A String Wedding

by BlazzingInferno

Final Curtain

Morning fog hid most of the train station from view. An afternoon, evening, and night of unexpected rain left Ponyville quiet and humid.

Octavia leaned against their pile of luggage and yawned. She was wearing a white collar and pink bow tie, her standard dress for playing a fancy party. “Why’d this gig have to be so early?”

Concerto reached over to straighten her tie. “Because this way we’ll have plenty of time to look for our new apartment.”

She batted his hoof away and set to work on his own crooked tie. “And once we find it we’re sleeping in for a week. After a party like that I think that’s all the honeymoon I can take. My ears are still ringing from… what did she call it? Vinyl’s Fifth Symphony?”

“Maybe we should’ve skipped the encore performance.”

Hooves knocking against the wooden platform drew their attention. Six ponies and one dragon were approaching through the fog.

“Pinkie?”

Pinkie waved. “Surprise. We just came to say goodbye.”

Fluttershy bowed her head. “And that we’re sorry.”

Applejack took her hat in her hooves. “Mighty sorry. Pinkie planned out everything so perfect and we had to go and mess it up.”

Rainbow Dash had bags under her eyes and a sleep-deprived scowl on her face. “Would’ve been fine if the dumb cloud shipment hadn’t been a week early.”

“Come now, Rainbow,” Rarity chided, “we all had a hoof in the disaster.”

Octavia held up a hoof. “You’re forgetting about the good part. Sure, reception didn’t turn out like we expected but you ponies pulled it together in the end. It’s like I said, we wouldn’t even be married if it wasn’t for all of you.”

Twilight blushed. “That’s sweet of you to say, Octavia. I still feel bad about falling asleep.”

Spike stifled a laugh. “And I’m never letting you live it down.”

Twilight glared at him while everypony else laughed.

A bundle of paper rose out of Twilight’s saddlebag and set itself next to their mountain of luggage. “I don’t suppose you have room for one more present.”

Concerto eyed the package. “Oh we couldn’t, not after everything you’ve already done prin–”

“Twilight, just Twilight.”

“err, Twilight. What you said at our wedding was thanks enough.”

Pinkie jumped up and down. “Oh come on. Open it, open it, open it!”

Octavia laughed. “Fine, fine. We’ll open it.”

The package was rectangular and flat, like a book. Once the paper was torn open dozens of photographs slid out into Octavia’s hooves. Everything from the wedding, both the failed reception and the successful party, was captured here on film. The final picture was of them playing their instruments while Vinyl backed them on up on her synthesizer.

“How did you… how did you know? This is just what we wanted.”

Spike smiled and took a bow. “Pinkie asked me to keep an ear out for what you two wanted, so when Concerto here kept talking photos…”

Concerto stared at him. “You asked how I proposed… You said you just wanted some suggestions.”

Spike’s gaze briefly went to Rarity and then his face turned red. “I… uh… it was all part of me being your personal assistant, that’s all!”

The whistle of an oncoming train filled the station. Octavia glanced over to their bags and then to the track. “That’s our train. If we’re not on it we’ll miss our gig.”

Rarity kept trying to look Spike in the face, despite his attempts to turn away. “Why Spikey Wikey, why have you gone all red in the face? What’s the matter?”

“Uh… Let me help you with the bags, Concerto!”

The little dragon ran forward and hefted a load of suitcases twice is own size. “Next stop, Canterlot.”

Comments

[BlazzingInferno]

4420409
I had a lengthly reply typed up, and then my web browser ate it

Thanks for your most excellent suggestions. In the future I'd love to have another set of eyes on my writing prior to letting it loose upon the world.

My responses to your observations:

Regarding Fluttershy's dialogue, I agree that's a tad out of character. I think I was too focused on getting Rarity's voice right. Wether or not I succeeded is another story of course. I made a small tweak, but I'm not sure it's any better.

The letter trembled on her hoof and slipped off. She sat down on the floor and stared into space.

You're right, the fact that she actually read the letter at all is unclear. I changed it.

He put his hands on his knees and panted. Rarity trotted into the kitchen and returned with a glass of water floating next to her.

You're absolutely right about repeated words. That's something I try (and often fail) to catch in my own self-editing passes. That said, in this case I was deliberately avoiding a gotchya from one of my favorite editing books: joining two actions in a sentence with a comma followed by a verb ending in 'ing'. Apparently this is overdone in modern literature, and it's easy to see why. Sentences flow so nicely this way that I could write page after page like this:

Rarity trotted into the kitchen, returning with a glass of water floating next to her.

There's also the question of the timing of the two actions. The modified sentence above implies that Rarity simultaneously trotted into the kitchen and returned with the glass of water. Am I being overzealous with this one? Probably

Fluttershy retrieved the fallen letter and set it down in front of her. “What’s the matter? What had we do?”

There's no excuse for this one, I dropped a word or two and didn't catch it. Thanks for pointing it out.

Thank you again for your suggestions, I'm glad you've liked the story so far

[TheRealFlameScicle]

It was a great story! thanx for looking at mah observations and giving some explanations I look forward to reading some more of your nice works.

[Awesomo3000]

To tweak a quote from my favourite critic Roger Ebert a little: "I loved this story. Loved loved loved loved loved this story. Loved it. Loved every simpering sweet lovely heart-warming moment of it."

[Yoshifan30]

Wow that's was a pretty nice story and a very romantic and comedy the Boost so Octavia and Concerto to prepare to go back home but not until the main six gave them one last gift and it was a photograph after the wedding and after all that it turned out the best wedding ever and whatever the future between those two I'm sure they can do it together once again this was awesome keep up the good work