Inverno’s Opus in A Minor

by CrackedInkWell

Prelude in A Minor

Author's Note:

A huge thank you to Mix-up, aka amalgamzaku for creating the cover art of this story.

Also, final warning: The story you are about to read is currently unedited.

“Are we sure if this is a good idea?”

Shining turned away from the book to his wife lying next to him on their bed. “Huh? What is?”

“Sending Inverno to school. Are we sure this won’t backfire in any way?”

“Why not? I mean he’s fourteen now, and we both agree that he needs to get out more often. The Empire has finally accepted him, and he could freely walk the streets now without being afraid of getting beaten up.”

“But sending him at a public school?” Cadence adjusted herself in bed. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m not entirely against the notion of him interacting with ponies his age, but how are we sure it’s the right way for him to make friends? He’s going to be thrown in with teachers he’s never met to give lessons that aren’t related to music. And on top of that, a school that’s full of teenagers.”

“So?”

“Don’t you think that putting him, a colt that's emotionally sensitive, in a building full of teens that haven’t exactly learned how to be mature won’t backfire in any way?”

“But I don’t see why not,” Shining said as he put his book aside. “I mean, as much as Inverno is getting better, he doesn’t do much outside of the music room. Playing on the organ or piano, sketch music, listening to hours of classical on vinyl, and... that's it. And when he does want to go out, it’s to see an orchestra and then come right back. I’m not against it, except I’m afraid that he’s putting himself in a bubble. He still doesn’t have a friend, and he doesn’t fully know how the real world works.

“And putting that aside, we can’t always look after him all the time. We have the Empire and Flurry to look after too.”

“We still have Sunburst,” Cadence pointed out.

“True,” Shining nodded, “that guy is a real lifesaver some days. I mean, if he didn’t come out of his house to see all that snow… Who knows what might have happened. But at least he’s good with Flurry.”

“Yeah… Not so much with Inverno. If anything, I wonder if he’s outright avoiding him.”

“Why, he spends more time with the baby? In his defense, Flurry is a hoofful to handle with all of what she can do.” Putting the book on the nightstand, he shifted till he was facing his wife. “But back on topic, I think this would be good for Inverno. He’s always willing to learn and I’m sure there is a world that just goes beyond music. I bet when he interacts with the students there, he'll see that life is more than just playing the piano.”

“And his teachers?”

Shining waved a hoof, “I've already sent a letter to explain his unique situation. It would be their job tomorrow to take care of things from there. So don’t worry, I’m sure this will work out fine.”

---

For Inverno, the idea of a school sounded appealing at first. A place to learn alongside ponies like him his age sounds promising. Five days out of the week, he will be learning a different subject every hour with a lunch break by noon. Not only would he learn more about the outside world, but he could befriend those from one of many school clubs. On paper, it sounded fantastic. For the first time in months, Inverno felt excited about something.

On that morning he combed his coat and tied his long gray mane back with the only thing he could find: a purple bow. He gathered up his books, ate his breakfast, and was escorted over to the school. Diamond Head Jr. High was a short but expansive looking building of white crystal that held its flag of seven diamonds proudly. Even before Inverno could go inside, he saw foals that were about his age heading towards one of its many entrances. He, of course, has seen them before, but never this many in one place as if they were all going to a concert.

Even before he could enter the maze-like corridors, the rows of lockers and classrooms, Inverno was well aware of the eyes of the countless young students that followed him in. It didn’t make him feel any better that as soon as he arrived on its front steps - that was as far as the Crystal Guards went - he would have to be on his own for the rest of the day. Apart from the stares he got as he looked at a map of the school’s layout and heading towards his first class, his ears were buzzing by the chaotic amount of noisy chatter. If anything, there was nothing else but talk all around in every direction as he went to his class.

His ears picked up bits of their conversations, and most of them were about him.

“It’s about time they let Sombra’s pet out.” Muttered one.

“Isn’t that Inverno? I didn’t know he came here.” Said another.

“Check out Count Dracula over there.” And so on.

The more whispers, muttering, and outright comments he heard, the more he tried to pick up the pace to get out of the rumor-filled hallways and into the classroom. In a near gallop, only as soon as he went past the door, it had the opposite effect as the students in the room became disturbingly quiet.

“Oh, you must be the new student.” Behind a desk, an elderly mare waved at him to take a seat near the windows. “Just take a seat, we’ll be starting in a few minutes.”

Inverno did so, and while the muttering did pick up again, he could swear that as soon as he sat down, the nearby desks seemed to break away just a little. But needless to say, he wasn’t exactly in the mood to see if this was so. ‘Already I feel like going home.’ He thought.

By nine o’clock sharp, a shrieking bell rang that made the colt nearly jump out of his seat. However, before he could recover from the heart attack, the old mare behind the desk began. “Good morning students, before we move onto understanding multiplying fractions, there’s a new student that I’d like you to meet.” She waved over at him to stand up. “Would you tell us your name and something interesting about yourself?”

Inverno tilted his head. “Why?”

“So that we would get to know you better.”

‘How would that do anything if I just tell them my name and a fact about me?’ He thought but turned around in his seat to face the student. “Hello, my name is Inverno. And I compose music.”

A hoof was raised, “Like you write songs or something?” One of the students asked.

Inverno blinked, resisting the urge to facehoof. “Uh… That too. I write a bunch of stuff for the keyboard and orchestra.” He saw several looks of surprise on their faces that added even more confusion. ‘Didn’t any of them know this about me already? With the symphony all those months ago, one would think that at least a hoofful of them would probably know by now.’

The unicorn hoped that maybe this would be the opportunity for getting to know his fellow classmates, but the math teacher insisted on starting up on her lesson as she spoke about fractions. While Inverno knew a little about basic mathematics, the textbooks that described what a fraction is, the demonstration of the teacher on the chalkboard, and encouraging the students to do the same, Inverno found himself not invested with this piece of knowledge. At best he found it boring, and at worst, none of it made any sense.

If anything, when the teacher passed around sheet paper that gives a few problems for her students to solve, Inverno didn’t do anything except stare at it. Even with what was explained to him, it was like a whole new language to him. ‘How am I going to use this?’ he wondered. ‘Isn’t the point of a school is to teach useful things that you may need one day?’

For the rest of that class, all Inverno did with the sheet of paper was to pen a few variations on a melody he invented out of his boredom. He drew up lines over the math problem and jotted down notes and a rhythm to play with. The colt wasn’t paying attention to the teacher or the students as he sunk into embellishing and developing the melody.

“Inverno,” he looked up at the math teacher that was right next to his desk, a disapproving gaze was in her eyes. “You’re supposed to fill out the assignment, not doddle over it.”

“I didn’t understand it,” he said plainly. “You can’t expect me to finish something that I don’t understand, so I’m doing something more… what’s the word? Productive.”

At first, Inverno saw a flash of anger on the teacher’s face, but before she could say a word to scold him, she paused. Meditating on what her response would be without inflicting on herself the wrath of Inverno that Cadence and Shining had warned her about. So calming herself down, she asked him to set his composition aside and explain what exactly he didn’t understand about the lesson.

Inverno, much to his increasing annoyance, didn’t stop with the first class that morning. The exact same thing happened in Equestrian, History, Geography, Literature, Basic Magic, and many more throughout the day. One class after another with teachers lecturing about things and subjects that seemed to have next to nothing to do with what he usually does on a daily basis. He found most were either irritating or had no patients with him.

Even the promptings the teachers were giving to him didn’t help much of his opinion of them.

“Inverno, are you with the class?”

“Would you care to interpret that passage in the textbook?”

“We need for you to pay attention, you can draw later.”

“No, you may not go home yet.”

However, there was an opportunity to get to know the students – and that was during lunch break. At first, this too seemed like a good idea, the cafeteria was one of the school’s largest rooms that had rows of tables and ponies that gave Inverno plenty to choose from. He thought that was such a wide variety of youthful ponies like him, it shouldn’t be a problem to maybe find at least one friend among them.

So after waiting half an eternity in line for a tray of food, he set out looking for a table to eat at and ponies to eat with. Since he noticed that many of them had paired off in groups, he figured that it made things easier to see if he could make a friend with one of them.

“Can I sit here?” Inverno asked the first table he came across.

“Uh…” the students looked at one another with uncertainty. “We’re expecting someone and we’re just saving their seat.”

So he went to another. “This spot is taken.” Said another.

But this didn’t discourage Inverno as he simply went to the next table, asking to sit at the table that would have him. Fortunately, he managed to find a table. There were two fillies and a colt that looked somewhat similar to his age. After asking if he could sit with them and told him that they wouldn't mind, Inverno asked who they were.

“I’m Sage Leaf,” the green crystal colt shook his hoof, “and these two are my friends: Rosemary and Thyme.”

Inverno tilted his head. “Someone named you Time?”

“Yeah, I know,” the yellow filly smirked but rolled her eyes, “I get that a lot. It’s spelled T-H-Y-M-E.”

“That joke gets old pretty fast though.” The light purple filly named Rosemary said.

“I’m used to it.” Thyme replied before turning back to the unicorn. “And your name?”

“Inverno.”

The three of them blinked. “As in, Princess Cadence and Prince Shining’s kid?” Sage asked and Inverno nodded. “Huh… You know… You don’t look like anything I’ve heard about you.”

“Let me guess,” Inverno deadpanned, “a monster?”

Immediately, all three of them denied this. “Oh no no no!” Rosemary said, “Nothing like that. At least, from what I’ve kinda heard about you.”

“Basically rumors.” Thyme added quickly. “Which might not be all true, of course.”

“What kind of rumors?” Inverno inquired.

“The ones I’ve heard,” Sage answered. “Was that apparently you were locked up in a room for your whole life until Cadance and Shining let you out.”

“Yeah,” Thyme nodded, “and apparently you were brainwashed.”

Inverno blinked. “What’s brainwashed?”

Sage thought for a moment before saying: “It’s when someone tricks you into thinking or believing stuff that isn’t true that it is.”

“Like lying?”

The three of them looked at one another. “Uh… kinda?” Rosemary said. “When someone is brainwashed, they’re convinced of things that only the guy who is convinced to change their beliefs by force or manipulated into thinking that way. That they could be told that the sky is pink, and even if they knew that wasn’t true, they had to say that it is. Does that make sense?”

“I guess…” Inverno raised an eyebrow. “But it wasn’t like that for me. Papa- Sombra,” he quickly corrected himself, “had put me in an apartment that I was never allowed to leave. Telling me that the world was too dangerous for me to go out, that there were monsters and stuff like that.”

The three foals looked back at him. “That makes it even worse.” Thyme remarked. “You were never allowed to leave? At all?”

“Not when he was alive.” He shook his head. “But I don’t want to go into that. I actually wanted to make some friends at school. So,” Inverno smiled, leaning forward a little, “do any of you like music?” When told that they did, he immediately asked them who they liked.

“I like Sapphire Shores.” Sage raised a hoof.

“Countess Coloratura’s better.” Thyme said.

Rosemary scoffed, “Yeah they’re good, but they’re not Songbird Serenade. Now she can sing.”

Inverno blinked. “Who are they?”

Three foals stared back at him. “Are you serious?” Rosemary asked in shock. “You have never heard of them?” Inverno shook his head. “Celestia, you weren’t kidding on the whole isolation thing, weren’t ya? Uh, give me a sec…” The filly reached underneath her seat to pull out her saddlebag. She opened a flap in which she pulled out a pair of headphones that had a wire that connected to thick a looking disk with buttons on the side. “Here, put these on, I’ll play you a song that’s from Songbird’s latest album.”

Inverno was immediately interested as he was going to hear the latest modern music. Putting the headphones over his ears, he waited (if not impatiently) to see what new harmonies and creative sounds would cast a spell on these three. And then, Rosemary pressed a button in which a song came up through the speakers in his ears.

The foals noticed how Inverno’s cat-like eyes had widened when the song began to play, looking around the room as if he was expecting something. Then a moment in, he giggled. “Okay, I get it. It’s a joke, isn’t it? That's funny, but c'mon, where is the actual song?”

“Excuse me?”

“It’s comically simplistic,” Inverno replied. “Almost like a foal’s drawing. Just dark base percussion with electric buzzing, and the singer? She sounds really bored. So, come on, where’s the real song?”

The other two foals chuckled at this while Rosemary folded her forelegs annoyed. Thyme insisted on playing her favorite music next as she and Sage brought their disks as well. However, as Inverno had them play a song from the other musicians, the unicorn’s humorous smile dropped as he quickly realized that this wasn’t a joke. This was the style of music they liked.

“That’s it?” Inverno asked as he took off the pair of headphones. “I mean… really? Why do you like this? It’s the same percussion beating too loudly while the only difference between them all is a melody that hasn’t moved beyond its first draft. I don't know if I can tell the difference between the three singers. It’s looking at three different paintings in which the whole canvas is just one color.”

It didn’t take too long for the three of them to banish him from the table.

So he moved, from one table to the next to see if there was anyone that would have him. The next table he sat down to was crowded by fillies that were a little bit older than he was. But Inverno decided to quickly move on after he asked them the question if they knew how to play a musical instrument, to which, none of them didn’t.

The next table he was able to sit down at was populated by a group of ponies that all wore glasses. At first, Inverno hoped that maybe he might have found those like him as they sounded intelligent enough, but he brought up the question of whose music he liked and he answered with, “I’m split between Beethooven or Vifilli.” They responded that they didn’t know who the latter composer was.

Near the end of the school’s lunch break, Inverno quickly ate his already cold meal but had time to compose a quick tune.

---

Fortunately for Inverno, there was one class that he was looking forward to the most. And to his delight, it was music-related. The final class that day was choir.

‘At last,’ he thought as he entered the room with rising steps in which students took their spots, ‘something that’s at my level.’ He took a spot that was in the front row, near a standing piano that no doubt their teacher would be playing at.

The teacher for this final class was a stallion that seemed to be as old as Shining. He was a sky-blue crystal pony that greeted his class with a smile. After welcoming the new student (and Inverno giving the same follow-up questions that he heard all day) the teacher instructed the class through a series of choral exercises. A series of tune-ups from singing scales to doing nonsensical things such as making silly noises at different pitches.

By the time they finally got around to what they would be singing, the teacher passed over to Inverno some of the sheet music as he was new to the class. A little notebook in which, as the unicorn went through it, had only three songs in them. He raised a hoof, “Excuse me, is this all?”

“What do you mean?” the teacher inquired.

“Well, why three songs? Especially when they’re kind of… short.” Inverno wasn’t wrong, each of those three songs didn’t go past four pages at most.

“That’s because that at the end of the semester, we have a recital in which we have not just this class, but those before us that want to sing too, I had to choose a few that don’t go over our strict time limit, but just enough to rehearse with all the students.”

But Inverno didn’t feel satisfied, even when they began to go over the three songs, he couldn’t help but notice that even these songs were… simple. And all of them were folk songs as well that, while Inverno sang with the rest of them, he couldn’t help but imagine all the possible variations in his head that they could have used. To make them richer and deep with every passing bar. He would have excused the simplicity of it all if this was meant for foals much younger than he was. But in a school that was his age, if not a little bit older…? All of it just seemed demeaning that he would be roped in with those that maybe his age, but nowhere near the level of creativity that he has.

By the time the final school bell rang, Inverno just about had enough of this pointless day.

“Inverno, isn’t it?” the unicorn turned around, just as he was about to exit the choir room to find a colt that looked older than he was. A pomegranate red crystal pony that was putting things in his saddlebag.

“Yes?” Inverno asked with a suspiciously raised eyebrow.

“I think you did really well with those songs today.” He began. “And we’ve been doing this for nearly a month but, you’ve pretty much nailed it.”

“Oh… thank you.” He smiled at the compliment.

“Really, I mean it. You hit those notes perfectly- oh come on, you’re a filly, aren’t you?”

Inverno blinked. Not only because of the sudden change in tone, but the question being asked. “I… Sorry, what?”

“C’mon,” he said with a confident gleam in his eye, “you can tell me.”

He blinked again. “I’m sorry but… what?”

“That voice is a little too high for a colt.” The older colt pointed out. “As in, way up there. That and the bow you tied your mane together… it just has some of us wondering if you were a colt or a filly is all.”

“Us?”

Inverno noticed that he made a quick glance, in which he followed to a clump of students in a corner looking on. “I mean, personally there’s nothing wrong with having a bow in your mane and having a high singing voice.” The older colt added: “We were just… you know… curious is all. And we weren’t exactly sure as your snout is undoubtedly a colt’s, but your voice… we just weren’t sure is all.”

“I’m a colt.”

Now it was his turn to blink. “Really? Huh… I could have sworn that you were a-”

Inverno at that point was done. With a frustrated snort, he took his things and stormed out of the school. Almost tempted to bring it to ruins. But knowing his new parents that if he did, they would scold him.

Comments

[Dan]

They jump right to assuming he doesn't have balls. Haven't they ever heard of a countertenor? Or bargain-countertenor?
https://youtu.be/nLvCVRuZZgY?t=1m5s

[CrackedInkWell]

9059126
Whoever said they knew?