Ambiguities
That night, Country Fiddle had strange dreams like memories....
Octavia and I sat on the embroidered couch in the drawing room in which our father would chiefly have us practice. All sorts of instruments lined the walls, on the floor along the walls or hanging on the walls. It was a big room, but the organized clutter often made Tavi uneasy; but as soon as she started playing an instrument, those uneasy feelings passed and were replaced by an almost too calm serenity--almost cold in nature.
The room seemed different. There were doors all around the room that were not there before.
"Tavi? When did all these doors become installed?"
"What? Country--Country Fiddle, they've always been there," she spoke as though what she said was the most obvious fact in the world. She turned her head slightly to the side and winked with one eye at me, and the other turned toward the ceiling. "Is the clutter of the room finally getting to you, big sis? Heheh. Strange: the one day I am completely content with the lack of normalcy in here, you are all nervous in it. Quite contrary to your usual fascination with everything odd."
What was she talking about? She seemed, if anything, more anxious than usual. She moved and changed her position on the couch constantly, not finding any position comfortable. I was unsure if she was less trying to find a comfortable way to sit than more trying to shake off a certain dread that the room would close in on her.
Suddenly a door opened and our mother and father walked in.
"Mommy! Daddy!" Octavia cried, and galloped up into their hooves. They smiled and hugged her tenderly. Then they turned to me with stern faces.
"Country Fiddle," my mother said. "Will you check on the chimney, please? Be a sugar-cube for mummy and daddy, would you?"
"What chimney?"
"Darling," my father interjected, "The same one that we've always had: the one in the middle of the house. Your mother thinks it's unsafe and has called some chimney maker lad or other to assess it. I say it is fine, and should stay," he turned to mother with a dissatisfied look. "It warms the whole house and keeps it well together! Ah, but Country Fiddle," turning back to me, and with a motion of his head pointing out some door--which door, it was hard to say, "Go see how that strange pony is doing, and report back to us (he should most likely be in the basement now); we have some things we need to discuss with Octavia, alone." His tone dropped and became cold with the mention of Octavia.
A strange lightheadedness overcame me and vanished as quickly as it came. A small shock that wasn't there pushed my head back like a twitch. And then a dreadful feeling of deja vu rose up, staring at that scene of Tavi crawling up onto our father's back, giggling; and our mother making sweet kissing faces at her. Our father gazed sterenly at me. I felt his impatiance rise more than I saw it in his figure.
"Go now, Country..."
"Right through that door, deary. Just behind you," my mother vaguely motioned with a small indifferent wave of her hoof.
I backed up, not sure what to make of this scene, and pushed open the first door my hindlegs made contact with, without lifting my gaze from my family. I found myself in a dark room, wondering there was no light in the entry. I tripped on something and fell over against something, and something like pots and pans fell over me.
"That's the pantry, silly," I heard Tavi laugh at me.
I opened back up the door and sat down at the table to eat diner. I hadn't touched my food the entire time.
My mom walked over and stroked my mane, cooing. "Sweety, what's the matter? You haven't even touched your food." A smell like sewage fell from her words and lept into my nose, stinging terribly. The rest of the plates, my mother's, my father's, and Tavi's were all white and very clean. They had eaten everything on their plates. My was still full of food. With horror I looked at my plate and saw it covered in mold and moggots.
"Well," my mother proceed to take my plate, "if you won't eat, at least share it with the rest of the family." And she dished a heap of the filth out on each of their plates, but the pile on my own seemed to become no less large. They all glutonously ate their spoils.
"You ungateful worm! After all we've done for you!" My parents yelled at me with the kindest of expressions on their face. The juxaposition of their warm, loving smiles and cold, mean, harsh words only made me all the more disgusted.
They poured sweet, delicious sauce all over the rotten food on my plate and placed it back before me. The suace covered every bit of the rotten food, so the dish looked very delicious. Unwillingly, I ate the delicious food. The flavor of sauce was so great I could taste nothing foul. But I quickly rolled over and fell onto the flooor for the pain in my stomach.
"I don't understand you, Fiddlesticks," Tavi talked over me, petting my mane and looking with great false pity. "You know your position," (I looked up at the gilded ceiling; the beams felt as though they threatened to crush me) "and yet here you are, denoucing all that our kind and loving parents have done for you." She shifted her position so her cutie mark stared at me. The yellow of the walls and violet of her cutie mark seemed to flash against each other. My eyes hurt. I talked without feeling that the words were really my own.
"I can't lie anymore, Big Sis." Why would I call her that? I looked up and saw she did indeed look older than me now. My own blank flank only proved to confirm my immaturity. "I hate keeping this image..."
Octavia glared at me, as if wishing to instill the idea that something terrible that happened was all my fault. She yanked me up and gave me a sharp push past the crimson cutains and onto the stage. "Then play, you foalish--"
I took up my violin and played. The audience roared in acclaimation. The lights about my head burned and I was in the castle. Beehoofen was berating me. I could not understand what he was trying to tell me. His words were nonsense words. All there was was loud screaming.
I walked through Manehatten and saw posters of me plastered eveywhere: "The Great Filly Violin Prodigy!!!"
Translucent cogwheels spun in my vision; yellow flashes superimposed upon them.
The appearent fame made me uncomfertable. I wandered untill I came to a large temple. A strong red stallion with an orange flame-like mane stood guard in the entrance. I wanted to go inside and watch the opera inside, but he would not let me pass. I impressed on him I had a ticket, and showed it him, but still I could not be allowed admittence. Suddenly he stepped back inside the temple, closing and locking the double doors. So I was locked out.
I looked along the stone brick walls. There was a door some particularly proud pony was walking out of along the wall. He forgot to lock it. So, when he passed a corner, I snuck inside. The lighting was curious: all pinks and blues. The gears kept spinning and the yellow flashing. I could hear the sounds of the opera of Mozclop's distantly, echoing through the stone walls. I was in a corridor. Some way down the right, the corridor extended to some wooden scaffolding. I climbed the stairs of the scaffolding. It was appearently winter, for the air in the corridor was freezing; but as I climbed higher and higher the air turned increasingly warmer untill it became oppressively hot. The stone walls burned to the touch. At the top of the scaffolding was another long corridor. It was much smaller that the wide one below, and I had to be very careful lest I touch the burning walls. Eventually the corridor opened up a bit larger, and turned left. Some ways down this corridor was a portal of light I soon found was light from the stage. It was densely threaded with metal wire, covering the whole of it. No pony in the audience would be able see me through it. I was straight over the stage, at a point I could see both all the faces of the audience and the performers. I now noticed, something that I couldn't have, without strain, noticed under the heat and exersice, that the sound was amplified. The position of this portal seemed to take up all the sound below and funnel it straight up. I could hear voices of the ponies talking to each other about the opera and gossip of other things, and the gentlest of taps of the performers' silk shod hooves.
The opera was Mozclop's famous: Don Giovanni. That most famous of pieces in the opera had only just begun, in which the ghost of Giovanni's father comes up and accuses his own son.
There was a shock in the back of my head that thrust my head forward. I looked back and saw nothing there. I looked back at the opera, simply giddy at being able to watch and listen to it, having the best seat in the house. It felt as though I were actually on the stage, walking amongst them. Again the same shock. I turned and saw a train with a rod touching electric wires above it. Something happened and the rod smashed against the wires and purple sparks shot out. The train disappeared and I was burned by the spaks--not because they hit me (they did not shoot at me) but because I reached out to them, with my hooves and mouth wide open to catch them. In that moment I felt I would give anything to hold them in my hooves or mouth.
Suddenedly I was staring back at the stage. I do not know how it happened. The more I gazed on at the whole scene the more distanced I became from it. I stopped my pouring in to the act and instilling my own feelings onto that of the audience. Looking at them all, engrossed in gawking at this piece, or if not, idylly chatting about one thing or other. They seemed, not just the audience, but also the performers, trapped in some state of permenant entertainment.
The mesh on the portal vanished, and I fell through; only by chance did I bite a rope and hung there. I was so high above the floor below. Oh if only they would only look around they would see a poor pony about to fall to her death!
Entertainments everywhere; how do they hold on to who they are?
Flashes of images appeared everywhere: Tavi was with some friend of hers she has yet to meet; they are talking about my eccentricites as something foolish and a kind of amusement, and talking pityingly of my position and poor behavior. My parents are looking for me in the Castle Gardens. A wave of mud. The moon smiles at me: a smile is the chosen vehicle of all ambiguities. Another cast-off mare wrote something to me I cannot read.
Some lion's paw held the rope while an eagle's claw cut it and I fell. The gears ground against one another producing a deafening screech; the yellow flashes brightened and I could see nothing else....
Country Fiddle woke up to the sweet smell of breakfast. Under her blankets she was sweating and hot, but the air outside her covers was cool and refreshing. A crow cawed something outside her window. The curtains were still over the windows and the lighting in her room looked green to her.
She sat up and Octavia, who was laying beside her, sprang up and hugged her big sister so tenderly it almost made Country Fiddle want to cry.
"Morning sleepy head!" She sung. "Mommy and Daddy are almost done with breakfast. I helped a bit, but when I came and saw you still asleep, I crawled back into bed with you and waited for you to wake up so I could be the first to say 'morning to you." She smiled.
It was hard to believe that her sweet little sister could be portayed so cold in her dreams. But Country Fiddle wasn't thinking of that; indeed, as soon as she woke up she had entirely forgotten her dreams, and was only left with a vague ominous foreboding she only wished to shake off and forget.
Octavia jumped out of the bed and playfully pulled Country Fiddle up and on to her hooves. "Let's go!" She hopped over to the door and swung it open. "No need to get ready. There will be time for that later. Come on, hurry up!" She laughed as Country Fiddle walked next to her, smiling sleepily.
Country Fiddle still had that morning haze about her eyes. The light flowing in from the windows in the dining room was so bright she winced. The smell of sweet blueberry pancakes pulled up her nose; all at once the bright light was not something to hide from but to run to and feel the warmth therein.
"Today's your big day!" Octavia hopped forward and pulled out a chair for her big sis to take. Country Fiddle, though still very sleepy, eagerly climbed up into it. "Chuka chucka chucha chaka choooo!" Ovctavia mimiced the sounds of a train when she pushed in the chair and then laughed at her own silly sound. She was so happy for Country Fiddle she just wanted to shout it out to the world; but she couldn't quite do that, so she did all she could to show it in small little acts instead of one big one. It felt more special this way anyhow, she mused.
"Tavi," Country Fiddle managed after a yawn, "I still haven't properly said good morning to you--"
"How does one properly greet another in the morn? Oh look! Here comes mommy from the kitchen!"
And, lo, there she was, radiant, with a full plate of delicious golden blueberry pancakes and a ornate glass jar of pure maple syrup in her field of magic. "Morning sweetie! We've made your favorite."
"That's too much--" but Contry Fiddle was cut off by her father.
"Good morning my dearest, outstanding Country Fiddle!" She heard him say from the kitchen.
"We are all so proud of you and wanted you to have the most perfect morning to go out on...." Before we don't see much of you for two or more years, her mother left unsaid. Nothing negative, nothing negative, she repeated to herself. She set the food befoer Contry Fiddle and lovingly kissed her eldest daughter's cheek.
Just at that moment her father flew into the room with a rather large and mis-shapen cupcake. "And look what Octavia has made for you!" He flew it far out in front of him, before Country Fiddle so she could get a good look. "She baked it and I did the frosting!" It was a dark chocolate cupcake. The frosting on top was arranged into a picture: Octavia and herself were in the middle, Tavi hanging onto her back, hooves around her neck; their parents were on either side of them, hugging snd holding them with one arm each. They were all smiling. They were on a very artificial grass plain, with blue sky and yellow sun.
Before she knew it her family was pressed up against her and hugging her in just the same way as depicted on the cupcake. They then all kissed and said a few tender words of affection to their genius daughter, and then took their respective seats at the table. A few pancakes flew off her plate and onto the rest of her families plates.
That explains the over abundance of them, Country Fiddle smiled to herself.
Proceeded was the passing of the syrup, pouring of orange juice, the ping and clang of plates and glasses, and light-hearted idle chatter spotted every now and again, though rather evenly, with praise and affection directed at Country Fiddle. After breakfast Country Fiddle would leave for the castle....
This has to be the weirdest chapter I've written yet.... And I loved writing it!
It was quite hard to figure where I should cut it off. In the end, just beofer the "good-byes" seemed well enough
Hope y'all are enjoying. And thankye!
Also LikedSimilarAuthor
- HeartTortoisePigeonDog · 7k words · 62 0 · 1.7k views
- HeartTortoisePigeonDog · 9k words · 21 1 · 1.9k views
- Terrasora · 23k words · 1,434 16 · 13k views
- Lunaguy · 2.6k words · 684 9 · 13k views
- Arreis Of Avalon · 2.6k words · 1,205 21 · 16k views
- Terrasora · 23k words · 563 7 · 5.5k views
- Skyeheart · 38k words · 184 3 · 5.3k views
- BillyColt · 13k words · 361 12 · 7.9k views
Stats
Page generated in 0.098 seconds
Total duration
1,079 users online
2,066,078 hits today, 2,782,760 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
It's really good thus far!
2317842Thank you very much
(Is it moving kinda too slow?)
2317849 Not in my opinion.
Fiddle sticks looks like Octavian. Same race, Same hair style and the same cutie mark
2328174They sisters, no?
2328874 I havnt read the story... Or looked at the tags
2328889I see
Well, if you do: the first chapter is a little bumpy (will work that through the ringer later), but it is cleared in subsiquent chapters
2328945 meh too lazy to read...
2329134twilight.ponychan.net/chan/arch/src/130395182230.png
2330539 pfft as if sad Applejack s gonna make me read it
2330597
I wasn't tryin' ta get ya to read it, but, not a bad idea
It's not a great story anyway. There's much more to be done before anything really happens. All that's been writ is something about winning a contest against her sis, some boring thoughts on why she won, and a strange dream chapter....
It's a slow start fer this one, I reckon
2330625 yup mind if I call you H-Dog? Is sounds Awsome
Oh and get used to me doing this, I post random ass songs that usually have nothing to do with anything. I just really like listening to them
[youtube=Kv6jQmQStjc]
Also does this /\ song /\sound like a remix to \/ this song? \/
[youtube=lI7N7WcBKcg]
2330688Ash-dawg?
Sure!
)
I raise you one sir!
(start at 2:13 and listen for the struming of the cello near the end
2330704 no H-Dog not Ash-Dog
Or H-Dawg
2330704 what does a violin have to do with any of this?
2330835I was using the French pronuciation of the latter "h"
And, violins have everything to do with--wait, do with what?
2331441 exactly!
2333324
risingstarforums.net/random/ukyo.jpg
2394320Happy to hear
1856103Have I noticed you on MLPwiki?
You had commented a few times on the page about Ms Peachbottom?
Well, if the same is you, then I should inform you:
Peachbottom group!!!!!!!