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// 2: Responsibility in G Major 
// Story: Inverno’s Opus in A Minor 
// by CrackedInkWell 
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Inverno had spent hours searching the rail yards with no success. Going up and down the lines of rails, opening box cars, knocking on those that have been locked in hopes to find at least one of them. However, it became clear that where ever they were, they were most likely been sent out of the Crystal Empire.

“Where have they have gone?” He wondered aloud. “I could have sworn that these trains don’t move that often. Did… Did somepony throw the stuff out? No, I would have found them by now. So that must mean that they were all taken out of the Empire. But where to?” Inverno rested by one of the wheels of the cars in which he leaned on. “Great, now I need to get help.”

Looking over to the crystal tower of the palace, he sighed. “I really hope they wouldn't be mad at me.”

And so, Inverno walked back in shame, his head bowed low as he made his way back to the palace. Through the front doors and up the stairs, down hallways, and past the elegant rooms, he went directly towards the throne room. At this point in the day, they were still holding court. And annoyingly, there was a line of petitioners waiting to get in. With a groan, he got in the back of the line, getting more anxious about the thought of those composers he brought back.

‘They must be really scared by now.’ He thought, ‘I’ve just brought my heroes back and they’re stuck in boxcars. Heading off to someplace they’ve probably never been before. They must be so confused, and scared, and… What did Papa’s warning about the ritual say? That they might have some kind of powers as a side effect? What exactly does that mean? If they get angry, could they… break something… or someone…?’

After taking a deep breath to calm himself, his thoughts focused elsewhere. ‘Even if they don't do that, you have brought back composers centuries ago and are currently lost. You need help finding them. And the only ones that could help are mom and dad. Surely, they’ve done weird things like this before. Just go in and tell them that you’ve messed up, and you need help. But they would get mad, wouldn’t they? It’s not like this resurrection spell has been used often, right? Oh, what am I saying? Of course, they’re going to get mad! I just did some forbidden magic behind their backs, that did… I don’t know what – and somepony decided to send them out somewhere to the South. Into Equestria that could do who-knows-what kind of damage. How am I going to tell-’

“Hey, kid?” a guard’s voice snapped him out of his thoughts. “Are you here to see your parents or something?”

“Uh…” Inverno hesitated before nodding. “Yes. It’s an emergency.”

Nodding, the guard opened the crystal doors for him where his parents were on the other side of the room. His mother sat on the throne while her husband stood next to her. Inverno gulped as his name was announced.

Cadence cocked an eyebrow. “Inverno? Do you need anything? We're still doing our jobs, sweetie.”

“Uh…” Inverno hesitated, his mind froze trying to think of what exactly to say.

“Everything alright?” Shining asked. But there was no answer. Walking over, he waved a hoof in front of his face. “Hello? Equestria to Invern-”

“I’m sorry!” Inverno busted out. “Really! I am! I'm so sorry! I didn’t think that it would turn out-” Shining put a hoof in his muzzle.

“First off, calm down.” He said. “Before you go Auntie Twilight on us, just take your time, and explain. What exactly are you trying to apologize for?”

“I uh…” Inverno took in a deep breath. “I… did something stupid. Really stupid.”

“Inverno, dear,” Cadence pointed out as she got off her throne, “what happened? Is somepony hurt?”

Another deep breath. “Just… promise you two won’t be mad at me.”

“How serious is this?” Shining asked.

“I… I don’t really know. But I need help and I don’t know what to do. So to make a long story short, I uh… tried to make friends, literally.” Intrigued, his adopted parents asked him to expand on it. So Inverno went into detail about using a metal resurrection ritual that he had found in Sombra’s library. That he used it to befriend those that he admired by making them. He told them of using the boxcars from the rail yards to conduct the ritual, but he found that all of them were moved out of the Empire sometime during the night while expressing the concern of the possible side effects that might have had if they did come back.

Shining raised a hoof. “Inverno, you said 'boxcars.' As in, more than one. So how many were you trying to resurrect?”

Inverno pawed at the ground. “I had twelve in mind.”

“Twelve?” Cadence said in surprise. “Inverno, I get that you’re lonely but… twelve? Isn’t that a bit much?”

“I didn’t get to say who they were yet.” The young unicorn interjected.

Cadence took in a deep breath. “Okay, who are they?”

“Well to put it chronologically: Lully, Buch, Vifilli, Moztrot, Beethooven, Schubit, Paganeighni, Horseshoepin, Liszt, Tchaicoltsky, Maneler, and Debussy.”

“And you have no idea where they are?”

Inverno shook his head. “I honestly didn’t know those train cars would be moved at all. I tried looking around in the rail yard but I couldn’t find anything.”

Cadence put her hoof to her chin as she turned to her husband. “Shining, Can I speak to you alone for a minute?” After telling Inverno to stay in that spot, the two of them went out of earshot of their adopted son towards a window. The Princess said softly to her husband, “This needs to be taken care of.”

“Obviously. I mean, I kinda get why he did it, but I’m torn between being angry that he did this without letting us know or impressed that he did it at all.”

“Nevertheless, Inverno is taking responsibility in telling us there’s a problem he can’t fix on his own. That, and he’s right to be nervous if what he says about those side effects are true. He may have unleashed something that hasn’t been seen before magic-wise. And even if that weren’t the case, there are twelve ponies out there that have been time-displaced and being sent out to an Equestria they don't recognize.”

“Yeah, but how are we going to find these guys? Sure, we could ask whoever is in charge where those cars have gone off to, but even then, how would we know what they look like? Inverno himself said that he plucked hair and feathers from tourists, so they probably won’t look exactly like what they originally were.”

“True.” Cadence nodded, humming in thought. Looking over her shoulder at Inverno, she said to Shining: “I think this time you should go with him.”

“What?”

“I mean, out of the two of us, you’ve been trained to go on missions before. And somepony has to stay here, both for Flurry and the Empire. Besides, Inverno has never been to Equestria, and you haven’t exactly spent that much quality time with him. So perhaps this would be good for both of you.”

“That, and he might have some idea what they look like when he sees them…” Shining thought aloud. “I think that if there’s gonna be any success in finding them, I’m going to need a few guards to come with us. And Professor Key Signature too, he studied these dead composers so he might have some idea what they would do or where they might try to go.”

“Agreed.”

“But there’s one thing that bothers me.”

“That being?”

After a quick glance at their adopted son, Shining asked, “If we do find them all, what are we going to do with them?”





“Hello?” In a dark, dusty boxcar, a voice calls out. “Hello? Is anypony there? Hello? The door is locked.” The stallion tried to push on the sliding door but found it wouldn’t budge. “Hello! Please let me out!”

“Hello?” Another voice called out. One that sounded nearby.

“Hello? I’m in here!”

There was a sound of something heavy being moved before hoofsteps were heard that trotted up to the car he was locked in. He heard the sound of a unicorn lighting up his magic before the door finally opened, instantly blinding him.

“Are you alright?” A pair of hooves climbed aboard to help him out. After blinking a few times, his eyes became adjusted as he saw a slender unicorn who was a dark brown unicorn with a long blond mane. “For a while, I thought I might have been alone here.”

“Huh?”

“Tell me, did you too happened to wake up in a place like this and have no idea how you got here?”

“Well… yes? How did you know?” 

"Because it just happened to me too."

The earth pony blinked. “I’m sorry, do I know you?”

He shrugged, “Can’t say. Everything is so out of the way this morning that even I’m trying to figure out what’s going on uh…” The unicorn paused as he said, “Hold on, I just realized that I haven't caught your name. What is it?”

“Fryderyk,” he replied as he shook his hoof, “my name is Fryderyk Horseshoepin.”

This got a shocked reaction out of the unicorn. “Pardon me but… what?”

“Horseshoepin.” The earth pony reinstated. “That is my name.”

The unicorn shook his head, “No that… You can’t… No, no, this…” After taking a deep breath he let out. “I’m sorry, are you perhaps a… a distant cousin? Someone that happens to have the same name or something?”

Horseshoepin tilted his head. “What are you talking about? I’m Fryderyk Horseshoepin, I’m 39 years old, from Końland and… Last thing I remember I was very sick in Paris. I’m a pianist you see. Someone who has was ill but I just recovered… why are you looking at me like that?”

The unicorn stared at him in amazement, “Are you… Is that really you…? No, prove it.”

He blinked, “What?”

“Prove to me that you are Horseshoepin.”

“Uh… h-how?”

Closing his eyes, the unicorn thought for a moment before getting an idea. “Do you remember another pianist called Liszt? He played one of your pieces that he improvised a little. If you're really him, what did you do?”

Tilting his head to the side he answered. “Well… I was rather annoyed that he changed something that took time for me to get right. I told him that what I wrote was perfect as it is. So, then he asked me if I would show him how it was meant to be played. He stepped aside and I played on for a very long time. By the end of it, he was so moved that he apologized for interfering with poetry, as he called it… Why do you ask?”

The unicorn’s jaw dropped. “Oh dear Celestia, is it really?” Without warning, he embraced him in a hug. “Horseshoepin! It’s really you! Alive again!”

“Wait a minute!” He pushed him aside. “I’m sorry, what was that?”

“Fryderyk, don’t you recognize me?” The unicorn asked. “It’s me, Franz. Franz Liszt.”

“Wait… really?” Horseshoepin blinked. “You look nothing like him. The one I know is a Pegasus, and you’re a Unicorn.”

“Yes I know, I could say the same with your coat colors.”

Immediately the earth pony looked down at himself. It was a purple coat with a blue mane. Certainly completely different from his usual sandy brown coat and white mane.

Liszt continued, “But I’m telling you the truth, it’s really me! I just… I can’t believe you back. Honestly back. Only…" he trailed off, blinking in confusion, "How? How are you back?”

“What are you talking about?”

For a moment Liszt hesitated as he tried to choose his next words carefully. “This… This might come as a shock. But the very last time I saw you, was at your funeral. And that was about forty years ago.”

Horseshoepin stared at him. “What?”

“I know! I’m trying to wrap this idea around myself.”

“Franz,” the earth pony raised a hoof, “just out of curiosity, what year do you think this is?”

“886. Why?”

“No… That can’t be right, it’s 849.” Both stallions stared at one another. “Franz… What’s going on?”

“Believe it or not, that’s not even the weird part.” He said as he trotted out into the morning light. “Take a look at where we are.”

Confused, Horseshoepin stumbled out into the brilliant light and into a rail yard in which was surrounded by towers of brick, glass, and metal. But what was even more puzzling was the sign nearby that said only one word: Manehattan.

“We’re in Equestria?” he looked over to Liszt. “How did we get here?”

“More importantly, why are we here?” The unicorn pointed out. “I’m just as much in the dark as you are. But I must say, of all the places I’ve visited, this looks… advance somehow.”

“I wonder…” Horseshoepin walked across the railroad tracks in which Liszt followed him up a flight of stairs and onto the bustling streets.

"Fryderyk?" quickly went up to him, "What are you doing?"

Looking around, Horseshoepin spotted what he was looking for: a newsstand. He approached it to pick up the most recent newspaper. “Oh, Celestia… Franz, look at this!”

He peered over his shoulder and Liszt’s eyes widened. With one look, they both knew in a moment, that they were in the future.

“Hey,” the pony behind the rows of magazines and newspapers said, “are ya gonna pay? That’ll be three bits there.”

Instantly, both stallions realized the same problem, one to add with the growing amount they have – they had no money. So putting the newspaper back, they both walked on. “One-thousand-and-three!” Liszt said astonished. “Alright, this is starting to make sense why everything looks the way it does. But what exactly are we going to do?”

“Tell me about it. We’re in a new city, in a new country, in a new time no less. As to why we’re here, and we how got here? Some tormenting demon alone knows. However Franz, at the moment I think I need to state a more... practical problem - we’re broke. For the first time in years, you and I are completely broke. And what’s more… I don’t know if there’s anypony that remembers us.”

Liszt was taken aback. “Fryderyk, are you listening to yourself speak? Of course, we should be remembered! Why I was the most famous pony of my time, and even after your uh… death, there were plenty of ponies that still play your music.”

“But after two hundred years?” Horseshoepin questioned. “Even I know that time always changes ponies tastes, so how do we know there’s a soul out there that knows a single note of what we wrote?”

His friend couldn’t answer back. “Well… regardless, you're right on one thing: we’re stuck here. And since we're here, then we need to make some money." Liszt mused, "After all, in a place this big, one might think there could be a job for us unemployed musicians somewhere.”

“What about over there?” Liszt followed the pointing hoof as it leads directly towards a high end looking restaurant called “The Blue Sun Bar and Grill” wherein the window was a sign that advertised a job to any pianists for hire. 

Looking at one another, the unicorn said, “Well, that might work.”