//------------------------------// // Second Movement - Part Two - Ponyville Forever // Story: The Music Makers // by Talon and Thorn //------------------------------// “Equestria, my ho-ooooooo-me,” concluded Sweetie bell with a vocal flourish. The effect was somewhat spoiled by Diamond Tiara trying to sing over her. Around the two fillies the music faded away into a momentary silence. “Wonderful, Kids!” cried Bluenote stamping her hooves in appreciation. “You were all amazing!” “Thank you Miss Bluenote,” said Diamond, “But I’m sure I would be even better if I was singing solo.” She looked around at the rest of the band. “My daddy says I’m going to be a star!” Next to her Sweetie looked aside and doodled on the floor with a hoof awkwardly. “You were both wonderful, but you could maybe work a little bit more on harmonising. There’s no winner or loser in the song. You’ll sound so much better together than apart.” After a moment Diamond nodded and mumbled an agreement. “Good! Now I think we might have time for just one more piece. How about another go at improvisation?” A number of excited yells broke out around her, the class enjoyed their improvisation on a theme attempts. Although Bluenote did have to admit that many of the attempts weren’t entirely musical. Snips and Snails’ attempts at rap in particular made her ears want to bleed. “Actually,” interrupted Cheerilee from the school’s door, “I’m afraid it’s a bit late, some of the parents are here to collect their foals.” There were a few disappointed groans from the children. “Sorry kids,” said Bluenote with a shrug. “Now it’s the big day tomorrow. Everypony make sure you get a good night's sleep and I’ll see you all at the train station tomorrow morning. Remember it leaves at 10 sharp and if you miss it, well it’s a long gallop to Canterlot!” Giving a little cheer the crowd of excited foals started to disperse herded from the room by Cheerilee leaving only Medley and Bluenote behind. “Do you really think they have a chance?” asked Medley carefully picking up a violin discarded by one of the foals and gently wiping it off with a cloth before placing it in a storage case. Bluenote was surprised how much of her time the pegasus had put into helping the foals practice. Sure, she had a feeling that her friend might have been more interested in keeping her instruments in good shape than actually helping to teach them. Still, for all of her hard exterior Medley was actually quite good with the foals. Although she still couldn’t sit through Bee Bop’s performance on the drums without flinching at how, enthusiastic, the filly was. “Of course! They’re all really talented. I’m sure they’re going to come in first place!” Medley raised an eyebrow and gave her friend a look. “Well ok, maybe not all of them. Thank Cadence for the triangle, not even Dinky can mess that one up! But Silver’s come on in leaps and bounds on the piano, Snips and Snails are surprisingly good on trumpets, and Sweetie could charm the birds from the trees with that voice of hers. Diamond’s really good as well. Maybe some of the others aren't great, but they’re enjoying themselves and that’s all that matters. Everypony has to perform in the contest so all the other schools will have the same issue.” “I wish I had your confidence in them,” said Medley stacking instrument cases in a pile. “Still I will agree that they are talented.” “See?” said Bluenote nudging her friend, “Under that cynical exterior you’re just a big fluffy kitten.” “Am not,” muttered Medley blushing a little. “Have you decided what our final line up’s going to be? We should have sorted it out a week ago.” She raised a disapproving eyebrow. Bluenote grimaced. Medley was right, but it was so hard to choose. The rules weren't all that complicated, each school had to perform three pieces in less than half an hour. At least one of the pieces had to involve the whole of the school and staff could be involved in one of the pieces as long as there were at least the same number of students also playing. Apart from that any styles were allowable as was singing. Given the wide range of skills in the band she’d found it hard to narrow down the final three tunes they’d go with. She’d never been all that organised. She preferred to go with whatever felt best on the day but that meant the band had been practising over a dozen pieces rather than getting just three down pat. Seeing her friend’s hesitation Medley sighed. “I think we should at least go with Pachydermelbel's Canon. The children really seem to have gotten it down.” “Yeah, I suppose so. It’s nice but it’s so boring, just the same bit over again and again. I think we need something with a bit more pizazz.” “I know you prefer the showy numbers but they’re harder for the kids to learn, we need them to play the best they can!” To win and get us the money we need, went unsaid. “I know, but they should also have fun while doing it!” exclaimed Bluenote. This was a long running argument between them, they’d been going round and round on it all month. “I’m all for going with the flow but the contest is tomorrow, you need to make a decision!” “Fine!” grunted Bluenote turning away from her friend. Gritting her teeth and trying to force down her anger Medley returned to packing the instruments away. “Look will you help me pack all this stuff up? We need to make sure it’s ready to transport tomorrow.” “Oh, we’ve got plenty of time to do that.” “I’d like to have some time to work on the Brother’s device again tonight,” explained Medley. Vinyl had, after quite a bit of arguing, managed to get the Music Maker 4000 released into her custody. Bluenote thought that the mayor not having enough free space to store the thing had helped. As soon as she had permission to work on it the DJ had asked Medley to store it in her back garden. The shopkeeper had eventually agreed as long as she could tinker with it as well. Neither of them had quite figured out how to get it to work yet but Medley had finally admitted that it could produce half decent instruments, if provided with the right materials. Bluenote sighed. “I suppose so. Look, Medley, I can’t thank you enough for all the help you’re giving us.” “Well you are paying me,” said Medley looking away. “Yes, but not all that much! And you’ve even let us use your harp,” she gestured to the huge instrument near the back of the stage. “I just want to say thanks. I’m sorry I didn’t believe you when the brothers turned up.” “Yeah, well the past is the past, it’s behind us now. Let’s look to the future a bit, and the contest. I’ll make sure I’m there to help as much as I can.” “You’re coming with us? What about the shop?” asked Bluenote in surprise. Medley hardly ever shut up her shop on a working day. “It’s a quiet time at the moment,” mumbled Medley. “Plus you’ll need someone to help you tune this lot. Everypony knows you’re tone deaf.” Bluenote grinned and hopped over to her friend to nuzzle against her. “Thanks!” “Yeah, well,” muttered Medley looking very uncomfortable. “How’s it going?” came Cheerilee’s voice as the door started to swing open. Medley took the chance to rush away from Bluenote. “There’s still quite a bit to do,” she said. “I guess we should get to work then,” said Bluenote still grinning as she started to disassemble the drum kit. “Misth! Misth!” cried Twist seemingly in Medley’s ear, jerking her away from her thoughts. “I think Featherweight’s going to be thick!” Wearily, Medley glanced around the carriage packed with over excited foals watched over by a few parents on their way to support their children. None of them seemed all that interested in the cries of the red headed filly. Cheerilee was apparently dealing with some other emergency at the opposite side of the train and Bluenote was nowhere to be seen. It looked like she’d have to deal with this. Sighing, she got up from her seat and trotted over to the rather green looking colt. It wasn’t that she disliked foals, in small doses. She loved the look of excitement in their eyes as they looked around the wonders of her shop. However, in her experience large number of foals in one place tended to wind each other up so that even the normally best behaved of them became little monsters, often resulting in destroyed merchandise and embarrassed parents. Still, at least they didn’t literally have talons like her own cousins. She idly wondered how Double and Trouble were at the moment, it had been a while since she’d last written home. “What’s wrong?” she asked the stick thin colt sitting quietly by the window. Like the rest of the kids he was dressed in a tabard in the colours of Ponyville. It had been the closest thing to a uniform Rarity had managed to put together at short notice from their non-existent budget. “He thed that he didn’t like trains,” explained Twist before the colt could speak for himself. “So I gath him some theats because they always make me theel better.” She held out a large and now mostly empty bag of candy. Its previous contents probably hadn’t helped calm the sick foal’s stomach. “That might not have been the best of ideas,” said Medley cautiously reaching forwards to rub the colt’s back gently while at the same time preparing to bolt back at any sight that he might throw up. “Not much further to go now. We’ll be in Canterlot in a few minutes,” she said in what she hoped was a soothing tone. Glancing out of the window she saw the mass of the mountain as it rose up in front of the train. Featherweight’s eyes rolled towards the sight and he let out a groan as the train juddered as it began the ascent. Medley nodded with sympathy, motion sickness was fairly common in pegasi. She’d never suffered from it herself but it was easy enough for their senses, developed to control flight, to get confused when traveling in a vehicle. “It’s not just that,” whispered the colt lowering his voice and glancing at Twist who now had her muzzle buried in the bag. “I’ve never played in front of a real audience before, I’m scared I’m going to mess up in front of all those ponies.” Stage fright? Well that was to be expected. Thinking about it she looked at the carriage’s occupants in more detail. It wasn’t hard to recognise that many of the foals were similarly affected. What she had previously thought of as excitement now seemed much more like nervousness. “It’s nothing to be worried about. The whole class will be in the same situation, and you’ll do well on the... um,” she had to struggle for a second to remember what instrument the colt played, “Bugle?” She was glad she wasn’t the element of honesty, really the colt’s playing was average at best, but that was quite good given he’d only had about a month's training. “Yeah, but there’ll be lots of other schools at the contest, some of them are probably really really good. I know Miss Cheerilee and Miss Bluenote really need the money for new instruments. I don’t want to let them down,” he confided. “Um, I don’t think you need to worry. I’m sure they’re proud of you no matter what happens.” She was surprised how much the kids seemed to care about their teachers. Bluenote certainly had a knack with them. It was surprising how much effort the normally rather lazy music teacher put into helping her kids. As if summoned by her thoughts the door at the far end of the train slid aside and Bluenote leapt into the carriage, her tuba wrapped around herself. She looked rather brighter eyed than earlier... had she taken the chance to have a nap? Medley’s thoughts were shattered by the loud discordant note the music teacher produced from the instrument. Around her the foals stopped whatever they were doing and turned to the new arrival. Even Featherweight seemed to forget his fears for a moment. “Hey kids!” cried Bluenote, a wide smile across her face. “Is everypony ready?!” There was a half-hearted cry of agreement from the quicker witted foals while most of them just gawped. “I can’t hear you!” cried Medley again. “Yeah!” came a louder, more unified cry. Several of the foals leapt up and down in excitement. “Ok, kids we're almost in Canterlot now, and you know what that means? It means we're almost at the contest!” There was another round of cheering although a few of the foals looked around fearfully as the train came to a stop. “Now do you know what we’re going to do now we’re here?” There was a mixed response from the foals, some nodded enthusiastically, others looked confused. “We’re going to go to this contest. We’re going to play alongside schools from all over the area, and we’re going to win! And more importantly, we’re going to have lots of fun! But do you know why we’re going to win?” she cried. “It’s because we come from Ponyville! The bestest little town in Equestria!” We've fought evil more than once, sang Bluenote And come out on top Oh, oh, called the kids as they hopped out of the train onto the station. There's other towns, but none can make those claims Na, na-na-na-na, oh Together we are Ponyville The only and the best Oh, oh We have all we need to win this thing We'll always be Ponyville forever And now our time has finally arrived 'Cause we believe in the magic of friendship And you know, at the end of the day, it is we who will thrive. Bluenote marched up and down on the platform drawing amused looks from the other travellers as well as one or two rounds of applause. Hey! cried the foals as they started to grab instruments from the pile being unloaded from the train. Medley started to pick up the discarded cases before shrugging and grabbing a drum and tapping out a beat. We're just as good as all the rest The rest! Yeah, we're different now Oh, oh Hey, hey! We overcame the obstacles we faced, Bluenote grinned at Medley as the latter started to get into the song. Overcame the obstacles we faced, sang Medley Hey! We're Ponyville united. Seeing that the foals had loaded themselves up with instruments Bluenote gestured and the whole school started to march out of the station. First Bluenote and Medley then a long line of foals with Cheerilee following up behind them swinging her flanks from side to side and tapping her hooves in time. Behind them all the parents followed, grinning at their excited offspring and carrying the last of the school’s equipment including Medley’s Aeolian harp heaved onto a cart by a pair of struggling stallions. Unite! We'll never bow, boasted Bluenote as she led the crowd through the streets of Canterlot towards the building the contest was to happen in. Oh, oh Hey, hey! Cried the foals as they followed along behind. Interested locals turned to see the carnival as they passed. One or two even started to trot along behind. So get ready to see us in first place We'll always be Ponyville forever Three! Two! One! Go! And now our time has finally arrived Our time is now! 'Cause we believe in the magic of friendship And you know, at the end of the day, it is we who will thrive At the end of the day, it is we who will thrive Na, na, na-na-na-na Ponyville united together Na, na, na-na-na-na Ponyville united forever, sang the foals in unison, their varied voices blending into a single powerful shout. We'll always be Ponyville forever And now our time has finally arrived 'Cause we believe in the magic of friendship And you know, at the end of the day, it is we who will thrive At the end of the day, it is we who will thrive! cried the entire school as they came to a stop outside of the concert hall. The locals they had drawn along in their wake broke into spontaneous cheering. Bluenote took a deep bow as the noise started to die away until all that remained was a single slow clap. Frowning, the music teacher turned to see where it was coming from. In the doorway stood a unicorn mare of late middle age, her light blue features angular and her pink and purple mane tied up in a severe bun. She glared over her half glasses. “Bluenote,” she snarled. “I see you’ve finally found a circus to join!” “Abacus!” replied Bluenote in surprise. “What are you doing here?” “Did you really think that Crystal Prep would not be attending this contest? We have a reputation as the foremost academy in Canterlot, after the Princess's own school of course.” “The rest of Prep is here too?” Bluenote’s ears pricked up. “It’s been a while but I guess some of the old gang are still-” The older mare’s eyes narrowed. “I will not allow you to distract any of my children during this important event.” “Aww! Come on I just want to-” “No!” exclaimed the unicorn. “It was enough that you disrupted the school when you worked for me. I will certainly not allow you to distract us when you are in competition.” She glared over the Ponyville foals starting to gather around. “Not that it looks like you will be much competition. A shame, with so many of the other schools have chosen to invest the funds the princess supplied rather poorly I hoped there would at least be one or two half decent opponents to test our mettle.” She gave a nasty smile. Bluenote struggled to keep her smile as she was reminded of the brothers’ scam. She was surprised to hear that Ponyville hadn’t been the only school taken in. “I’m helping out Ponyville,” she explained. “It’s down by the Everfree.” “Ponyville?” The mare cocked her head. “Isn’t that the town that the twin tyrants first appeared in? That the element bearers were drawn from?” “Yep, and I’m one of them! The element of laughter! And my friend here,” she grabbed Medley dragging her over, “is the element of loyalty!” Abacus seemed taken back. “My goodness! To think that Equestria almost came to an end and was forced to rely on somepony as frivolous as you! We came closer to destruction than I’d feared!” “Hey!” objected Medley. “My apologies, but it was a wonder that she,” she pointed to Bluenote, “even bothered to get out of bed to save the world! Things really should have been better organised! Anyway I’m sure order will reassert itself when my school wins this contest, we are clearly superior to the opposition.” “We’ve got some good musicians in Ponyville, we might surprise you!” exclaimed Bluenote bristling at the insult to her students. Abacus gave a harsh laugh, then paused. “Oh, I thought you were trying to be humorous. I would be surprised if that group could even play scales, let alone win a contest.” “Hey! My kids are really talented, I’m sure they could beat most of the joyless robots you prefer to churn out at Crystal Prep!” growled Bluenote, her hackles rising. “My school produced some of the most able students in Equestria!” snarled Abacus stepping forwards. “With no soul! You can’t make good music purely by rote! You need heart as well! That’s why I left Crystal Prep!” “You left because I fired you!” sniffed Abacus her muzzle in the air. “Po-ta-to, Po-tah-to!” exclaimed Bluenote. “I will enjoy crushing you and your students,” exclaimed the principal before turning on her heels and marching into the concert hall. “I really don’t like that mare!” said Bluenote. “Who was that?” asked Cheerilee approaching the element bearers. “My old boss,” said Bluenote. “Boss? You used to work for this Crystal Prep?” asked Medley. “For a bit. They hired me straight out of school as a music teacher, mostly on the back of dad’s name I think. The students are mostly the kids of the big wigs up here in Canterlot. They’re top of the table for most classes but their music department was a weak spot. They thought I might turn it around. I did what I could but it really wasn’t my thing, full lesson plans and the like. Stifling, I prefer to wing it.” “It seemed pretty personal to me,” said Medley. “Yeah, well I might have told her what I thought of her when I left. Oh, and I dated her ex-husband for a while,” said Bluenote waving a hoof. “She might take that personally.” “Yep, that would do it,” agreed Medley, shaking her head at her friend’s antics. Cheerilee frowned and glanced back and forth between the retreating principal well beyond her middle age and her youthful friend. “Her ex-husband?” she exclaimed, “Isn’t she? Well she’s got to be over twice your age, maybe three times. Wasn’t he a bit older than you?” “She was robbing the cradle with him, plus older stallions can be very distinguished,” explained Bluenote. “I didn’t think you were the dating type,” said Medley. “I’ve had my share of experience you know,” Bluenote ran a hoof through her mane. “After all they called me Beauty Bass back in school.” She stuck out her tongue. “Anyway I better get us signed in.” She turned to the foals around her. “Ok kids, move on into the hall, it’s almost time to get this show on the road.”