Chapter Four
Happy voices filled the concert hall, flooding the rooms with lively chatter and off-key music. The sound of piano keys being smashed with heavy hooves mangled inelegantly with the trumpeting of the tubas and saxophones as ponies made their way through the crowds to get onstage for practice.
“The Manehattan Symphonic Band, first and final call.” A booming voice echoed through the foyer. A posh-looking purple pony carrying a trombone in her hooves scurried through the hall and made her way to the front of the crowd of musicians, straightening up her mane and clutching her instrument tight. She gingerly passed another group of musicians with scowls set upon their stony faces and, distracted by their glares, smacked straight into another pony.
Bam.
“Oh my; I am so sorry.” She grimaced as she felt hot blood rush to her cheeks. Extending her hoof, she helped the light grey stallion she had bumped into. Spotting the black-and-white music notes on his hip, she laughed as she realised who she’d bumped into.
“Hello, Royal Riff. It is a pleasure to see you again.” She bowed lightly to her fellow member, and he did the same in turn.
“Indeed a pleasure, Lyrica Lilac.” He uttered in a muffled rich, operatic tone of voice that he reserved for onstage performances. Gripping some sheet music in his mouth, he gestured for Lyrica to come through the side of the curtains. She followed cautiously and clumsily, holding her trombone with one hoof and walking on the remaining three. Suddenly, a grey pegasus with hair the colour of sweet honey stepped in front of her, blocking her path.
“How many is in your group?” The sharply dressed, cross-eyed grey mare asked Lyrica before she had the opportunity to follow her friend.
“Oh, uh…” She paused, struggling to think. Damn nerves! She sat back on her haunches and counted the ponies on her hooves, naming them as she went. “There’s me, Royal Riff, Noteworthy and Octavia. That makes four.” She concluded, nodding to herself. “Four ponies in all.”
“Four, you say?” The grey mare repeated, staring down at the paper in her hoof with her right eye as the other wandered. Lyrica couldn’t help but stare at the pony’s abnormal condition. The pegasus’s good eye caught the gaze of Lyrica Lilac’s own, and she blushed profusely at having been caught staring. The pegasus brushed off the awkwardness with a small smile.
“Odd. There are only three of you up there. Walk on stage and tell me, who’s the fourth missing?”
Lyrica nodded shyly and proceeded to enter from backstage, onto the wooden platform before her. The deep clip-clop of her hooves on the hard wood made her stomach do flips, and when she looked up at the ceiling, and the grand golden chandelier, with such intricate designs of sheet music in the gold, hanging from the railings above… It made her feel sick to her stomach. She lowered her ears and focused her eyes on the cold wooden stage.
“Who’s missing?” The grey mare repeated, one amber eye focused on Lyrica while the other stared in the opposite direction. Lyrica shook her nausea out of her mind and stared at the group; Noteworthy waved excitedly from the middle of the stage and Royal Riff nodded politely to her, sitting at his piano with sheet music in front of him. The spot onstage that was reserved for the second earth pony mare and her cello was nowhere in sight.
“I guess… I guess Octavia’s missing. Octavia Melody.”
“Musician horses…” The grey mare muttered under her breath. She shook her head and extended her wings, flapping them in agitation as she spoke. She picked up the radio attached to her belt with her clumsy hooves and mumbled into the receiver. As she did so, the same booming voice she had heard in the foyer echoed even louder through the performance area.
“Octavia Melody, you are requested on stage. Octavia Melody, you are requested on stage.”
Lyrica cantered up to her ensemble as the announcement rang through the building and plonked her instrument beside Noteworthy and his harp.
“You don’t suppose you’ve seen Octavia, have you?” She whispered to the blue stallion beside her.
“I’m afraid not, no.” He denied, shrugging his shoulders. He then gestured pointedly to the organiser on stage and mumbled something about being a mailmare in some feeble attempt to gossip, but his words were drowned out by the announcement of another musical ensemble.
“Sorry, ladies and gentlecolts. You’ll have to practice another time before the show.” The organiser turned to the group and ushered in the next performance, and the group was hurried offstage onto the seats.
“Next time, I suggest you make sure you have all members of your group here on time.” She stated, not unkindly, but with a tone that suggested she was growing weary with the turmoil of the day. Lyrica Lilac suspected that this was not the first slip-up she'd experienced today.
“I’m so sorry, Miss…” Noteworthy started, holding his harp in his hooves and plucking a string. He squinted to see the nametag on the young mare’s outfit. “Miss Hooves,” he began again, “I assure you Octavia is in this building. I saw her walk in when I just arrived.”
“You really should find her, then.” Miss Hooves clicked her tongue and, with a swish of her tail, turned back to the steely-eyed group of musicians now on centre-stage. The rust-coloured unicorn stallion with a bass in his forelegs shot a glare at Lyrica, and she slunk back down the aisle. His emerald eyes fell back on his instrument and he began to play, and the anger she was confronted with flowed through the music and fell on Lyrica’s ears like gryphons’ talons on a chalkboard. She cringed; the music may have sounded lovely to most, but she certainly wasn’t a fan.
"Thank Celestia I don’t need to hear the rest of this awful music." She thought to herself absent-mindedly, waltzing away from the crowd.
-
Lyrica made her way back to the main foyer with her instrument on her back and kicked open the heavy wooden doors with her powerful back-legs; carrying around a trombone certainly did wonders for the muscles in her legs, although the original instrument she had mastered still held a special place in her heart – and her cutie mark. A golden harp was plastered on her rump; it was such a shame Noteworthy played the harp better than she could. Shaking away the thought, she cantered inconspicuously through the sea of musicians waiting to be called to perform and called her missing friend’s name as her eyes darted back and forth, looking for her elegantly coiffed dark mane in a herd of formal hairstyles and well-groomed tails. Her purple eyes shone in the bright lights of the hall as upper-class musicians dragged their instruments across the room and sang in revoltingly loud, screeching voices, and she swept another glance around the room. Then, her eyes met a familiar unicorn mare.
“Lyra Heartstrings, my dear! It’s a pleasure to see you once more.” She said, trotting over and vigorously shaking her hoof. The mare stared in confusion for a second, when recognition washed over her face as their eyes met.
“Lyrica, right? Lovely to see you again.” Lyra replied happily, placing her own hooves over Lyrica’s and squeezing in a friendly fashion. The mint green pony levitated a golden lyre above the two and dropped it in front of her acquaintance.
“I see you’re performing tonight, as well.”
“Indeed, I am." Lyrica nodded in response, but paused when she remembered the practice. "At least, we should be. But we’ve seemingly misplaced one of our band members!” She added, laughing nervously with her hoof over her mouth. She removed it and discovered she’d accidentally wiped some lipstick off her muzzle – she turned around quickly and wiped it casually on the floor before looking around to make sure nopony was watching her. She smiled at Lyra awkwardly, and Lyra laughed a little out of pity. Lyrica wasn't as dignified as her looks would let on.
“You’re missing someone?”
“Octavia Melody. Nobody knows where she’s gone.” Lyrica shrugged, a new air of poise overcoming her as she brushed off her incident. Upon hearing the name, Lyra’s nose crinkled and she looked down at the marble floors with an emotion in her eyes that Lyrica didn’t recognise.
“She’s missing, you say? What a shame.” Lyra looked up and narrowed her golden eyes. Suddenly, she picked up her lyre and headed through the herd of musicians, with nothing but a wave of her hoof and a silent goodbye, leaving Lyrica somewhat dumbfounded. She decided to follow her, slipping in and out through the mass of stomping hooves and crashing bodies until she broke free of the herd and found herself in the hall, leading to the dressing rooms of all the performing ensembles. It was narrow, far too narrow for her liking, and she noticed the lack of art on the walls; a stark contrast to the overly-decorated foyer behind her. The floor was still made of marble, but it was cracked and broken and she sniffed the floor, to find a large chunk of marble missing from under the elongated dirty rug, with knotted marigold tassels embroidered on the shortest sides.
She wondered if there were more crumbling walls and floors in other places of the building, ones where the public rarely saw.
-
Lyra Heartstrings stumbled drearily through a cream-coloured door marked “HEARTSTRINGS” in gold lettering, tripping on her own clumsy hooves, and placed her instrument down on the floor. She took a quick look at her dressing room before she curled up on the tacky tangerine rug, sighing heavily. She had no intentions of meeting that awful earth pony again, not after she was snubbed in the streets earlier that day. Octavia treated both her and her mare-friend poorly, and her arrogance as she stumbled away told her that she wouldn’t be expecting an apology, should she run into her again. Confrontations like that… it was just too exhausting.
Maybe if I stay in here the whole night, I won’t have to face her. She pondered the thought, playing with the strings on her delicate golden lyre.
It was a tempting thought, to avoid another embarrassing scene like the one she'd experienced in the early morning, but she couldn’t go through with it. A chance to perform at the Canterlot Concert Hall was simply too important for her career as a musician to miss, regardless of how unpleasant the company may be. Canterlot was a massive hub of activity, and only the best of the best made it in the fair city. It was finally her turn, and she wasn’t going to let the opportunity slip through her hooves!
She dashed into the small, fairly bare wooden closet in search of her purple performance dress. Golden magic spewed from her horn as she went through article after article of clothing for the dress she was promised would be hanging in the wardrobe when she arrived, but to no avail. She threw her head back in frustration, letting her magic go in a sudden burst and tossing the clothes aside. Suddenly, there was a delicate knock on her door.
“If that’s you, Lyrica, I’m pretty busy right now. We can talk after the concert ends.” The light green unicorn yelled out in the direction of the door, before enchanting the lock with a flick of her horn. The doorknob was illuminated with a bright amber colour for a fraction of a second before fading away like breath on a cold winter morning.
“Who’s Lilac?” A familiar voice replied from the other side and drifted into Lyra’s perky ears. It was a bittersweet tone that she could recognise anywhere.
“Oh, is that you Bonbon? I’m so sorry; here, let me get that for you…” She opened the door with another piece of enchantment and welcomed her marefriend into the dressing room, and the two met in a gentle, affectionate nuzzle of noses. She gazed lovingly into the visitor’s sugary eyes and felt tears of empathy well up in her own.
“You’re so sentimental - it’s adorable.” Bonbon cooed, running her hoof down Lyra’s mane and gazing at the mare’s crinkled eyes.
“You’re pretty cute yourself.” Lyra chirped back, feeling her face flush hotly. She was thankful ponies had a thin layer of fur to hide when they blushed like she did. They’d been an item for countless moons, and Bonbon still managed to make her blush like a schoolfilly with a crush; it was almost embarrassing to the young unicorn how hard and fast she had fallen for the earth pony. They had been reacquainted after she had moved back from Canterlot to her home town; they’d known each other since filly-school, but Lyra had moved with her parents to the high-class city for their work, and she’d been grateful when she had the opportunity to move back to the simple town of Ponyville where she had grown up. She and her old friend Bonbon had moved in almost immediately, and she’d stolen the mare’s newfound heart with her kind, gentle nature and reserved personality. She was floored when her feelings were reciprocated, and she thanked Celestia that Bonbon felt the same way about her.
“Are you there?” Bonbon’s calming voice shook Lyra out of her daydream, and she found herself still clutching to the candy-coloured mare in a lovesick haze.
“Sorry.” Lyra smiled back, sheepishly. Bonbon only laughed; she had come to expect this behaviour from the relatively eccentric unicorn. She would never admit it, but she was rather fond of the way Lyra acted when it came to her. Lyra could be very brash, but she would soften her words and eyes in a way only shown to Bonbon, and she was grateful for it.
“I just came to wish you well before the concert, my dear.” Bonbon relinquished her grip on the green unicorn and shook the curls in her mane back in place before sweeping a glance around the ransacked room.
“Thanks; I think I may need it.” Lyra groaned, standing back and rubbing her head with her hooves.
“Shouldn’t you be getting ready?” Bonbon asked, wrinkling up her nose in a way she thought was cute. Lyra wasn’t going to be the one to disagree.
“Well, yes,” Lyra admitted, “But I can’t find my gown. Mind helping me look?”
“It would be my pleasure!”