“This is absolutely fascinating!” I gawked at the shiny avenue. True to her word, Princess Twilight did show me around the city-state, starting first thing in the morning. The rising sun cascaded its light on the wonder of this world. In a way, I felt as Captain Gallopliver did when he found those lands of tiny ponies, giants, and floating islands. Who could blame me, as I have never seen anywhere in the world like this? Streets and buildings that seemed to rise up out of the earth. A blinding palette of colors that went beyond the spectrum of the rainbow reflected and refracted in the light. And the ponies themselves! It was as if I had stepped inside of a history book. Everywhere I looked, there were ponies that walked in the manner of antiquity.
“And we’ve just gotten started,” Twilight reminded me. “There are plenty of things to do and places to see around here; it’s rather hard to decide where exactly to begin.”
“What’s that over there?” I pointed to a statue of blue which depicted the figure of a short, pudgy dragon holding up a heart in victory. “Perhaps it’s me, but I do find it rather out of place in this part of the world.”
“That is Spike,” she explained to me. “He is the hero of the Empire, proven twice over. He is also my number one assistant.”
“You have a dragon for an assistant?” I inquired, “How in the world did you arrange that? Aren’t all dragons savage brutes?”
She shook her head, “Not my Spike. He’s kind, intelligent, (if a bit selfish) little guy. But to me, he’s almost my baby brother. For now, let’s get a move on. So let’s go this way.” I followed her as she went down of the reflecting streets. After a while, I was shown a cylindrical structure. “This is the stadium where we held the Equestrian Games.”
“Alright… What’s a stadium?”
“It’s a sort of amphitheater in which sports or big events are held. This place has seating for several thousand ponies, overlooking the grounds in the very center.”
“Is it still in use?”
“When there’s something going on that requires such a huge space. Shall we move on?”
We did so. After a while of walking, I inquired, “So, as a princess yourself, what duties do you concern yourself with?”
“Friendship,” she simply replied. “Or to in more detail, I not only help expand and strengthen foreign relationships with other countries but domestic as well. If there is anypony that has a friendship problem, I or my friends will lend a hoof and make life better for everypony.”
“So in other words,” I pointed it out, “You’re a glorified Agony Aunt.”
Her response was a sour look and saying, “It’s more than that. After all, I have been raised to this responsibility by my own merit. I couldn’t have done it without all the ponies in my life.”
“Is friendship your only field of concern,” I asked as we went down a row of promising pubs and delicious smelling food.
“Not really, I have a love of books of every kind, shape, and description. In a way, I have spent much of my life in libraries as a kind of scholar. Combing through any new book that I could get my hooves on -- I’ve learned how to memorize any piece of literature after reading it only once.”
This caught my interest, “Really? You have a good memory as well?”
“Eh…” She mused over for a moment, “When it comes to books then yes. I wouldn’t say that mine is photographic, but it’s extremely good at picking up new facts.”
“So what do you do with all of this knowledge?”
She proudly smiled, “Well, I wasn’t Celestia’s protege for nothing.”
I smirked and shook my head, “You so remind me of Nannerl.”
Within an instant, I saw the lilac princess contort her face with confusion. “Who?”
“She’s my older sister.” It wasn’t until a moment later that I noticed that I didn’t hear her hoofsteps. Curious, I craned my neck to see her jaw still on the ground. “What?”
“I’m sorry, maybe my ears stopped working for a moment,” she began. “But… did you just say that you had an… an older sister?”
“Yes?” I raised an eyebrow, “Didn’t you know that, Princess of Bookworms? I had a sister; I don’t see why you should be so surprised at this fact. You’d think you might have read that in history books about me by now.”
“That’s just it,” she said. “I didn’t know you ever had one.” Then, with her signature grin, she rushed to my side as a notebook and a quill pen appeared. “What was she like?”
“Who? Nannerl?” She nodded enthusiastically. “Well… She’s about five years older than me. I remember we traveled together for our tours when I was a child. You see, in those days, Papa showed us off as Wonder Children, since we both were child prodigies. Why…” I looked around to make sure nopony was listening. “If anything, when I was young, I was jealous of her.”
“You? Jealous?”
I nodded, “To this day, of the two of us, she’s the one who’s always been better at every aspect of music – and I mean, everything. She could play the keyboard with perfect insight into the harmony and modulations of any given theme. For a while, she used to play the more complicated stuff while I was still learning. And as much as I absolutely hate to admit this… I thought she was better at composing music then I was.” I muttered that last sentence, much to the astonishment of Twilight.
But I continued, “Still, I did love my sister, and she had an influence on me that most ponies don’t know about. From the start… she was my idol. I wanted to be like her. She taught me that music and imagination ought to go hoof in hoof. Some of the most astounding compositions she’d written were inspired by the simplest of things. Such as the fluttering of fans, of teacups, music boxes, bells, and the clavichord. Her fantasies gave me a direction to follow with mine.”
“To be honest,” the plum princess began, “It really astonishes me that there was another Moztrot that nopony has heard about.”
I frowned at that. At this point, it was pointless to ask if her works were lost forever. To me that was a real shame; despite the impact she’d had on me, if someone like Twilight hadn’t heard of her, then she was truly forgotten as a musician. I realized that my own sister had, in fact, died twice: first from physical death, and then from her memory fading away like hoofsteps on a sandy beach. Did that also mean that I was the only one whose music had been immortalized? Was there anypony that knew that my Papa, my sister, or even my youngest colt had written anything at all?
“Hey, are you okay?” Twilight’s voice snapped me out of my thoughts.
“Huh? Oh, I…” I trailed off as I thought over my answer. “It’s just that you remind me of Nannerl is all. The two of you are alike in several ways. She was intelligent, gifted, and had a brother that went on to do some remarkable things.”
“When was the last time you talked to her?”
I paused, standing in the middle of the street. “Aside from her letters…? I don’t think I’ve seen her since I married Constanze.” My ears folded back against my head. “She didn’t say she’d gone anywhere after Papa had died. I think she stayed in Saltzberg the whole time…” I sighed, “I have been so focused on composition that I never gave her the chance to see my children… I was never there for them. Never there to prevent the memories of my family and friends from dying… I must be the worst brother, father, and friend that ever lived.”
I felt a comforting wing being placed on me. The bookworm Princess guided me to a green park with clear ponds for us to sit underneath a shady tree. “Wolfgang, I know that you miss them and that you want to go back to fix the problems with everypony you knew. But, don’t feel that you’re to blame.”
I shook my head, “It’s not that,” I moaned. “What if I end up forgetting about them too?”
“You won’t,” this response surprised me. “Speaking from experience, everypony that you’ve learned from has left an impact on you, an impact that I can’t begin to imagine. You have learned from your family and friends the tricks and techniques of music; that, I think, is part of the legacy they left behind. Not just to you, but to all the composers and songwriters that came after. I think that goes to everypony that, while we may never know their names or who they were, their actions and choices leave an impact on history – no matter how small.
“Our siblings especially count. While your sister showed you how to use your imagination, my brother taught me how to be brave even when it was hard to do so. And I think holding onto what you’ve learned from them is a great way to honor that legacy.”
For a while in the shade, I remained silent until I said, “Princess Twilight, you can tell everypony else that the Requiem is finished – just now underneath this tree.”
“Oh?” she cocked an eyebrow. “But didn’t you start rewriting it last week?”
“Music is easy,” I said as I got up. “The rest is just scribbling. Anyway, on with the tour,” I looked around and noticed another huge building. “Ohh… What’s that?”
She followed my line of sight and saw the lilac crystal structure with columns and a massive dome. “That’s the Empire’s Opera House. It’s where the heart of the music festival will take place. It was also here that Beethoven himself premiered his choral fantasy and his eighth symphony.”
“And I do hope that I’ll get to hear something of his,” I commented as we got up and began walking towards it. “I have been hearing so much about this composer that I’m getting more curious by the day to hear what he sounds like.”
“Don’t worry, you will,” she smiled. “If anything, I wanted to see how you react to a hoofful of his pieces.”
We walked up to one of the entrances of the opera house where we saw a sign telling us to be quiet as rehearsal was going on inside. It certainly was as I heard the phantom sounds of strings and horns bellowing within. With my interest piqued, I stepped inside as the music got clearer until I realized that it was one of my own – a piano concerto of mine to be exact. With Twilight following close behind, we went in further until we came to the great opening of the theater. On the stage was an orchestra made up of mostly children and teenagers, except for a stallion at the piano, waving his hooves about at a tempo that I found a touch too slow.
“Move any slower and I think you’ll put everypony to sleep,” I called out and the orchestra died out at once. Eyes located where I said it from and watched them go wide. The pianist too stood up from the bench astonished. “Sorry to interrupt but I couldn’t help but hear that the tempo was a little too slow. So could you speed it up to something more moderate like an Allegro? It would do wonders for this movement.”