Twilight and the Volcanologist

by Razor Flake

Canterlot

Train En Route To Ponyville

“So what did you tell Celestia?”

Charlotte was reading a terrakinesis book, nestled in a career of the traincar. Jonathan himself was taking notes on arcane circles when she asked.

“Told her that I got bullied after my mom died. Said I figured that protecting myself was the best option. Learned to throw a punch, knock people bigger than me down. That sort of thing.”

“Ah. Hey Twilight, what's this about magma?”

Twilight trotted over to her, and briefly explained that since magma is just liquid rock, it could still be influenced by terramancy. She made a mental note to ask Jonathan more about his past. Jonathan snorted.

“You get the volcano powers? I still studied them, now all I get it to be a living cooler.”

Charlotte laughed.

“Goddamn, I hate you so much. C’mere, ya big bastard.”

She got up and gave him a hug. Jonathan was startled. This was odd for Charlotte.

“Woah, I'm not going anywhere, what's gotten into you?”

Very uncharacteristically, tears began to run down Charlotte's face. Before Jonathan saw, she wiped them away, and just chuckled.

“Never thanked you for dragging my deep fried ass to safety. Figured wasn't the best time to do so in the hospital.”

Jonathan snickered.

“Yeah, regret it already.”

They shared a good natured laugh before returning to their books, leaving a very confused Twilight in. The middle of the traincar.

Ponyville Library

How can they act like towards each other, then hug, and go back to name calling? Ugh! It doesn't make sense!

Twilight was attempting to understand the relationship between her human friends. It was utterly unique in nature to her. Without the proper context, the two seemed to hate each other, but also not. It was a mind bender the librarian wasn't going to deal with alone. Jonathan came down from the balcony, tome in hand.

“Twilight, I'm putting my foot down on this. Charlotte and I have agreed to pay you rent for staying here. Charlotte has worked out a deal with Applejack, and Vinyl and Octavia hired me as an assistant in the studio. In total, we have a combined gross income of 78 bits a day, and we pay 20% rent, that gives us a net income of about 63 bits. Decided to pool our incomes and split, not counting tips, overtime, or other things like that. No argument about it. In fact I believe my first day in the working world starts…”

Glanced at a watch he wasn't wearing.

“Now!”

Twilight sputtered a bit, before she went to ask Charlotte about this new development.

Synths and Strings Music Store

“Alright, dude. That looks good. But, Jon, I really gotta ask you something.”

Jonathan had been moving cables, adaptors, and a few amps about Vinyl’s side of the store, and going to go help Octavia with a Contrabass, comically massive against the small pony, when Vinyl spoke

“Yeah?”

“What's human music like?”

Jonathan gave a look of amusement.

“Well, there's thousands of types of music. There's pop, rock, jazz, EDM, electronica, big band swing and ragtime, and if you go into history a little bit, classical orchestra and piano music.”

At the mention of orchestra, Octavia made her way next to Vinyl, and began to listen, Contrabass abandoned on a stand.

“You know, you guys are missing a lot instruments we back home. I thought it was because you guys don't have fingers. But I saw Lyra playing a lyre with her magic, so I figured some simpler instruments still exist, but I was curious about the string instruments. How do you play them?”

Octavia took a violin from a display rack and demonstrated a scale and arpeggio. Jonathan noticed that she angled her hoof of the neck.

“May I?”

Octavia gave him the violin. It had been a while,but after a few horrid scales, he played a slow tune he made up on the spot, noting he would need to tell the sisters about pianos. Octavia studied his fingers, pressing down on strings, moving them side to side the give tremolo to the tone.

“What it that piece? Do you know the rest of it?”

Octavia was earnest. The song was beautiful, and she was sure she could transpose it for her cello.
Jonathan scratched the back of his head, smiling apologetically.

“Sorry Octavia. I just sort of… Made it up. It's been awhile since I played anything, though. Understand why you'd want to play it with some actual skill.”

He chuckled. Octavia gaped at him, and Vinyl lowered her ever present glasses.

“You just… just improvised on the spot? It was… It was beautiful. If you could write it down, maybe even finish it, I would be glad to give a bonus. I would love to play that myself.”

Vinyl nodded in agreement.

“Jeez, man. You should be working with us, not for us. Know anything else?”

Jonathan smiled. He was ten again and his dad bought him his first keyboard. He was in love with music, but never had the time to compose like he wanted to. He had started a music theory class this term, but current events somewhat impeded his attendance.

“Can I get a bass? I don't need the bow.”

Vinyl levitated a bass over, eager to see what he did. Jonathan began some pizzicato, plucking at the instrument, making a jazzy, upbeat tune that had the three bouncing. As the musical exchange continued, the human and sisters grew in a comradery that made the employer employee boundaries fade away, only three musicians enjoying music.

Meanwhile

“Alright, that’s all I need.”

Together, Charlotte, Applejack, and Big Mac had setup a smith area for Charlotte. Ponies didn’t use traditional hammers, so Charlotte had to make her own, with the help of Applejack.The furnace setup before her would be good enough to work iron, but nothing much tougher.

“Are ya sure ya wanna do this? We can always buy new parts.”

Applejack felt a little guilty for hiring someone just out of hospital, but she insisted she was fine. But, she detected a sort of falsehood in it. She wasn’t telling the whole truth, but she knew the was truthful about being fit to work.

“Don’t worry, AJ. I’ve got this. Haven’t worked metal for a while, but I can do basic stuff.”

Charlotte had pitched that she could repair nearly any broken equipment, even make metal parts. She insisted she would cost less than bought goods, and nothing beats homemade. Applejack caved and offered a daily salary.

Charlotte began to pound out horseshoes for Big Mac. Apparently, no producers made a size large enough for him at a reasonable price. He always insisted no one go to any trouble for him, albeit in the form “Eeyup” or “Nope”. Charlotte decided her first order of business was to remedy that.

About an hour later, Charlotte had been at work hammering a hedge trimmer back into shape when Applejack walked in to see how she was doing.

“Hey there, sugarcube. How ya doin’?”

Charlotte looked up from the clippers, meeting Applejack’s gaze.

“Alright, AJ. Metallurgy has always been a thing I enjoyed, along with a good day's worth of honest work. Grew up on a farm myself, but dad always knew I had a brighter future. Eighteenth birthday he said He would get me into a college if it was the last thing he did. Good man, he was. I wonder what he’s up to now…”

A look of sadness entered the scientist-turned-smith.

“That’s nice, ain’t it. But, looks to me like somethin’ bothering you. What’s wrong?”

Charlotte sighed.

“I was talking with Twilight, and she told me that, due to how rigid the magical field on Earth is, too much energy would be forced into it for it to properly take it in. Needless to say, Antarctica is a beautiful place. Don’t need to melt it.”

Applejack’s gaze softened.

“Ya can’t go home?”

“No. Jon is fine, though. He doesn’t have much to back to. Mom’s dead, dad’s comatose, unlikely to ever wake up. He only has one friend, but you’re talking to her.”

She laughed a bit.

“We were studying volcanoes, you know. We were going to find a way to better predict eruptions. Save lives, that kind of thing. Seems so distant now, worrying about grades, my thesis paper, or anything, really. This place reminds Jon and I of home, so I guess we could settle down, live our lives like we planned to. Sort of.”

Charlotte’s face saddened a bit.

“You know, when he carried my out of that room, it was still burning, smoke choking our lungs, my nerves having burned to the point of numbness. That was when I blacked out. I asked Twilight about what happened during that time between my going out and coming to in your basement. She told me that she had to toss us both through because Jon was convinced that I would die. He said that I was all he had left, and I died, he would have no reason to not to the same.”

Applejack just sort of looked at her, unable to comprehend fully the implications of this. Her voice, her tone, was utterly honest. Nothing tipped her off that she was lying.

“Well sugarcube, looks to me like you got friend who really cares about you. More so, though, he seems a mite attached to you. He really did never leave that room in the hospital. He didn’t eat nor sleep. Told us all that it would distract him if you woke up. I think he’s a really good friend. Ah wonder if any of the girls would do the same, in such a situation.”

“Well, I didn’t die, so there’s that.”

Applejack chuckled.

“Yer sure right about that.”

Mood lightened from the topic of her near death, Charlotte and Applejack made idle chatter as Charlotte worked metal.

Synths and Strings

“Vinyl.”

“Yeah Jon?”

“Look at this. Been messing with some old equipment in the back. A made a rudimentary guitar amp.”

“The hecks a guitar?”

Jonathan smiled a bit

“Funny. They’re closely related to string instruments, since the are string instrument, but the are primarily play strummed or with a pick. Case in point, I soldered together a really, really crappy pick up out of a magnet and some other stuff. I kinda sorta maybe.. uh… gutted a broken cello. Octavia will have my head over this, but i think it will interest you. Take a listen.”

Jon went into the back room and came out carrying something that may have been a speaker at one time in its life. Case removed, Vinyl noticed several spools of copper and other weird, bulbous thing on various parts of it, as well as a few knobs she recognized from her old scratch table. He went back in and again, came out with a horror of a cello.
The part that held up the strings on the body was gone, and behind the stand was removed. A bar with a few circles on it could be seen behind the strings, as well. A solitary cable hung out of the left hole of the thing.

Wow, jeez. He wasn’t kidding.

“Now listen.”

He flicked a switch resting on top of the brutalized speaker, presumably now an amp, and sat down on the floor, neck of the once cello pointing to Jon’s left.

“Hey, it didn’t catch fire this time.”

He began to play, and Vinyl heard one of the most beautiful and amazing sounds she has ever heard. It was… Utterly unique to anything she had listened to. It faded out, and he began to play other sounds, messing with the knobs every once in a while. The instrument made everything from a smooth, soft jazzy tone, to a hard, powerful storm of noise. Vinyl was more than loving it. She needed something like this at one of her gigs.

“Alright. Draw up a design for an actual one. Any materials in mind?”

Jon smiled broader than ever since arriving here.

“A good chunk of wood, six steel strings, in varying width that I’ll describe on the diagram, and six viola tuning lugs.”

“Alrighty. Tell you what. I’ll give you double today. This is amazing. I’ll explain to Octavia, and see if I can get those lugs.”

“oh, and one more thing. Is can I use the repair shop in the back? I saw tools in there that would make this a lot easier.”

“No problem.”

Author's Note:

Deeply sorry for the long wait on this chapter. If anyone stayed with this story, thanks. I know it's really short, so are all the chapters in the story. I've got bad pacing, I know. To be honest, I've been away because break. I needed a breather. I barely got past some of my finals, and I was generally lazing around. Again, sorry for the silence. Also regarding the Discord chapter of Echoes of the Past. It was terrible. I'm doing seething else totally. Thanks for reading!

Comments

[FireheartThePone]

8687108
I don't have Skyrim, sadly.
Nor do I have the computer storage to support Skyrim either.