

As the group entered stage left, a friendly voice spoke to them with a hearty greeting: 'Hello, my friends. How great to see you all again; I hope you don't mind the Lonely Hooves having the best seats in the house to watch you.' To Gazer's right down in the amphitheatre's seats, the familiar faces from the day before sat, their eyes still and intent on the stage. Octavia caught sight of everyone’s instruments on the stage, with a notable addition: a drum kit stationed right in front of Waltz’s timpani drum. Her head tilted.

'Not at all,' Staccato replied, settling down into his piano stool. ‘Let’s not waste any time, shall we?’

‘No argument here,’ Gazer replied, smiling. The Lonely Hooves nodded beside him.

Octavia took a deep breath and watched as her bandmates prepared themselves. Vivace shivered, then steeled herself for a moment, and shivered again. When she looked to Octavia, she was met with a careful smile, and suddenly the shivers stopped. Right on cue, the music began.

The familiar tune of Yesterday made by the very ponies sitting in front of them soon filled the building, and Star Gazer began humming along. One of the Lonely Hooves, complete with low-hanging, rounded glasses, looked to Octavia and frowned. She gasped and raised her bow to a different place on her cello, and after a few instances of this, he stopped frowning. Soon, though, Star Gazer interrupted the music by clearing his throat rather loudly.

‘Yes yes, I know that you bunch can make very nice music,’ Gazer said as the Players laid their instruments down. ‘But I want to hear life. I want to see sounds. I want to hear sights. I want to smell—well, no, I don’t want to smell anything besides the newly refurbished seats in this amphitheatre. But I do want to hear this new piece Staccato spoke so highly of before we all met, regardless of how many times you’ve practiced.’

The Lonely Hooves all frowned at once.

'No life in our song?' the Lonely Hoof with round glasses said bitterly, but Gazer, seemingly in ignorance, kept his smile focused to the group on stage.

Staccato blinked. ‘But—’

Star Gazer raised his hoof, and Staccato quickly fell silent. ‘The best groups have variety: they have the incredible talent to weave a beautiful piece one moment, and then the next, fill them with an exciting tune that gets them feeling euphoric—sort of like when you take a while in the sauna and then go out into the cold, snowy outdoors.’

Staccato scratched his head. He looked to Octavia, who shrugged in response.

‘Strange comparison aside—’ Staccato said softly, turning to his fellow musicians ‘—let’s get to work. You heard the guy—everyone on their usual instruments except for Waltz. You think you’re up to this challenge, big guy? Been practising on your own time?’

Waltz nodded slowly.

‘Alright, then let’s get this show on the road.’

Everyone steeled themselves on-stage. Waltz took in a deep breath, then pushed the timpani drum aside. He sat on the drum kit's stool, took in another breath, and picked up the drumsticks lying on the snare drum.

And then it hit. The sea seemed to come rolling through the front doors of the amphitheatre, a wave of music coming with the rolling of the sticks on the snare drum. Gazer almost—for a moment—could feel a burst of cold wind fly past his cheeks. The tempo stood fast, but the power of the beats steadily grew as the moments ticked away. Sonata walked in front of the drum kit with a microphone stand angled up to her face, her violin having been set to the back of the stage.

A cymbal crash broke the beat, and soon the trumpet joined in, heralding in a crushing press of the piano keys and a short whistle from the flutes. From then on, every instrument kept a level beat, save the trumpet that paraded between every lyrical verse that came out of Sonata’s mouth. Her voice was soft, smoothened by her throat’s hard work behind the scenes.

‘Goodbye to the life I left be—hind/Now I’ve got too much on my mind’

When all was said and done, and the music had died down, nothing was left but the applause of the ponies getting a front row seat to the show.

‘Excellent work,’ Star Gazer said cheerfully. ‘I had no doubt you could pull this off, Players.’

‘I quite liked the trumpet additions,’ the Lonely Hoof with a purple vest said, looking to Vivace. ‘I must say, we should use that in a future track.’

Vivace gasped, then felt breathlessness.

‘I mean, we’ve used trumpets before in the band, but I think I speak for the entire group when I say that the trumpeting almost “heralding in” the ensuing lyrics adds a new, exotic and exciting dynamic to the whole thing.’

‘Th...’ Vivace stuttered. ‘Th... that was Staccato’s idea, sir. H-he composes a lot of our stuff with S-Sonata.’

‘Ah, let’s not get side-tracked until after we deal with a few matters, shall we?’ Gazer said. ‘I’m sure Staccato and I can go deal with the formal side of things with contracts and the like. However, before we go off, I wanted to suggest a few things. The first was that you all get special outfits for yourselves, maybe something special that means something to you. Everything, as long as it’s not completely ridiculous, can be covered by me once you decide on what to get.’

A pause.

‘...What other matters, Mister Gazer?’ Staccato inquired, climbing out of his seat.

‘There are none! I can’t help talking nonsense sometimes, in all fairness. Ah well—come, Staccato. You’ll all have time to celebrate later.‘ Gazer smiled. ‘And cheer up, I haven’t seen anyone give a hurrah or anything close. I figured you’d all be ecstatic.’

‘I think we’ve all been training ourselves to keep calm and professional in times like this,’ Staccato replied. His hooves shuddered and twitched as he walked off of the stage towards Gazer, despite his best efforts to keep them rigid. ‘I assure you, though, we’re all excited beyond words.’

Staccato and Gazer’s conversation trailed as they walked towards an office on the other side of the amphitheatre. Most of the Lonely Hooves talked amongst themselves as they walked towards the building’s exit, except for the one with the circular glasses, who looked to Octavia patiently.

‘Mind if I say a few words, cellist?’ the stallion said, coming closer to the stage.

Octavia took in a deep breath. ‘I saw you looking at me funny in the first song. I know I screwed up somehow.’

‘No no, it wasn’t your musical talent or performance that went wrong. You’re gifted in the art of music.’ Octavia beamed as the stallion spoke. ‘However, you shouldn’t be looking to what other people see in your music. If you do what you think is right, what you think is proper, then you will definitely get a naysayer here and there. What you should be doing is not caring about what they think, so long as you do things the right way.’

Silence.

‘Well—’ he continued, rubbing the back of his head with his hoof ‘—that’s all I had to say about that. We’re heading off soon, but I certainly hope we meet each other again.’

Octavia pondered these thoughts, and pondered them hard as the last of the Hooves left the building. The twins soon jumped around Octavia, their flutes already packed away and forgotten.

‘I can’t believe it,’ Treble said excitedly.

‘We actually made it, and you got a Lonely Hoof to give you advice!’ Clef joined in.

‘And Vivace!’ Treble said to a stone-solid Vivace, her trumpet resting at her hooves. ‘The Lonely Hooves took your performance as inspiration! Isn’t that great?’

‘They... they looked to me for inspiration.’ Vivace blinked rapidly. ‘My inspiration looked to me for inspiration.’

Waltz groaned loudly as Sonata whispered in his ear. ‘Great, girls. You’ve gotten Sonata going again.’

Sonata smiled and put a hoof over Vivace’s shoulders. ‘You know what this calls for, girls? Like Mister Gazer said, I think it’s time for us to go shopping.’

Waltz groaned even louder.

~|D|~

'Does this dress look nice?' Sonata said, grinning as she pulled a rose-coloured, shimmering dress from a rack of various other feminine clothes.

‘Should we get stuff that all fits as a set?’ Treble replied. ‘I mean, it’d make us look a lot neater if we all followed each other.’

‘They all look nice,’ Waltz said. ‘Every single one that we’ve seen for the past few hours. Does which ones you get really matter that much?’

‘Of course it does,’ Clef said, taking a look at a poofy, emerald-coloured dress on the rack. ‘You wouldn’t understand, being a dude and all.’

A door opened nearby, and out of a dressing stall came Octavia, showing off a jet-black piece hanging by two thin straps on her front shoulders, which met around her stomach and hung loosely down her front and back. She stood up on two legs for a moment, supported by the door, which showed her rear legs uncovered by the dress.

‘The bottom sort of looks like a loincloth,’ Waltz remarked. ‘But it looks good on you, Octavia.’

‘Oh my, you look fabulous Octavia!’ Vivace said, pressing a hoof against her cheek. ‘Beautiful!’

‘Magnificent,’ Sonata said.

‘I’d date you if I was a stallion,’ Clef said, giggling.

Treble coughed. ‘I’ll date you anyway.’

The whole group couldn’t resist letting out a short laugh.

‘Is there any reason why you chose that one?’ Sonata asked.

‘I’m really not sure. I just saw it on sale and it sort of... spoke to me, I guess. Isn’t that how everyone goes shopping?’

‘Well, this rose dress covers a bit more than yours and it “speaks” to me, so I’ve probably made up my mind.’

Waltz rolled his eyes. ‘While you girls do your thing, I’m going to go book us some seats at the restaurant next door. If a bar is your thing, then I’m pretty sure they have one of those too.’

‘If you insist,’ Octavia replied. ‘But I’m sure if you stuck around long enough you’d start to like shopping. You seem to be getting good at helping us pick out dresses in any case.’

‘It took me two minutes to pick out my suit, and my opinion of all of these dresses has not changed even a tiny bit, so I think I’ll pass.’ Waltz smiled and walked away from the dress rack. ‘Come by when you're done, girls. But don’t take too long. Once I get things booked, I might take a quick walk to go find Staccato if I can.’

Waltz didn’t stay to hear any more of the girls’ chatter, choosing instead to escape the feminine fashion trap for the outside, unconditioned air that the drummer so desperately craved. He considered kissing the ground, looking much more happy standing on concrete than the store’s lavish pink carpet.

As he walked past the restaurant windows, though, something else caught his eye. A certain distressed pianist, with his head on the counter, sat on a bar stool inside the restaurant with an empty tankard of cider still clasped to his hoof.

Rather quickly, Waltz entered the restaurant and approached the pianist.

‘Staccato?’

Staccato slowly raised his head, turned to Waltz and gave him a puzzleeye. ‘What’re you doing here, Waltz?’

‘I was about to ask the same thing.’

Staccato smiled. ‘I should be appreciative that you’re actually talking to me.’ He looked to his empty tankard and frowned. ‘Hmmph, it’s good you showed up when you did. This is the only one I’ve had.’

‘The girls are coming over after they finish with their shopping. You, uh... you doing okay?’

Staccato groaned and leaned his head into his hooves. ‘Gazer and I have been talking about everything there is to be planned, and I think it really dawned on me today what we’re getting into. But I won’t talk your ear off about it lest I start a rant.’

Waltz shrugged. ‘Hit me.’

Staccato sighed and straightened himself out on the stool. ‘I’m not sure I can handle it, Waltz. I had been dreaming of this opportunity, this triumph, for so long. Yet, now that it’s here and we can finally make the big time, it feels like too much pressure too fast for us—me especially—to make the transition. It’s like little league baseball to the Equestrian Games.’

‘Well, not quite that big a difference.’

‘You get what I mean, though. I may act like a rude, self-absorbed pony at times, but I do it because it’s how I saw all of these famous musicians act when I was young. It made me want to fit that attitude in order to fulfill my dreams. But you folks were able to make it just as far as I did while keeping a good, healthy attitude.’

‘I think it's the alcohol talking right now and not your general attitude.'

Staccato chuckled. ‘It’s just one tankard. Never been much of a drinker, but I’m no lightweight. Care for a drink?’

Waltz shook his head as Staccato held out his tankard. ‘I’m not much of a drinker either. Although if one tankard is enough to make you this thoughtful and... good, I guess, then you should have some more in the future. In moderation, of course.’

‘That’s more than I’ve heard you say in a year.’

‘And you’ll hear a bit more—you know we’re all in a similar boat, right? We’re nervous. But misery loves company, so as long as we’re all nervous together, we’ll all lose that nervousness.’ Waltz blinked rapidly. ‘That doesn’t make much sense. Regardless, I’m sure it won’t be a problem as long as the group stays together.’

‘Wise words. Your advice seems both strange and helpful, though—misery loves company. Never thought I’d look at it like that.’ Staccato looked past Waltz to see the rest of the Players walking in, all with matching blue shopping bags slung over their backs. ‘And that’s our queue to eat.’

‘Hey Staccato—wow, you sure found him quick,’ Vivace said. ‘We all pretty much knew what we were going to get, so it didn’t take us long to finish. We wanted to come book seats in case you were hunting for Staccato.’

Sonata eyed the tankard next to Staccato. ‘You’re drinking again?’

‘Waltz coming in stopped me from buying another one—don’t worry, I’ll be fine. It’s not like this one tankard will change me for our first show.’

‘When is that, anyway?’ Octavia questioned.

‘Sometime in the next several days. Gazer said he’d call me about it.’ Staccato called for the server. ‘I’ll fill you in when I can. For now, let’s eat!’

~|D|~

The lights dimmed. The Players stood, poised at their instruments, steel-faced and ready to go. Only the curtain stood between them and the big time. Vivace was the only one to shudder, but the words of a certain Lonely Hoof put a determined smile on her face and made her ready to take on the world.

Spotlight center stage. The crimson tinge of the curtain still shielded them from view, but the light flooded underneath. A few beads of sweat appeared on the musicians’ foreheads, which was quickly met with a slow inhale, a slow exhale... and then, another light turned on. The audience was ready.

Curtains.

The hundreds and hundreds of guests, eager to hear this new group to segue into the leading act of the night, watched the stage intently. Only one song came from the group, the same one they had been showing Star Gazer before. Bliss.

At the end, chants of encore kept them in the spotlight. But they threw their flowers at one pony in particular.

Octavia.

She beamed, looked back to her fellow musicians, and they smiled back. They began to pack up their instruments, as a stage manager came to usher them away for the next group that was almost ready. But Octavia remained.

She closed her eyes, emptied her mind and entered her world of music, the one she used to remember from her times in Ponyville. She smiled as her delicate, bone-chilling solo struck the ears of her listeners with delight. They loved her, and she loved the music.

And then, the music stopped. Applause. More flowers. A pat on the back. But Octavia could not respond or feel anything at that moment, as her eyes were glued to the front of the stage, where the light barely touched the wooden floor.

Dancing there, solemn and downcast, was a stallion that no one but her seemed to notice.

Comments

[TheStratovarian]

A haunting ending note here. I keep viewing it as something akin to the older gem right here.

[71M073J]

Am I correct in assuming that these chapters were redone/republished? Because I really thought that the story got so far even before i started reading tonight... still, a hauntingly beautiful story nevertheless.