Pianissimo
Two years after first Ingress
“We should just go with the dubstep!” Vinyl Scratch complained, her voice laced with equal measures of annoyance and weariness. She pushed her vibrantly two-tone blue mane out of her eyes, panting faintly with the effort of climbing the rolling hills of Brisbane’s central district.
“Dub step is uncouth,” Octavia responded bluntly, a haughty note to her tone. “We are putting on a show for Princess Celestia!”
Unlike Vinyl Scratch, Octavia was quite comfortable walking up and down the slopes of the city’s streets. Compared to Vinyl’s neon mane and snow-white coat, her drab grey-and-darker-grey colouration was quite a contrast.
Their personalities and tastes were also differed wildly.
“Look, I can get a soundboard and scratch table from one of the music shops back in the central place with all the shops! We could be back to Equestria in an hour,” Vinyl complained.
“We are here specifically to find something strange and unique! Something exotic!” Octavia retorted.
“Dubstep is exotic!” Vinyl countered, stamping her hoof.
A passing human couple stared.
“Look, Vinyl, if you want to go back to Equestria and stay there, then that is your business, but when I put together this show for Celestia, then I will be the one to take all the credit.”
“You know I need this thing to get enough pull to start up my studio!” Vinyl whimpered.
“Then be quiet and let me find something worthy of Princess Celestia,” Octavia said smartly.
Vinyl glowered at her.
“Octy! We’ve been out here for hours, it’s time to go back to the ho-”
“Shush!” Octavia hissed, holding a hoof up to cover the unicorn’s mouth.
Vinyl snapped at the hoof, almost closing her teeth over it.
Octavia barely noticed, ears perked forwards, eyes narrowing as she slowly tilted her head, listening intently. “This way!” she said suddenly, before bolting down the street.
Vinyl gave a long-suffering sigh and galloped after her.
Octavia stood transfixed, pink eyes wide and shining, her tail twitching slowly back and forth on reflex as she stared at the storefront.
It was an old antique store, with various aged antiques in the window on display stands, dusty windows and old beat-up walls.
But what held her rapt attention was inside, and the faint music barely audible through the closed door.
A young man was standing behind a strange cylindrical device, composed almost entirely of glass. It was like glass bowls layered out along a stick, with a handle at the end to turn it. A woman was turning the wheel, with a second man watching, while the one that seemed in charge lightly ran his fingers across the glass ‘bowls’.
And the sound it produced was amazing.
“What… what is that?” Vinyl Scratch asked, equally amazed, blinking and staring in at the trio.
“I don’t know,” Octavia breathed, “But I must have it for our show.”
“Feh, not as good as a sound board,” Vinyl Scratch said dismissively.
“Listen to it!” Octavia hissed, “Equestria hasn’t had an instrument like that… ever! It will be entirely new!”
“Fine, fine, whatever, let’s just buy it and get going then,” Vinyl scratch said wearily. “It even sounds pretentious.”
“Like I care what you think,” Octavia said, snorting once and pushing the door open. An old-fashioned bell on the top of the door jingled, making the man working the instrument pause.
“Uhhh… hi,” he said, blinking once, staring at the pony. Ponies still weren’t a common sight on Earth, and it wasn’t uncommon for their presence to cause a certain amount of pause.
“Hello!” Octavia said brightly, giving a slight bounce. “I must purchase this instrument!! I will pay double whatever they’re offering!”
“Eh, we aint offered nothing yet,” the older male said, holding out his hands placatingly. “We just asked for a demo.”
“Three hundred bucks and it’s yours,” the younger man said, smiling slightly, recovering his senses quickly when he got over the shock of having a pair of ponies in his store.
“Three hundred it is!” Octavia said, raising a hoof in triumph, before pausing and turning to Vinyl. “Uhh… what’s the exchange rate currently at?”
“You expect me to know?!” Vinyl responded, aghast.
“Human!” Octavia said, turning to the man behind the instrument. “Do you know what the exchange rate is for bits to dollars?”
The human scratched his head uncertainly. “I reckon it’s something like seventy-five on the dollar?”
Octavia went quiet for a moment, chewing on the inside of her lip.
“It’s two-hundred-and-twenty-five, Octy,” Vinyl said with a long-suffering sigh.
Octavia brightened at that. “Very well! We will return with the funds!”
The human could only stare with a slightly amused expression as Octavia bolted from the store, running down the street with a quite reluctant Vinyl trudging along behind her.
The bell above the door rang as the door was pushed open, and Octavia nosed her way inside, flushed and panting.
“Hello?!” Octavia called to the empty store.
Row upon row of old instruments were set up in the old shop, antiques it seemed, or maybe even second-hand. Each of them was well-polished and oiled. From violins, to cellos, to guitars, flutes, and everything in between. It was a musician’s dream.
“Hello?” Octavia called again, giving a soft growl of annoyance as she found no one in the store itself. With a soft, derisive snort, she turned to the object of her interest. It was stored inside a polished old case, somewhat like a giant chest. With a twist of the knob holding it closed and a lift of the lid, she could appraise the entirety of the device.
As before, it seemed to merely be a collection of glass bowls sitting on a stick. A simple crank turned the bowls. Octavia was, not for the first time, envious of unicorns. A well-disciplined unicorn would be able to turn the instrument and play it at the same time, all by themselves.
Octavia gave a soft snort of laughter at the thought of Vinyl having ‘discipline’.
One of her hooves lifted, and she lightly stroked down the length of the strange glass bowls, frowning as they didn’t produce any noise. The human had done it so easily.
With a soft, derisive snort, she turned on her hooves and instead began to inspect the various instruments and musical devices on the shelves while she waited.
Inexorably, her attention was drawn to the cello leaning against a stand. It was a very polished, dark brown lacquered finish that brought out the wood grain perfectly. It was shiny enough that Octavia could see the outline of her reflection in it, and also all of the dings, scratches, and marks of a careless owner.
Octavia lightly trailed a hoof over the strings. She winced as she hit the third string, and unconsciously reached up, tugging the cello off the stand and tilting it over so she could delicately turn the knob to tighten the third string. She gave a it a gentle quarter-turn, and then tested the string again.
Thoughtlessly, she picked up the bow that was sitting next to the cello, and then started to drag it over the strings lightly, listening intently to the sound it produced.
The pony wrinkled her nose, giving a contemptuous snort at the slightly tinny sound from the strings. There was something… strange about the cello. It didn’t sound right. With a frown, she hefted it into playing position, finding it just a shade larger than her own cello. She rested the neck of it against her shoulder, and then started to play a relatively simple tune that was popular in Equestria.
Soft music filled the store as Octavia closed her eyes and listened intently to the instrument. She listened to the waver of each note, the subtle pitches and dips of the string conversions. There was something she couldn’t put her hoof on. Something that just felt off about the instrument.
Octavia almost jumped out of her skin as a second instrument joined the first. A violin.
The human that she had previously seen playing the strange glass instrument was standing behind the counter, a violin on his shoulder, a bow in his hands, and was playing a pitch-perfect duet to her score!
Octavia faltered, and missed a note, drawing out a noticeable hiss from the strings, before she corrected, staring at the human with wide eyes while she automatically continued the score.
The human just gave her a wry smile and a knowing look, closing his eyes and concentrating on the sound of the cello and violin, trying to match the notes played by the mare. As he played, he moved closer to her, watching with unguarded interest as her hoof moved up and down the strings.
As he got closer, Octavia noticed the distinct smell of sweat. The human looked like he had been out working in a field. She didn’t find the smell entirely unpleasant.
Octavia moved into the second part of the score, and the human lifted his bow from the violin with a helpless shrug. “Can’t say I’ve learned up to that part.”
Octavia paused her own bow, and then lifted it away. “I am stunned that you even know as much as you did. That is… That is Equestrian music.”
“Well, over here, we called it ‘Prelude’. By Bach,” the human said with a knowledgeable nod.
“I… I see,” Octavia said, blinking once. She flushed with realisation, and then hurriedly began to put the cello back. “I am sorry! I was just testing the strings and got carried away!”
“Not to worry,” the human said, placing the violin back on its stand and laying the bow in front of it. “Can’t say these things get much of a work-out these days except by bored little kids. Do you like it?”
“I… I find it odd,” Octavia said sincerely. “There is a cadence to this cello that is… unnatural. The instrument has no soul.”
“You’re like a grandmaster musician, aren’t you?” the human asked earnestly. “I heard tell that your tattoo is what you’re best at.”
“My cutie mark,” Octavia corrected, frowning slightly. “And yes, it is related to our special talent. I am far from a grandmaster, though.”
“So, what’s your name then?” the human asked bluntly.
“I am Octavia,” she said, drawing herself up a little, to be more dignified.
“Name’s Riley,” he responded, holding out his hand.
Octavia awkwardly placed her hoof in his palm, shaking his hand. “It is very nice to meet you, Riley. Did I interrupt anything important?”
“Oh, just cutting wood for the old man,” Riley said with a sheepish smile, motioning up towards the ceiling. “Getting into winter now. His joints don’t agree with the cold.”
“Old man?” Octavia asked, perplexed.
“Timothy. Owns the store. I just work here,” Riley said with a slight shrug. “He’s getting on in years. Arthritis got him pretty bad. Poor guy can’t even pluck a string any more.”
Octavia winced slightly, ears splaying back. “That… that is tragic.”
“What can you do?” Riley said with a slight shrug. “So, you wanted the glass harmonica?”
“A glass harmonica?” Octavia asked dubiously.
“It’s not like a normal harmonica. It’s just the name,” Riley said with a slight grin, motioning towards the old instrument. “Timothy got this at a garage sale like twenty years ago. Some woman had it in her shed for a couple of decades. Was brought in from overseas.”
“It is an incredible instrument,” Octavia said, staring down at the glass bowls. “Can... can you play it for me? I wish to hear it again.”
Riley gave a short nod, stepping behind the device and making a motion towards the crank. “Just turn that, slowly, please.”
Octavia nodded, moving to the end of the instrument and lifting both hooves, awkwardly holding the handle that was never meant for something as large as hooves to manipulate. She started to turn it, slowly, as asked.
Riley laid his hands on the bowls, and then shook his head. “A little faster, please.”
Octavia watched intently, and turned the crank a little faster. A soft hum filled the room.
“Now, just keep that pace,” Riley said, pausing a moment and then beginning to play a simple tune with the bowls that sent a chill down the earth pony’s spine.
“That… that is so beautiful!” Octavia said, carefully biting her tongue about how Riley’s notes were a sliver too early.
“It’s quite an interesting instrument,” Riley said with a grin, fingers moving deftly up and down the instrument. “Timothy taught me to play this a few years ago. My mother invited him over and he showed me how to make wine glasses hum.”
“You can do this on wine glasses?” Octavia asked, almost aghast.
Riley nodded once. “Yep. Takes practise though,” he said with a helpless shrug, lightly touching at the glass bowls.
“It is such a strange sound… it reminds me of wind chimes,” Octavia admitted, head tilting slightly to the left. “But there is a hum within it, a resonance!”
Riley gave a soft laugh at the pony’s infatuation with the sound, before lifting his fingers from the instrument. “Can we consider it a sale then?”
“Yes!” Octavia said immediately, as she stopped turning the crank. “Well…” she trailed off, biting her bottom lip. “Provided I can play the thing. May I?”
Riley took a step back, making a motion towards the instrument. He stepped up to the crank, and took the handle. “Feel free.”
Octavia slid into place behind the instrument, placing one hoof on the edge of the case and carefully lifting up enough that she could reach the plates with her free hoof. She glanced at him, giving a single nod.
Riley started to turn the handle, keeping a nice, steady pace for the earth pony.
Lightly, Octavia laid her hoof on one of the glass bowls. A slow frown spread across her muzzle as nothing happened.
“You’ve got to be relatively precise with the pressure you use, try harder or softer,” Riley suggested. “Also, try wetting your hoof first.”
Octavia wrinkled her nose, but dipped her hoof in the bowl of water beside the instrument, and then tried again. Once more, nothing happened.
“Harder?” Riley suggested.
Octavia scowled, and Riley could see the muscles in her foreleg straining as she pushed down.
“No, no, that’s way too hard,” Riley rebuked.
“The bloody thing doesn’t work for me!” Octavia almost hissed, stamping her hoof against the case with a low growl. “Just my luck!”
Riley sighed faintly, slowing the crank, and then releasing it. “Sorry, Octavia. I guess this is a human-only instrument.”
“But it’s exactly what I was looking for!” Octavia hissed, grinding her teeth. “Could you come with me back to Canterlot?”
Riley frowned deeply, rubbing the stubble on his chin with a helpless shrug of his shoulders. “Too expensive for me, I’m afraid. Between the vaccine shots, A VISA process that requires registering to cross to another dimensional plane, and the medicine you need to stay alive over there, the cost for a week is like fifty large. And that’s just the up-front costs.”
“Ugh!” Octavia huffed, stepping down from the instrument and stamping her hooves in annoyance. “I… I can’t buy the instrument. I am sorry for wasting your time.”
“Hey, I got to meet a pony,” Riley said with a smile, and a little bow. “Well worth the time.”
“It was nice meeting you, Riley,” Octavia said stiffly, giving the most elegant return bow before turning and storming out.
“Yesss!” Octavia hissed triumphantly, bouncing excitedly and holding the letter in her hoof aloft like a prize.
“Oh no,” Vinyl Scratch said, heaving a sigh.
Octavia turned to stare at her, brow furrowing. “Why ‘oh no’?”
“Because anything that makes you that excited is never good for me,” Vinyl said with a long-suffering sigh. “Tell me. What is it?”
“You’ll find out,” Octavia said, eyes flashing with victory as she neatly folded the letter up and placed it back in the envelope.
“Human!” Octavia called, bouncing up to put her forehooves on the counter, staring over it to where Riley was carefully applying rosin to the bow of a violin.
“It’s ‘Riley’,” he corrected gently, looking up at her. “Did you find someone to play your instrument?”
Octavia produced a letter with a flourish, placing it on the counter. It had a big wax seal on the front, with a fancy emblem of an alicorn with spread wings on it. The seal was already broken. “You!” Octavia said excitedly.
Riley arched an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”
“Celestia granted you temporary citizenship to Equestria! As a citizen of Equestria you are given free travel through the portal and can skip those silly earth regulations entirely!”
“Those ‘silly earth regulations’ make sure we don’t die over there,” Riley said dryly. “You do know that pony magic is fatal to humans, right?”
Octavia tilted her head slightly to the left. “Oh, you’re be fine!” she scoffed, pushing the letter towards him with a little urgency. “We’ll pay for everything!”
Riley frowned deeply, placing the bow back in its case next to the violin and then staring at the earth pony. “You are asking me to take a lazy Sunday sojourn… across to another dimension?”
“That is the long and short of it,” Octavia responded, beaming hopefully. “It’d be a great learning experience! Think of the things you would see!”
“I can’t,” Riley said shortly, shaking his head once. “Timothy needs me to… cut wood and whatnot.”
“That sounds entirely like an excuse,” Octavia pressed.
Riley arched an eyebrow, “And if it is?”
“Then that…” Octavia huffed, and then looked away. “We need somepony - some human - to play this instrument at the Summer Sun festival!”
Riley gave her a dubious stare. “It’s winter.”
“It’s summer in Equestria! The festival is in a week!”
Riley held up his hands placatingly. “Look. I want to help, I really do, but I can’t just up and traipse across… dimensions to help you with your music show. I can give you some phone numbers and you can call them and see if anyone is free for that?”
Octavia gave a frustrated groan. “No, that won’t work at all!”
“I’m sorry,” Riley said firmly. “If you gave me a few weeks more notice, then it would have been fine,” he lied.
Vinyl poked her head up next to Octavia, and gently shushed the earth pony. “Go out the front and wait for me, please.”
“Fine, fine,” Octavia fumed, stomping towards the front door and angrily swishing her tail back and forth, slapping the doorframe repeatedly.
“I’m Vinyl,” she said, looking over at Riley, pushing her glasses down enough to meet his gaze with her vibrant magenta eyes.
“Riley,” he offered in response, picking up the violin from in the case and idly beginning to tune it.
“Look, I know Octavia is kind of…”
“Pushy?”
“Pushy,” Vinyl agreed with a firm nod. “And we’re not giving you any notice… and asking you to do an awful lot.”
“Indeed you are,” Riley said blankly, testing one of the strings on the violin.
Vinyl measured him with a piercing stare. “You’ll never get this opportunity ever again.”
“You sound like a recruiter,” Riley said with a slight chuckle.
“Visiting Equestria and seeing the Summer Sun Celebration from a ringside seat? Meeting the Princesses themselves?”
Riley chewed on the inside of his lip for a moment. “Potentially irradiating myself with your queer magicks? You know the world health organization is treating magical dust as the same as asbestos? It gets in your lungs and your body has no way to deal with it and causes all kinds of messy issues.”
“That is… uh, completely incomprehensible to me,” Vinyl admitted with an easy laugh. “Look, you’re coming to Equestria with us, even if you don’t know it yet.”
“You seem mighty sure of yourself,” Riley stated flatly.
“I am mighty sure of myself,” Vinyl responded easily, staring at him. “I have your measure. You can’t turn this down. You’re already looking for excuses not to go, clinging to them desperately. I know you want to go, deep down inside… even if you deny it to yourself. And sometime tonight, when we’re gone, you’ll be thinking about Equestria and the fact that you could be there tomorrow, and you’ll have this wistful little thought about how you wished you had the guts to go through with it.”
Riley stared at her. “Are… are you done?”
“I’m done,” Vinyl said with a slight smirk, dropping back down from the counter. “See you tomorrow, Riley,” she said confidently, heading for the door. On the counter was a small card with a number on it she had left there, with a vague sketch of Vinyl on one side.
Riley frowned after the pony, and then waved a hand, calling out an insincere, “Have a nice day!”
“What did you say to him?” Octavia pressed as Vinyl and her walked side-by-side down the street.
“I gave him some reverse-psychology… or, errr, spiral psychology? Maybe it was a tesseract psychology…”
Octavia gave a long, drawn-out groan of frustration. “You ruined everything, Vinyl!”
Riley had just finished stacking the fireplace with wood, and was staring into the flames, chewing on his bottom lip. He reached into his right pocket, and pulled out his wallet, opening it up and then producing the little card Octavia had left him, turning it over and over in his hand.
“Whatcha got there?” Timothy asked, slowly stirring a pot of soup on the stove with his bony hand.
Riley frowned down at the card in his hand, and then went back to slowly turning it over and over. “Oh, it’s… nothing really. Just some ponies showed up at the shop.”
“Magical talking horses from another dimension. Don’t that beat all,” Timothy said with a chuckle.
“Yeah, they wanted me to go over there and play music for them,” Riley said with a short laugh. “Can you imagine? Just packing up for a week at a moment’s notice and heading off to another dimension? Crazy talk.”
Timothy stopped stirring the soup for a moment, arching an eyebrow at him. “Yeah, crazy talk.”
Riley gave him a suspicious glance.
“You’re not going?” Timothy asked.
“Of course I’m not going. I can’t just leave you here on your own,” Riley responded with a snort.
Timothy pointed a bony finger at him accusingly. “Listen here young’un, I survived seventy years on this earth by myself and you think I can’t survive another week?”
“You can barely carry the firewood in,” Riley pointed out flatly.
“That’s because I’m lazy,” Timothy said with a cackle. “Look, it’s your life and all. But I always saw that life was an opportunity. And if you don’t take the opportunities handed to you, you miss out on the best stuff.”
Riley arched an eyebrow. “Like the time you had dysentery in Bangkok?”
“I seem to recall a week of shore leave before that, with endless massage parlours, pretty girls, happy end-”
Riley held up a hand. “Please for the love of god don’t finish that sentence. If there is any imagine I don’t need in my head, it’s that. Anyway, I don’t think they offer that particular service in the land of talking horses.”
“You’ll never know if you never go,” Timothy said with a cackle, turning back to stirring the soup.
Riley sighed, staring back down at the card and turning it over and over.
Vinyl groaned faintly at the knock on the door, pulling herself from the haze of sleep and fumbling for her glasses, before staggering over to the door to pull it open. “Uhhhh yes?”
“We have a phone call for a Miss Vinyl?” the maid said, holding out a large, older-model mobile phone.
Vinyl blinked once, and picked it up, holding it against her head with a hoof. “Hello?”
“First of all: fuck you.”
“Riley?” Vinyl asked, ears perking up and a laugh creeping into her voice.
“Yeah, it’s me,” Riley grumbled.
“So you made your mind up?” Vinyl asked sweetly.
There was a pause, and then Riley said, “Yes, I’m staying here. I just rang you at five in the morning because I wanted to be obtuse.”
Vinyl rolled her eyes. “I told-”
“Seriously do not finish that sentence,” Riley growled.
Vinyl giggled.
“Whozat?” Octavia mumbled from the bed on the other side of the room, lifting her head from the pillow, black mane rather tousled.
Vinyl gave a triumphant smirk and held out the phone towards her. “It’s for you. And that’s another apology and another favour you owe me!”
Octavia took the phone, half-asleep, and mumbled a hello into it.
“Hello? Yes, hello?” Riley pressed impatiently.
“Hello here, listening. I’m. That.” Octavia rattled off incoherent words before she shook herself a little to wake herself up. “Yeah, I’m here. This is Octavia.”
“It’s Riley,” he responded simply. “I figured I better ring you guys early if we’re going to plan an excursion to another dimension.”
Octavia’s eyes widened, and she bounced with excitement. “We have so much to plan! I’ll be over there as soon as possible!”
Vinyl inched closer to the other mare, an ear perked up. “Sooo, do I get my apology?”
Octavia reached over and clasped Vinyl’s mouth shut with a hoof.
Vinyl just glowered.