"No Pinkie."
"Aww, come ooooon!"
"I said no Pinkie."
"Pleeeeeease?"
"It's still no Pinkie."
"I'll give you all the sugar free treats you can eat!!!"
"You've been doing that anyway."
"Aw come on now sugarcube. It'll help you get ready for when yer performin' later. If'n ya can't do it in front of a few of us how do ya reckon you'll be able to do it in front a all those ponies there?"
"Why do you keep calling everyone sugarcube?"
"Why shouldn't I? Now stop bein' so ornery about this and just do it!"
"Yes mistress Applejack," I said grumpily.
When the sputtering from her and Rarity, for some reason, had finished, I began to do an a Capella rendition of Everything is Beautiful by Ray Stevens. Yes the same Ray Stevens who sung The Streak. If you don't know what that is then you're missing out. It's pretty damn funny. The song that I was singing was way more gospelly though, if that's even a word. Pinkie just wanted me to sing something from the concert I was going to perform and I just didn't want to ruin anything by singing it too early so I sung that as a compromise.
It was to be a precursor to my little performance at Canterlot Hall. I ended up discussing the few ideas I had come up with between myself, Twilight, and the rest of the gang after we had assembled at the library. After shooting down most of them, especially the one she realized might cause property damage, we came to an agreement that I would put on a show that would give them all a taste of music found on Earth. The rest of the chat basically came down to the content of said songs. We hit a bit of a snag for a bit because when I went to explain some songs, we would end up with everyone bursting into song despite the fact that I knew there was no way they had those references in pony culture, had those lyrics ingrained in their minds, or had even heard of some of the words I ended up singing. In fact, I almost had to knock myself out when I ended up dangerously close to singing Gangster's Paradise. That would've been a real downer for them to hear, though I did think about singing Amish Paradise later instead.
Despite the issues, I managed to cobble together a playlist to perform. Twilight was about to send this off to Celestia, but I put the kibosh on that. If she is making me do this against my wishes, then she is not going to get informed about what to expect. Of course, she still told Celestia about part of it after I left. How did I find this out? Well she came by my place that night during some... interesting events and that's really all I'm going to say about it. After the entire thing that went on that night, Twilight actually slept on the couch saying that it was unusually comfortable. I can attest to that, but no matter how I asked her she wouldn't tell me why she slept on my couch instead of heading back home. Eventually, I just came to the conclusion that she was too tired to head back to her place and just crashed there. The things that poor mare saw and heard that night probably had something to do with it, but I just really didn't want to touch the subject.
After I found her that morning and fed her some breakfast, I'm not going to be a bad host after all, I escorted her out of the house and to my horror I found that my entire house had been colored pink with purple polka dots. There was also a note on a window sill that read 'Celestia was here'. It was an interesting choice of retaliation if I do say so. A bit more of an escalation than I expected though. I just decided to play it off and I managed to do so with the help of a little chaos magic. A snap of my fingers later and the place looked just as it did before.
After seeing off Twilight and having her tell me when our departure time was, I headed back in and... Well, I did abso-fucking-lutely nothing. Not every moment of one's life is going to be interesting and I am even less interesting than the normal person. All I really did for the next several hours was eat some breakfast, play some games, fine tune my song list for the program, eat some lunch, and play some more games. Even in a faraway land full of magical, talking ponies I find a way to be completely mediocre.
At about four o'clock, Rarity showed up with my outfit for the evening. I did complain for a little bit about having to wear the thing prior to arriving since I hate wearing things that are uncomfortable, but it was rendered a moot point since this was Rarity who made it and it was still rather comfortable to wear. 'It' being a rather fancy black tuxedo with a deep blue bow tie. It came in a set with a white silk undershirt and matching black pants that felt rather comfy. It took a bit of getting used to the full length sleeves, but I got buttoned at the cuffs and it worked out fine. The bow tie, however, was something I couldn't do on my own.
I never liked ties. Not a single bit. They're basically a piece of fabric that wraps around your neck. My neck is pretty sensitive already and having something wrapped around it feels like a form of torture to me. Nothing really feels good on my neck, but at least some clothing feels less terrible enough for me to push through it, but a tie is out of the question. The problem was that Rarity would have none of it. I would either put the tie on, or she would put it on for me. Well, I was stubborn enough that it actually degenerated to the latter option... Which probably worked out better since because I had done nothing with ties in the past she was able to tie it up for me. Fuck, man, even with the nice material she made it out of it was still very uncomfortable. At least I managed to talk her into letting that stay untied until I arrived there because I was about to start spasming with that thing on. That whole fiasco took around forty five minutes and we both left for the train depot right afterwards.
I'm pretty sure that Rarity was parading me through town to boot. I told her that I was fine teleporting to the train station and she responded by saying that it would be much too early for us to arrive there. While I let it go since she hadn't dressed up herself, I couldn't help but feel pony eyes upon me as we went through the town making the whole thing at least a bit suspect. I honestly felt more this way since she brought me to the library and then she 'suddenly' remembered to grab her outfit for the evening back home. I gave her a look that told her what I thought of that excuse, but she brushed it off like a pro and headed off in what I can only assume was the direction of Carousel Boutique.
I didn't feel like going inside so I just created a large parasol and just stood there underneath it waiting for someone to come and get me. About half an hour later I was getting a little concerned about the time we were taking. The whole shebang started at eight and it was about five thirty at the time. It took about two hours to get to Canterlot by train and that meant that we had to leave pretty soon to get there on time. There was very little leeway for anyone to be given for this.
By a quarter til six, I had had enough. I teleported myself straight to the train station to just see if I could get on the train. It turned out that everyone was waiting for me there. Apparently, Discord had gotten permission from the others to come get me ready, which no one told me just how he was able to do it. The fact that he disguised himself as Rarity was not part of what they discussed though. However, just because he's not a hundred percent willing to do whatever he asked he took me to the library instead of the train station because why not? We were barely able to make it on the train before it departed.
Most of my time on the train was spent having a nice talk with Spike. I hadn't quite interacted with him any since he had gotten his memories returned to him like the others so now that things seemed to have settled down between me and the others he decided to ask me some questions. For some reason, though, a lot of them were the same questions from before. In retrospect I believe that was asking about it because the two of us barely had any interaction last time as well. Why was that? I remember people always complaining about Spike not getting a lot of respect, but it really kind of felt like he was a ghost; not really being noticed until he was needed or did something noteworthy. Kind of like me really. Weird. We were almost to the train station when he had asked about what I was going to do there since Twilight hadn't told him yet. I didn't see the harm in telling him that I would be performing some songs from my world. Pinkie Pie edged in to my conversation and wanted to hear me sing something early and here we are with me finishing singing some Ray Stevens as we pulled into the station.
"That sounded lovely dear," Rarity commented. "You should sing more songs like that."
"Eh, I don't really like gospelly songs like that. I do like other Ray Stevens songs though."
"Who's Ray Stevens?" asked Twilight.
"He just told us who Ray Stevens was!"
"Wrong side of the wall, Pinkie," I drolled out.
"Oh, right. Whoopsies!"
"Wait, what just happened?" asked Rainbow Dash.
"We just rolled into the station," I said to cut that short, "that's what."
On cue, the doors to the cabin opened up for all of us to disembark. Everyone gathered their belongings and exited while I hung back to wait on them to get off. After doing so, I took a quick look and teleported out so that I didn't bump into anyone.
"We don't have a lot of time left until the presentation begins so keep a look out for the carriage we're supposed to take," Twilight stated succinctly.
"I don't think we have that much time Twilight," I rebutted.
"Of course we do, darling. There's still over an hour before the performance is supposed to start."
"What? Celestia told me it was supposed to start twenty minutes from now at eight o'clock!"
"Not according to the official invitations that we received."
A small paper was then levitated out of the saddlebag... thing she was given by a train attendant and then placed into my hand. Sure enough, the invitation noted that the time for the performance was an hour later than when I was told.
"I swear Celestia is just trolling me on this now."
"Now, now, there was a reason for when she told you this began at the wrong time."
"That's right," Rainbow Dash added on. "We were told to keep it a secret so that Discord didn't strand you somewhere and make you miss anything."
"But- he- with- at the- and you- Why would you send him to me if you were trying to make sure he didn't stop me!?" I asked flailing my arms as I talked.
"Reverse psychology," Rainbow answered as she flew right up into my face to tell me.
I was honestly too stunned to come up with an argument to that. It just baffled me to no end. Seriously, why did that happen? Why would they send the guy that they made plans to go around straight to me? That's just counterproductive. That started giving me a headache so I just dropped it and moved on with the others who had spotted the carriage during my bout with mental issues.
"So, Seth, did you finalize the list of songs that you're going to sing?" asked Twilight.
"Yes I did," I replied as I snapped my fingers and a list appeared in my hand.
"I'm not really sure showing me this list of yours really matters. I doubt I know any of these songs at all."
I looked at the list for a moment before shrugging.
"I suppose that's true."
I watched as everyone started filing into a large carriage. It looked like one of those carriages that you see in fairy tales. White with gold trim, about twenty feet long, massive gold painted wheels, and six ponies hooked up to the front to pull it. I can't believe how redundant that is. Ponies are basically hooked up to a wagon to pull ponies. I don't even see a driver. I wouldn't even bring that up if it weren't for the fact that there was a seat on the front for one. Why would there be a seat for a driver if the ponies hauling the carriage are already aware of the destination and any problems? The whole trip just to get there is giving me a Rita Repulsa-sized headache!
At this point, I decide not to get in the carriage and instead head up to the bench in the front. There's a bit of a surprised murmur that came from the stallions who were pulling the whole shebang. I wasn't really surprised, but I tuned it out as Spike climbed up right next to me.
"You'd think ponies would be used to me by now," I half grumbled out of irritation as the talk from the stallions got loud enough to hear easily.
"Hey, it took a while for ponies to get used to me too," Spike added trying to get me to let it go.
"Yeah, I don't really know about that. Hey guys!" I yelled to them; getting there attention. "I know you're a bit weirded out by me, but I doubt that Princess Celestia is going to take it very well if you don't bring us all to the hall on time."
Upon hearing that, they ceased the chatter and started along.
"Princess Celestia wouldn't be that cross with them."
"I know that and you know that, but I doubt that they've hung around the princess enough to be aware of it. Besides, I don't think we should be late and mess up the whole thing."
"You know, from what Twilight said about you I thought that you would be taking this a whole lot worse that what you look like you're taking this. You know?"
"Yeah, I agree. That's because I am going to be abusing the hell out of this magic to make things go my way."
"Um, I really don't like the sound of you saying that you're going to be abusing magic. I never hear of anypony abusing magic and ending up okay in the end."
"Too true, my sorcerer's apprentice, and normally you'd be right. However, I am using chaos magic. By it's very definition it ends up doing things the opposite way of what you expect them to."
"I'm not sure that's it's definition."
"Don't be a bummer Spike. Nobody likes a bummer."
"Fine. So what are you going to oh great and powerful Seth?"
"It's simple really. I don't know why I didn't think of this sooner. I'm going to magic away my inability to stare down crowds."
"You're going to what?" Spike asked flatly.
"I'm going to use my chaos magic powers and get rid of my stage fright."
"That's your plan? Change who you are just so you can go on stage and perform in front of hundreds of ponies."
I shuddered a little at the mentioning and imagining of all those eyes staring at me.
"Yeah, that's my plan in a nutshell. Get rid of my concern for being the center of attention so that I can be the center of attention. Of course, since things don't usually go that well I expect some kind of cosmic or karmic backlash from getting away with this or just stopping me entirely.
"But of course I doubt it'll be that bad."
"Pfft. Who am I kidding? It'll be terrible, but worth it!"