Twi Fidelity

by WilliamLi


Rhapsody in Blue

“Dear Twilight Sparkle,

Your findings have certainly been astonishing. I will personally admit that at first, it was all quite unbelievable.

After an overnight meeting with the members of the royal cabinet, we have come to the following terms:

-This new information shall not be made public until further notice to prevent mass panic. I entrust you that you will only tell your closest friends,and that they too will not spread this.

-You are free to experiment on this further with your own invention, but the Royal Academy has requested for your diagrams. They plan to investigate further on these waves.

-In no way are you to tell these beings of our existence. If you must, pretend that you are a citizen of their world. We do not know whether they are a hostile species, and the council has urged you to be extremely cautious and ‘play it safe’.

And as a final note, I indeed enjoyed the song. I must thank you for it, Twilight Sparkle.

Yours truly,
Princess Celestia.”

Twilight finished reading the letter. She gave herself a moment to let this all sink in.

Much like the princess, Twilight couldn't sleep the night before. A mixture of excitement over her new findings and what they may hold, slight worry of Princess Celestia’s response, and just the simple fact that she had a new section in her storage that she hoped that she can fill. All of this combined caused her to muse deep into the night and straight on till morning.

Spike, on the other hoof, slept like a hibernating tortoise, only being woken up by the princess’ letter.

Spike yawned and gave a groan of tiredness. “So, Twi-” his words were cut short when he noticed Twilight’s face. “By Celestia, Twilight, did you even sleep last night?”

Twilight was ruffled. Sandbags hung under her eyes and her mane was unkept. She was swaying slightly, her body unsure if it will fall unconscious and collapse to the floor.

“How could I, Spike? There was just so many things I could do.” Twilight replied drearily.

“Okay, Twi. Alien music or not, you need sleep. Now just get back to bed and I'll wake you when I think you've slept enough.”

“But the pr-”

“Nonono, sleep now.”

“...alright, Spike. I'll go sleep. But at least let me write my thoughts first. I don't wanna forget them.”

Spike groaned again. “Ugh, fine. But the second you finish, you're going to bed.”

“Sure will, Spike.”

Twilight levitated her quill and a blank scroll towards herself, her eyes trying not to close in the process. She tried to write her thoughts down neatly, but the end result was more of a scribble of words than clear bullet points.

“..buh there. Done.” Twilight said, her tongue slowly refusing to move.

“Okay, now go to bed.” Spike slowly led Twilight to her bedroom. Somewhere along the line, the fatigue of lack of sleep came down on her hard.

‘Maybe not thinking about sleep helped a bit.’ Spike thought to himself.

Finally they arrived at her bedroom. Twilight laid down on her bed and was immediately knocked out cold. Spike tried to pull a blanket over her, but gave up when she wouldn’t budge. Quietly, he walked out of her room and closed the door.

“Now I have the place all to myself.” Spike said to no-one in particular. “What to do, what to do…”

Walking down from her bedroom and back into Twilight’s lab, he noticed the note that she wrote on before going to bed. Curiously, he picked it up and tried to read what she wrote.

‘Let’s see...something something contact something something…’, thought Spike, ‘Jeez, Twi, you really let yourself go when you get tired.’

‘something something auto-infusion of music to scrolls?’ Spike thought, ‘let’s see....will try to make radio record music automatically to lessen use of magic.

“That’s not a bad idea.” Spike said once again to himself.

Putting down the note, he gave a glance over the entire lab. His eyes landed on the radio, and an idea came into his head.

Maybe I coul-no!’ Spike was quick to reprimand himself, ‘This is Twilight’s big invention! What would she do if you broke it?!’

I’m sure she can build anoth-

‘No!’

You know you want t-

‘I do but that’s besides the point! I will not let you ruin her work, brain!’

To escape the clutches of his own curiosity, Spike thought it would be best if he went out to town. He’ll try to repress those thoughts. Maybe Rarity needs some help at her boutique. Yeah, that’ll keep him occupied for a while.

---

The sun was already setting when Rarity finally let him go. Spike didn’t complain, because more time with Rarity is always good to his ears, but being a pin-cushion does get tiring after a while.

‘I wonder if Twilight’s already awake.’ Spike thought, ‘She’s probably wondering where am I right now.’

His question was answered when he heard something coming out of Twilight’s house as he neared it. It sounded like someone was playing the piano, and whoever was playing it was playing it good.

Spike opened the door to Twilight’s lab, when he noticed that another sound had joined in with the piano. To Spike, it sounded like a very weird-sounding trumpet. It fitted pretty well with the piano, though.

“Spike! Where have you been?!” shouted a voice that Spike recognised instantly.

“Um, sorry Twi. Didn’t want to bother you.”

“Well, now that you're here, be a dear and help me send these to Princess Celestia. The Royal Academy wants my blueprints for the radio.”

Twilight levitated some scrolls towards Spike, who did what he was told. As he set fire to the scrolls, he noticed that Twilight’s radio had an upgrade.

Right beside the thing, a black disk was laid flat on a metal surface. A needle was placed perpendicular to the disk, with wires connecting it and the radio. The disk was rotating, causing the needle to scratch on its surface.

Twilight noticed that Spike was looking at the new add-on and said, “I asked for it from Vinyl Scratch. How it didn’t occur to me earlier to use her method of recording, I'll never know.”

Spike nodded his head. That's why it was so familiar.

“Oh, and the song’s name is ‘Rhapsody in Blue’, by someone called George Gershwin.”

Spike nodded his head in silence again. It wasn't that he was speechless, but more that he had nothing to say. Music was playing, so he might as well listen to it.

Twilight noticed Spike’s uncharacteristic silence, and didn’t want to break it. She liked the occasional peace and quiet. And oh, the piano was swelling.

Twilight was really liking this piece. It had no lyrics, so in Equestrian terms it's more of a ‘composition’ than a ‘song’. ‘Also’, she thought, ’why is it called Rhapsody in Blue? I get the “rhapsody”, but why the color blue? Maybe “blue” has a different meaning to them?’

‘But then, if we take that into consideration, the word “rhapsody” might have a different meaning to them, too. But that just seems unlikely, with the past two songs…’

‘Maybe I’m digging too deep into this. Perhaps “blue” is a metaphor, if the concept of metaphors exist to them.’

Deciding to shut her thoughts up, she proceeded to just write what she felt about the song.

...unconventional piano style...no rhythm, not necessarily a bad thing…’

She didn’t know if the alien instrument actually is a piano, but they sound so similar she just assumed it was.

The piano had changed to a full orchestra, it’s melody sweeping in the air like a gentle breeze by the ears. It fitted in perfectly.

‘...orchestra with piano as forefront…sounds near identical to Equestrian instruments.’

The strings and brass came and went, and for now it was the piano by itself again. If Twilight had to describe it, it sounded like as though somepony was improvising the piano notes as the piece went along, but whoever was improvising was very good at the piano. In a traditional sense, it’s completely off beat, but somehow it works.

‘He gives that stallion at the Gala a run for his money.’ Twilight thought to herself and chuckled.

She let the music run its course in relative silence. The piano became frantic, slowly becoming faster and faster.

And then the orchestra joined in, also disjointed and quick, as though it was in a hurry.

...A build-up up and then a big “BLAM”...’

‘Build up again, more melodic this time…’

‘...It sounds like the song is ending…’

The piano played its last notes, with the orchestra giving one last hurrah behind it. Twilight, after waiting a few seconds, determined that the song had indeed finished when the announcer’s voice returned, and switched the radio off. The record beside it slowly turned to a stop.

“Well,” Twilight said, “that song wasn't half bad, now was it, Spike?”

“...”

“Spike?”

Twilight turned around, finding it strange that Spike hadn’t responded. He had fallen asleep, probably lulled by the piano. The music had covered his quiet snoring.

Twilight looked at Spike’s sleeping form. She hazily remembered him persuading her to bed earlier that day. A small smile grew on her face. Gently, she levitated Spike and floated him to his basket.

‘Sweet dreams, Spike’, she cooed to him before quietly leaving.

Walking through her window, Twilight noticed that it was already night time. The moon was shining through it. Looking outside, she could see the dim night lights of Ponyville. There weren’t any streetlights in such a rural town, unlike somewhere like Manehattan, but replacing it were the lights coming from the windows from the small cottages. It was endearing, in a warm sort of way.

Manehattan...’ the word and place stuck in Twilight’s head. She didn’t know why. Maybe it was the music.

“Oh my, I still have some things left to do!”

Reminding herself, she quietly but quickly went back to her lab to finish her work before going to bed. She picked up the record and labelled it with the name and a short description of the song transcribed.

Title: Rhapsody in Blue

Maker: George Gershwin

Description: A long composition, abstract, primary use of piano, classical.

‘It’s nothing much, but it’ll do.’ She thought to herself.

Levitating the record to her storage space, she took out the scroll that contained the previous song, ‘Here Comes the Sun’, to transcribe it to a record. They take up less space than a scroll, she found herself thinking.

Title: Here Comes the Sun

Maker: The Beatles

Description: Harmonic, 2/3 singers, suggests that alien planet has a sun, praising.

With all that done, Twilight found herself stifling a yawn.

‘I really should go to bed now…’ ,she thought to herself slightly drowsily. She left her work-table in its messy form, and left for her bedroom.

Tucking herself in bed and pulling over the blanket, she couldn’t help but be amused by these turns of events. She found herself quite anticipating the next day, for a new day equals a new song, and a new song equals...well, that was what excited her. She didn’t know what song would play. And as she closed her eyes, the piano of the Rhapsody in Blue guided her to sleep, its notes lulling her to dreamland.