Canterlot's Fine Arts Academy
Canvas sighed. The representation was today.
"Come on! Faster! Everything has to be ready in time!" sermonized the teacher.
The tall unicorn was severely looking at them. She was a mildly talented musician, but very strict about punctuality, almost as much as she was about the accuracy of their notes and rhythm. And today, she was planning on shining in front of all of Canterlot by showing what she had managed to instill in that class that she deemed too disruptive.
All around, students were busy trying to prepare everything for the representation. None of them really cared about the teacher. All of them knew too well that she wouldn't raise her voice if everything was right on time, and they still had a moment to spare before the beginning. So they were joyfully discussing, happy, for the most part, to finally make an official representation, the very first of their lives. Others were checking on their instrument's tuning.
There were all kinds of them, cords, brass, percussions, it was a true orchestra that this forty students class was forming. And amongst all of them, the only one complaining was Canvas.
Yet, his friend, Flat Partition, an earth pony with a red coat and brown mane, spotting a note shaped cutie mark, always told him:
"You're talented, for Celestia's sake! Your sense of rhythm is better than mine even though you're not even trying to play in tune! A bit of motivation! Today is the big day, even the princesses are coming to see us play!"
To which Canvas would answer:
"But it's not what I like! Maybe I'm good with music, I don't know, but it's not what I want to do!"
Since he was a foal, Canvas, young blue pegasus with a green mane, always felt like he had some kind of inspiration, ideas coming to him, an indescribable feeling that gave him a need to create. The only problem he had encountered was not being able to find the appropriate support for his creative needs. When he had talk to his friend about it, the latter had immediately replied:
"You're attracted to art, just like me! Why don't you sign up for the conservatoire side of Canterlot's art school with me? Personally, I have the soul of a musician, I can feel it!"
And Canvas had followed, without thinking about it too much, hoping to finally empty his mind from all those ideas. But soon enough, it was a disillusion. The music was indeed harmonious, he played well, a bit better than the norm, he liked the tone, but nothing managed to come out of his music. He played, without really putting his heart in it, musics made by people he didn't even know. This didn't suit him. He didn't want to transmit the emotion of a composer through his music, he wanted it to be permeated with his own emotion. He wanted to create something to his own image. And he couldn't manage to compose, it wasn't what he needed. But his studies were already paid, and for his class, passing on one of its violinists was out of the question. So he had pursued, but without hope, without yearning, and without a cutie mark.
Flat wanted to reply to his friend, but the teacher cut him:
"IN POSITION!"
All the students obeyed and took place in the orchestra on the stage. Silence fell. They could hear, from behind the great curtain, the crowd talking. Likely, they were hundreds of ponies, or thousands even.
A sound echoed, some kind of horn, and silence was also made behind the curtain. On the stage, tension was rising. The unicorn took place in front of her music stand, back turned away from her class, facing the curtain.
Slowly, it was lifted and the applause came to a crescendo as the orchestra was revealed.
Canvas looked up at the crowd. It was a great concert room, with a roof entirely made out of glass, letting the daylight rain down on the place and its many balconies. That's where his first representation was going to take place. Yet, he couldn't care less. The thousands of eyes directed at him, all those ponies cheering him, waiting with baited breath for a good performance. Even the presence of the princesses Celestia and Luna in a balcony specially made for them, as well as princesses Cadance and Twilight who came unannounced, by their sides. All this didn't impress him in the slightest. Nothing in this concert had any special place in his heart. If he were to fail, too bad. If he were to pass, too bad as well.
The teacher acknowledged the crowd with a large smile, before turning to her students, her gaze changing radically, completely focused. The room got quiet again. The unicorn raised her wand with her magic and tapped on her music stand. The students took their instruments. Canvas, sat on his chair, raised his violin without any real conviction. How much he hated being sat down while playing. He would have preferred to be able to play in the air, while flying, at least that would have been an interesting and amusing challenge.
The wand began dancing in the air, and the orchestra started playing.
Canvas played well, but he only did so because he had to, as to not bother the rest of the class, not for himself nor for pleasure of playing. On his side, Flat was also doing well, but that was the result of relentless work. At least he enjoyed what he was doing.
A moment in the music without violin. Canvas took the opportunity to silently sigh and looked up to the glass roof. That's when a tremor slightly shook the building. A few ponies were thrown on the ground, the most prone to panic yelled. Yet, the orchestra continued to play, the professor determined to not let her session go to waste because of a simple quake. However, the cause of this quake appeared above the glass ceiling.
Canvas couldn't believe his eyes. What was going on up here was magnificent. That was beyond everything he had seen before. He thought he was in a dream because of how much what he was seeing echoed in him.
Other ponies in the crowd also noticed what was happening, many were surprised and enthralled as well by the beauty of what they were seeing. Some knew what it was. Princess Twilight looked up as well, after seeing ponies do the same, and witnessed what it was too. A little smile formed on her face, as she knew where it was coming from.
But Canvas wasn't paying attention to anything else anymore, aside from what he was looking at through that glass ceiling. He was so obsessed that he forgot to play when his turn came back. The teacher looked daggers at him after hearing something missing in the music. But Canvas didn't even notice it. That marvelous thing was dissipating and yet it had awakened something in him. A desire he hadn't felt in a long time. Stronger than every other, and this time, he knew what he had to do. He had to do it, and do it now!
He left his place, not paying attention to his friend asking him what he was doing, and rushed backstage, hurried out in the school's corridors and galloped, looking for something very specific.
He found what he was searching for: A classroom for painting students. It was empty. He rushed to some gear left by a student, putting a new canvas on its support and started painting.
He had never painted in his life. What he had done was silly, on a whim, but at this very moment, he wasn't thinking about it. He felt like he had to do it, and he was doing it. He wanted to immortalize what he had seen. And his brush, which he was holding in his mouth, ran on the canvas with ease, as if he had always done it. In him, that creativity, that had always been imprisoned without ever being able to express itself, was finally getting free. He had found how to do it, how to share his ideas.
He painted for more than an hour. When he finished his painting, his friend came into the room.
"Finally, I've found you! What has gotten into you!? Why did you leave all of the sudden!? The teacher is furious! She's going to give you an earful!"
Canvas didn't answer. He simply moved away from the painting so that his friend could see it, spotting a smile of perfect satisfaction.
Flat was speechless. He had seen what had happened above the roof as well, and his friend had reproduced it to near perfection.
"Did you ever hold a brush?" he asked in disbelief.
"Never! If I had known I enjoyed it that much, I would have chosen that directly instead of music."
"It's very resembling," said a benevolent voice behind Flat.
The musician turned and was faced with someone he wasn't expecting. The princess Twilight was standing right in front of him, smiling. He immediately took a step back, caught by surprise, and respectfully bowed.
Canvas was as astonished as his friend, but forgot to bow. He had just received a compliment from the princess herself, he couldn't get over it.
"We call that a Sonic Rainboom, in case you don't know. It's very well-known amongst the pegasi of Cloudsdale. It only appears when a pegasus reaches a very high speed."
"T-Thank you," Canvas stuttered. "I don't know why, I had a sudden desire to paint this thing... That magnificent Sonic Rainboom."
Twilight laughed.
"Rainbow Dash would surely be happy to hear that. She's the only pegasus capable of doing one."
"I'll have to thank her then. I finally found something I like. I'm done with music, from now on I'll do painting! That's something where I can express myself!"
"And you have the cutie mark for it as well."
Canvas looked at his flank. Indeed, a cutie mark had appeared, representing a palette of colors mixing in the middle, forming a rainbow.
Twilight looked at the pegasus with a smile. Canvas had found his path, after that first painting picturing, to the shade, the Sonic Rainboom of Rainbow Dash. The circle of colors occupied the center of the canvas. It was in the middle of the sky, with some clouds around it, and a rainbow coloured trail that Canvas had caught a glimpse of at the same time as the Sonic Rainboow itself, without knowing that the mare responsible for it was at the end of it.
"I'm going to call it Boom of sonic inspiration."