As much as he heard about Shining’s parents from both his mom and dad, that despite being their adopted son for about a year, this was the first time Inverno have met them. Of course, he was shown photographs and the letters mentioned about them. However, this was the first time that he would be able to see and meet them face to face.
In truth, he didn’t exactly know what to expect. There was part of him that thought that Shining might have in some way grown up in a place similar to Cadence. That maybe he lived in a palace like a noble, with servants and surrounded by all things majestic. He thought that perhaps he was going to encounter parents who were warriors or chivalrous like knights. After all, his dad married a princess, then it stood to his reason that he might have lived in nobility too.
“There it is.” Shining pointed. “That’s where I used to live.”
Inverno looked over to where his dad was looking and blinked. “Where?”
“That one, right there.”
“What? Behind the blue house?”
“No, that’s it right there.”
Inverno's genuine surprise brought him to a sudden halt. The house before him was, admittingly, a nice looking one with being two floors tall having a black roof, royal blue walls with jade ivy crawling upward, open shutter windows, and a white door. However, what caught him off guard wasn’t so much as the look of this modest home as its size. It was… smaller than he envisioned it. Not only that, there were no guards at its door. No family crest that proudly displays to separate this home from the rest. Not even a flag to indicate this building’s importance.
At first, the colt thought that it must have been a joke or a mistake until Shining continued to move forward towards it.
“Something the matter?” Inverno looked up to the Professor who caught up with him.
“Huh? Oh no, Professor Key, it’s nothing just…”
“Yes?”
Inverno followed his dad towards the house. “Nothing. I just didn’t expect that where we’re going to would be so… humble.”
“Why? Were you expecting something else?”
“I don’t know… Maybe something similar to what we have in the Crystal Empire.”
“A palace?” The colt nodded.
Before Key Signature could make a response, Shining was already on the steps ringing the doorbell. He signaled for his son over to the door, “Come here. It’s alright.”
Glancing over to the older stallion, Inverno and the Professor walked up to the Prince. A few moments later the door opened up to a gray mare, whose eyes brightened up. “Shining!” She cried as she embraced him. “What are you doing out here?”
“Hey mom,” Shining hugged back, “is dad here?”
“Getting takeout, he should be here soon.” She pulled herself away. “This is unexpected, what are you doing outside of the Empire?”
“Well, there’s a lot of reasons.” He said. “But right now, I wanted to introduce you guys to someone.” He stepped backward beside the colt to wrap a hoof around him. “Mom, this is Inverno. Our son.”
Inverno’s cat-like eyes were focused on the mare’s reaction. For a split second, he felt hesitation as he saw her mouth dropped. There was a thought that perhaps he should probably give a quick bow before suddenly he found her hooves on his face.
“You’re Inverno, aren’t you?” She asked with a smile and he nodded. “So that’s what you look like! You’re so adorable. Shining, why haven’t you introduced me to this little guy sooner?”
“Ma’am?”
“Call me Velvet,” she said to the colt, “or better yet, grandma.” The next thing Inverno knew, he was dragged into the house with her asking questions if they have eaten or how things with Cadence and Flurry. When she let him go in the living room, she asked him if he wanted a cookie.
“Uh… Yes?” Inverno told her with uncertainty.
After she left the room, the Professor asked him, “Are you alright?”
“I… Think so…?” He turned to his dad. “I didn’t think she would be this… accepting of me.”
Shining tilted his head. “Of course she would. Mom has been pestering me to bring you here since Cadence and I wrote we adopted you. I would have done so sooner if we had the time.”
Inverno blinked. “She… wanted to see me? Dad, how come you didn’t tell me this before?”
“I keep forgetting.” He said embarrassingly.
Professor Key Signature glanced around at the living room at the couches, the cabinet that held badges and trophies, the wall of plaques, and family photographs of the Sparkle family. His eye fell upon the family portrait where his face twisted into intrigue. “Night Light?”
This caught Shining by surprise, “How do you know that name?”
The old stallion looked between him and the family photo. “I can’t believe I didn’t see this sooner. Night Light is your father, right?” The Prince nodded. “I used to have him as a student.”
“It must have been years ago.” Twilight Velvet said, catching the other’s attention as she had a small plate of cookies in her aura. “Do any of you want one?”
They all did, and Key Signature chuckled. “I guess this is a small world. I mean, Night is one of my earlier students, and Inverno my latest. Tell me, Madame, does your husband still play the piano?”
“He’s getting back into it, now that we have time.” Velvet replied. “Although I have to say that he’s completely out of practice.”
“Maybe I should come by,” he chuckled, “and scare him into remembering.”
Shining raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean by that?”
“I was a little stricter in those days.” The old stallion said after taking a bite of the cookie. “Perhaps a little harsh too, but back then he was a difficult student.”
“But you’re not strict.” Inverno pointed out.
“That’s because I’ve mellowed out a good deal.” He returned his attention to Velvet. “Is that piano still around?”
“It’s in the attic. We haven't moved it because partly it’s too heavy to move and partly because he doesn’t want anyone to hear him practice.”
The professor chuckled. “Still hasn’t changed.”
“However,” Velvet wrapped a foreleg around Inverno, “Shining said that you’re good at playing the piano and can sing too. Since he’s here, let’s have him play for us.”
“Can I?!” Inverno squeed but just as quickly he caught himself added with an embarrassed blush on his cheeks. “I mean if it’s alright with you? Grandma.”
From inside the dreamlike club, among the colored lights and the continuous beat, the two DJ’s were rousing up the dancers between bursts of cheers. In the doorway, Schubit’s eyes sharpened like blades of a sword at the earth pony by the keyboard.
However, before he could take a step forward, Defense took hold of Schubit’s foreleg. “Hold on, what are you doing?”
“Don’t you see? The one at the keyboard is Moztrot himself!”
The guard raised an eyebrow, “And how do you know that’s him?”
“I was told that the child, Inverno, chose our current forms by trying to match them to how closely we originally looked.” He pointed at one of the DJ’s. “Although his colors are different, he has his face like that of his portrait. I’m very certain that must be him.”
“But you can’t go off based on that.” Defense objected. “We can’t just snatch him without any solid proof that's him. He could be just a DJ for all we know.”
“Yo! You two at the door!” Vinyl Scratch called out over the microphone. “Don’t just stand there, come on in and join the party!” The dancers finally take notice of them and a few of them coaxed them to enter. Seeing that they don’t exactly have anything to lose, Schubit and Defense walked into this technicolor dream world towards the dancefloor.
“We got some new sick beats for ya!” The white unicorn in shades exclaimed. “And a melody that would make this night unforgettable. Are ya ready for Mo Trot ta drop the beat?” The dancers screamed out in acceptance as she pressed a button to thump out a quick tempo. The pony next to her bobbed his head to the beat, letting his hooves over the keyboard where a moment later, he began to play.
Over on the loudspeakers, a tense melody sang proudly, but at the same time, both Schubit and Defense noticed that the dance club was changing. All around them the darkroom of bright lights were shifting and twisting right before their eyes. A wind blew around them and the dancers with bright pink flower petals swirled around them, illuminating the darkness. The columns, mirrors, lit-up tiles, and the walls were morphing into a garden with ancient Pegasi ruins, and rivers of wine flowed.
The crowd became enthusiastic at this sudden change in scenery of the club, now they too find themselves in ancient robes gods of an ancient Pegasi vase, with the DJ’s to look down at this festival upon their pulsating cloud. Moztrot’s took on the role of God of music Apollo with his keyboard turned lyre and Vinyl as the Goddess of the hunting drum as Artemis. For Schubit and Defense, the scene looked like something out of a painting of a psychedelic myth just from the classical look and how everything seems to flow with each movement they made.
Schubit turned his head, a deadpan expression on his face towards the guard. “Maybe we should go talk to him.”
“Let's.” The composer agreed before they move into the dancefloor of the gods. Both stallions couldn’t go forward in a straight line as ponies masquerading as ancient gods and spirits blocked, open, twisted, turned, thrusted, retracted, flapped, flopped, and shook in their way. They passed by references of characters of myth and legend who fell under the hallucinogenic spell that was cast upon them. Forward and sideways to the illumines trees, over streams of sweet wine that ponies swallow by the gallon, around the ruins that pulsated to the metronome-like beat towards the musicians.
In this surreal race, Defense got to Moztrot first. “Hey you!”
He looked up from his lyre but continued to play. “Hey to you as well!”
“Are you Wolfgang Amadeus Moztrot?”
“I go by Mo Trot now. You enjoying the party? Because this is gonna go on all night!”
“Listen, you need to come with me.”
The Apollo wannabe tilted his head in confusion. “Why would I want to do that when we’re having so much fun. Aren’t we guys?” Cheers erupted up from the partiers turned flux-gods.
“Yeah,” Vinyl agreed, “we’re not causing any trouble. So why are you here?”
“I’m here on orders from the Crown.” Defense said, raising his voice over the loud music. “If you don’t come with me peacefully, then I have to arrest you.”
“For what? For partying too hard?” Both DJ’s laughed. “I’ve done nothing wrong.”
“Besides making some sick wubs,” Vinyl added.
Defense’s frown of annoyance grew increasingly impatient, and at this point, Schubit caught up with him. “Sir, this is a summons on behalf of the Royal Family.”
“But can’t they wait?” Moztrot waved a dismissive hoof. “I can’t leave when this lovely crowd wants me here. If anything, the only time I can leave is if they make me.”
From this, Schubit got an idea. He wasn’t certain if such a thing would work as there was already a spell at work at that very moment. However, as it was clear that the guard is getting nowhere with Moztrot, he decided that it was both a chance and a risk that could be proven fruitful. Plus, he had a guess how this sort of magic could be activated.
Looking over to the wild dancers, Schubit felt within him the strict authority like he had when he was a teacher, but at the same time imagined him with the confidence of a military general that was about to lead an army into glory. And like that, he remembered a tune that combined both emotion and imagination that exploded out like the burst of a cannon.
Suddenly, Moztrot’s spell was overridden as out of Schubit a new one took its place. Out of the first few bars of a commanding fanfare, the dancers became still at attention. Like militaristic automatons, they moved and organized into a square-like formation in synchronized movements. It would look as if they had trained all their lives in the Royal Guard when they marched forward.
“Hey!” Moztrot, although he tried in vain to play the lyre, realized that they were no longer in his control, “What’s going on! What are they doing?” He turned to the DJ next to him, but she was upright, stiff as a Solar Guard and just as stoic.
Schubit raised a hoof towards the false Apollo and the army came swarming in to dethrone one of the DJs, carrying him on his back towards the door they came in from. Despite Moztrot’s protests, flaying about as suddenly the dance club was turning against him, and that Defense was to a degree alarmed at what was happening, there was a part of him that was impressed.
However, he had to ask, “Schubit, what are you doing?”
“If he’s not willing to be an adult and does what he’s told,” Schubit said, “then I shall have him be removed like the child he is.”
The guard waved a hoof in front of Vinyl’s but getting no response. “But isn’t this mind control?”
“I see this as disciplining someone who is unruly… What?”
Defense looked at him unnerved. “Just… Don’t do this often without letting the rest of us know. Alright?”
They followed the improvised army carry Moztrot to the door to throw him onto the steps. Schubit ended the spell by its final chords to which the dance club reverted back to its original state. For the overthrown DJ, however, he moans pitifully from the hard landing.
“Owie…” he looked up to the frowning guard above him.
“Party’s over.” He said as he and Schubit lifted him up to be led up the steps.
Buch had played in front of an audience before for countless occasions. From appeasing the elders with his moral cantatas, to the concertos of royal courts, he was no stranger to performing in front of a large gathering, even when there’s someone of power listening. However, he knew that this time it was different. Among the applauding audience, there is a box near the stage was someone that he’d consider was as close to divinity as one could have the fortune to receive.
Princess Celestia.
The Guardian of the Sun.
On the one hoof, he was humbled for having someone like her be here. It was a milestone that before he’d thought would never see. Performing for someone that many would say is the embodiment of godhood to be there is an honor that goes beyond mortal description. At the same time, however, if one is performing before divinity, it does put a good amount of pressure upon the performer. Suddenly, the packed audience who was there didn’t matter, except for the approval of one who easily outranks them all.
He gave a modest bow, first to the audience, and then a deeper one towards Celestia. ‘Oh Goddess of Day,’ he silently prayed, ‘may this imperfect mortal have your approval of what talent I have.’
Then he turned towards the harpsichord that was waiting for him, as did the orchestra when the applause died down. The Pegasus tried to remain calm when he approached the stool, taking in deep breaths as he did so. “You’re going to be fine.” He heard the conductor whisper to him as he walked past.
Now sitting down, Buch gazed at the double keyboard for a moment. Before the conductor could raise his baton, he raised a hoof as he pressed the key of E, letting its sound echo in the confused silence before nodding. With a shrug from the conductor, he raided himself and the strings, and Buch raised his hooves to touch the instrument.
The last thought he had before diving into the opening movement was: ‘Let there be light.’
In unison, he and the orchestra established the opening theme, and as they did so, the darken theater combusted with light, like a firework busted that left behind galaxies. The audience gasped loudly at this sudden and unexpected big bang that left suspended nebulas of alien colors and swirling billions of stars. Even the orchestra, including the conductor, was caught completely off guard by this. So much so, that at this explosion they stopped playing, but the music still boomed around the theater with Buch taking the lead of this spectacular light show.
In fact, Buch himself paid no attention to the mini-universe that was created but was Tartarus bent in his focus upon the harpsichord. Notes flew from the keyboard at complex speed with notes ticking and thinking like a mechanical computer. It was as if he were guiding every source of light at his hooftips like a god commanding the universe or Luna that painted her night. Every bar of every note was played with precision and refined timing like the gears of a clock.
Up in the box seats, Maneler and Offense’s jaw hung open as they witnessed the pulsating universe that hung all around them.
“By the gods!” The Deer exclaimed in an exasperated whisper. “It’s… It’s him! Honest to Celestia him! Buch is right here!”
“We have to bring him in.” Offense whispered back, but before he could get up from his seat, a cloven hoof forced him back down. “What do you think you’re doing?!”
“I could ask you the same thing.” Maneler questioned him. “We can’t just rush down onto the stage and get him. Not in front of Celestia or all of these ponies! Especially not when the Master himself is playing.”
“But it’s one of the ponies we’re looking for. He has to come with us.”
Maneler glanced over at the cosmos that move in time to the music. Where clusters of stars and planets form out of the dust and circled about their heads like a complex mobile in motion much like the virtuosic movements of Buch’s hooves on the keyboard. He also noticed the audience from the mare they’ve met in the grand foyer to Princess Celestia looked at the short creation of the universe with awe in wonder.
“Not yet.” He said. “Not until the Master is finished. Besides, he’s not harming anyone, but gifting us with this.”
Offense grumbled. “Okay, fine. But once he walks off stage, he’s coming with us.” The guard sat there, forelegs folded as he witnessed the creation of solar systems, moons, and planets being melted and compressed by gravity. Watching the zooming of comets, the bumping of asteroids, and the ballet dance of black holes. He sat there for a minute to watch the ticking of the mini-universe, marveling how this single pony who isn’t looking up at what he’s making is able to do all of this without falling apart. After a while, Offense asked, “How do you ponies do it?”
Maneler raised an eyebrow. “Whatever do you mean?” He whispered.
“How can you guys do any of… this?” He waved a hoof out to the stars. “Just come up with spells on a scale like what he’s doing? Reshape reality almost like Discord with nothing but music?”
“I wish I’d known.” The Deer replied. “I guess it's part from what we want to focus to think and feel, part of the tune we have in mind, and the rest being the imagination we have to make something like this come alive. What I and probably Schubit have done, was projected from our own imagination and into the real world. But to see Buch’s mind… I am humbled.”
The conversation died as Buch’s light show continued on into the billions of years at a quick tempo right before everyone’s eyes. On the stage, the orchestra looked at one another in confusion as although they can clearly hear strings, not one of them was playing. In fact, the only source of this surprise orchestra came from the pony who was playing at the harpsichord. Even the conductor was at a loss of what to do that he stood there awkwardly, wondering if he should get off the stage or start conducting a force that he has no control over.
Contrasted to Buch that within his mind while he was letting his imagination fly, he was thinking of only one thing. ‘For the love of Celestia, don’t miss a note!’
Several minutes later after Buch serenaded the heavens towards a dramatic conclusion with its final chords that he finally noticed the fading lights overhead. Both his music and imagination faded back into darkness, as well as seeing the reaction of both his audience and the orchestra. From the rows of ponies, including Celestia, there was thunderous applause. But from the orchestra, there was confusion, if not hesitation to be in the same room as him.
But from the conductor, it was a different story when he walked up to him. “Mr. Chub, please leave.”
“What?”
“I invited you to share in the spotlight, not steal the show.” He pointed off stage. “Please, go to your dressing room. I’ll deal with you later.”
Buch’s eyes widened. “Are you fir-”
“Now!” He hissed through his teeth. Wincing, Buch obeyed to make an awkward trot off stage.
Up in the box seats, Offense pulled Maneler out of his seat to cease their chance.
Thanks to Offense, getting past security wasn’t much of an issue of entering backstage. Down a spiral staircase to a hallway that was right beneath the stage itself into a hallway of pale blue with rows of white doors. Fortunately for them, it didn’t take long to locate which one Buch was behind on the account of the banging from one particular door.
“Sir?” Offense called out. “Is everything alright?”
The banging stopped before it opened up enough for Buch’s head to stick up. “This isn’t a good time.”
Just when he was about to close it again, the guard stuck his hoof in. “Sir, we need to have you come with us.”
“Why? I’ve already ruined my chance of getting out of poverty and you’re kicking me out too?”
Maneler was taken aback at this statement. “Ruined? Mr. Buch that was amazing!”
“I don’t have time for your…” the green Pegasus trailed off at what he heard. So much so, he forced the door wide open with a surprised look on his face. “How do you know my name?”