“Hey, Octavia, is it just me, or does this key sound a little soggy?” Spike tapped one of the keys in the music shop piano a few times. He couldn’t quite put his claw on it, but there was definitely something off.
“Hmm.” Octavia craned her neck and cocked her ear to listen more closely to the note. “I think I can hear what you’re talking about, but blast it all, piano is just not my instrument. You know, if you buy the piano, you can modify it however you want.”
Spike chuckled a bit. “Excellent sales pitch, my friend, but I’m on limited fundage at the moment until I pay back Twilight for catching her bed sheets on fire.”
“Bed sheets?” Octavia questioned him, eyebrow raised. “And how did you accomplish that?”
“She tasked me with doing the laundry. I’m a fire breathing dragon that had to sneeze. You do the math.”
“Ha, well, I see where you are coming from, Spike. In that case, just enjoy playing in the meantime. You are really quite talented, so it is a pleasure to listen to.” Octavia smiled and walked back to the shelf to resume her duties, and Spike couldn’t help but smile.
“Ahh man, she said I was talented,” he muttered to himself with a goofy grin. “Now, if only I could channel that when I play in front of larger crowds.”
Spike turned his focus back to the instrument in front of him, flipped a few pages of the sheet music he had brought from home and began playing.
He hit the first few notes well enough, though it was a bit of a stretch for him to hit both the low and high notes at the same time. By the third stanza, he’d already hit his first sour note. He winced, though he tried to keep time and focus on what was coming. It wasn’t another stanza before he’d hit his next wrong key, and as he snapped his attention to his left hand that had missed a bass note, he lost track of where his right arm was going and played three successive wrong notes. His focus torn, he lost control of the song and brought it to a halt with three more ham-handed strikes at the keys.
Spike groaned in frustration. He always hated playing on full-sized pianos because his short arms were always just too short to play with smoothly. Discouraged, he abandoned working on playing the song and started fiddling around with a few short chord progressions that he’d come up wit—
“Hey there!”
“Ahh!” Spike leapt out of his seat at the feel of a hoof tapping his shoulder. He darted his head around, seeking the cause of the disturbance. He noticed a pony with a greenish-white coat and black and blue curled mane standing next to him.
“Uh, can I help you?” Spike asked.
“Oh, sorry, I was just listening to you play. What’s the song?”
“That would be my rendition of Closure by Eskimo Callcolt. Or, well, my attempt. These big grand pianos aren’t too nice to a guy with arms as short as mine.” Spike rubbed the back of his head awkwardly. “Even with my regular keyboard back home, I still have a little trouble nailing it down. Every time I think I have it, boom, I hit a wrong key or lay out a flat transition.”
“Don't worry, I definitely know how that is. The struggles of we piano players, huh?” The mare chuckled bidding Spike to do the same. “By the way, what’s your name?”
“Spike. I’m the resident dragon here in Ponyville.”
“Awesome, pleasure to meet you, Spike.”
“So, you play the piano? Cool!”Spike smiled at her.
“Huh, you really don’t who I am, do you?” the pony asked.
Spike raised an eyebrow and eyed her up and down before his eyes shot open. “Wait a second! Are you the pony from town square the other day? I swear, I didn’t mean to run your grandma over with the carriage, there was a bird! Or something…”
“No, don’t worry, that wasn’t me,” she said with a giggle. “However, I do feel bad for that poor old lady.”
Spike rubbed his chin and raced through his mind, trying to put her face with somepony he had possibly met before. Then it clicked.
“Oh wait a minute, weren’t you that pony that AJ was with during that concert a couple weeks ago?” Spike asked. “I didn’t quite recognize you without the, how’d you put it, razzle dazzle? Haha, I kinda missed the concert, but apparently you’re pretty good.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” she said with a chuckle. “To be honest, you’re the first pony, er, dragon to not completely flip out over me. Besides AppleJack, of course. I was trying to take a walk around town to do some sightseeing, but that didn’t go over as well as I planned. Between the autographs and crazy obsessed fans, well, let’s just say I’m hiding out here in the meantime.”
“Wow, really? If I were you, I’d be rolling in the attention. I had my fifteen minutes a little ways back in the Crystal Empire, and yeah, I kinda took advantage of the situation.” Spike sighed, a grin forming on his face as he recalled his brief ventures in stardom. “So, I’m kind of surprised you’re so humble about the whole thing. It’s pretty refreshing.”
“Oh, well thank you,” she replied.
“So, not to pry or anything,” Spike asked, turning away from the piano, “but what brings you back to Ponyville? Weren’t you on some tour or something?”
“Well, funny story about that. After I fired my manager, reality decided to rear its ugly head. As big of a jerk as he was, he was great at gaining corporate sponsors. So, when he left, so did the funding behind everything. So, no manager, no tour. In light of that, I decided to come spend some time with AJ this week and get caught up.”
“Ouch. Sorry to hear that. But then again, that guy was a pretty big jerk. But, the music industry is a business when it comes down to it, so its understandable. Either way, it’s pretty cool you get to hang with us here for a bit.”
“Yeah, I plan on enjoying myself as much as possible and catch up on some R and R.”
“Sounds like a plan to me,” Spike said. “So, while you’re here, I have a question.”
“Okay, shoot.”
“This kind of directly correlates to music, so I’m hoping you can help me out. Applejack told us a little ways back that when you were younger you weren’t exactly the most confident stage performer.”
“That’s right.”
“So, how did you get over that? The reason I ask is because, well, like you said, I’m pretty good at playing piano. But when I play in front of crowds, I kind of trip up and freeze. Then I make mental mistakes and everything kind of goes downhill from there.”
“Hmm, can you give me an example?”
“Well, a while ago I was tasked with igniting the torch for the Equestria Games, but when I got up on stage, I couldn’t produce any fire for the life of me. I just, you know, froze! It was horrible!”
“Alright, Spike, scooch over.” Rara motioned for Spike to move over on the bench and she took a seat next to him in front of the piano. “Everypony gets nervous once in awhile, especially at the start. But you know what helped me?”
“What’s that?” Spike asked, scooting over to make room for her.
“Practicing with other ponies,” she said with a smile. “And that’s just what we’re going to do.”
“Um, okay,” Spike said. “But there’s not really anyone here.”
“Well, I’m here, and we’re gonna pretend that all those cd racks over there are stands of ponies, cheering and going wild. Alright?”
Spike took a look around and channeled every ounce of his imagination. The racks of music equipment and albums slowly took shape into the forms of ponies everywhere. The music shop became a loud auditorium filled with cheering fans before his eyes.
“Alright, I can do this.”
“Nope, we can do this,” Rara said. “Let’s pretend you’re on tour with me and we’re starting out the show with the song you were just playing a minute ago, okay?”
“Gotcha.”
Rara took a quick glance at the sheet music to get the idea of where to begin. “Alright, Spike, it’s showtime! You get the high parts, and I’ll handle the lows. Start us off.”
Spike took a deep breath and began. His claws slowly danced across the keys, swiftly followed by Rara doing the same. In unison, Spike playing the highs and Rara playing the lows, they launched into the intro of the song in perfect time with one another. The slow, steady rhythm of the low notes provided a perfect platform for Spike to work off of, his portion of the song flowing smoothly in between the singular notes that Rara played in perfect time.
Spike had been practicing the song for weeks, striving to play it note-for-note as it was written on the sheet. However, this time was different. He felt something else inside of him take hold, something deeper. He closed his eyes, and instead of seeing where to go next, he let the moment take hold of him. In seamless progression with Rara’s progression, Spike began to add his own personal touch to the song. He started small, simply adding a few little flourishes to the pre-written song, but as the song reached the end of the verse, he threw caution to the wind. He began to improvise, taking the song into a solo. He was merely a channel, letting the music take over.
It was wonderful.
As the song reached its conclusion, the two looked at each other with wide smiles.
“You know, Spike, it may be just me, but I don’t think I heard a single mistake in that entire performance. How did that feel?”
“That was… I can’t describe it. It was like, magical. I was one with the music. I lost myself playing with you! That was amazing.”
“Whoa, slow down there. We’ve only just met.”
The two broke into a small fit of laughter. It had been some time since Rara got to play just for fun, where no money was involved, no screaming fans, no prearranged setlists. It was a nice change. And for Spike, he had never been able to play with so much confidence. So much connection to the music.
“Rara, I really appreciate you helping me out. That was a lot of fun!” Spike turned to her with a large grin.
“No, thank you, Spike. It’s been so long since I’ve been able to just play for fun, I almost forgot what it was like. Not to mention, it’s always great meeting a new friend.”
The two rose from the seat, the glow of their performance still showing in their smiles.
“Well, Spike, I suppose I’ve spent enough time dawdling about here. I should probably get back to AJ and see what she’s up to. Wouldn’t want her to worry too much.”
“Meh, you’ll be fine. At least she’s not Twilight. Last time I stayed out too late, she blew up almost every front door in Ponyville in her efforts to find me. She’s a little overprotective… to say the least.”
“Haha, yeah, I suppose I should consider myself lucky. Anywho, if I ever run across you again, let’s do another duet. Or better yet, if I ever get back to touring and need a pianist, I’ll give you a call, okay?”
“I’ll make sure to answer,” Spike said. “I’ll see if I can fit it into my schedule.”
“I look forward to it. It’s been a pleasure, Spike,” said Rara. She wrapped a hoof around Spike’s shoulders and pulled him into a quick hug, Spike wrapped his arms around her neck and returned the embrace.
They both let go after a moment, and Rara scooted off the bench and made her way to the door.
“Thanks again, Spike. I’ll see you around!”
With a wave goodbye, she disappeared through the doorway. With her gone, Spike looked over at the piano keys and smiled..
“I’ll see you around.”