A Change of Venue

by solsticebrony888

Trixie's Day Part 2

Trixie made her bow slide slowly across the cello’s large strings, causing them to vibrate and make sound. Her technique was iffy, but it worked. She was able to stay in time with her orchestral teammates for the most part. She kept she eyes looking forward into the crowd of dozens of ponies and focused on not messing up. The nervousness gave her an icy feeling in her chest and time was going by slower than anything she had ever done before in her life.

One two three four, one two three four, one two three four, crescendo, rest rest, one, two, three, four, vibrato, two three four…

She paced herself in her mind, making sure to remember every single thing she had been taught by Octavia. The grey pony kept her expression clam, but she was mortified inside. Luckily, the hours of practice seemed to worked, from what she could tell so far.

She followed Bar Staff’s hoof movements, which swayed back and forth to keep the symphony in time, while using sudden movements to denote changes in tempo and sudden loud bursts in the piece they were performing. It was a fast piece, and the most challenging of the three they were to perform, though her ensemble members clearly could play it in their sleep.

The sun shone bright as it climbed over the distant mountains. It cast a warming glow over everything she could see, and it calmed her considerably.

One two three four, move hoof up, slide, one two three four

Her first mistake came halfway through the first piece, where she accidentaly played a note during a rest. Nopony noticed, and despite that anxious feeling in her chest, Trixie pressed on, knowing she needed to focus more.

She dismissed her mistake and pressed on. Unfortunately, she made a second mistake, a little more blaring, when the piece was within a minute of being over. Her hoof slipped off of the cello’s neck while playing a note, and caused a discordant ring for the second it took for her to recover.

That’s okay, Trixie, the piece is almost over!

Nopony had noticed from what Trixie had seen. Not even Bar Staff, who kept conducting the orchestra as usual, with no glances towards the grey pony to show disapproval for her mistake. However, she had no way of knowing whether he had actually noticed it.

The song then ended, and a light sound of clopping hooves came from the audience. The ponies with cellos next to her remained silent, and the grey pony felt that they had to have heard her mistakes. The whole ensemble lowered their instruments in unison, Trixie lucky enough not to miss the small cue by Bar Staff to do so.

During the short break in between their pieces, Trixie found herself eying the crowds for a certain lavender unicorn. Trixie didn’t like that even when her life is back to normal, she’ll have to mend her relationship with Twilight Sparkle. The grey pony didn’t know how to feel about Twilight’s feelings towards her, but all the grey unicorn knew is that she felt something back, and she may have just ruined a friendship, or even something more.

In unison, the orchestra raised their instruments again. The second piece was the easiest for Trixie, she even felt somewhat confident, and most of all, competent, when playing this song. It was a slow piece composed by Haythooven many, many years before.

Four flicks of his hooves and the symphony started. It caught the attention of the crowd quickly, because the intro was dark and mysterious.

Slowly slide the bow across the lowest string…

As the orchestra continued to play this piece, Trixie finally felt the revelation of how she was performing complicated pieces of music with other ponies. It was a sensation that she could not describe, especially with the crowd’s positive reaction. Her technique seemed more natural that her nerves started going away. The notes she played were stronger, and her timing was fairly decent for somepony who had no experience just four days before. Trixie was enthralled by this experience, and adrenaline took over for the rest of the piece.

No mistakes. Though her face was calm, her mind was ecstatic. It was a feeling she only could compare to her first successful performance as a showmare, when she was in Stalliongrad. The whole crowd had doubted her magical abilities, yet she soon proved them wrong with her story about the Ursa Major. Twilight was able to convince her to stop fabricating stories and encouraged her to use actual skill for performances in her next shows, but it was still amazing to her, barely older than a filly, to leave a crowd in awe. In some sense, she had done the same thing with Octavia’s ensemble members, and she hadn’t faked a thing.

Once again, the class lowered their instruments in unison, and Trixie didn’t miss a beat. She scanned the crowd again and finally saw Octavia. Even after so many days of having switched bodies with her friend, it still took Trixie a few seconds to comprehend that she was essentially looking at herself in the crowd.

She was glad to see the blue unicorn studying the spell-book. She would need to do well the next day.

I seriously doubt that Octavia will be able to do Trixie’s performance tomorrow…she doesn’t have the confidence, or well…ANYTHING besides mediocre magic skills that could amaze a crowd of gullible ponies!

Trixie sighed as she waited for Bar Staff’s next cue.

We’re going to have to practice….even more….after Trixie is finished here, oh Celestia…Trixie just doesn’t want tomorrow to ruin her career

Though she was having second thoughts about agreeing to go through with performing each other’s performances, Trixie promised herself to not be regretful over the decision, no matter what happened the next day. She just had to focus on her cello, do her best for Octavia, and focus on teaching her friend later.

Just then, Bar Staff cued everypony to lift their instruments. Trixie noticed just a second later than the rest of the ensemble and Bar Staff noticed. He glanced over at her with a blank expression on his face, and then swung his hooves back and forth to lead the ensemble into their third and final piece.

I can’t let my thoughts distract me!

The third piece was a serene and calming piece that showed off the talent of the of violin section. This piece, though not the hardest, took Trixie the longest to learn. She had to dumb down parts that were much too hard for her perform with her experience and basically just had to hope that she wouldn’t be caught dumbing it down.

The talent of the violin section was daunting to Trixie; she didn’t know how much work went into such performances and now that she did, she couldn’t comprehend the talent it took.

Her first mess up came quickly. Another time she should have rested instead of playing a note, and she got a glance from Bar Staff.

That’s okay, Trixie! Just keep focusing!

Octavia had stressed a time-signature change half-way through that could really throw her and the ensemble off if she forgot about it. Trixie’s friend had basically drilled it into her brain because it would be a disaster if she forgot about it.

The cellos played more of a background role in support of the violins and violas, a reason why the song wasn’t as challenging. Simply put, Trixie easily would have been doomed if Octavia had decided to play the violin instead of the cello.

Trixie found herself excited for the audience’s reaction to a part of the piece that was simply amazing. The violins and violas entered a wonderfully harmonious part while the cellos played the same part several octaves lower. It sent a chill down her spine.

The part came up and her heartbeat once again sped up. The vibrato of the higher section was perfect, entering the slow harmonic part. Trixie couldn’t fend off a smile, seeing the crowd’s faces light up once the part arrived, she even spotted the blue unicorn smiling from hearing the part in the audience. She was able to do this while playing her part as well as she possibly could. Her nerves were there, but they weren’t bothering her as much.

One two three four, one two three four, one two three four, TIME SIGNATURE CHANGE! One two three, one two three, one two three…

The grey pony breathed a sigh of relief once the time signature changed and she hadn’t messed it up. She kept her pitch as equal to her fellow cello played as even as she could. She didn’t have much memory in her hoof to remember where the exact note was, and a cello being fret-less made this harder. However, she considered herself decent at remembering where to place her hoof.

Suddenly, the piece was over. It took Trixie’s brain a few seconds to even register that it was over. It went so fast. After so many hours of training under such circumstances, after training for so long even though she had expected to fail miserably, the performance was over. Trixie was astonished. The grey pony soaked in the light applause she received from the crowd. She saw Octavia smiling towards her, which caused her to smile just from being proud of herself.

Bar Staff smiled at his ensemble, and then turned around, bowing in unison with his orchestra. The grey pony could barely hold back her urge to jump joyfully over her accomplishment. Each pony left their rows in a straight line, while carrying their instruments. Trixie was very used to being an earth pony.

<><><><><><><>

“Trixie! Trixie! You did absolutely amazingly!” Octavia quickly corrected herself, once realizing that several of her classmates were around “I mean, Octavia! You did great! I didn’t even hear a mistake! I cannot believe you pulled it off, I’m ecstatic!”

“Oh, I’m just doing what I always do, Trixie,” Trixie said, notably awkward when saying her own name, “Just went up there, and you know, played my cello,” Trixie lost what she was saying in the middle of the sentence, but it didn’t matter since Bar Staff had called for everypony’s attention.

“Everypony, I need your attention for a little while, and then I’ll get out of your manes. In two days there will be a ceremony for everypony to attend. The mayor will be announcing everypony’s names from each act from today and tomorrow. I expect all to be in attendance. Nice job today,”

The groups split up, Octavia and Trixie quickly made their way out of the practice area. They started trotting on their way back, because they both knew that they didn’t have much time left to practice. Even with a whole day left, neither expected for it to be enough for Octavia to pull of her performance the next day.

“No time to celebrate, Trixie, we need to practice,” The blue unicorn said, “I hate to admit it, but tomorrow is scaring me beyond words!”

“What did you study in the book?”

“Teleportation, I memorized the spell,”

Trixie chuckled obnoxiously, “Yeah, right, you just began doing magic. Trixie may have been able to do something crazy today by playing a show with your class or whatever, but teleportation is hard for most unicorns,”

“Well, most unicorns don’t really practice it,” The blue unicorn persisted, “Which is why it would make my performance tomorrow better,”

“You don’t even know what it feels like to fail at teleportation spell. It hurts like hay and wouldn’t be worth it in front of a crowd, Tavi. UGH! Now Trixie knows you wasted your time studying a trick that you shouldn’t have been,”

“I’m going to do it, Trixie. I’ve worked so hard, and I only have one more day as a unicorn. I might as well go out with a bang,”

“Octavia, Trixie would let you if Trixie’s life didn’t depend on you doing good or not. If you fail, nopony would want to see my performances. Trixie would be the laughing-stalk of Equestria!”

“We’re going to at least try!” Octavia said, “I really want to be able to do this…”

“Alright, ‘Tavi. We will try for a little bit. But if you fail too much, we’re going to move on and forget about it, deal?”

“Deal,”

Trixie couldn’t believe that she had just pulled off what she considered impossible. Though the pieces they were playing were the easiest in comparison to other pieces that Octavia knew, it was still an accomplishment. However, the time to relish in her accomplishment was short lived, and she had to teach her friend more magic skills for her performance tomorrow.

At first, it seemed like Octavia’s magic skills had relapsed, but she quickly remembered the skills she had learned in the past few days. The practicing was grueling for both of them. The blue unicorn may consider herself a fast learner, but this was a struggle. Nervousness affected her focus, and lack of confidence led her to believe she wouldn’t do well the next day.

However, they kept calm and pony’d on, and it eventually became apparent that her skills may just be able to wow a crowd the next day. Her first few teleportation attempts were unsuccessful, however, on her 4th and final try, she was able to transport three feet from where she was standing and it left Trixie in dismay.

The practicing felt like it’d go on forever. They had seemingly worked their flanks off day after day and it seemed like it would never end. They had the whole day to practice since the performance was in the morning. They took no breaks because it would be worth it in the long run.

Towards the end of the last day they could practice, Trixie drilled in the schedule of what Octavia was supposed to do on stage. She couldn’t forget it, because it was imperative for the show. The blue unicorn was able to spawn the table for the beginning of the show, along with some other abilities, but neither was sure about the teleportation trick. However, when Octavia practiced her whole performance from start to finish, she was able to perform the teleportation spell quite well.

Trixie sat on the ground and watched as Octavia finished what would be her performance the next day. The ending trick was the teleportation trick where she would disappear into thin air when the crowd was least expecting it. Octavia collapsed on the ground in the kitchen, where she had transported to, with a sigh. She was completely exhausted.

“Trixie has to say, that was surprising. You were able to do everything in the show…you even remembered how to do the backflip even though we hadn’t practiced that as much as we should have,”

“I need to rest! This magic thing is absolutely draining my energy, I just want this thing to be over…”

“We’re not done yet, ‘Tavi! You still need to work on your…your crowd interaction! You sounded weak and not confident; the crowd can’t be impressed if you don’t give them good expectations from the beginning,” The grey pony say while going through the book that her friend had studied, “You have to sound powerful that’s why you’re the great and powerful Trixie!”

“I-I’m just not good at that stuff! I hate talking to ponies, I probably couldn’t even talk to more than three ponies at a time without feeling uncomfortable before this happened before … maybe we should just switch back tonight so you can do your performance tomorrow?”

The idea was tempting, and Trixie definitely considered it, but she knew her answer, “Octavia, there’s no way Trixie could do that, Trixie doesn’t even know if she’ll still have her abilities if we switched back tonight…”

“D-Do we still have more to practice?” Octavia called, finally getting up from kitchen and walking into the living room.

“You know the answer already, ‘Tavi,”

Her friend had already successfully performed with her orchestra, and this brought upon more stress for Octavia. She had to perform well, be confident and slightly arrogant in front of a crowd of hundreds, while also knowing her friend had already been Octavia and succeeded.

After all the work, after all of the tiresome hours of studying magic, Octavia couldn’t bear the idea of ruining her friend’s career, after her friend had saved her own.

Comments

[oblivion2k]

Woo! Glad to see Trixie didn't botch things for Octavia. Really looking forward to seeing how Octavia does in her magic show.