Surrounded by her friends and the warmth of Sugarcube Corner in party decorum, Rainbow Dash's jaw slowly dropped as she finished opening her final birthday gift. "From Rarity and Twilight Sparkle," the purple and silver card on the wrapping had said.
"An...An M-Cloud?" Rainbow took the neat gray-white box in her hooves and studied it with equal parts incredulity and eagerness.
"Yes, of course it's yours, Darling! Twilight and I just knew you would love to have a touch of music while you're in the air practicing for the next Young Flier's Competition. So, I insited, and while I acquired the device, she ordered the music subscription."
"They're based on an amazing new technology," Twilight commented with detached fascination. "All the music propagates silently from the DJ cloud in Cumulustino in the form of metaphantasm irregularities! The crystalline substructure of the leyline mainboard in each unit only resonates with patterns passing through it if they match the patterns embedded in the superstructure!"
"Best birthday ever!" Rainbow Dash clenched her eyes shut and pumped a hoof in the air, oblivious to the technical fluff Twilight had thought fitting to add.
"Ahem. What Twilight means is that it only receives music on the, er, channels that it has a subscription to," Rarity explained.
"I've been hearing good talk about one channel in particular from regulars at the library," Twilight said, slightly more bashful. Truthfully, she hadn't a clue as to Rainbow Dash's taste in music, and the cost for a yearly channel contract was prohibitively high. Twilight had made the choice of channel subscription out of a desire to avoid spoiling the surprise by asking. She only wished that she had inquired of Rarity first. ”The music she selected for her last performance!” Rarity had later chided her.
"But it's still music though, right? That's way cooler than a boring rush of air the whole time!"
"Why yes, dear. Twilight means, however, that it's the type of music enjoyed by those strange ponies who loiter in her home."
"Actually, it's Ponyville's library. Anyone can come in and read any book any time that they want," Twilight replied. Why am I defending them other than to change the topic, she thought. They seldom read anything, though they seem to enjoy giving others the impression that they read more.
“No matter, dear. We can always transfer the subscription, correct?” Rarity asked.
Twilight recalled the voluminous terms of service and the lengthy contract that she had hurriedly skimmed through in the process of acquiring the service for the device, and gave herself a silent reprimand for her lack of scrutiny. “I really don’t know. There was a lot of fine print. I’ll have to look into it.”
"Um...If you like, I could pitch in for another channel," Fluttershy said meekly.
"Ah could too," Applejack added.
"Me three!" Pinkie squeaked.
"You've already given really great gifts," Twilight said, "but I know a faster, easier way."
"Um, Twilight? It's my birthday. If they want to—"
"There are a few local experts who have reconfigured M-Clouds to receive other channels. In fact, I'm pretty sure I understand the workings enough to do it myself. You could get any channel you wanted!"
"Now Twilight, I don't believe that's a very good idea. You might damage it and void the warranty," Rarity said. "We should take it to a certified Peachy technician and have them add a channel in the proper manner!"
"Also, that don't sound like no honest way o' doin' it," Applejack said. "Those high-falutin’ tech-wizards who work in the cloud need to earn an honest livin', as do the musicians who need that royalty for their songs gettin' tossed over the air."
"I'll listen to it." Rainbow Dash's voice carried the resoluteness and amiable air of the loyalty she embodied. "Music is music, right? It’s worth a try."
"Well shucks, ain't that nice?" Applejack said. "You may even grow to enjoy it, the way Applebloom's favorite singers grew on me, even though them demons used to annoy me to my wits' end."
"Sure, why not?" Rainbow said. She would appreciate this gift and try to enjoy the music Twilight had chosen blindly for her. Anything less would be totally lame and not something a friend would do.
Rainbow Dash woke before the light of dawn reached Ponyville, by which time it had already flooded through the windows of her lofty abode. The prospect of outperforming herself this year in Cloudsdale had overcome her desire to sleep in, to such an extent that she had labored to re-orient her house with its bedroom windows facing East. Each morning before weather duty began was her time alone, when she arose to compete with herself. The newest component of her dawn routine lay waiting on her nightstand, secured in its leg holster and prepared for use. She studied it groggily as though it were a dream, and she hadn't really awoken. The the glare of the sun in her room of white cloudstone burned into her half-open eyes and set the clean metallic thing aglow.
"Horseapples. I shouldn't have stayed up so late," she moaned. "Well, birthdays only come once a year."
She staggered into the precipitation chamber and gave its North wall a sullen kick. A brief downpour of icy rain splashed over her warm, tired body. She shivered it off in a routine manner, and gave the South wall a slightly more vigorous kick. The floor vanished, replaced by a blast of warm air that held her aloft and wicked the moisture away from her every surface. Her rainbow mane returned to its wild waking state as fast as it had gone from bed-head to sopping wet. A moment later, the gale stopped and the floor re-coalesced.
"Much better. Now, what was I going to do this morning? Oh yeah, start practice with my awesome new M-Cloud! Thank you Twi and Rarity!" She cantered back to her nightstand and donned the leg holster to save herself a trip back to her bedroom, promptly made a small breakfast for herself, and after she had eaten and stretched her wings and legs, stole out over Ponyville as dawn had finally touched down. She alighted on a mountain overlooking Whitetail Wood, her favorite training airspace on the outskirts of town. There, the depth of the canopy swallowed the noise of her shouts and grunts, giving her the privacy and Ponyville the chance to sleep longer.
Sitting on her haunches, she pulled a pair of sliver earplugs from a pocket on the side of the M-Cloud's leg holster and placed them in her ears, feigning stylish finesse in the motion as if she had spectators. She lifted the M-Cloud before her and tapped the center of its shiny front cover with her other hoof. Jet-black lines ran across its surface and traced out the plain round logo of Peachy Inc., the manufacturer.
"Cool!" Rainbow Dash cooed. A sonorous chime in her ears took her off-guard, but she immediately then recognized it as the signature start-up sound of a genuine Peachy product. She had put off its maiden usage for her morning routine. "And now," she said as she lifted off, "let's have some tunes!"
The device responded to her vocal command and initialized the audio signal connection to the faraway cloud that supplied music to thousands. Seconds later, in the middle of her preliminary climb, the music hit her, and she winced from its impact. It was unlike anything she had heard before: ragged and exaggerated percussion tumbled and crashed about beneath a curtain of discordant buzzing produced from string instruments that sounded as though their musicians wished to damage them. Perky boop-beeps from an unfamiliar modern instrument tagged alongside the grinding of these sounds like a young filly trying to get her her parents' attention in the midst of their grown-up talk. Above that still was the coarse, persistent wailing of a "singer." From the cries of the singer, Rainbow Dash could scarcely make out sequences of words that might have actually meant something if they were written on pieces of confetti, shot from Pinkie Pie's party cannon, and strung together by sucking them off the floor through a straw one-by-one. She gritted her teeth and continued putting distance beneath her in preparation for her routine.
"Ugh, what is this," she grunted. She briefly contemplated how anyone could possibly enjoy such a din, and thought for a moment how her vocal expressions of physical exertion might sound more melodious than the vocalization in the "music" she was listening to. She afforded herself an inward chuckle at that. This isn't so bad, she thought to herself. You just have to avoid taking it seriously, and survive it.
An idea then occurred to her: "I think I'll compete with this music. If I can fly straight with this stuff playing, nothing can stop me in Cloudsdale. Twilight did me more good than she knows." She spotted a thin, gauzy sheet of ice crystals above her, and slowed her ascent. "Top of the troposphere. Okay now, time for action!"
As she dove into her first series of exercises in agility and speed control, the "song" ended abruptly, and the music changed. She evened her breathing, straining her power of concentration to articulate and pronounce her movements with practiced clarity. The music, however, did not agree. It was instrumental, but the sounds from the stringed instruments were warped, by some device Rainbow Dash could not name, into a loopy groan reminiscent of her own stomach just before lunchtime. She felt as though it were mocking the deftness of her turns, rolls and flips, daring to lurch into another pained chord perfectly in step with each curve in the path that she carved through the morning sky. However, beneath the frazzled and bent tones, she could distinguish clean notes from acoustical instruments she had heard in the orchestra that Rarity had taken her to months ago. She even discerned a few airy chord progressions that vaguely resembled such higher-minded music. “Mother of Luna, these clowns are pretending to be classy?”
In the middle of the slow lead-in to the typhoon torque roll, a delicate maneuver that required careful control of the wing muscles, Rainbow Dash heard a roar. The hair on her back stood defiantly against the air currents. The audio clarity of the earplugs she had donned hadn’t been clear to her until then, when it seemed that a manticore had taken flight and was within claw’s reach. She calmed herself with a few practiced breaths, noting the source of the feral sound, and continued. At the end of the roll, she heard two more roars, and gave the device on her foreleg a glance. “Manticore Surprise Party”, the screen of the device indicated to her was the song’s title. “Great, I love surprises,” she deadpanned.
The music changed again. She descended into the canopy of Whitetail Wood to begin her freestyle agility exercises. This time, there was singing again and softer playing of a stringed instrument that wasn’t at all discordant, but the lyrics were clear and pained. While Rainbow darted between the trees at speeds approaching limits of her reflexes, the singer breathily sang of “rotten apple Manehattan pie” and other proverbial objects whose meaning Dash could but guess. Only when the singer had pronounced the words “peeing in the mainstream” did Rainbow fully lose her concentration. She flew headlong into a treetop. Its boughs ensnared her and it absorbed her momentum, yielding and bending over until it snapped, and then she found herself on the forest floor entangled in the felled tree.
“Oh, I don’t know if I like bouncy music. Can we maybe listen to something else during the workout?” Fluttershy asked politely. She gave the record an uncertain look.
“Come on, it’s supposed to be that way!” Pinkie Pie said. “We’re exercising! This stuff will get your rump moving like nothin’ else will! Do you want to lose those few little pounds or not?”
Fluttershy contemplated that for a moment, and came to ponder a curiosity that she had previously thought rude to even think of. Why isn’t Pinkie Pie a monstrous fattie? She’s eaten way more pastries than I ever have at the modest tea parties we’ve had, and hasn’t gained even the small amount of weight that I have.
“Well, how ‘bout it? Come on, you’ll never know until you try it!”
It has to be her exercise routine, and a large part of that is her music. “Oh, come to think of it, you’re absolutely right.” She knew that she should have used her wings more often, flown laps around the perimeter of Ponyville, just to spare herself having to go through with this. As much as she loved Pinkie Pie, she was still a pegasus, and a small vestige of skyborne pride made her ashamed at having fallen short of the innate athleticism of the pegasus tribe.
“Alright!” Pinkie dropped the needle into the spinning record’s lead-in and hopped to the center of the room. “Now, follow my lead!”
The room exploded to the pulse of the record’s contents, and Fluttershy winced. In rhythm with the pumping of low-frequency sinusoids and strident, ear-raking staccato of sugary high-frequency square wave harmonies, Pinkie Pie began to bounce, and Fluttershy began her attempts to emulate Pinkie’s motions.
“And, left, and right! Come on, Fluttershy! You can do it!”
Fluttershy tried. It was all she could do to avoid distraction by the music, which seemed to make a farce of her motions rather than provide a template for them. With each step and stomp, she felt the accumulated fat of minor indulgences bounce and ripple. It was in those moments that the sharpness of the squat bass and synthesized buzz-bopping seemed to poke mockingly at her soft flesh like a dozen popsicle sticks. It sounds almost like flatulence, if flatulence were engineered and industrialized and produced en masse by a fine-tuned flatulence production machine. She blushed as much as she frowned.
“Okie dokie, rearrange that frown, ‘cuz comes the super fun part!”
The music changed pitch and tempo, yet retained the same bounciness and fartyness that Fluttershy had already learned to loathe. She then watched, sweating and panting, as Pinkie began to move in ways she had never imagined possible for a pony. She strained herself through those motions, hopping and contorting herself to imitate the alacritous gymnastics of her pink friend as best she could. Further into the exercise, sweat rolled down her sides and she panted, slowing. The mechanical thumping of the music, however, continued at the same pace, as did Pinkie’s elaborate workout dance.
“Almost done... Can you feel that burn? Do you feel like a real pony? I feel like a real pony! Don’t you just feel like a pony when you sweat?” Pinkie Pie was indeed perspiring, but from more exertion than Fluttershy had mustered. Suddenly then, the music stopped. Only then in its absence could Fluttershy hear the pounding of blood in her ears and temple.
“You did great! We should do this more often,” Pinkie said.
“Agreed,” Fluttershy panted, “but maybe we could try different music next time.”
“So, you don’t like my workout music?”
“Um... I just think I like certain other types of music better.” After that, I could enjoy anything, she thought.
It was afternoon when Rainbow Dash ran into Twilight Sparkle again, and Rainbow was exhausted from the combination of work and her ordeal earlier that day.
“Hi Rainbow! Uh, you okay? You look kinda... Messed up, like you’ve been through a few crashes.”
Twilight, your socially-awkward and tactless honesty is more refreshing than you know, Rainbow thought. None of my coworkers said a thing. Now if only I can return the favor in regard to your gift. “Meh, I took a spill practicing for Best Young Fliers. That music you gave me is pretty wild!”
“Oh.” Twilight’s expression changed from concerned to concerned and quizzical. Now she has actually listened to it. “Really? I haven’t heard that word used to describe it before. Maybe I could introduce you to the ponies who visit the library; they often have some very involved discussions about it, and seem to know lots about it.”
“Sounds cool. Maybe I’ll come by later today when I get off work,” Rainbow replied. She wanted to scream, to implore her to find her a different channel, and to ask her who had told her they could re-jigger M-Clouds. It was her display of boldness the night before and the irony of her enjoyment of the “eggheaded” practice of reading that robbed her of her boldness at that moment. She was not about to show that she had forgotten her lesson. I will show her I mean to be open-minded and can stomach anything, she thought. I’m not backing out of this.
“They’re usually in the library later in the afternoon, and then they go out to socialize. Maybe you could make friends with them.” Twilight offered her a sheepish grin.
“Me? Haven’t you tried making friends with them?”
“I don’t know about them. I’ve tried striking up a conversation, but they seem less interested in what I have to say about music. They used a few words for my favorite kind of music, but I have no idea what all their slang terms mean. Maybe since you’ve listened to their music, you could relate to them in a way that I can’t.”
Yes, misery loves company. And yet, I’d love find out exactly why anyone would listen to that music. “Sounds great. Anyhoof, catch ya later!” Rainbow Dash flew away to rejoin weather patrol before her lunch break ended.
“So, is this music you can dance to?” Pinkie Pie asked.
“Not exactly, no. I just wanted to share it, with you, because it’s the kind of music that I really enjoy.”
“Okie dokie!” Pinkie Pie piped, plopping herself on the loveseat by the window in Fluttershy’s cottage.
Fluttershy stepped back from her phonograph, sat, and closed her eyes. From the speaker, a distant female voice began to echo. The echoing seemed to draw nearer when a melodious yet flat drone entered, along with piano serenades and a sickly-sweet female choral accompaniment, all of them washed out and dulled into a soft, broad blanket of sound by excess reverberation.
“Uh, what is this kind of music for?” Pinkie asked.
“Shhh, listen, it gets better.”
Pinkie Pie listened. She tried to stay hushed and to sit still out of respect, but her leg was twitching, and not because her soothsaying reflexes were in effect. The music somehow ran contrary to everything she was, in that it didn’t need Fluttershy to tell her to sit still and be quiet. It did that all on its own, and that made her all the more restless. The lullaby of the female vocals appealed to the foal in her soul with its maternal cooing, yet seemed to drown out and firmly deny that foal its giggles and bed-jumping and mischief, beckoning her to a quiet slumber instead.
“So, uh, when’s the better part?”
“Shhhh!”
The voices, drones and melodies grew into a crescendo of meaningless sound that continued to echo ever deeper, as if it deigned to make itself sound bigger than the great spirit the one and only Pinkie Pie. Fluttershy was still sitting on the floor with her eyes closed, her head bobbing slowly, and a peaceful smile was on her face. She was daydreaming of flying gracefully over green valleys with eagles soaring beside her. Pinkie Pie only fidgeted more intensely, and was having a day-nightmare: one of dusty old cathedrals and boring soul-searches and learning to be patient.
“Uh... I’m sorry Fluttershy, but I don’t really like this music.”
“Oh, it’s okay. I understand.” Fluttershy reached to disengaged the needle from the record, but in her relaxed state she nudged it into a sickeningly-loud scratch that cut through the soft music like a chainsaw through glass. Both of them winced. With the cottage quiet again except for a few small animal noises, Pinkie Pie sighed.
“What’s wrong?”
“Oh, nothing. I just feel kinda like a monk now. I’m feeling a little... Monk-y. Monkey!” She giggled and began jumping around, hooting.
Fluttershy coerced a giggle in response from herself. It was very seldom that she would put her musical tastes on display for anyone else, including her friends, but she humbly accepted that not everyone would share them.
Rainbow stood outside the library, deciding what to make of the three characters before her. They all wore expressions that made them seem aloof in their own individual ways.
“Hi, I’m Rainbow Dash!”
“Pleasure. I’m Joy Cup. Coffee symbol on my butt and all,” she quipped.
Rainbow Dash couldn’t tell; the young mare’s hindquarters and tail were covered by a faded denim skirt. She was the only one of the three who was standing.
“This is my colt friend Will Play; he works at the record store,” Joy said.
“Hey,” the lanky stallion managed to say between drags at his cigarette. He wore a tight long-sleeve shirt and had his mane combed forward over his face.
“And this is over here is Heart Mend, but we call her Ringy.”
“Hi,” the other young mare said. She gave a small wave and mild smile before returning quickly to her expressionless state. The long, loose sleeve of her blouse flapped around when she waved, and Rainbow noticed the way the jewelry on her lower lip had moved when it stretched into that brief smile.
“She never liked the name she was given,” Joy remarked. “She’s brave, stepping outside her role instead of conforming to it and all, and doing what she loves.”
“You flatter me, Joy.”
“I also think what we call her fits her vocation way better.”
“Naming ponies after what they do just compels them to do it, like, it’s society’s whip,” Will added. He spoke in a croaky monotone.
“Closest thing to mind control,” Heart said softly.
“So, uh... what is your talent?”
“I was destined to become a psychiatrist, because I talked to this filly in school who was having problems and made her feel better, and flash, there’s my mark. But I’m more the artistic type, and my grades weren’t good enough, so I found my way making jewelry. I do love my work.”
“Heh, yeah! That’s all that matters — you have a job and you like it,” Rainbow Dash said. “I thought I’d go into professional racing after I got my cutie mark in a race, but here I am on weather patrol.”
The three twisted their mouths in mental shugs and nodded quietly.
“Anyways, I heard you were into this type of music I started listening to recently.”
“Come to join the cult?” Will said with a miniscule hint of derision.
“I dunno. I listened to it while flying and it just really got to me, and it made me crash. I was wondering if you might help me understand it better.”
Joy Cup laughed. “So you’ve been hit by it? Don’t be afraid to admit it, it got on your nerves. It was meant to.”
“Huh?”
“If it didn’t bother you so, it wouldn’t be what it is,” Joy explained.
“Which is?”
“Like nothing else. It’s different.”
“What I don’t get is what makes it so great.”
“Listen,” Will started, putting his cig out with a hoof, “every great idea or style, when it starts out small, is hated. Some ponies start getting used to it and liking it, and other ponies listen to stuff that’s already popular and been played a million times. It’s the first group that always influences culture.”
“Oh, I get it.” Rainbow Dash then understood. She recalled how her grandmother had chided her for putting a popular modern record she loved on the turntable and “polluting” the house with its noise. She saw the events of that morning with new understanding: she was stepping outside of her musical comfort zone, exposing herself to something she wasn’t used to. No, that’s crazy talk, she thought. No way that roadapple pie of noise could ever get popular. But then, who am I to say it won’t?
“Well anyways,” Joy interrupted, “wanna come over to my place? Hang out?”
“Sure thing.” I am going to get to the bottom of this, she thought.
“Alright. Mind if we stop by the store on our way home to pick up some GMG?”
“GMG?” Rainbow Dash repeated.
“Gold Medal Gelding. Simple quaff, decent stuff. Good to have a few conversations over.”
“Oh, okay. Personally I don’t drink, but I wouldn’t mind if you did.”
Will and Heart stood up with Joy, and they slowly cantered off. The four of them attracted a few wayward, awkward glances from other Ponyvilleans, and Rainbow wondered how many of them were for her and how many were for her three companions. These ponies seem cool enough, Rainbow thought. Maybe Twilight was on to something.
Twilight finished reading the letter and rolled her eyes, breathing a sigh of relief. Before her on her desk lay the multitude of pages in an uncollated pile that made up the M-Cloud subscription terms of service and contractual agreements. “So it’s really no big deal, this sales rep from Peachy tells me. They handle requests like this all the time.”
“I thought so,” Spike said. “It doesn’t seem like good business to not give customers some flexibility.”
“And the funny thing,” Twilight continued, ignoring him, “is that there are so many of them, so often, either switching to or from this channel I had the ‘Peachy genius’ back at the Peachy dealership align Rainbow’s M-Cloud with! It’s as if this is the single most polarizing channel in the cloud!”
“Actually, that honor goes to the channel with the squealing lovercolt.”
Twilight giggled briefly. “Yes, I know the artist you’re talking about, the one you either love or hate.”
“Actually, I can’t see why anyone would love that guy, except fillies still in school. I mean, come on! I know he’s talented with a few instruments, but his lyrics are drivel, his voice sounds all high, and annoying, and...nyeh!” Spike gesticulated madly, confounded.
“Exactly, Spike. He’s meant for a particular group of ponies, who happen to like him.”
“Who like him,” Spike corrected.
“What I don’t understand,” Twilight continued musing, “is what could be the deal with this music I ordered Rainbow Dash.”
“No matter. You can change it to whatever she wants, right?”
“Right, and we can get this awkward false gratitude thing over with. Honestly, Spike, did you see the look on her face yesterday? She clearly hates that music! I think it’s all because of that time we judged Rarity’s hard work. Now none of my friends can so much as tell the truth when they don’t care for what’s offered to them!”
Rainbow Dash took a deep breath and looked out at Whitetail Wood. She pushed the light metallic earplugs into her ears and tapped the M-Cloud to power it on, and once the music had begun playing — through the air from cloud to device and device to earplugs — she lifted off.
“It couldn’t be nearly as bad as yesterday morning.”
She closed her eyes during her ascent and beat her wings to the abrasive drumming and scratchy strumming of the song she was listening to, but today, rather than distract her, the harshness gave her a queer sort of strength. She adjusted her wingbeats to match the music. I’m beating my wings to climb, and my climb epitomizes the mundane struggle of everypony. Life is just a climbing game — for some a social one, for others one of career, others a climb to fame.
How she had learned. Joy Cup and Will Play had introduced her to the origins of the genre the previous evening at their apartment. They had explained the motivation behind each avant-garde layer of noise, and had even demonstrated how it wasn’t so different from the types of music she already enjoyed. It was the tense edge of modernity that transmogrified those familiar musical hoofprints into a new creature, if an unruly one. She had gone to sleep listening to the music.
“And, now, I descend,” she said impassionately.
Her motions were sullen but alive; she was an amalgam of blasé ataraxy and cool fury. Each of the riffs of the stringed instruments sounded like a hacksaw being drawn across a cable made of porcelain fibers, and yet as she careened into her series of tumbles, rolls and tight turns, this gave her mind a certain fuel. It was fuel for putting tension to her wings and legs that seemed almost angry, and yet fully under control. Her final act of setting muscle to music took her through the treetops again at high velocity, yet she did not lose her cool. She almost yawned.
Her workday rolled by very much like the previous, but instead of strange glances for her appearance, she received strange glances for her different tone of voice and her perpetual earplugged aloofness. On her lunch break, she once more met Twilight Sparkle in the middle of town. As Twilight approached her, Rainbow was bobbing her head slowly.
“Hey Rainbow! I’ve been meaning to talk with you. It turns out it should be really easy to change your subscription.”
“Nah, I’m fine. I’ve acquired a taste for this music.”
Twilight gave her an incredulous stare, wondering when she had started talking like the lanky stallion in the troupe of library regulars she’d introduced her to. “You sure?”
“Yeah. It takes a certain amount of thought to appreciate this genre, and I’m sure you can understand that.”
“I do enjoy intellectually stimulating music,” Twilight reflected.
“Besides, I’m not going back to that bland cultural waste that’s only a paltry reflection of ponydom’s yesteryear, though I used to think was so great.” As Rainbow spoke, she peppered her words with extra disdain.
“Wait, what? I thought you loved—”
“Seriously, Twilight! I’ve evolved. You gave me some great tunes and I just didn’t know that at first. Thank you for the birthday gift. No, I’m serious.”
“You’re very welcome. I’m just very glad you’re pleased, but since the music grew on you so fast, I’m curious as to what it sounds like.”
“You’ve never listened to Trit-A-Trot? Explosive Seapony? Purple Menagerie?” Rainbow asked. She listed off a smattering of other titles, many of which were words Twilight had never heard together in the same sentence.
“Never heard of them,” Twilight interrupted, punctuating the obscure roster.
“It’s fresher fare,” Rainbow said plainly, “so I couldn’t expect you to know about them. But here’s your chance. Couldn’t hurt to try.”
Rainbow tilted her head to each side and wiggled the downward facing ear, and the shiny plugs fell out into her hooves one by one. Twilight cleansed them of Rainbow Dash’s ear grease with a wave of violet magic from her alacorn and telekinesed them into her ears. Rainbow Dash turned up the volume on her M-Cloud.
Twilight’s face immediately contorted into an expression that seemed fitting for one caught in an avalanche of slugs. It then twisted into a stony grimace. Her hair stood on end, her muscles tensed, and light burst from her horn. She let out a loud, angry growl, and the earplugs flew out of her ears, pursued by jets of steam. She tried vainly to regain composure as she retrieved the earplugs and feigned a demure giggle of embarrassment.
“Just as I expected, Twi. Maybe you’re not ready for it yet.”
“Listen, Rainbow. I know how appreciation for music can be considered a subjective—”
“Save your breath. I can’t ask you to understand or have similar tastes as I do, and I accept that.”
Twilight cleaned off the silvery earplugs and passed them back to Rainbow, who promptly returned them to her ears.
“Catch ya later!” Rainbow Dash called out blithely as she flew back to work.
“I’m telling you, she has some sort of mental affliction. There’s no way she could go from revulsion to enjoyment in just one day!”
Twilight Sparkle had brought her friends, excluding Rainbow Dash, to the library, which was closed for the day. She had hung her “research in progress; unsafe for general public” sign outside the door.
“Oh, it couldn’t really be that bad if she learned to love it so quickly,” Fluttershy spoke up.
“Couldn’t...bad?...” Twilight took a deep breath, and calmed herself. “Right, I suppose a demonstration is in order.” She produced a dark metal diaphragm the size of a dinner plate rimmed in copper and gilded with arcane symbols from a nearby shelf. She illuminated it with magic. “I think I can remember exactly what it sounded like.”
The round thing vibrated with signals from Twilight’s mind and assaulted the ordinarily-quiet library with an infernal cacophony that knocked everypony off her hooves and into a cringing state of desperate ear-covering.
“MAKE IT STOP!” Pinkie Pie screamed.
“...Absolutely horrifying!...” Rarity could be heard amongst her other incoherent cries.
Twilight released the thin disk and restored it to its place on the shelf. The other ponies looked at it fearfully as it floated through the air, wondering when and if it would cause them such pain again.
“That,” Twilight said proudly, “is an early predecessor to the technology that the M-Cloud is based on.”
“Well ah sure hope the infernal gadgetry sees better use than the likes o’ that noise,” Applejack drawled.
“So, everyone see the problem?”
“Yes, quite clearly,” Rarity said. “Our friend is going around mesmerized by that dreadful noise. Who knows what damage it’s doing to her ears!”
“Or her brain!” Pinkie said.
“Exactly. So, back to my original point, I’ve gathered you here together to discuss ways we might be able to help her.”
“Well, despite our dislike for the noise, I don’t suppose enjoyment of that is something we can cure,” Rarity said.
“Um, maybe we could do the same thing in reverse to her?”
“Care to explain, Fluttershy?” Twilight asked.
“Well, you mentioned how she seemed to hate the music at first?”
“Uh-huh.”
“And how now, after ‘surviving’ it, she not only loves it but doesn’t like any other kind of music?”
“Yes?”
“Well, I have an idea. It hasn’t worked on me, but if Rainbow Dash can switch her preference for music that easily, it just work on her and get her back to normal again.”
“Do tell,” Rarity said. “Taste in music is a fickle and unpredictable thing. Why, I thought I knew our Rainbow.”
Rainbow Dash looked to and fro, but Joy, Will and Ringy were nowhere to be found. “Figures. I didn’t think they’d be here if Twilight had decided to go all mad scientist and annex the library proper again.”
She turned to start off towards Joy Cup’s apartment, but then a heavy pink and cream-yellow blur collided with her. Fluttershy hugged her to the ground as four other ponies tied ropes to each of her legs.
“Fluttershy!” Rainbow gasped. “What’re you doing?”
“Just hold still and be quiet. We’re your friends, so we wouldn’t hurt you, trust us.”
They pulled at Rainbow’s legs and held her mostly immobile as they brought her, into the library. She struggled at first, but ultimately surrendered to the deadpan passivity that was her newfound shield and substitute composure.
In the middle of the library sat a sturdy, leather-strap-laden reclining chair, a tall boxy machine with fat electrode-containing glass bulbs sticking out of the top, a magical amplifier and resonance boxes, and a turntable. They brought her to the chair and securely fastened her. Twilight attached half a dozen cold metal probes to her body: one to her side of forehead, and one at each of her fetlocks.
“Now,” Twilight said, “all I want to do is run a simple experiment. It seems we all have a lot to learn about how music affects us. Rarity?”
Rarity presented to Rainbow Dash a record. Its cover was dark and showed what looked like an oversized, ornate saddlebag strap buckle, cold and metallic. “Fluttershy says she spotted this this under your icebox last time she visited you for a slumber party.”
“I was a bit hungry, and I went to your kitchen late at night to have an extra nibble,” Fluttershy said, blushing. “I hope you don’t mind.”
“You can’t be serious,” Rainbow Dash said.
“Oh, but I am!” Rarity replied. She removed the record from its jacket. It was contained in a thin, transparent sheet. “Tsk tsk, never even opened this thing after I gave it to you last year. Why the wait to try it? I found it in the exact same section as the style of music you selected for your performance at Best Young Fliers’. Why, I had to put up with smug looks and half-stifled laughter from that haughty record store clerk to bring you your gift last year, only to have you ignore it!”
“And that explains why she had me pick out the music for your gift this year,” Twilight said.
“Indeed. I thought that Twilight would hit closer to home, as it were, regarding your favorite style of music. I suppose she was both right and wrong, in an odd sort of way.”
Rainbow Dash barely heard them. She was eyeing the record cover fearfully. “No, please...” she whimpered. “Please. Anything but Coppermane. I’m begging you.”
“Couldn’t hurt now, could it? Big Macintosh listens to it,” Applejack said. “Ya’ll never know ‘till ya try it, sugarcube.”
Rarity placed the record on the turntable and dropped the needle into its lead-in. The needle slid spiraled down its one-way trajectory into the ominously clean grooves of vinyl like a coin falling into a black hole. Thence erupted a dirty, offensively self-indulgent symphony of auditory sludge. Stringed instruments buzzed low and incessant like a ravenous swarm of oversized blowflies while percussion hammered dully like an industrial manufacturing facility. The exaggerated and throaty yowls of the lead vocalist made it sound as though he were perpetually preparing in the back of his throat a colossal wad of spittle and phlegm to inflict upon the listener.
“WHY, CELESTIA, WHY?” Rainbow Dash was screaming, struggling against her restraints in agony.
The five unrestrained ponies held their tongues and stood their ground, lest their collective attempt to change Rainbow’s mind about music fail and their dignity be compromised. They gritted their teeth, eyelids twitching as they weathered the ruction that sloughed off the phonograph in grungy waves like a legion of possessed swine coated in sandpaper. Finally, before the “song” was concluded, the shrill cry of “MAKE IT STOP!” once more escaped Pinkie Pie. Rarity swiftly plucked the needle from the record as she might an oversized ball of lint from one of her favorite garments. They all stood quietly in place for a moment, glancing at each other, reeling and wide-eyed with disdain for all they had just heard.
“Heh... No wonder Macky called that stuff his guilty pleasure,” Applejack said. Everyone looked at her. She grinned defensively.
The next day, Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy met Rainbow Dash on her lunch break. The asked her if they could borrow her M-Cloud. She gladly handed it to them. “You sure you want to try this stuff?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Come on! It’s not like we’re going to throw your M-Cloud in the river if we don’t like the music,” Pinkie Pie said.
“I’ll take it back to your house when we’re done with it,” Fluttershy promised.
“In all honesty, even though I like the style...It really is is kinda bad in some ways.”
“Now, don’t be modest or ashamed about what you love,” Fluttershy said.
“No, that’s not what I mean. I mean, music is great, but do I really want it following me around everywhere I go? And that kind of music? No thanks, I’ll enjoy it here and there, but not all the time. Oh, and by the way, thanks for helping get me another channel.”
“Don’t forget to thank Applejack too. We all hope it suits you well.”
“Anything but Coppermane would. And besides, I need to train with the music I’ll actually perform with. Who’d want to listen to avant-garde stuff anyway when a familiar series of awesome riffs would go my flying way better?”
“Absolutely. You rock, Rainbow Dash!”
“Thanks, Flutters. Well gals, see you later!” She flew away to an untouched cumulus above the north end of town and began sculpting it eagerly.
“So, you think some other music from this genre won’t be as bad as the one Twilight made us listen to?” Pinkie asked.
“Of course not. After all, you listened to a few more tracks from my favorite album and found a few you liked, and I eventually found a beat on your record that I liked.”
“That’s true. By the way, something else that’s true is you’re looking a lot more fit now.”
Fluttershy embraced her.
“So, this music Rainbow likes.”
“Yes, let’s find out.”
They each took a plug, rubbed them on their coats and inserted them. As they began listening, they twisted their mouths and looked up at the sky pensively, then at each other, and then off into space. They started bobbing their heads.