Played on Strings

by Sixes_And_Sevens

Hello, Goodbye

Music, as many individuals will tell you, has incredible power. It has the impossible ability to stir up feelings of love and joy and beauty in the hardest of hearts. It can stay with you for hours, even days, pumping through your veins like lifeblood. It brings people together. But there is another side to music. Its abilities are not solely positive. There are songs which call up memories of loss, of fear, of pain. They stay with you for hours, even days, grating on your mind like a bow drawn across a string. They are haunting and beautiful and terrible. And they never really leave you.

One such song is being played even now, a rehearsal of a grimly compelling disasterpiece in a far grander sin-phony. In a house on a cliff overlooking the grey and murky sea, the haunting melody of a bow rubbing a string cuts as deeply as a blade rubbing across a neck. The metronome ticks out its time, a comforting constant in a sea of uncertain change and terrible beauty. Comforting, that is, until the listener realizes that the music is not being played in time with the frantic ticks. The music is deep and slow and ominous, like a circling shark. The maestro plays on.

The bow is as thin and pale as bone. The instrument is stained darker in some spots than others beneath the varnish. It is best not even to speculate about the strings. Slowly but surely, the metronome reduces its speed, decelerating in fits and stops and flailing strokes, but at long last it succumbs and ceases to tick entirely.

The music continues for a few notes more, and then the bow is off the strings. There is no grand flourish, nor even a small one. It is simply and geometrically removed. The room is silent, and then the silence grows textured. A fanciful listener might suppose that they could hear the barest memory of applause, an echo of glory.

The maestro bows to the emptiness. It was a good rehearsal. The only thing he needed now was his audience.

---

Octavia hummed a little as she arranged her luggage. Her wife watched idly from the doorway. “Need any help, Octy?”

“No thank you, Vinyl. I believe I can manage to sort out what I’ll need. Let me see. Socks, no. Dresses, none. Dress shirts, ditto. Collars, three. Bow ties…” she quickly multiplied out the columns and rows. “Twenty-eight.”

Vinyl blinked. “I thought you were going to be gone for a week.”

“Yes, you’re quite right,” Octavia agreed. “Twenty-eight won’t be nearly enough.”

The unicorn snorted back a laugh. “You aren’t going to go out and buy more, are you?”

Octavia rolled her eyes and sniffed. “Don’t be a third-chair percussionist, Vinyl. There’s nowhere near enough time, for one thing.”

They stood in silence for a long moment. As ever, Octavia cracked first, breaking down in peals of laugh-snorts. Vinyl Scratch lasted only another few seconds before cracking a grin and letting out hissing snickers. “Oh, Octy. Have fun at your gig, alright?”

“Oh, no fear there, Vi,” the grey mare said, grinning sunnily. “Seaside, fresh air, bright weather… it will be wonderful.”

Vinyl snorted. “Well, in that case, don’t have too much fun. I really don’t wanna have to travel all the way to… wherever you’re performing… to bail you out. Not after Trottingham.”

Octavia pouted. “Oh, poor Vinyl. You spend all your time in clubs, and you don’t know how to party…”

The unicorn rolled her eyes. “Octavia, I swear, if you get drunk and start dancing on tabletops in whatever bar that town has…”

“It’s called Hayburg, I seem to recall.”

“Not exactly the Canterlot Symphony Orchestra, huh?”

“No, and thank Celestia for that!” Octavia rolled her eyes. “Those bores wouldn’t know avant-garde if it hit them over the head with a mallet while dancing the Pony Pokey in a rainbow leotard.”

Vinyl paused. “It sounds like there’s a story there.”

“Oh, very much so,” Octavia agreed happily. “That was a good night. For me. Less so for the woodwinds!”

“You goof,” Vinyl chuckled, leaning in to nuzzle her wife's neck. “I’m gonna miss you.”

“I assure you, my love, that I shall miss you no less,” Octavia replied lightly, snapping her suitcase closed. “Come along, Vinyl. The others will be arriving shortly, I’ve no doubt.”

---

Octavia strode through the streets of Ponyville like a goddess, unburdened by care. Vinyl struggled along behind her with her suitcases. Octavia had fairly reasonably pointed out that for all the good an earth pony's strength was, the luggage was too large for her to carry, and it would be more convenient for Vinyl to levitate them along. For her part, Vinyl didn't object. She had been the pack mule in their relationship for years now, and she had grown used to it.

Octavia's cello was the sole exception. Octavia could handle that instrument like it was an extension of her body. Vinyl wouldn’t go so far as to say that the cello was her wife’s sole love, but it was usually the only thing that the mare wanted between her legs.

Vinyl chuckled. On the one hoof, an asexual cellist raised by a strict mother, sent to boarding school, and placed in one of the most well-respected orchestras on the planet. On the other, a DJ from lower Manehattan, raised by two parents best described as laissez-faire, attended public school up to graduation day, and famous in the club world. If you had to pick which one was going to be the wilder of the two, you would be wrong. Octavia was, in Vinyl’s considered opinion, a perfect rebel against everything her mother had tried to make her into. The cellist was crass, snarky, and usually at least a little bit drunk, on alcohol, music, or both. Her friends and bandmates were… well, usually they were more responsible than Octavia, with the possible exception of Beauty Brass. However, they were eager to follow in the cellist’s hoofsteps all the way off the edge of a cliff.

And I’m just letting them loose on a little village by the sea, Vinyl thought guiltily. If I didn’t have that gig in Baltimare next week... Ah well. Hope Hayburg has good property insurance. Good luck, dudes. Sooner you guys than me.

“Oh, look, they’re already here!” Octavia trilled, jerking Vinyl from her reverie. “Come along, love, I’m sure they’d love to say hello.”

The unicorn glanced up. The usual suspects were trotting over.Frederick Horseshoepin, Beauty Brass, and of course, Harpo. Vinyl grinned weakly. “Yay,” she said.

It wasn’t as though she didn’t like her wife’s bandmates; all of them were tremendously charming, in their own separate ways. They all had similarly peculiar senses of humor. Fred and Beauty were a very sweet couple, and Harpo was a marvelous artist -- a photographer and painter as well as a musician. Taken on their own, they were all positively enchanting, scintillating company, and ponies who Vinyl was always pleased to list as her friends.

When they were all together… well, that was a different matter.

Nevertheless, she grinned at the approaching trio of ponies. “Hey, Freddie, how’s it shakin’?” she asked warmly, taking the white-maned stallion by the hoof.

The tall stallion grinned back at her. Then, not quite unexpectedly, he began to shake his tail jerkily back and forth and up and down. “It’s shaking pretty well, I’d say,” he replied with a slight wink. “And yourself, Mrs. Scratch?”

Vinyl smirked. “I’m doing pretty well, too. Got a gig in Baltimare comin' up. Guess we’re all getting a taste of the sea this week.”

Frederick’s bright smile could light up a dark room. He had a sort of aura to him, the kind that came from sheer contentment with and understanding of the world. Which, no surprise there, given that he was the eldest and best-travelled of the band.

“Hey, c’mon, Fred, don’t monopolize our poor DJ friend,” a sky blue mare said lightly, bumping him aside with one curvaceous flank. She smiled at Vinyl, her adorable, youthful face framed by a cloud of brown hair. When the two had first met, the unicorn had barely been able to get a word out through the haze of brain-addling attraction. But she was older, now. More mature. “Bello, Heauty.”

Octavia swallowed a giggle. Beauty smirked lecherously. Vinyl’s face turned so red that Big Mac would be jealous. Fred winked. “None of your up-and-down, in-and-out, twenty-four-seven-up-and-over-the-hedge, now, Beauty.”

Vinyl blinked, momentarily distracted from her embarrassment. “What does that mean?”

Fred shrugged. “No idea, but it sounded good, didn’t it?”

“Oh, come on, you two, stop teasing the poor mare,” the last member of the quartet admonished, stepping up. He looked like a younger Frederick, but painted blue and deep violet.

Vinyl smiled. “Hey, Harpo.”

Born Harpsichord Parish Nandermane, the stallion had cut his name down to the far more manageable ‘Harpo Parr’ early in his career, on grounds that it could be printed in larger letters on a libretto or musical program. He was soft-spoken, a tad shy around strangers, but terrifically loyal. If Octavia was the group’s brains (an admittedly terrifying thought), Fred was the soul, Beauty the backbone, and Harpo the conscience. He nodded at the unicorn. “Hello to you too, Vinyl.”

The unicorn was struck once again by how oddly similar the group was. Fred and Harpo could have been father and son, and Octavia had Beauty’s hairstyle, except a bit longer. They all had remarkably similar manes, actually. As far as Vinyl knew, that had been true even before they had split ties with the CSO to form their own ‘avante-garde’ chamber music group. Given what she had seen of Octavia’s childhood photos, it was entirely possible that it had been true for as long as they had been alive.

“So, when do you guys need to catch your train?” Vinyl asked.

Frederick put a hoof to his chest. “Don’t tell me you’re that eager to see the tail ends of us.”

“Oh, lovely Vinyl,” Octavia wheedled.

“Gorgeous Vinyl,” Beauty put in.

“Brilliant Vinyl, you wouldn’t want us to go already?”

“Course she wouldn’t, patient mare like her. Oh kindly Vinyl!

“Fantastic Vinyl.”

“Charity Vinyl.”

“Perfect Vinyl, you wouldn’t see us off without a bit of lunch first, would you?”

Laughing, Vinyl held up a hoof to ward off the steadily encroaching bandmates. “Alright, alright, fine. Octy, whaddya think, Sugarcube Corner?”

The grey mare’s eyes lit up. “Brilliant! Ooh, you lot are gonna love meetin’ Pinkie Pie. Remember that time we played the Gala, the one where old Bluey got a cake smashed over his head? She’s the one who had us do the Pony Pokey!”

“Always good to meet a fan,” Beauty grinned.

“Yeah, especially one who really understands the music we’re tryin’ to make,” Frederick added drily. Vinyl sometimes wished that she could tell when Octavia and her quartet were being facetious.

“Come on,” the dun stallion continued with a toss of his head. “Let’s get over there, I’m starved.”

The party trickled down the road toward the pastry shop. However, Harpo hesitated for a moment, glancing over his shoulder. He felt as though he were being watched. Across the road, he glimpsed a figure standing in the shadowy window of a closed music shop for the merest of seconds, framed by saxophones and violins. But then he blinked, and it was gone.

The harpist shook his head after a moment and trotted after his bandmates. From the shadows behind him, a nearly-invisible figure watched him go. Dark eyes glittered from behind an ossified mask that obscured its features.

---

Vinyl led the quartet through the doors of the gingerbread house bakery. “Nice place,” Harpo murmured appreciatively, glancing around.

Octavia grinned and quickly secreted herself in a nearby booth. Vinyl frowned slightly, but none of the others seemed to give any kind of notice. “Oh, Pinkie!” Octavia called. “Have you met my friends?”

Vinyl’s stomach dropped. “Tavi, don’t--”

“They’re new in town!”

There was a bang. The next thing anypony knew, they were covered in confetti and wearing party hats. “Hi there!” Pinkie said from behind her party cannon. “Welcome to Ponyville!”

Octavia burst into laughter as her three bandmates stood there, stupefied. Vinyl rolled her eyes, but took a bite of the cake she was suddenly and inexplicably holding. Frederick recovered first. “Alright, Tavi,” he said, waggling a hoof at her playfully. “Alright, you got us right good. Just so long you realize this means war.”

Octavia smirked. “Be a bit of a boring gig if it didn’t.”

“True, true,” Frederick agreed. “Be hell on old Tapper, though.”

“Like she said,” Beauty said, sliding into the booth across from Octavia. “Wouldn’t be any fun it it wasn’t.”

“Ooh! Who’s Tapper? Are they visiting Ponyville for the first time, too?” Pinkie asked, rolling a cart of pastries to the booth.

“‘Fraid not,” Harpo said, snagging a cupcake off the edge. “She’s our conductor, meeting us at our gig.”

“Party’d be wasted on her, anyway,” Beauty said. “She’s a bit uptight.”

“More tightly strung than my bowhairs,” Octavia agreed. “Still, she has her moments.”

Vinyl glanced up at the clock. “Hey, guys? You might want to make this to go. Your train leaves in fifteen minutes.”

“Is that all?” Harpo asked, reaching for an eclair.

“And it takes about twenty to get to the station from here walking.”

All four musicians froze. “Go!” Octavia shouted, grabbing her cello. Beauty vaulted over the table, and Harpo grabbed the pastry cart. All four of them raced out the door, leaving it swinging as they went.

Pinkie tapped her hooves together, looking at Vinyl awkwardly. “Um… I guess I’ll bring you the bill?”

Vinyl rubbed the bridge of her snout with a hoof. “Yeah. I guess you’d better.”

---

Fifteen minutes later, Frederick, Octavia, and Harpo sat together on the train with their instruments and sweets. Beauty had gone to the washroom to clean off the tray of custard creams that she’d faceplanted into when the cart had jogged on the edge of the platform. Octavia selected a jelly-filled donut from the pile and sat back in her seat, content. “It’s been too long since our last gig together,” she said warmly. “When was the last one, again? Six months ago?”

“Seven, I believe,” Harpo replied. “In Windy City.”

“That’s the one,” Octavia said with a nod.

“Didn’t you mention you found a stallion you were interested in, then?” Frederick asked, looking at Harpo thoughtfully. “What was the fellow’s name? He was a kirin, wasn’t he?”

Harpo’s mouth pinched into a tight line. “Glade Glow,” he said shortly.

“Oh, dear,” Octavia said. “I know that look. Was he straight?”

“No,” Harpo said, a sullen look coming over his features. “He fancies blokes fine.”

“But just not you?” Fred asked gently.

Harpo’s mouth puckered like he’d bitten into a lemon. “I’d rather not talk about it just now,” he said shortly. “How about you, Octavia? You and Vinyl getting on alright?”

“I should say,” Octavia replied. “Sometimes I don’t know how the poor dear puts up with me, but she always does. I really do think that she’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

Fred nodded, looking oddly pensive. “Octy, pet. Could I ask a… bit of a personal question?”

“‘Course,” said Octavia easily.

“You and Vinyl…” he looked out the window for a moment, somewhat abstracted. “Have you ever thought about, well… having kids?”

Octavia blinked. “Well, that’s a bit out of the blue,” she mused. “I… no, I can’t say as I’ve ever really considered it, and Vi’s never really brought it up, either.”

“Now that you’re thinking about it, though,” Fred pressed. “Do you think you would? That you could?”

“I really don’t know,” Octavia admitted. “We’ve got the dog already, but it’s easier to care for a dog than for a kid. I’d have to talk it over with Vinyl first, really. Look here, Freddie, chuck, what’s all this about?”

Fred pursed his lips, looking from Harpo to Vinyl with a measured gaze. “Beauty --” he began.

The door to the compartment slid open. “Are my ears burning?” Beauty teased, sliding gracefully into the seat next to Octavia. Her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes, though, and Fred looked away quickly.

Harpo paused. “Beauty,” he said.

“Hm?”

He nodded to the other pony standing awkwardly in the doorway. “Who’s that little old stallion?”

“Oh,” said Beauty. “I made a friend. Mines, be a love, come in and sit with us!”

She turned to the others and explained. “I found the poor fellow alone in his compartment, and though he looked so terribly bored. He’s a musician himself, and all!”

“Beauty,” Octavia scolded. “You know the rules. Band members only on these trips.”

Beauty pouted. “I think we can make an exception for a fellow musician,” Harpo said charitably.

Octavia scrunched her muzzle and looked the stallion over. “Oh, alright,” she said. “But only because he looks very clean. Would he care for a cupcake?”

“What flavor is it?” Fred interjected as the stallion tried to speak.

“Chocolate,” Octavia said. “With peanut-butter frosting.”

“Oh, I don’t know if he looks like a peanut-butter kind of fellow,” said Harpo.

The stallion tried to speak again. “You’re right,” Octavia agreed. “What about this nice pink sugar cookie?”

“Clashes with his eyes!” Beauty objected. “Nice peach cobbler will do for him fine.”

“Can’t have a cobbler,” Fred said.

“Why not?”

“He’s not got shoes on.”

“Ah, right you are,” Beauty said nodding sagely.

“Right,” said Fred. “Nice chocolate chip cookie? All in favor?”

“Aye.”

“Aye.”

“Aye.”

“Quorum!” said Fred triumphantly, hoofing the cookie over to the entirely flummoxed stallion. “Here you are sir, and much joy may it bring you. I wish you all the luck in the world on this new venture.”

“...Thank you?” said the stallion, a slight Hosstrian accent noticeable in his voice.

“Celestia,” Octavia muttered in a stage whisper to Harpo. “Can’t get a word in edgewise with this one.”

“What’s your name, clean old stallion?” Fred asked.

The old stallion paused for a moment, eyeing the others warily before replying. “My name is Key. Minor Key.”

Comments

[Mpony1]

De ja vu indeed A Puppet To Her Fame in more ways than one.

[FanOfMostEverything]

An old Hosstrian...

No, The Seventh Seal was in Swedish. I don't think anypony will be playing chess with Death. Though I may be thinking on the right track. In any case, looking forward to seeing where you go with this. I do love seeing Octavia's bandmates get some love, though I doubt they'll appreciate the narrative spotlight when all's said and done.

Also, brilliant work with the cover on this one. Exquisite attention to detail.

[Mix-up]

Fun story so far, for the set up, I can't wait to see when the actual dram will actually start.

[Sixes_And_Sevens]

10954419

No, The Seventh Seal was in Swedish.

I'll admit, this one is a little hard to guess because I did change a fair bit about him, so I'll give you a couple clues. The character Minor Keys is based on was originally German, but I couldn't think up a good pun for that. (Though as I write this out now, Germane flashes immediately to mind )
Also, the fact that he plays the violin is highly relevant both to this story and the one he's borrowed from. There's a third clue, but I'll leave that to come up next chapter.

And if that's not puzzle enough, see if you can crack the cipher I hid on the cover!

[Shilic]

Oh yeah, the Wibblyverse is back!