A string

by Bronyofcuba

A string.

The theater was full that night, a very talented pony was going to perform there.

Octavia was very recognized, so much, that lines had been made in the theater days ago in order to buy the entrance to the concert before anypony else. The richest nobles of Canterlot had all gone there with great excitement to hear Octavia's song. She was one of the best musicians that ever walked the land, she was very successful since she was only fifteen years old. Her mastery of playing the cello was divine, to hear her was a luxury that only the highest class citizens could afford. They were all waiting for the musician to start her song and she was very nervous.

Hundreds of thoughts crossed her mind. What if she failed? She would probably be mocked and tossed away from the world of music. More bad visions tormented her and were disturbing her so she dismissed them as they could interfere with her music and there was no room for mistake in that situation.

It was a very delicate piece of art what she had to play from her instrument, composed by the greatest of musicians to ever walk the land of equestria. Rumor has it that he started to compose it at the age of twenty two but didn't finish it until he was ninety seven, he died the next day after composing it, saying that his part in life was done. There was nothing more complex in terms of timing and precision. The worst of all is that the highest class of royalty had been able to attend to the event as well, all four princesses were there, alongside her parents and closest friends and they would pay attention to every little detail. She had to do it perfectly.

Very few ponies were ever able to make the start of that particular song correctly, let alone finish it without mistakes. And yet, here she was, just about to show the world her skills and be recognized as one of the greatest, or fail miserably and fall on her face in the dirty mud which is incompetence.

But she would complete it without errors, she had trained for that moment her whole life, it was just her special talent after all. And so, she positioned herself and started playing the so expected music.

Everything was going well so far, not a missing note, just the right pace and the crowd was listening with pleasure to the majestic sounds that her instrument emanated, she was just in the middle of her perfomance and it was going great, just the finale left and she was done. But then, it happened:

A string broke loose.

It made a horrible sound that echoed through the hall, louder than the music before, as if it wanted to say everypony that it was there, like a young colt.

It made everypony gasp and forget the beautiful music that was being played just seconds ago. Octavia's world started to fall apart even before their reaction.

She felt fear engulf her as the theater started to fall apart. Pieces of roof fell to the ground, the walls had gigantic cracks and were being destroyed as well. The floor was the last, like pieces of ice in the cold north it was torn apart and sunk to the infinite darkness that lied below. For some miracle, no pony was hurt, even though the musician could hear screams all over the place, they entered her head and didn't leave, tormenting her to no end.

Octavia fell with the floor into a deep black pool where drowning wasn't caused by water, but by fear and sadness. She was now trapped in that dark place which had her for architect and that everypony builds their own unique way, based on his or her life.

For some reason the place was restored and nopony hurt, the events before were probably a product of her imagination, but the crowd didn't let her think and instantly turned into an angry mob and threw her off the concert hall into the thrash, from that point on, she was treated as such; everypony read the newspaper with her face in the front lines, describing her horrible failure; she returned to Ponyville walking as nopony dared to lend a helping hoof to her; she was kicked out of her house by Vinyl with great disgust on her face, Octavia's parents wouldn't let her live with them either; forced to live in the streets, she almost starved to death, nocking in every house in hopes to find something to eat; she never died, but instead survived in her miserable state, eating what she could find and earning glares from each passing pony that saw her, but none saw a pony in need, just another failure; she was taken to an asylum by Celestia's orders to live the rest of her life, she did, but in the worst possible conditions, horrible food, treatment and roomates, it was more a prison than an asylum and Tia knew that, Octavia didn't represent anything else to her anymore, just another mouth to feed; she finally died years later, or more precisely, she killed herself with some scissors in order to not suffer anymore, nopony ever cared about her death, some were even glad that she had died while others never found out; she was left to rot in the fields; nopony made a grave or a burial for her; everypony forgot about who she once used to be, one of the greatest musicians; her own parents denied her existence, too ashamed of their daughter; time passed and just like the leaves of trees, when she died, she was replaced by others, and nopony ever cares about the leaves that used to be in the tree unless they were special, which wasn't the case for Octavia.

She then woke up from shock, she looked around at everypony, then at her chello and saw reality.

She had simply broke a string.

Author's Note:

This is my first story so I would appreciate constructive criticism.

Comments

[Princess of Hearts]

Great story.

One thing I would like to say is that I found that last big paragraph to be a bit overkill. It’s a bit too long. Therefore, I feel that it could be shortened and if done correctly, the shortened version would still have the same, if not more, emotional impact as the original paragraph.

[86]

Whoa... For a first story that's pretty damn good, I really felt the anxiety.

[Bronyofcuba]

10151980
I don't totally understand the problem. Care to explain please?

[lyrabetes3939]

Nice story! It has a good moral: don't make a big deal out of little things.

[Princess of Hearts]

10152314
I just felt that the last major paragraph is a bit too long and that it could have been shortened down a bit. It's nothing major, it's just something I noticed while reading.

[Bronyofcuba]

10155635
Ok.

[My Little Epona]

Neat! Nice story.

[Windy Breeze]

Nice story, but you need to edit the chello part. The right word is Cello.

[Crystal Jewelheart]

I'm going to try help you when it comes to one of the errors. I'm not good at correcting mistakes.

Her mastery of the cello was divine.

I think something is missing in this sentence

“Her mastery of playing the cello was divine”

More bad visions tormented her and were disturbing her so she dismissed them as they could interfere with her music and there was no room for mistake in that situation.

Are the bad vision happened before while she's playing her cello.

This is before she could play her cello:
“More bad visions tormented her and were disturbing her so she dismissed them before they could interfere with her music and there was no room for mistake in that situation.”

To my opinion, the flow of this story is a little too fast, or maybe because the story is too short? But it did tricked me into believing the theater was going to collapse. Nice work anyway.

[Bronyofcuba]

10244289
I will correct that mistake, thanks.

As for the rest, I also feel like it was pretty short. This was the first one I wrote and besides, English ain't my native language. (I suppose you guessed that anyway)

And thanks again!

[Crystal Jewelheart]

10244357
I understand. I was like you, but worse since English is not my native language either. I live somewhere in Asia.