Lyra had never really spent much time with Raindrops, especially not without the rest of their friends around. She fully expected to learn many new things about her friend. For instance: Raindrops snored.
And not gentle, soft snoring, the kind Lyra was used to from Bon-Bon. That could be almost soothing. No, Raindrops alternated between grinding growls like an Ursa Major made of lumber mills and whistling like a freight train. Worse still, sometimes, without warning, she’d go completely silent. At those moments Lyra froze, wondering if her friend had stopped breathing, perhaps finally slain by the evil ghost of the spacebeartrainmill that was clearly trying to possess her… and then, just as suddenly as she stopped, Raindrops would start up again, snorting like an offended dragon before settling back into spacebearmilltrain mode.
Lyra rolled on her side and attempted to wrap the thin train-issued pillow around her head. She glared at the peacefully sleeping form of Vinyl Scratch. The moment they’d decided to go to sleep, she’d pulled on a pair of enchanted music-playing earmuffs and dropped off. Lyra had been drifting away in warm cottony thoughts when they were so rudely interrupted by the train crashing into a volcanic eruption—or at least, that’s what Raindrops had initially sounded like. Lyra had spent much of the next three hours trying to find the exactly perfect metaphor for Raindrops snores.
Lyra whickered in frustration and sat up in the bed. She glared at Raindrops, wishing for deadly eyebeams, or at least enchantment-of-silence-inducing ones. She slid to the floor and slipped out of the compartment. The dining car would most likely be deserted at this hour; maybe she could grab a couple of hours of sleep there before the next stop.
She walked down three cars of the gently swaying train. As she approached the door to the dining car, she heard a faint music from within. An ethereal, mournful sound, in her sleep-deprived state it made her briefly wonder whether the evil snore ghost had a more musical friend.
She opened the door of the car to see it was nearly empty; one pony stood in the middle of the floor, engrossed in something between her front hooves. As she was facing away from Lyra, the unicorn couldn’t see what it was. The strange pony had a coat of grayish-cyan and a white tail with mint-colored highlights. She had neither horn nor wings, but she was more lightly built than most earth ponies; judging by the shimmer of her coat and tail, she was most likely one of the crystal ponies of the far north.
As Lyra finished sliding open the door, the crystal pony turned toward her, revealing a cutie mark of a heart-shaped spider web with glistening, jewel-like droplets of dew suspended in it. The haunting music trembled into silence.
“Uh, hi,” said Lyra. “Sorry.”
The crystal pony shook her head. “My practice didn’t disturb you, did it?” she asked. Her voice was soft and curiously flat.
“No,” said Lyra. “My friend’s snoring was keeping me up. I didn’t think anypony would be here, so I was going to try to take a
nap…”
“Sorry,” said the crystal pony. “I can never seem to sleep on trains, and I also thought no one would be here, so I thought I’d get some practicing done. I will go elsewhere.”
“No,” said Lyra. “It’s okay.” She stepped into the room. “You’re very good; I didn’t recognize the piece, but I could feel the tension in the way the strings were distorted, the slight giddiness of the bells, and the underlying frustration in the rest of the percussive voices.”
The crystal pony smiled shyly. “That sort of thing’s easy with a crystaphone.”
Lyra shook her head, looking at the multibranched hexagonal crystal between the other pony’s hooves, visible now that Lyra was farther in the room. To the untrained eye it looked like a rock, albeit a pretty one, but Lyra knew it was a musical instrument, painstakingly grown from the emotion-reflecting crystal that gave the Crystal Empire its name and the crystal ponies their unique appearance. “No it’s not!” she countered. “It takes real skill to get a crystaphone to sound like an instrument at all, let alone multiple different ones, and tying different emotions to each?”
The other mare bowed slightly. “You know your crystaphone. I’m impressed.”
Lyra shrugged. “When I was a little filly, my parents took me to see a crystaphone concert in Canterlot. For weeks after, all I wanted was to play like that mare did. My mother finally tracked down an instrument shop that had one, and I tried it out. Closest I ever got to music sounded like a duck being eaten by wild cat-tubas.” She giggled slightly as she imagined a cat-tuba. “Not long after, I discovered the lyre, and, well…” She turned slightly and gestured with her tail at the lyre on her flank.
“The emotional control is one of the hardest parts,” the other mare agreed. “I’m Carda,” by the way. She held out a hoof.
Lyra shook her hoof. “Lyra. Are you going to the Jackelope Valley Festival?” Carda nodded, and Lyra smiled. “I’m glad. It’ll be good to have a real, professional crystaphonist there.”
“What do you mean?” Carda asked politely.
Lyra gestured vaguely with a hoof. She felt slightly cotton-brained, unsurprising given that it was about three in the morning after a long day of traveling with no sleep. “You know what I mean, not just that crystalcore stuff. Not that there’s anything wrong with it, but, you know it’s all passion and noise. No technique, no artistry.”
“Ah,” said Carda. “Yes, so I’ve heard.” She paused a moment. “You mentioned going to a concert when you were young, do you remember who it was?”
Lyra nodded. “Her name was Psyche something.”
“Ah, Psyche Chorde,” said Carda. “I thought it might be her. There’s not that many crystaphone masters who’ve been to Equestria.” She ran a hoof along one of the branches of the crystal. It glowed softly at her touch, and a soft, clear, flutelike tone filled the air.
“That was it it!” said Lyra.
“It’s a funny coincidence,” said Carda. “You know, a crystaphone are made of living crystal. It never stops growing, and every so often you have to trim it. I grew this one from a trimming of Psyche’s.”
“Really!” said Lyra. “That’s amazing! Were you a fan of hers? I still listen to the recording of that concert sometimes. It’s not quite the same, but still so good.”
Carda smiled and turned her full attention to the instrument. “Grandam was good.” Her hooves moved with blinding speed, tapping some branches, stroking others. Music swelled from the instrument, powerful and insistent. Ominous, fast-moving viols, just slightly distorted, laid down a simple, repetitive harmony while cellos, redolent with old pain, swelled above them. Something between bells and a drum beat insistently, adding urgency and energy to the blend, while brasslike voices pompously proclaimed tragic triumph. It was the burning of Jackelope Valley from the ballad Lyra had played earlier that day, but where Lyra had used a touch of spellson to create images of destruction and devastation, Carda’s rendition achieved the same effect with the magic of her instrument alone.
She broke off her playing and turned back to Lyra. “I’m better.”
Lyra struggled to pick her jaw back up off the floor. “That was… wow.”
Carda grinned. “Congratulations. You just got a private concert from the greatest crystaphonist in the world.” She picked up her instrument and walked to the far end of the dining car. “I’ve practiced enough for the night. I’m going back to my compartment to get some reading done.”
As the door slid shut behind Carda, Lyra thought, Wow, ego much? Okay, she’s good. Really, really good. But even Trixie just claims to be ‘Great and Powerful,’ not greatest in the world.
She slumped in a booth, suddenly overwhelmed with exhaustion. Whatever. Music over, sleep time now.
----
Lyra woke with a start as the train lurched to a halt, brakes hissing. She blinked sleepily; was somebody calling her name?
She glanced out the window, stretching painfully. Her back and rear legs were not appreciative of her attempt to sleep in the cramped booth. Something caught her eye, and she stood looking for a moment, trying to figure out what about the view was important.
“Lyra!” someone shouted from far enough away that she could only faintly hear it.
“Dodge Junction Station,” she read aloud from the sign. Her eyes widened. “Dodge Junction!”
She ran for the door to the second-class cars and nearly collided with Raindrops.
“There you are!” said Raindrops. “I’ve been looking everywhere! What were you doing here?”
“I--" started Lyra.
“Doesn’t matter. Come on, grab your stuff! We’ve got to go!”
Two minutes of frantic scrambling later, Lyra stood on the Dodge Junction platform, Raindrops on one side of her and Vinyl Scratch on the other. Lyra and Raindrops had their bags, while Vinyl Scratch was again levitating a sphere of assorted sound equipment twice her size.
“Why do you even have that stuff?” asked Raindrops.
Vinyl Scratch gave her an odd look. “Um, because I’m a DJ?”
“No, it’s a good question,” said Lyra. “Do the techs really need to bring their own equipment? I would have thought the festival provides it.”
“Oh, well,” said Vinyl. She laughed nervously. “I mean, they do, but… you never know, right? Better safe than sorry.”
Raindrops narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “That’s a little--"
The train whistle cut her off. A moment later, the train began to pull away, beginning its long journey back to Canterlot.
“We should get moving,” said Vinyl Scratch. “The train to the valley’s in only fifteen minutes, and we have to go through the station to reach the platform.”
“Fine,” said Raindrops. She looked around, scratching the back of her head with one hoof. “Phew, is it always this… dry here? Makes my coat…” she trailed off, staring at something behind Vinyl Scratch.
“Mare, if you think this is bad, wait until the valley,” Vinyl answered.
Lyra turned to see what Raindrops was looking at. Standing on the platform a couple of cars down were four mares: two pegasi, one carrying a guitar and the other several percussion instruments, one unicorn carrying another guitar, and Carda.
“Omigosh omigosh omigosh,” squeed Raindrops, attempting to hide behind Lyra. “It’s them!”
Oh no, thought Lyra. No no no. She felt a blush spreading across her face. After what I said last night… don’t tell me Carda is—
Raindrops continued to stare. “Oh man, we just rode a train with the Daughters of Discord and I didn’t even KNOW!”