I'm the kind of pony that wants to show off, but gets nervous when it comes to the real deal. If you haven't noticed already. Being the best I can and proving it are on two different sides of the scale here, and I find it hard to balance the two. Being told that I had to perform on stage, in front of my friends, and a great deal of PonyVille was enough to make me feel lightheaded.
What if I fainted on stage? What if I lost my voice and made a fool of myself, just standing there with an open mouth, knees buckling with fear? These were my worst of fears that day, and the warm smiles of my fellow musicians wasn't enough to lay my hay.
Rhythm had trotted onto the small stage and folded her wings, blinking at me expectantly. Vinyl sauntered off to engineer the sound a little more, if that was possible, while Sweetie Bell, Lyra, and Octavia waited for me to go ahead and join the pretty pegasus already waiting.
My heart had felt like a heavy weight in my chest, and I pushed myself to slip over beside her, unable to meet the gaze of anyone in the crowd, eyes glued to my hooves. I felt the soft brush of Sweetie Bell's flank against mine, and she blinked gently at me.
"I have to do this in front of the CMC!" She said, forcing a smile. "Without getting embarrassed too."
I had snickered gently and nuzzled her, lifting my head finally and staring over the happy ponies here to listen to our music. My anxiety had floated away when I realized none of them looked angry, and none were laughing at me or the others. I could see my friends too, looking proud. Proud of.... me.
The music started behind me, a faint backing track from the speakers, the gentle pull of the lyre, followed by the cello. I could hear Rhythm tapping her hoof gently to the beat.
"High rise, veins of the avenue, bright eyes and suttle variations of blue." she softly sang, never pulling her honey gold gaze away from the crowd.
As you can probably imagine, I was getting more and more tense. I'd never sung this song! I knew parts of it, it was something me and the others had put together. But I could barely remember what I sang and when, so I felt as rigid as a statue as Sweetie Bell sang the next line.
"Everywhere, is balanced there, like a rainbow above you." she hummed gently, staring at me. Had she mean't me? "Street lights, glisten on the boulevard, and cold nights make staying alert so hard!"
Rhythm had pressed up against me, ushering me to remember what came after her lines. "For heavens sake, keep me awake, so I wont be caught off guard. Clearly I am a passer by, but I'll find a place to stay. Dear pacific day, wont you take me away?"
My voice rose into my throat, and I squeezed my eyes tightly shut, then opened my mouth and sang, stopping myself from forcing the words. "Small town, hearts of the New Year, brought down by gravity crystal clear, city fog and brave dialogue converge on the frontier. Make haste, I feel your heart beat, with new taste for speed, out on the street, find a road to a humble abode, where both of our realms meet."
"The silver sound is all around," Sweetie Bell had echoed me, making up for the tension rising in my the threatened to turn my singing into an off pitch gurgle, "and the colors fall like snow. The feeling of letting go, I guess we'll never know."
Suddenly, everyone was singing. Rhythm, Sweetie Bell, Lyra, Octavia, Vinyl Scratch, and the crowd. And so was I.
"Cheer up and dry your damp eyes, tell me when it rains. And I'll blend up that rainbow above you, and shoot it through your veins! Cause your heart has a lack of color, and we should've known, that we'd grow up sooner or later, cause we wasted all our free time alone!"
I could feel my hips swaying to the music, a happiness rising in my heart and my soul that I cannot explain to you easily. A warmth on a summers day, a melody sung to me in my sleep, a kiss on my forehead, a smile through the rain. The warmth of my friends on either side of me, dancing as freely as I was, as if no-one was watching. This was like nothing I'd ever experienced before. Though flying through the clouds had once tasted like the sweetest of freedom, it didn't compare to this.
"Your nerves gather with the altitude, exhale the stress so you don't become unglued. Somewhere there, is a happy affair, a ghost of a good mood." Lyra sang as she strummed at the harp-strings. "Wide eyed, panic with the getaway, the high tide could take me so far away. VCRs, and motorcars unite on the Seventh Day. A popular gauge, will measure the rage, of the new Post-Modern-Age. Cause somewhere along the line all the decades align."
Behind me, Octavia had let her voice escape softly. "We were the crashing white caps, on the ocean, what a lovely seaside holiday away. A palm tree in Christmas lights, my emotion, struck a sparkling tone like a xylophone, as we spent the day alone."
We all began to dance, stepping off the stage and melting into the crowd. I'd greeted my friends with a smile wider than ever before. I was convinced the edges of my lips would stretch past my eyes if I didn't stop grinning. I felt my musical friends weave around me and lead us all back to the stage, and we stared up at the ceiling, singing in perfect harmony.
"Cheer up and dry your damp eyes, tell me when it rains. And I'll blend up that rainbow above you, and shoot in through your veins! Cause your heart has a lack of color, and we should've know, that we'd grow up sooner or later, cause we wasted our freetime alone!"