//------------------------------// // The Show // Story: Different Circles // by Anonymous Pegasus //------------------------------// “Vinyl?!” Octavia asked in a stunned whisper, wide-eyed. She was backstage at the talent show where she was to showcase her talents with the piano and, hopefully, earn her cutie mark. Somehow, though, Vinyl was there as well! “That’s my name,” Vinyl said with a grin, adjusting her glasses. “What are you doing here?!” Octavia hissed, looking around for a moment to make sure no one else had noticed her. “Came to watch you play,” Vinyl stated calmly, shrugging. “Trying one last-ditch effort to make you play a different instrument, doomed to fail.” Octavia splayed her ears at that, and then shook her head. Her tone was quiet as she corrected, “I only play the piano.” “But do you enjoy the piano?” Vinyl asked, raising a brow. “This isn’t exactly the time for this conversation!” the earth pony hissed in response. “I go on stage in fifteen minutes!” Vinyl looked Octavia up and down for a moment, and then shrugged. “Hey, no sweat, Octy. It’s your choice.” “Do not call me that!” Octavia hissed. “It’s a cute name,” Vinyl said with a sly grin. “Why are you so adamant about making me play a different instrument?” Octavia asked, scowling. “Because...because...” the young unicorn sighed faintly, shaking her head, sitting down and peering at Octavia for a long moment. “I guess...I guess I want you to play something different because I can see you don’t like the piano. You don’t...well...I can’t explain it. But...You don’t play music on the piano. You just make sounds. Sure, it’s a tune...but it’s not music. It’s just...noise. Real music should come from the heart. I know that I want to make music that everypony can enjoy. But you’re not playing the piano for anypony. You’re trying to make music to make music. I...I can’t explain it. But I know that the piano isn’t right for you. It isn’t your instrument.” Vinyl trailed off, shaking her head. “I...don’t know how to explain what I feel.” “I can explain it,” Octavia said coldly, her eyes narrowing. “You’re jealous of my talent with the piano and you’re trying to make me pick another instrument I’m no good at so that I’ll fail, because you can’t stand that a pony that doesn’t fit in with your kind can be better than you!” The young unicorn recoiled at Octavia’s tone, and the stinging words, her own tone meek as she replied quietly, “No...no it’s not that.” “Yes it is that, Vinyl. Music doesn’t come from the heart. It comes from sheets. Or do you expect me to believe what you say over my teachers? You expect me to believe some riff-raff pony who can’t even choose an instrument? As though you know music better than them?!” she shrilled, insulted. Vinyl recoiled further, and turned her head away, shaking it slowly. “I...I guess you’re not the pony I thought you were...” “No. I’m not. I’m a pianist,” Octavia stated flatly, her top lip curling upwards, nose lifting. “What is that doing here?” Octavia’s father asked as he came backstage. “She was just leaving,” Octavia said coldly, turning her head. Vinyl sighed softly, and turned, beginning to walk away from the two ponies with her head lowered, tears glimmering on her cheeks, trickling down from under her glasses. “Now go out there and make me proud. Live up to your family name, Octavia,” her father said, squeezing her shoulder gently. Octavia nodded, squaring her shoulders and walking up the stairs and on to the stage, making her way over to the piano. Octavia sat at the piano, her hooves dancing over the keys in perfect form, brows knitted in concentration. She had to get this perfect. Perfect. It was what she was born to do. Ever since she was a foal, she had been fascinated with her fathers piano. The sounds it could make with the gentle press of a key. The soft chiming of a beautiful melody. It was perfection. She remembered her first time at the piano, just pressing the keys one after the other and loving the notes they produced. She could make a tiny little song, all her own. She could transcribe the beat of a butterflies wings to musical notes. The beat of running hooves to song. Octavia’s gaze shifted to the crowd. She could see her mother in the front row, smiling, misty-eyed as she watched her daughter, proud. And her father standing off to one side of the stage, his head lifted, watching her play with a smile on his face. And then her gaze found Vinyl, in the back row, drawn to the unicorns gaze for some reason. Her glasses were up, and even at a distance, Octavia could see the tears in her eyes. She looked sad, hurt. But most of all, she looked disappointed. Disappointed in the perfect performance being put on. Octavia’s hoofs faltered in their keys, and a jarring note rang out. She tried to correct for it, but fumbled again, and a ripple of whispers passed through the crowd. The young earth ponies hooves came to a slow stop as she saw Vinyl stand up, turn, and then walk away, her head lowered, dejected. The entire room was silent, and it was in that moment that Octavia realised that she had flubbed the song. In front of everypony. Her hooves shook slightly as she stared down at the keys, and then closed her eyes, shaking her head slightly and trying to start over. A single teardrop fell from her closed eyes as she hit the wrong keys again. It wasn’t working. A hoof touched at her shoulder gently, and she looked up with a sniffle at her father. The unicorn looked down at her, shaking his head softly, urging her to get up from the piano. Octavia acquiesced, rising from the seat and walking offstage to a chorus of whispers and suppressed laughs from ponies delighting in her failure. And then she was backstage again, and a new pony was on stage, playing the trombone in a slow melody. Octavia had failed. After all was said and done, the piano was not her instrument. She had folded under pressure. The young earth pony fled into the back of the hall, to where the instruments were stored, away from the disappointment of her parents and the accusing laughter of the crowd. She had managed to disappoint what was in truth her only friend, and her parents, in the same evening. Octavia found herself leaning against a piano, old and forgotten, covered in dust. Gently, she pushed up the cover on the keys, revealing the smooth white and black levers that produced sound. Gently, she pressed down on a key, listening to the soft, happy hum from the old piano. Vinyl claimed that music came from the heart. Real music came from the heart. And all that was in her heart was sadness. She wanted to make the piano cry for her. But all she could do was play the first few notes of a song she had learned. Vinyl was right. The piano wasn’t her instrument. She was just an automaton pressing the keys. And she couldn’t even do that correctly. She slammed the lid of the piano down and turned away from it in disgust, turning away. The young pony nudged a large instrument as she did so, and automatically reached out to grab it. It was massive, larger than herself by a good deal. It was like an oversized fiddle. A cello, if she remembered correctly. Vinyl had taught her to play one briefly, in the whirlwind exploration of the different instruments. A bow lay besides the instrument, old, but still serviceable. Octavia picked up the bow, and gently ran it along the strings, listening to the soft, sad sound it produced. It suited her mood. It was beautiful, but poignant. Sniffling, the young pony hefted the large instrument towards her, turning it slightly to rest its weight against her chest, and lifting the bow, drawing it across the strings to make it create the sad note again, wanting to let the sad sound soothe her. It spoke to her sadness. Octavia gently worked the bow in a long, slow arc across the strings, and then back again, letting the string vibrate. Automatically, her hoof pressed down on the string as she worked, deepening the note, exploring the boundaries of sound the instrument could create. She wanted to make the instrument weep. She wanted it to cry in pain like the pain in her heart. As tears fell from her closed eyes, she began to work the bow back and forth. And then she was playing. She was pouring her heart into the notes. Some of them were wrong. She wasn’t sure what she was doing. But with each mistake, she made the melody better. She fixed the problems and moved on. She wasn’t playing for the audience, for her family, or for Vinyl. She was playing for herself. The imperfections became her. She was a broken melody, like the broken notes in the song she created. She was a pianist who couldn’t even play the piano. Octavia poured her heart into the song. She made the cello weep for her, made it cry tears of music until the old bow broke and the melody terminated halfway through. And then the earth pony let the cello fall to the side with a crash, burying her face in her hooves and crying. Something was wrong. Silence. Complete silence. And a ripple of voices. The strings of the cello were still vibrating from its short fall to the floor, and Octavia only then became aware of the silence. It was always quiet in the back room. But this, this was different. This was wrong. There was no echo of music from the stage, no cheering of the crowd or hum of conversation. It was deathly quiet as though the entire hall had been vacated, as though the old building was holding its breath. Octavia didn’t know how long she’d played the cello for. But it couldn’t have been long enough for everyone to have gone home, could it? And then, came a soft ‘clop’. And then another, and another. Octavia heard the soft sounds of clapping, and turned her head away. Mocking claps. Obviously somepony had heard her ‘music’ and come down to make fun of her failure. But then came more clapping, and more. And then a ripple of sound, and cheers. Octavia opened her eyes, bewildered, staring towards the door. Sometime during her impromptu performance, a crowd had made its way to the back rooms, following the sound of her music. There were tons of them. Half of the ponies in the building must have been there! And they were clapping, and cheering for her. Some of them even had tears in their eyes. Octavia was confused. Her father pushed his way through the crowd of ponies, and came to her side, staring down at her, his expression unreadable. “I-I’m sorry father...” she whispered brokenly. “I-I can’t play the piano...I failed.” Her father nodded, and gathered her up in a hug, gently nuzzling against the side of her cheek soothingly. “It is fine, Octavia...Maybe...Maybe you are the first of the family who are destined for another instrument.” She heard a note of disappointment in his tone, and she could only stare up at him as he drew back. A pony pressed forwards from the crowd, and tentatively moved towards her, offering her a bow. Octavia stared up the pony, not sure what was going on, confused and drained. “Take it,” her father said gently, and then waved a hoof at the crowd. “They want to hear you finish your song.” Octavia stared up at her father, and sniffled slightly, trying to wipe her tears away with a hoof, taking the bow uncertainly. “B-but...the p-piano...” Her father shook his head sadly for a moment, before saying gently, “Your cutie mark begs to differ.” The young earth pony blinked in surprise, and then looked back at her own flank n a sort of disjointed trance, observing her own cutie mark that had appeared sometime between her coming into the back room and playing the cello. Octavia then turned to the cello, righting it with a push of her hooves. She laid the bow gently on the strings, drew it back and forth in a test note. Vinyl had been right. The piano wasn’t her instrument. And she had insulted the unicorn for her troubles. Vinyl had seen what Octavia herself could not. And that was how she had been repayed. Octavia sniffled slightly, and then began to play, letting her heart tell her the notes.