A Quiet Drink
It was a beautiful friday night. The city of Canterlot was setting up shop and heading home. And all was quiet apart from the bars, clubs and the Grand Hall. The Grand Hall were holding an audition for the Cello role in the Grand Gala. Among the many high class musicians that had turned up to the esteemed event was one Octavia. She was about to play in front of what must have been over 1000 people with more overly high standards. Octavia’s nerves were growing as she stood in line bewildered at the other acts. She felt her hooves tremble and her leg vibrating from the idea of playing in front of such a large and snooty crowd, for this was her first major audition.
To her horror, she heard it. “Octavia, if you would?” called the auditioner. Her mind froze for a moment. Shocked that it was her turn already, she soon realised that this needed to be done. Her career depended on it. The gray mare somehow plucked up some courage out of thin air place her hoof onto the stage carefully carrying her cello case upon her back. She placed the brown case down and unlocked it. Octavia reached her head into the case brandishing an intricately designed cello, it must have cost more than 6,000 bits at least, the burgundy body and the ivory tuning forks kind of gave it away.
As she positioned herself delicately on her chair. Her bow gripped tightly in her teeth, her left hoof placed high on the strings. at this point the crowd had become dreadfully quiet. Octavia thought this was because she had messed up somewhere but after a second or two of pondering she realised that she was the only Earth Pony auditioning in the event. All of the other acts appeared to be unicorns, using their magic to control the bow and the strings, showing no etiquette at all.
After a while of mincing around she finally was comfortable and asked awkwardly “so... Um... Do I start now?”. The judge replied with a simple nod.
At this moment Octavia had her bow positioned on a special clip attached to her hoof allowing her to hold it comfortably. She started moving her hoof smoothly and slowly across the string giving a slow and bassy build-up adding some vibratos when she felt like it. The smooth bass filled piece was the gently lifted an octave up and created a fast paced, almost tense, feel to it. after a minute of falls and lifts. she finally brought her beautiful melody to a dramatic stop.
When she finally brought up the courage to look up to the audience to bow. Octavia found to her delight the everypony in the room was either smiling or joyfully shocked. A sudden burst of adrenaline ruptured through her body realising she had done better than expected. As she took to her hind legs her heart fluttered with delight. Resting her cello on the chair, she took a quick but enthusiastic bow. After the solitary bow Octavia proceeded to turn around to pick up her cello, put it in the case and leave. But as she was interrupted by the judge still sitting there in shock, he uttered the words “Tha... That was like nothing I have ever heard before. Who was it composed by?” he murmured across to Octavia. “Well I.. I made it up” she said surprised by the question. Once again the look of shock plastered over the judges face. He gently spluttered the words “Th... Thank you” he the signalled to the next act as a somepony from backstage came along and helped Octavia with her cello case off the stage. As the next act the trotted onto the stage with a fearful look in her eye. The battle was already lost for those after Octavia.
Once Octavia had left the stage she was immediately greeted by her parents with a cold hearted grin on her fathers face of whom believed her performance was satisfactory at most, approached Octavia and congratulated her in the inevitable success. Soon after her mother with a smile slapped across her face, alleviating the mood for all, came galloping up to Octavia flying into a hug. Surprisingly uncivil for a Lady. “That was amazing!” Octavia’s mother exclaimed “you’ll get the part for sure!”. Octavia Lied by saying “Oh it wasn’t that good, I mean I missed a couple of notes.” “Rubbish!” Her mother bursted out rather loudly. More compliments followed as the family left the venue.
As they arrived home Octavia felt like she needed a drink. To her despair she found out that her favourite wine, brewed in ponyville, had run dry. So it was decided. Octavia would go to bar for a nice quiet drink of Southern Hoofert. As she left the door she realised that it was raining quite heavily, and so she rushed upstairs to grab her raincoat, slinging it over her shoulders, she left the house. As she walked she remembered the high class bars that she normally visits are closed after 10 o'Clock. So Octavia decided to go into the club that she passed on her way to the Grand Hall. It looked quite nice from the outside and the young fillies who were hanging around seemed quite respectable. So she proceeded to club, the name of which had slipped her mind. The journey was not long, it took a mere 10-15 minutes. But upon arrival she noticed a loud noise on tempo. A bassy kind of “boom” sound. Pulsing rapidly causing even the ground to shake.
Loud music was no stranger to Octavia. But this was different it seemed violent yet with a soothing undertone to it. She quickly noted that the sound was being badly muffled by the doors causing the sound to be distorted. Who was responsible for this intoxicating noise? There was only one way to find out. So she entered the vibrating club. Strolling past the bouncers. Octavia found herself in a long hall with the volume of the sound getting louder with every footstep. Soon she came to a large opaque glass door which appeared to have metal bars running through it. Concerned she entered the room. The sound exploded at her, the lights blinded her and the sheer vibrations nearly toppled her. The defenseless mares eardrums being violently invaded by a large volume of sub-bass and synths. She felt her brain pulsating, trying to handle the data being thrusted into it. After many moments of clamping her hooves to her head, she slowly peeked out from her hooves to see that to her favour no one was looking at her. The dazed pony removed her hooves, fully exposing her face to the experience of the club. The large amount of ponies on the dance floor, the virtually empty bar and the brain melting lights.
She made her way over to the bar, as she asked the brute-ish stallion for a drink she came to realise the amount of cuts and bruises he had on his forehead. Although Octavia decided not to ask. Not that she could really ask anyway due to the destructive sound penetrating her ear canals. It’s not that she did not enjoy the music, she in fact found in quite catchy, it was mainly the obscure dynamics it was set to. As soon as Octavia received her drink she perched herself at a table at the back corner of the club, trying to blot out the almost offensively loud music and tried to relax.