Morning after and magic pianos
Tootsie Flute... well, all of the... I mean...
There was a...
All of the ponies were asleep on top of the cushions I provided, including the princesses.
It had to be seen. Luna decided that there was no harm done in sleeping through one night if it meant keeping her sister company.
Celestia... wow. She said her 'good night' to Luna, who replied by hugging her and saying she'd see to it that her sister slept well.
Celestia almost cried. For a couple of seconds, we could see how worn Celestia really felt; her eyelids looked like they were being held up by prayers, she had bags under her eyes, her mane was a little limp, her rosy coat was a little dull, her horn wasn't as sharp and lacked its sparkles and a rag-doll had more strength in its shoulders than the sun princess... then, she smiled, and was rejuvenated. Her lips looked on the verge of bursting into song, her coat was radiant, her eyes shone and each breath spoke the joys of being alive.
They eased into each other, with Twilight having found her way in between them like an enormous teddy, the smile never fading from Celestia's face. For all I complain about Celestia, I doubt it's that hard to notice that I care for her; we are friends, and I love to see her well - she deserves it, after all the terrible things she had to go through.
Tootsie was in a similar position as Twilight; between her mother and her unofficial aunt.
That reminds me of Dinky; Carrot Top is married to Dinky's actual uncle.
I stayed awake for a bit longer than everypony else, though I used one of my wings to cover Cinnamon and Dusty like a blanket.
To enhance my night vision, I channeled a minute amount of light magic to my eyes, again making them glow in a multitude of colors in the stages previous to the full 'lighthouse of power' mode. I simply read a little bit more before going to sleep.
The next day, the princesses told me, I was to meet my flight instructor - I had some instincts imparted onto me, but I needed to make sure I was able to use them properly... Anyways, she is a mare of the Night Guard; a half-pooka by the name of Lavender Glade.
I guess I should point out a few things... mostly things that Celestia herself told me.
Officially, pooka, 'púca', or 'púka', are ponies more aligned to the night magics, they have better night vision thanks to their cat-like eyes; hey have sharp fangs, and the pegasus variant has bat wings... sound familiar? Normal ponies joining the Night Guard have a spell cast to make them look like pooka and enhance their night vision. Pooka also have slight shape-shifting abilities, enough to get a magical, shining mane, turn their wings feathered and eyes normal...
In reality? Pooka are Nightmare ponies. The Nightmares that Luna and I fight are usually manifestations of the fears of sapient beings, a once-normal nightmare that gained much more power and a certain degree of independence; Nightmare creatures like the ones that Luna's depression attracted are related. Nightmare ponies are Nightmare creatures that didn't quite like the idea of following their siblings - heck, they tried to warn Celestia, but by the time they made it it was far too late to prevent the rise of Nightmare Moon. They nonetheless remained in Equestria and altered themselves to be ponies.
At the least their warning helped the evacuation.
Oh, and Lavender's other half? In keeping with the theme that I just can't be more than casual acquaintances with a normal pony, her other half is Encantado; in essence, a shape-shifting dolphin with a love of music and sex. The Nightmare magic doesn't mesh very well, so her base form looks just like any other pooka, and there are limits to how much/long she can shift. She's just like any other pony in regards to bedroom affairs, though; 'normal', pureblood encantado have much less restraint. Much less.
Much, much, MUCH less.
I have a glove that I can conjure in under a tenth of a second and can use it to shock a minotaur into submission. Don't you dare say I overreacted when I designed it; you've never been on the wrong side of half a dozen encantados trying to flirt with you.
At the same time.
Lavender is also Topsy's guard - well, she was 'just' her guard and friend for about two months, then things 'evolved'.
Hmm... I just noticed; a good deal of the ponies closest to me came in pairs, if not outright couples. Cinnamon and Dusty, Lavender and Screwball, Hyacinth and Black Lotus, Leadfoot and Tinsel Rose, Luna and Celestia, Cadence and Shining Armor...
Oh! In case you try to point out that I haven't said about anything being weird about Cinnamon, let me tell you that one of her great grandmothers was a Maredragora and another one an Alraune - that is, plant ponies. And plant-talent unicorns are not exactly commonplace, either.
Lavender Glade has a talent in plants, as well.
The Thestrals... that is actually the name of the Night Guard's elite combat unit - the best of the best, and they can be unicorns or earth ponies, pooka or normal, too. No, Lavender isn't one - she's an instructor!
Hmm... the night was spent peacefully, with only Luna's idea scrolls and books on runes for company - runes and circles are complicated, take a lot of time and effort to set up, and making them portable/quicker to use takes a whole lot of additional effort; making work-arounds wasn't that difficult for me, but then again, I had much more energy to burn than any other being in the castle. I didn't detect any Nightmares floating about, so I just slept normally; Luna also makes a point of telling ponies that there are times they have to deal with their fears themselves, without intervention. Monster activity was in the slow season... things were pretty quiet.
Maybe I should talk about other ponies important to me? Let's toss a couple of darts.
Vinyl and Octavia... that's another pair!
Well, they don't have anything as exotic as a monster pony in their ancestry, but they compensate in other ways.
Vinyl belongs to a rather prominent Canterlot family, but wanted to make her own reputation; she wanted a name for herself, so she became Vinyl Scratch. Vincentia Dalia Scarlet, if you're wondering.
...
Don't tell her that I told you her real real name, or she'll kill me, drag me out of the afterlife, then kill me again.
She uses the glasses because she found contacts annoying and the illusion to hide her red irises had a rather short time limit when she used the spell herself. She didn't want to be known as 'that albino DJ' when she wasn't even a real albino; it was just a quirk of fate that she'd inherit both a white coat and red eyes.
For a long, long portion of her life, her magic was really weak. She compensated with what skill she could pry out of it... and by becoming an artificer/enchanter. She's one of the best ever, graduating with honors from Fillydelphia's institute. If you've seen her gear, you can bet that she has personally worked on it, if not made it from scratch (haha). Her glasses have night vision, and the turntables and speakers are amazing pieces of equipment that have nothing to envy from their purely technological brethren - one of those that has been worked on by both Vinyl and the mechanic? Good Heaven.
No, there was no bass cannon. Past tense, though.
Hmm... did they ever find the target?
After Discord's escape, though... her magical strength became average. She went to the doctors and everything, but they couldn't fully explain what had happened... as it turns out, she has an inherent gift with chaotic spells, and my best guess is that the world couldn't quite process it; Discord escaped, the world's balance shifted in the other direction, at least enough for things to 'make sense' to the world, then she normalized - she became like twenty times stronger than before! Good thing that she was rather frugal with her magic and had such good control, or else she would have had to do something more than just get a butter knife unstuck from the ceiling. She trained and such, now she's pretty strong - nowhere near as much as Lyra, but Vinyl certainly got a lot of benefits.
She's not as wild as she seems at first glance; she likes most kinds of music, and loves to relax - even sleep - to classical music, even practicing some herself to unwind after a night full of 'sick beats'. When non-electronic, non-Rock music is heard coming from a place she's in, chances are it's actually her that's listening to a record, if not performing - unless it's got cello, bass, or Jazz, then it's going to be Octavia, or a double feature.
If you hear guitar or piano, that's most likely me. Or the piano.
(Note: Don't experiment with the 'will of objects' with anything more complex than a marble. Achieve comprehension first.)
Octavia Harmonia Filarmonica von Clef. If Big Mac is the (albeit untrained) Shining Armor of Earth Ponies, then she's the Lyra Heartstrings (tied with Cherilee and Leadfoot in that regard). I've already told you about Leadfoot, Cherilee can smash through walls with (almost) contemptuous ease and has personal experience wrangling monsters (all part of life as a Ponyville schoolmarm), and Octavia -besides being pretty strong- can do things with music that'll make your eyes fall out of your skull.
(No, really, I think there's a song like that in her repertoire.)
Her grandmother... ehh... she's that kind; manipulative, conniving, self-serving, infuriating... excuse me for a moment.
...
If Celestia asks, I had nothing to do with the explosion, alright? Not even if she asks about the paint. It's just a random place away from any towns, so it's not like there are any witnesses anyways.
Anyways, Tavi's grandmother is more concerned with the family name than the family itself - so what if that was something that Lightning Dust's father was guilty of himself? At least he really didn't want to do what I convinced him to retract; that nag, however, disowned her own foal for taking an Apple as a significant other! Although Octavia's parents were almost in the same situation, grandma's cunning rubbed off on this child; by the time granny dearest found out that one of 'her foals' was making lovey-eyes to a rock farmer, it was far too late; the 'insolent brat' had too much personal influence and contacts to disown without harming the family's image from the backlash alone, so just add to that what a really angry pony almost as vindictive as her could do.
Octavia is mostly free of her, thanks to that - and the fact that the princesses rather like the way she plays.
Granny insisted on everypony else to refer to Tavi simply as 'Octavia Harmony' to prevent the associations from going back to her, and demanded that Octy presented herself as such... until the day she was requested to play at events hosted by the palace, then it was 'Octavia my dear' this, or 'allow me to introduce you to this charming colt' that.
Then she found out she hung around Vinyl, but luckily without discovering her identity. It was back to 'Octavia Harmony' after that. She would have disowned her much sooner, just for daring to move away from town to get away from her, but once she found out Octavia associated with somepony so 'vulgar', it almost went double. Tavi's parents are made of stern stuff, however, and wouldn't allow it. In addition to that? They are getting stronger among the family; to tell the truth, going against them could very easily turn the rest of the family on her, and are actually pushing to recover their expelled sibling and invite the mare that resulted from the union.
Then I stepped into the pair's life, dragging a semi-apprehensive Celestia, a head-bobbing Luna, and a giddy Cadence behind me.
Hehehe... I have to cut the audio; I have to laugh maniacally for a minute.
...
Ouch, I forgot I'm on painkillers... to be fair, they are the kind that makes you forget you're on them; they are that good.
Octavia herself isn't as stuffy as she seems at first glance; she likes most kinds of music, and likes the way that Dubstep- I mean, Hoofstep - makes her chest rumble. She likes dancing and Rock and, get this, likes to disguise herself with a hat and trench coat and play in random Jazz bands - double bass, most of the time; she's really good, managing to make mediocre bands sound at least passable.
Like my Electromagnetic Theory teacher said: The deep tones are the unappreciated soul of Jazz; a bad bass kills the melody.
(Octavia will drill those words into your skull, so I'm going to go ahead and save you the trouble. Memorize them before meeting her!)
Not that you'd have a hard time telling it's her, even if you don't know her coloration; she's the only Jazz bass player I've seen that uses the bow.
Also? Both of them are among, if not the strongest hypnotists in Equestria. They helped me by prodding my mental defenses, only to find out that, since I naturally think with both words and sensations, it's really hard to control or hypnotize me if I don't want it, and my chaotic nature is such that my already non-standard 'tempo' jumps around if you try to find it - on top of being so slow which, while sometimes a hindrance for socialization, means I have more time to figure out that somepony is trying something funny with my mind (fast tempos can get so fast that they'll discover something is off if you don't find it quickly enough).
Vinyl can change the mood as she pleases within her sphere of influence, which might be small but is nonetheless powerful; her more complex mixes are the reason parties with her are so successful - she's just that good reading the crowd, and nudging it along. Octavia... santo guacamole, Octavia. Tavi could become an hypnotherapist if she so desired, or a super-villain, but loves music way too much for that.
Vinyl has a girlish side, and some things can embarrass her more than you'd think. Octavia, on the other hand, can be pretty bold - if not outright shameless - and flirtatious or teasing. Sure, Vinyl is the daring, loud one, and Octavia is the refined one, but so few words are not enough to describe them - every pony, even those that wear their hearts on their sleeves and let you see into their souls are not so easily explained.
Meeting them wasn't anything out of the ordinary. There was a concert - a small one, for charity, organized by Blueblood's me-ponies - and I was among the guests. 'Vincentia' was seated right at the front row, Blueblood and I were in the royal observation box next to the princesses, Shining and Cadence couldn't come because there was a hydra sighting near Trottingham, and Rarity was somewhere in the middle.
And Pinkie was... hidden somewhere; she was in the middle of her ninja phase. She still took the time to introduce us to her cousin, though, once the concert was done. I saw right through Vinyl's disguise, which was just getting her hair done elegantly and wearing a necklace... I guess I shouldn't be one to talk about stuff like that, since I don't even fake another voice and let my 'aura' and the in-built Weirdness Censor of ponies do all the work.
One thing led to another, I mentioned my accidentally-enchanted piano, and things grew from there.
The piano was enchanted minutes before dawn the day after the movie night, by the way.
I woke up like two hours before it, as always. I read a bit more and Displaced into the shower, got cleaned up, then into the kitchen, where I proceeded to make hard-boiled eggs for everypony. They were normal eggs, not the conjured ones I used to test the cooking times the other morning.
Cinnamon and Dusty looked alarmed that I was doing anything (again), but I simply told them that I was being a good host. And that I'd like it if we could be friends rather than something so stuffy as servant and master. They really wanted to do something, though, and I managed to talk them down to 'assist' me instead of taking over; Cinnamon made tea and got us some delightful cinnamon and cream cheese danish, while Dusty cleaned the place.
A maid... a maid is supposed to be ever-present, but unobtrusive; ready to fulfill any orders, but never having any impact in 'the master's' attention; they have to know their employer so well, they can make any dish to their taste and prepare the perfect tea, and support their good mood, all without needing to say too much to the maid herself... essentially, they are ninja furniture that can know you better than you know yourself. This is not hyperbole. Dusty didn't wake up anypony, even though she kept flying a meter from them.
The majority of the maids and butlers of the castle have some training, mostly intended for self-defense, but they will hurt you if you endanger one of the others, or a foal - just ask the changelings that invaded. They are under the employ of the princesses, so there is no way to use posturing to intimidate them.
The most skillful members of the Whisper Guard tend to be changelings that worked as maids and butlers, as a result of both their changeling abilities and skills they developed. Black Lotus is the captain, though, by sheer virtue of kicking colossal amounts of flank; she's got a talent with swords and sword-like magic, you see. Changelings have to face plenty of limitations, magic-wise, when compared to ponies; Black Lotus overcame most of them with practice and the others with lots of help from Hyacinth, who makes flower arrangements and thus receives a good deal of love both in the form of thanks and appreciation for her craft.
The ponies began to stir, Twilight managing to wake up both princesses before their internal clocks did, just in time to receive breakfast in bed. Celestia's expression brightened even more, making her look just like a filly on her birthday. She blushed after remembering that there were others around, but we just laughed a little.
Luna gave the piano a glance, with a forlorn look that was gone so quickly I almost thought I had imagined it.
"Ah, want me to play Moonlight Sonata again?" I asked, and Luna's head turned so fast her mane actually cracked like a whip.
"It's called what?!"
"Oh, didn't I tell you?" I blinked. "How odd."
"But how will you play without your fingers?" Twilight asked me, making me look at my hooves.
"Uh... wait a second." I gave my leg a sniff, and my wings, and my mane. "Duster, did I shower already?"
"Um, yes."
"I apparently showered as a mare, and preened, too, without actually consciously directing myself." I frowned. I had moved on automatic, which, while nothing bad, actually bothered me a little - I didn't remember my shower! Or brushing! Brushing is one of the best parts of being a pony, and I didn't remember it!
"Augh! One thing at a time!" I cried out. "Say, back to music. The instrument is the voice, the medium, it needs a will. Instead of just forcing the piano to make music, lemme ask. Can we get some music please?"
My horn lit up, white with rainbow flecks, and the piano was surrounded by the same aura.
With a flash of light, the piano started playing. The full piece, not just the part I had played for Luna.
Everypony finished breakfast to the classical melody, but then another thing started playing.
"That needs somepony to sing- whatever, I'll do it." I said, and sang along. The other instruments came from thin air, and I still don't know if that was the piano or me; we both can ask the air and the musical enchantment to simply play along.
Luna quite liked the song, even if I had to provide the translation on the TV.
See, I've seen Lunas that are mothers, or about to become mothers. There was this one mare... became Luna's... well, girlfriend, and one of the scariest ponies I've ever seen - Balance magic user, like the Bearers, only leaning more towards Light and Dark magic, so... yeah. Scary like all hell.
The piano fell silent, but I could feel its... anxiety, or something similar.
"I think I overdid it." I said, realizing that casting chaos magic while annoyed was a bad idea. "One last one; the sisters need to make a new day."
The piano was all too happy to oblige.
And that is the story of the best ice-breaker in the history of Equestrian music ponies.
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Huh. Nice take on the best musicians of the show.
Any extra info about Lighting Dust?
"So, I sort of enchanted my piano one time, and now it's kinda semi-living, and it plays by itself. Also, it doesn't like being quiet. It needs to play, or it starts getting stressed out."
4182029
Sounds disturbingly familiar
i.ytimg.com/vi/Oi9gtzslraI/0.jpg
4182029
No no, it was like the joy of playing for an audience the first time, plus princesses.
4181839
Military family. Proud history... and, like Applejack, they think with their pride before their heads. It wasn't that hard to break through into making him see reason, although having an actual degree of authority helps.
And pretending to be making an evaluation - which he was bombing - didn't hurt.
You know, I enjoy this story. I really do. But I'll be damned if you don't go off on tangents way too often, to the point it becomes hard to keep track of where things are at the moment. I mean hell I didn't have a damn clue what was going on in chapter 22 until I got past that conversation between Celestia and Discord. It can make trying to read some of these chapters extremely frustrating.
I am impressed with how long of a tangent you can go on for made up subjects, from the perspective of a maade up character, in a made up world, with made up creatures. I applaud you good sir. *tips fedora with a bow*