Friendship is Optimal: Friendship ist Krieg

by anima draconis

Chapter 3

The Tartarus was a music shop located in a street near the commercial part of Canterlot. From the outside it looked like your average Canterlot shop, the entrance door was between two display windows, one with musical instruments, the other with CDs, vinyls and even tapes. Over this was a huge sign where “Tartarus Music Store” was written in yellow stylized letters.

The trio entered and was greeted by the vision of a relatively normal shop. There were musical instruments displayed almost everywhere, on the left was a counter with a smiling blue unicorn behind it. On the far end of the shop was a huge shelf full of CDs. Vinyls were scattered in various record storage boxes and there was a little shelf by the counter for the tapes. What sounded like old progressive rock was playing in the place.

“Hey Record!” Dunkelheit said to the unicorn “I hear that you’ve gotten your old Prince Crimson out of your personal shelf. What’s the occasion?”

The unicorn, an old stallion, just smiled before responding.

“For the sake of old days, young Dunkel. Also because I liked the rebellious music of the days. Now to be a musical rebel, you have to go to the extreme and even that has been swallowed by codifications.”

Dunkelheit just nodded.

“We need to go to the studio, can you open the door?”

“Of course, of course”

The stallion quickly grabbed a key from behind the counter and moved to the back of the shop, followed by the trio. He then unlocked a door leading to a corridor near the CD shelf.

“Have fun recording your music!”

They entered the corridor and the door closed behind them. On the other end was another door. Behind was what looked like your normal recording studio: a room with commands and computer, a window showing a playing room with foam covered walls and a door giving access to it. It was somewhat small; Aurore doubted that a full band would be able to fit in there, especially if the drummer had a drum kit of Mike Portnoy-esque proportion. But despite the size, it seemed totally legit.

“Blue Record is an awesome pony” said Blackjazz to Vocal Vortex, “he often comes to see me play at the café and always calls me when a band needs to record some saxophone.”

“He seems to be, remind me to rummage through his shelves when we’ll be finished here.” responded Vortex.

“I won’t forget. But in the now, time to play.”

The unicorn took her instrument out of its case and turned to Dunkelheit who was already adjusting the commands for the recording.

“So what do you want me to do exactly? Because I just know I have to play my sax, but how and how long?”

“Let me finish setting this up and then I’ll explain.”

There was an awkward silence for one long minute before the grey Pegasus finished her thing.

“Done! So Black, when you’re in the room, I’ll play you the full song and I’ll make a sign when it is where I want to put your solo. Then you’ll play whatever you want, get in the mood of the song and improvise, as long as it sounds good.”

“Got it! Let’s play!”

Saxophone in her magic, Blackjazz went into the playing room. She put her mouth on the instrument’s end and blew some notes out. She played to warm herself up for a dozen seconds, standing on her hind legs, holding her instrument with her forelegs and pushing the keys with her magic.

“Okay, I’m ready!” she mouthed to Dunkel.

The pegasus mare nodded and operated the control board. Suddenly, a fury of screaming guitars, thundering drums and tortured vocals flooded the room. Blackjazz, still holding her instrument, was beating one of her hind hooves to the rhythm of the song.

Outside of the Equestrian world, Aurore looked at Lucas who had plugged a USB key into his Ponypad.

“Isn’t it convenient that you can transfer everything from reality to Equestria and from Equestria to reality?” He said without looking to his friend, he was focused on his screen which displayed information about the recording.

Back in Equestria, Dunkelheit waved her hoof at the saxophonist and she started to play. What came out of the saxophone was a stream of raging high pitched sounds. She played fast, her body moving quickly in a sort of fusion with the instrument. She sounded like she was totally losing control, on the verge of breaking down towards musical insanity, but an attentive ear could notice that she was still in total possession of her spirit. And when she saw Dunkel wave her hoof again, she just let a single last note going on for several long seconds.

Aurore was looking at her screen with incredulous eyes. That pony just made one of the most amazing saxophone solo she had ever heard –not that she had heard a lot-, and it was totally improvised! She didn’t know how it was made possible. Was the human behind Blackjazz a talented saxophonist and just played in front of his Ponypad, or was the mare a NPC and the solo was totally created by the game? Disregarding the answer, it was still pretty impressive.

The unicorn went back into the control room.

“So, how was I?”

“Just perfect Jazz” said enthusiastically Dunkelheit “I thought you would have needed one or two more tries to get into the mood of the song!”

“I agree with her” added Vocal Vortex “I wasn’t expecting this. You just… played and it was perfect. Are you a renowned musician or something? Because you should be.”

“Awww thanks you two! And nope, I’m just a normal musician who lives to play, I don’t really care about the fame, I just play.”

‘She’s one lucky person’ thought Aurore. Being able to live with your music wasn’t what the majority of musicians were able to do in the real world. It was a true shame to her, and she often thought about what would have happened if some musician were able to only focus on their music.

“Do you want to listen to what you did?” proposed the grey pegasus.

“Of course, I want to know if I’ll have to redo it or not.”

After some button pushing, the music was played in the control room. Dunkelheit skipped to the saxophone part. It still sounded totally incredible to Aurore, the notes of the brass instruments were as furious as the song itself and it felt like it was on the verge of breaking down into madness.

Blackjazz had her eyes closed, she was focused on the recording, judging her work, ears twitching when she heard something that grasped her attention. When her part of the song was over, she instantly looked at Dunkelheit and said:

“I have to go back in there. There’s a lot of stuff I’m not happy with. I should have let myself go even more.”

“Wait… you’re serious?”

Vortex was totally baffled. The recording was perfect, what did the unicorn heard? The purple mare heard no responses; Blackjazz was already in the other room, ready to play again.

Dunkelheit started the song, and then Lucas turned to Aurore.

“You know, that pony is amazing. She’s totally dedicated to her music, and believe me when I say that we were in this recording studio for a long time. I’ve been helping her record a solo album she wanted to do some months ago. She is such a perfectionist and so meticulous with what she does that it took a week to do one song. Only one; and the album finished with twelve tracks. Also, she’s a fan of Shining and Naked City, and that’s a great quality to have such exquisite tastes.”

“This… This is kind of extreme.” Aurore was impressed. “I mean, even on our longest and most complicated song we didn’t spent that much time!”

“It’s not comparable, jazz listeners don’t have the same standards as metalhead. They’re in it for the performance; we’re in it for the ambiance and feeling. Also, you know as much as me about saxophone, so what tells you that she played perfectly? She might do the most awful playing ever but we’ll still think it’s awesome because it’s different from what we know.”

While they were speaking, the yellow unicorn had started to play. It was the same as before, the same flow of raging notes, the same possessed movements, the same passion. Aurore had resumed watching and wondered how it might feel to be physically here, to feel the music through the instruments and not through the Ponypad’s speakers. It might be quite the thing to live. To fully witness this magical thing that was the creation of music. Aurore and Lucas might have been doing home-made records but it hadn’t felt the same way. It was more spending good times with her friend, venting out from her life, drinking some beers and finishing the day with a movie or two. Right now was a totally different situation, and the feeling was somewhat stronger.

Once again, the song ended and Blackjazz was back.

“Once again, you were fantastic” cheered Dunkelheit.

“Thanks! Can you play it? I think I did better.”

And so, the song was played again, the unicorn was once again focusing, listening attentively. At the end, she said:

“Definitively better. But I think I have to go again, I don’t want you to have one correct solo, I want you to have the best thing I’ve ever played.

And once again, she went back into the recording room.

***

Two hours later, Blackjazz was still playing. Every time she listened to her work, she thought something wasn’t good enough to be put in the song and so, she went back to playing. After one hour of playing, she was starting to look exhausted from playing, but somehow she was finding the energy to carry on.

To say Aurore was astonished would be an understatement. She was giving all her respect to this little pony. The unicorn finished playing and almost crawled back into the control room.

“Don’t play it to me” she panted “I know this one is perfect. I need to rest for a bit.”

So she laid there, on the carpeted floor, hugging her instrument and trying to rest.

“I’ll go get her a bite and something to drink, you want something too Vortex?”

Aurore was about to say that she wasn’t hungry but her pony character’s belly let out a loud gurgling noise. Lucas and Dunkelheit both laughed.

“I get it, you need food. And you Dunkel? Do you want something? I think I’ll take some mango juice and sweet sweet muffins!”

The pegasus rushed out of the studio, leaving Vocal and Blackjazz by themselves. An awkward silence, only broken by the heavy breaths of the saxophonist, took hold. The pegasus mare went to study the recording panel, trying to understand what all those switches and knobs did. It didn’t take long for the grey pegasus to come back holding a paper bag in her mouth.

“It’s snack time girls! Crawl over here Jazz, I’ve got something to resurrect you!”

She took a small can of soda and a chocolate muffin out of the bag and put them next to the exhausted unicorn who quickly took the can in her magic, opened it and emptied it almost instantly. Vocal Vortex went to the bag and took another muffin and what seemed to be a can of iced tea.

“There you go, bon appetit!” Said the grey pegasus before hungrily munching on her own muffin.

Aurore saw her character automatically eat without needing her to press any key. Pony-her seemed to enjoy her snack and she wasn’t against that in real life either.

“Got any snacks here Lucas?”

“Same place as always, though I’ll have to restock in the future. You know that you’re a food vacuum?”

“I know, and don’t worry; I’ll pay my food debt with drinks at the pub, as always”

She playfully blew her tongue in his direction before quickly going into the closet where snacks lived before being eaten and retrieved a bag of industrially made croissants.

“I’ve got some for you too!”

“You’ll still have to pay for this week’s food. I’d say it will cost at least three pints of beer at Friday’s pub.”

It was a tradition for them to go to a nice little pub called The Middle Age every Friday evening, the ambiance was nice, the bartenders were awesome people, drinks weren’t expensive and there were a lot of choices to satisfy almost everyone. This Friday would be their last together; Lucas has planned to leave this world next week. Aurore was hoping that time would stop when they’ll be there so that she can enjoy her friend and her drinks forever. But she knew the world wasn’t about to grant her wish, so she only focused on making the most of this last evening. But right now, she had at two days to spend until Friday so her mind wasn’t too focused on that at the moment.

“Now that our song is done” said Lucas “do you want to continue on another one? I have two riffs I recorded during my nightly insomnia and they’re sick.”

She smiled; of course Lucas had new riffs. He suffered from some severe insomnia and when he was too tired to do productive stuff but couldn’t sleep, he messed around with his guitars and recorded that, went to bed when he thought he would finally sleep and listen to it just after awakening.

“You know I’m always ready for that” answered Aurore.

“Yay! Let’s just hang out with Jazz a bit more and then we’ll go to work on these riffs. I sense we are actually doing some top quality stuff right now. ”

He was motivated and his motivation was spreading to Aurore. The day had been interesting; recording with Blackjazz had been one hell of an experience. She was in an even better mood than before to work on their music.

Author's Note:

Here we go ! Again thanks to Cander for editing the story.

Comments

[Cander]

Glad to see you got it up. Looking forward to seeing what this is all leading up to.