Shortly after the premiere of his sixth symphony, Pyotr Tchaicoltsky, composer of Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, and The Nutcracker is dying. Far away from his home country and stuck in Manehattan, he expects that he will spend his final days alone. That is until he gets an unexpected visitor - a griffon by the name of Gregory has come to the dying composer for an unusual request... to ask him out on a date. Seeing that he has nothing left to loose, he agrees to do it the day before he dies. What the old composer doesn't know is that this final date has a few surprises.
A huge thank you to Lilrq28 for proofreading this story.
This story is written as an entry for the M/M Shipping Contest!
Update: This story has been awarded The Medallion of Melancholy from the M/M Shipping Contest!
That was excellent. Very well done.
Is this unlabeled Human or is it pony Tchai?
11040418
This is a pony counterpart of Tchaikovsky.
11040420
Damn I'm an idiot. I didn't even notice the horse pun in his name.
thank you so much for your entry into the contest!! really looking forward to reading this one!
Interesting. Not too knowledgable about this composer, save I know some of his work, but well done
on my second read this description takes on a new meaning. of course! the traditional depiction of the Grim Reaper as a skeleton cloaked in black!
it is funny how so many cultures have the notion of a "______ exit" that is the exact same exit, despite the diversity of what can go in that blank
a fascinating consequence of the odd mix of time periods depicted in the canon setting is that somepony whose biography feels very 19th-century Russia can have a conversation with another who speaks in very modern idioms!
ah, the clues were there all along! very nice
very true to life, sadly
and i see the brilliance here of mentioning Gregory's difficulties as a griffon in a pony city! on a first read this would seem like nothing more than prejudice, rather than a sign of anything else
this really reminds me of something i've read, but i cannot place where. either a real-life biography, or a character in a fictional novel. but in any case, it is very fitting for the setting
i did not stop to comment on any of these miniature stories of their pasts, but i can comment now that i loved every one of them. they all flowed together so well to weave a rich tapestry of a life in full: of loss and deprivation, of a self-denial and loneliness imposed by an intolerant world, but also one that was not completely shaped by it. as Gregory says, at least he had experienced that love and passion, as brief as it was. and now he is alone and dying and woeful. but everything ends.
ah, that is what it would be in the Celestian year-numbering system!
and that is the fear, in meeting one's heroes. that shard of their soul that spoke so much to yours, they might not see the same way. but then what did you see that was so meaningful?
"a beautiful dream "is what i thought when i first read this. turned out to be more literal than that!
a beautifully crafted emotional peak. if only i were not stupid about music, i would have an appropriate metaphor here!
i genuinely did not see this coming, so this hit me hard the first time i read it. excellent work!
absolute chills, in this last section. a true kindness at the end of a life; terror transmuting into acceptance. and i love the metafiction of the end. what is this fic itself but Tchaikovsky's own story belonging to eternity, reaching and moving me for the first time, improbably, through a fanfic set in a world of cartoon horses?
i feel like i am not nearly cultured enough to fully appreciate this! i know almost nothing about classical composers, or classical music in general, or ballets, or Tchaikovsky, and perhaps if i did, i would understand an entire layer of meaning that i might be missing. so i can only comment based on what i was able to take from it.
i found your use of horse pun names interesting, though i did not understand them (Budyonny, Buch, Watkinsk , Spural, etc.). i am guessing that you are following the principle of inventing horse pun names based on the original language of the name, which is something i support very much and do myself! though i can only do it in French so far. (i cannot speak enough about how much i loathe the semi-canonical "Mare-is".) it is another point that i was impressed by, and greatly enjoyed.
as a story, i was absolutely transported, and could hardly stop to take notes or comments as i read this from start to finish. i loved the atmosphere given by the prose, that felt to me very distinctly like a mid-century work of fiction set in the Edwardian era. the personality of the piece as a whole shone through in every paragraph, which was a delight to experience, and set it apart even within the group of fics on this site that i have found truly excellent. this is exactly the kind of unexpected gem that i had hoped for in an open-ended contest such as this. thank you so much for it!
11071354
Firstly, thank you so much for your kind words. As well as the contest that finally gave me the oomph to get up and finally write the story I always wanted to write about. For what you said, yes, the melancholic late-nineteenth-century feel was what I was aiming for, given that the human counterpart passed away in 1893. Of course, not everything in this is completely accurate such as the language or some details about certain events, but otherwise, I tried to capture the character and spirit of Tchaikovsky in pony form. In a way, this is my tribute to the composer that was a closeted gay man in a time and place that while he wouldn't be accepted, sought a way to cope through his music that he sometimes dedicated to people he loved.
Also, fun fact: throughout the story, I have sprinkled in a few things that not only happed to Tchaikovsky but some of the actual things he said or wrote about.
Howdy, hi!
I stand by this from when I read it during the contest, this is a very beautiful story. The translation of the composer's life from the real world into Equestria is fantastic and I love every moment of the melancholic feel of the piece. The build-up of all of these small moments between the two main leads is wonderful and really hammers in this theme of legacy through the whole fic.
I knew going in there was no way that this would end with a happily ever after in the usual sense, but still felt that he definitely gained something akin at least to a bittersweet moment. He passed away peacefully recalling his life living as he wanted to, recalling tragic past loves and past success. I couldn't imagine a better end for a creative type, to see the lasting results of your work just before your end, to spend it with someone who unabashedly cares for you even if they are not as real as they could be.
It was truly a wonderful story and I thank you greatly for giving me the opportunity to read this. Thanks you for the read!
Your idea to use the famous composer as a base to tell a story is an interesting one and I like how you integrated historical references. The tale certainly has a classical feel with its tempo of paragraphs!
The set-up with the griffon seems slightly contrived, but to be fair, a number of books around the turn of the 20th century used similar devices to deliver moral messages, so it is appropriate for the tone! It is even moreso appropriate given the reveal which demonstrates a good explanation for the 'why' on one end. Best wishes!
Minor
- Tense issue with 'could'.
- The first name is a bit odd for a pony since pony names usually have inherent meaning. Even Pony Joe's name can mean Joe=Coffee. But obviously, there is a clear reason for the particular first name you chose.
- This makes me think of unleavened bread. I am not sure 'leavening' is what was intended.
This was really, really sweet.
It's hard to put into words the feeling the opening evokes. What do you do when you've only got a nine days to live? Tchicoltsky may be dying, but until he's actually dead he's alive, and while he's alive there's stuff that needs doing. It's not long enough for him to really accomplish anything, not long enough for him to travel home, yet long enough that there's still things he he's obliged to take care of. He has to say his goodbyes to the members of the orchestra even though this is a chore, because "Just because you’re dying, does not give you the excuse to be a selfish jerk.”
There's also this feeling of disconnect there, between feeling that in his last days he should be doing something with his last days, and the feeling of pointlessness at doing anything, and you capture that feeling really well.
And then there's Gregory:
I really like Gregory. He just wants to make the last day of Tchaicoltsky's life a nice one, and gives him something to do in his dying hours, a nice normal date.
Despite the reveal at the end, or maybe even because of it, this is such a nice contrast to the beginning. Instead of moping around until he dies because it feels pointless to do anything, Gregory's gesture presents an alternate view that while he's alive Tchaicoltsky should live. It doesn't matter that he's dying in a few hours, he still deserves nice things.
So much of the story is the two characters recounting their lives. You do an excellent job of making us care about the characters before they start telling their story, and you do a great job of telling them, making it both an intersting conversation and an interesting story. There so much melancholy in knowing how the story ends as it's being told, not only the biographies, but the story of Tchaicoltsky and Gregory, who don't have the time for their relationship to develop. Hopefully with that ending they do.
Regarding grammar, you change tenses a fair few times, and there's the occasional sentence which doesn't quite parse and idioms used oddly, but nothing that really takes away from the story.