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// 1: A Lyre String 
// Story: The Rhythm of Love 
// by lockheed 
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	The sun shined through the blinds of the bedroom, making me squeeze my eyelids tighter together but to no avail as I realized I was now awake. I slowly opened my eyes and squinted at the blinds, my mind still hazy from sleep. I glanced over at the alarm clock and saw it was still five minutes before the dreaded bells on it would sing their annoying song. With a fore hoof, I reached over and turned off the alarm to prevent it from going off. I sighed as I rolled over and out of the bed, my joints popping as I landed on the floor. I turned my head to the side until there was an alarmingly loud cracking noise. With a sigh of relief, I slowly made my way over to the bathroom to clean up for the day ahead. I turned on the shower and stood outside of it with a hoof under the water stream to make sure it was just right before stepping in. Once it was to my satisfaction, I climbed in and grabbed the toothbrush and toothpaste that sat on a small ledge in the shower. With the toothbrush held in my fetlock, I stuck it under the stream of water to wet it before I put the toothpaste on. After many years of trying to sleep in as much as possible, I'd found numerous creative, albeit odd, ways of saving time. Mostly it consisted of strange ways of multitasking like brushing my teeth in the shower or feeding the cats while making myself breakfast. Although, that last one has resulted in some peanut butter and cat food sandwiches as the first thing I bit into in the morning. Probably not the best idea of mine but hindsight is 20/20.

Once done with the shower, I stepped out and slowly sauntered over to the fogged up mirror. With a swipe of my hoof across the glass, my reflection appeared and I gave myself a weak smile as I grabbed a comb with my hoof. My mane, while by no means being extremely long, lay down in front of my eyes and partially obstructed my view with the thick, black hair. And while this look had been acceptable while I was in school, I had to make myself presentable now that I was the owner of the family music store. You see, when I was a young colt, not even a year old, my parents divorced and went their separate ways. And when I say that, I mean it literally. They left me with my mom's parents and moved to opposite sides of Equestria from one another. But because I was too young to remember them, I grew up basically considering my grandparents to be my mom and dad. As a colt in primary school, my grandpa had taught me to play every instrument we had in the store. And when it comes to playing things like piano and saxophone, it's certainly a feat for an earth pony. Now that both he and grandma had passed on, it was up to me to keep the store running. The nice thing about inheriting a family business though meant that I didn't have to go to college for some fancy degree to get a job somewhere. My job was just down a flight of stairs and always guaranteed to pay the bills; even if I did sometimes have to survive off of instant noodles at times to make sure I still had running water. With one final sweep of my comb, I grinned to my reflection again at the once shaggy mane that was now swept straight back. Just like grandpa always did it.

I left the bathroom and made my way to the kitchen that was on the second floor of the building. After making my breakfast of a peanut butter and banana sandwich, I stood up on my hind hooves and grabbed the bag of cat food off the top of the refrigerator. The sound caused a fat, yellow cat to gallop into the room where he stopped in front of his food bowl. He turned to look at me and gave out a loud meow that made me chuckle a bit to myself. I poured food into his bowl and into the bowl next to his. As I set the bag of cat food back on top of the fridge, a black, fluffy, old cat waddled his way into the kitchen. His eyes were still a gold color though he was almost blind in one from cataracts. His jaw had been broken many years before after an attack by a dog, leaving him with a permanent under bite. His old age had also brought the loss of his teeth and only one tooth now remained, it sticking out at the front of his face. He looked up at me and then walked over to his food bowl. He began eating the food in his bowl, though it was more just him gumming it until it was soft enough for him. I'd have to scrounge up some money for soft cat food. I grabbed the sandwich off the counter and trotted down the stairs to the back room of the shop. The dark grey walls of the room made it somewhat eerie if it wasn't midday. I grabbed the broom by the door to the shop as I finished off my sandwich. Pushing open the door, I was greeted by the white walls of the shop where various instruments hung on display racks with a price sign next to them. From saxophones, my foalhood favorite, to electric guitars; it was here. A display piano sat in the middle of the shop as well as a player piano along a wall where it was in view of anypony glancing in through the display windows.

With a sigh of contentment, I trotted out onto the small sidewalk in front of the shop. I began to brush away the dirt and any other things that lay in front of the door. As I swept the walk, I began to whistle a tune I had stuck in my head and the town clock tower chimed seven times. I stopped sweeping and gave a satisfied nod at the job. Trotting back inside, I turned the window sign to open and placed the broom back where I'd got it. Despite the sweeping and the shop now being open for business, it was still almost an hour until I saw ponies starting to make their way up and down the sidewalks on the street. I always found it odd how our street was the only one in town with a sidewalk but with all the delivery carts that came and went from the shops, it made some sense to have them. Run over shoppers tend to not spend their bits in your store after all. The worst part about the store was that with Ponyville being mostly earth ponies, most of the instruments didn't sell. Things like a piano or saxophone or lyre were things usually played by unicorns. While an earth pony could find ways to play them, most didn't find it worth the hassle and simply chose not to try. It was in this light that I was glad grandpa had made me learn how to play everything in the shop. Whether it be for my own entertainment or to demonstrate the instrument for customers, it was well worth the struggle as a colt to learn them all. And if I ever wanted to, I could even give lessons to others at the shop after closing or on weekends. With the store not busy at the moment, I took the opportunity to get some reading done and reached under the counter for the shelf that held a book. My hoof bumped against the paperback book and I smiled a bit to myself. I grabbed it and pulled it out for me to see. It was small compared to some of the others in my personal little library but that one was probably my favorite. The light blue cover was faded and one of the corners had been torn off. The pages were yellowing from the amount of times I'd read it and I could almost recite it from memory; but every time I read it, I could feel the same emotions I had felt the first time I'd read the book. And while it may have been a cheap, two bit romance novel, I couldn't love it more.

The bell above the door jingled and I set a strip of paper on the page I was at. I set the book aside and looked over to see a mint green unicorn mare enter the shop. With a smile, I trotted around the counter to greet her. She locked eyes with me and smiled back. "Hey, Rhythm." She said as we gave each other a quick hug.

"Hello, Lyra. You break a string again?" I asked her as we broke the hug and she gave me a guilty grin as she rubbed the back of her neck with a hoof. "I'll take that as a yes. Come on. I got some in the back." I lead her to the back room and grabbed the small step ladder with my mouth as I headed for the shelf where I kept the strings. I looked at the shelves until I found the one with the S label on it. Now that I knew which shelf it was, I opened up the step ladder and carefully climbed up. "You should be more careful, Lyra. This is the second time this month you've gotten a new string." I told her as I grabbed the right box of strings with my hoof. As I pulled it forward, I felt myself loose my balance and desperately tried to grab onto something but I was too far gone. I fell to the floor, the box of lyre strings falling with me, and landed with an awful thud and a painful grinding, pop in my right shoulder. Lyra hurried over and helped me sit up.

"Oh my gosh! Are you alright, Rhythm?" Lyra asked, the concern being very clear in her voice. I nodded as I sat up, only to look down and see my right foreleg hanging limp.

"Oh, horseapples." I said to myself as I looked at my leg. I slowly got up, careful not to put weight on the bad leg, and made my way over to the wall. "You may want to cover your ears and look away at this part." I told her. She cocked her head as I leaned back and then slammed myself into the wall. The grinding feeling in my shoulder returned and a loud pop could be heard as my leg popped back into the joint. As soon as it was back in, I felt a sense of relief wash over me. I sighed before trotting over to the spilled box of strings. Picking one up in my teeth, I gave it to Lyra who was looking at me in amazement.

"Rhythm?" She asked to which I gave a small hum of acknowledgement as she followed me back into the shop again. "How did you do that?" Lyra questioned as I sat back down behind the counter. I raised an eyebrow at her as if to ask what she was talking about. "You just popped you shoulder back in without flinching." She said as leaned forward as if to try and help her elaborate her point.

"Clearly you didn't play with many other kids as a filly, did you?" I asked her and she shook her head. "I did that so much as a colt from playing hoofball that I'm just used to it by now. Doesn't really effect me unless something's broken."  I told her with a small shrug. "The string is on the house by the way." I said as I offered up a smile to her. She looked to the lyre string in her magic and I realized that she had forgotten about the string.

"Oh, um, thank you." She said as she started to trot towards the front door. "Oh, I meant to ask, are you going to be at the dance hall tonight?" I nodded that I was indeed going to be there and she smiled. "Great! Me and Bon Bon will see you there then."  She waved to me as she left and I waved back. Just as I was about to grab the book to pick up where I'd left off, the bell above the door jingled again. I sighed internally but was glad that I'd now had two visitors before ten.

"Hello, welcome to Ponyville Music. Can I-" I stopped as I looked over to see the most attractive stallion I'd seen in my life. While some may have found ponies like Big Macintosh or Soarin to be their type, I'd always been one to go for the ones who were total dorks. Not that that's a bad thing. The quiet, smart ones are always more fun after dark. "help you?" I finished the question which caused the dark grey unicorn to look over to me. He reached a hoof up and brushed his purple mane out from his face only for me to be greeted by his blue eyes looking at me through his glasses. Holy, sweet Celestia was he the cutest stallion I'd ever seen. He smiled politely to me before speaking.

"Yes, actually. Do you have any metronomes?"