My First Days in Ponyville

by OrangeRiff

Prologue - My diary

I’ve meant to start this a few a times now, but I really don’t know how to begin it. Should it be simple, like „Dear Diary,“? ...no, that’s too cliché. „Dear Aunt May,“ ... I think, I actually read that somewhere before.
I know! Let’s go with this one:

Hello and Welcome to the Foolishly Flashy, Crazily Compelling and Mind-blowingly Mysterious

Diaries of Awesomeness!

...or simply put, My Fist Days in Ponyville.

Ok, so far that’s promising. I’ve got the title down, now let’s get to the story.
First of all, I would like to introduce myself: my name is Orange Riff! Never heard of me? No surprise there.
I’m a pegasus pony, born in Cloudsdale to a lovely couple of pegasi. Long story short, I had an average fillyhood, with lots of smiles and tears, ups and downs, ice and creams, and so on.
I loved to listen to music since I was small, so when I got old enough, I decided to make a band with a few friends, and ran off to play for the crowds. Our band was called „The Herd“. Pretty nifty name, isn’t it?
I played the bass, and did some background vocals, but my true talent lied in composing. I literally wrote song after song, and during the process, I got better and better in it.
We would travel from town to town, play for our food and accommodations, and move on the next day. It’s pretty obvious, that the others got tired of it quickly, and after a few months of running around, they decided to leave the band, and return to Cloudsdale to find something else to do.
But not me.
I loved this kind of life! Every few days I got to see a new town, with new faces, new places to discover, but once I was on my own it wasn’t that easy to get by. I still could play the bass, but with no other instruments and no particular singing voice hiding in my throat, I was doomed to the same fate of giving up, as the rest, who left to home before me.
And that’s how I started working.
It was a good choice all in all: I worked for my food and bed, day after day; saved enough for train tickets; and I was still playing my bass in my remaining free time.
I’d usually do cleaning jobs, would help with repair stuff, or refurbish rooms and houses, run simple errands, or do some dishwashing at a local restaurant. I even worked on a rock farm at some point.
One day, while I was out shopping for an elderly couple, a dusty blue feather flew by me, carried by a gentle breeze. As I was watching it drift away, I realised, I was just like that feather, driven forward by an unseen flow towards an unknown destination, powered by the will of my music trying to live on. I felt an itchy feeling in my flank, and when I looked my face froze into a smile.
My cutie mark has finally appeared!
It looked just like the dusty blue feather, with a white treble clef on top.
I was so overjoyed, I don’t even remember running into the store, grabbing the stuff I needed, rushing back to the old couple’s house, and giving them their things. The only thing on my mind was my bass waiting for me in the room they lent to me for helping out. I played on it until I fell asleep.
A few weeks later I arrived in Manehattan, where I found work at the Bridleway theatre district, as a prop guys assistant. One day when I was helping out with cleaning up behind the stage, I overheard the composer for the next play, as he was speaking to himself anxiously about not knowing how to finish some of the musical pieces. I went over to him and asked if I could help out in some way. He looked at me, and after a short amount of thinking said „why not“.
We worked hard for two weeks, and we managed to finish all of the songs in time. I learned a huge amount of things about professional composing during those fourteen days.
In the end the composer even asked me to be his trainee, but I had to turn down his generous offer, as I knew it was time for me to move on.
After a while I winded up in Dodge Junction, where I worked at a local cherry factory. It was there, I heard someone gossip about Ponyville.
Around that time, I was starting to get enough of crowded cities, like Manehatten, Fillydelphia or Baltimare, so I decided I would pay a visit, to the supposedly quiet and friendly small town of Ponyville.
And this is where the story begins...

Author's Note:

[edit, 2014.02.05]
Ran a spellcheck on it, corrected a few things.
If there are any grammatical issues, please let me know!