The Music of a Rich Sound
Dear Princess Celestia,
I have examined the maps of Canterlot with the greatest care, yet I have never again found the Rue de la Selle. I haven't looked only at modern maps, but have also been to the palace library and even the royal archives, because names can change with time. I have explored every corner of Canterlot in which I could possibly find the street I have known as the Rue de la Selle. Yet it remains a humiliating fact that I cannot find the house, the street, or even the neighborhood where, during my time at the School for Gifted Unicorns, I had first heard that delightful music which has haunted me ever since.
That my memory is broken, I do not wonder; I was terribly excited at the time over my admission to your school, and the position you had given me. I was very homesick, but at the same time I was jumping for joy. I lost track of time to my studies, and wore myself out, in mind and body, to the point of almost breaking down, but I was too thrilled to stop. Neither did I take any friends there, because at the time, as you well know, I had not yet discovered the magic of friendship. But that I cannot find the place again is both strange and annoying, as it was only half an hour's trot from the school, and was distinguished by a beauty nopony who had been there could forget. Yet I have never met anypony who had been there.
The Rue de la Selle lay across a rainbow river bordered by inviting shops and spanned by an elegant bridge of white marble. It was never completely dark there, the air itself seeming to glow with the light of dawn (which was, in the long run, quite annoying), and the river carried sweet smells I have never found elsewhere. I would recognize them instantly, so one day they might help me find that street again. On that side of the river, the streets rose up the mountain, slowly at first, but incredibly steep at the Rue de la Selle.
I have never seen another street as narrow or steep as the Rue de la Selle. It was almost a cliff, closed to all chariots, replaced by stairs in a few places, with a tall, ivy-covered wall at the top. The street was paved with a beautiful mosaic of many colors, an irregular and enchanting pattern, interrupted by beds of flowers. The houses were tall, slender-roofed, and incredibly old. I am sure the towers of Cloudsdale and your palace are taller, yet something about the architecture of these houses left me dizzied with vertigo when I looked up at them. A few bridges connected the houses above street level, too, and some houses almost seemed to arch across the street though none of them leaned.
I was particularly impressed, and irritated, by the ponies living in that peculiar street. At first I thought it was that they were all cheerful, sociable, and quite loud (a fact which annoyed me to no end in my studies), but later I realized that it was because all of them seemed quite young. I don't remember how I came to live in that peculiar street, either, as I wasn't quite myself at the time. I had lived in a number of places, but had always found some bothersome detail that disturbed me in my studies, and decided to move out, until I happened upon that ill-fated house so meticulously kept in perfect condition by a pony I cannot recall clearly, but whose place my mind now fills with Rarity. It was the third from the top of the street, and by far the tallest; a fact that would spell my doom.
My room was on the fifth floor, surrounded by ponies trying to drag me into their social activities, since the house was almost full. I honestly found myself detesting them, as they would interrupt my studies every day. They hardly ever passed a day without a celebration of some sort or other, usually lasting well into the night. Somepony would always burst into my room and bother me with an invitation to one of their parties. Sometimes the whole street was filled with decorations, bright lights, music and dancing ponies. Once or twice, I got roped into it, and every time I crashed with a horrible, sugar-induced hangover afterward and lamented the time I had lost on my studies, no matter how much fun I'd had.
Then one night, as I was studying late, the awful noise of the other ponies laughing and celebrating fell silent all at once, and was replaced by delicate singing from a room above me. Even muffled by the ceiling, the voice had a full quality to it. I never before or after heard such a rich sound. The next day, I asked "Rarity" about it, and she told me that it was a foreign singer, a quiet, reserved filly who signed her name as... I can't recall the name my landlady told me, but my mind has since always thought of Fluttershy, for her shy demeanor and beautiful singing remind me of that pony. In any case, this singer performed in the evenings at the Grand Theater in Canterlot, and it was her desire to sing at night that had her pick that lofty room, whose window was the only point in the street from which one could look over the far wall.
Thereafter I heard her every night, and though she kept me awake, I was haunted by the strangely soothing nature of her singing. Her songs left me tired, yet awake; calm, but still unable to focus on my studies, with her tune playing through my head. I know little about music myself, but I was sure that I had never heard anything quite like it before, and thought she must have composed it herself. With every night of listening, I grew more fascinated, until I could no longer get any work done, and resolved to meet her about a week later even though it meant interrupting my studies.
One night as she returned from her work, I stopped her on the stairs and told her that I would like to know her better and be with her when she sang. (That I said such a thing at that stage of my life must strike you as strange, and indeed it was.) She was a small pegasus, often cowering to appear even smaller, her face always half hidden behind her luxurious mane. At first she seemed upset, almost worried at my words, but my insistence finally convinced her, and she led me up the clean, narrow attic stairs. Her room was one of only two under that steep roof, and it was very large, an impression emphasized by the modest sparseness of furniture, with nothing except the essentials. Sheets of music lay stacked on a table, yet the walls were bare, and the room was so immaculately clean one could hardly imagine anypony living there. Apparently her world of beauty lay in some far realm of imagination.
Motioning me to sit down, she closed the door, locked it, and brought another candle to help light the room. She seated herself in an uncomfortable chair, leaving the more comfortable seat to me, which left me in no small unease. She did not use a music rack, and offered no choice, but singing from memory entertained me for over an hour with songs I had never heard before, which must have been of her own invention. I can not describe them exactly, as I don't know enough about music for that, but what struck me most about them was the absence of that otherworldly quality I had noticed in the nights before.
Those soothing notes that I remembered, and often tried to hum or whistle to myself, so that when she stopped singing, I asked if she would perform some of them. Yet as I began to ask, she lost her gentle calm, and showed the same strange mixture of upset and concern as when I first spoke to her. For a moment I tried to convince her, and even whistled a few notes I recalled, but seeing her bow and shake her head as she recognized her tune, I could not carry on, and apologized to her. She had sat down on the ground, and repeatedly glanced to the small window, which was absurd, as the curtains were drawn.
I felt regret at neglecting my studies, only to satisfy my curiosity and end up worrying such a delicate soul. Yet the singer's glance had brought back to mind a remark the landlady had made, about the view from this topmost of windows, and on a whim I decided I would like to look across Canterlot from that window, a view which of all the ponies of this street only she could enjoy. Yet when I moved to the window to draw away the curtains, she squeaked and cowered lower, her face stricken with confusion and distress beyond my description, hidden beneath a gentle smile. I could not bear to see her like that, and promised her to leave immediately. At that she stepped forward timidly, and asked me, in a meek, almost broken voice, to forgive her peculiar behavior.
She explained that she was lonely, and suffered a strange unease connected to her music and a few other things. She had enjoyed my listening, and wished that I would come again and not mind her fits. But she could not sing those strange melodies to another, nor bear to hear another sing them, nor did she like anypony to touch anything in her room (which, given the immaculate state it was in, I fully believed). She also asked me to arrange for a room on a lower floor, so I would not hear her singing, if I didn't mind the trouble, that is.
As I sat listening to the singer, I felt more forgiving to the young filly. She was suffering from a nervous disorder because of her passion for her work, as was I at the time. My studies might not have taught me kindness, but I felt sorry for her. As she finished her explanation, a sound at the window disturbed us - the shutters must have rattled in the wind, though I could have sworn it sounded like a snorting giggle - and we both jumped in surprise, yet soon fell to laughing. Soon after, I left as what could be called a friend, though I am now doubtful of that.
However, I soon learned that the singer wasn't as eager for my company as it had first appeared. She did not invite me to her room, and when I visited her, she appeared uncomfortable and distracted as she sang. That was always at night - she would sleep during the days. My liking for her did not grow much, yet I nearly abandoned my studies over my fascination with her music and her room. I wanted to look out that window and over that wall, at the panorama which must present itself there. One time I sneaked to her room during theater hours, but the door was locked.
Nonetheless, I did succeed in overhearing her nightly singing, the only way I had to calm my mind from playing her tunes over and over in my thoughts. At first I'd tip-hoof to the bottom of the attic stairs, then I grew bold and went up to her door. There, at the bolted door, I often heard sounds which filled me with an indescribable fear - a fear of strange wonder and mystery. It wasn't that her singing was horrible, as it was in fact very sweet and lively. But some notes she struck simply did not seem to belong in this world, and sometimes her voice assumed a quality which I could not take as being produced by one pony. Surely, this young singer had immense talent and genius. But as the weeks passed, her singing grew wilder, while the young pegasus grew ever more timid. She would no longer let me into her room, and managed no more than a shy squeak when we met on the stairs.
Then one night when I listened at the door, I heard her gentle singing swell into a wild chorus, a joyful chaos which would have led me to doubt my good taste, and even my sanity, if not for one sound that rose behind that locked door - a faint, almost voiceless laugh. I knocked several times, but nopony answered. I waited in the hallway for a time, trembling in the cold, until I heard her faint effort to rise from the floor, at which I resumed my knocking and called out to her. I heard her stumble to the window and slam it shut, then to the door to open it. This time her relief at seeing me was real, as she fell against me and held on tight.
Trembling and her wings fluttering, the pegasus guided me to a chair and sat down in another. For a while she stayed silent, but nodded sometimes, her ears perked up and turned towards the window. Afterward she seemed satisfied, and asked me in a meek whisper to be patient as she wrote down a full account of what troubled her, so I could read and go back to anything I did not understand. I waited, and the pencil between her lips flew.
About an hour later, as I still waited and her hurriedly written sheets piled up on the table, I noticed that her ears had perked up and turned to the window again and she turned to face the curtained window, her eyes wide. Then I imagined I heard a sound myself, an infinitely distant, high, dissonant squeak, probably played at a party in one of the neighboring houses, or somewhere beyond that wall over which I never got to look. Upon her the effect was unexpected, as she stood up straight as she began her meek, yet oddly resonant singing, the melody the wildest, most energetic jumble of notes I had yet heard from her.
It would be useless to describe her singing on that crazy night. It was more chaotic than anything I had ever heard, especially since I could now see the mad expression on her face, and could realize that this time her motive was plain euphoria. She was singing her lungs out, to stoke or release some withheld passion - I could not imagine what, though I felt it must be overwhelming. Her singing grew fantastic, delirious, ecstatic, yet always kept that note of genius which had first drawn me. I noticed the song she was singing, a simple lullaby - it was the first time I heard her sing anything by another composer, even though the jaunty tune was hardly still recognizable as the lullaby it once was.
Louder and louder, wilder and wilder, mounted her trembling voice. She was trembling with exhaustion and shifting around, yet she always kept her eyes on that curtained window. In her frenzied notes, I could almost see shadows dancing and whirling through clouds and smoke and lightning. And then I thought I heard a shriller, steadier note; a whimsical, mocking note from far away beyond the window.
At this point the shutters began to rattle in the howling wind that had picked up outside as if answering her song. The pegasus now outdid herself producing notes I never thought a pony could produce. The shutters rattled louder, tore free, and started to bang against the window. The glass broke under the repeated hits, and the warm wind rushed into the room, making the candles flicker and rustling the papers she had written. I looked at her, and saw she was beyond any clear thought. Her blue eyes bulged and looked straight through me, and her song had tumbled into a wild, unrecognizable orgy that I cannot describe.
A sudden rush of wind caught the papers and blew them towards the broken window. I hurried after them, but they were gone before I reached the window myself. At that moment, I remembered my wish to look out that window across Canterlot spread below. It was deep night, and stormy outside, but there is always light somewhere in this city, so I expected to see soft, gleaming lights far below. Yet, when I looked out of that highest window in that street, I saw not the lights of a sleeping city, but instead an indistinct space of colors, endless space alive with music and motion, with cheering and dancing, and the smell of cupcakes. Yet I could not compare what I felt there to anything in our world - even a look into Pinkie Pie's mind would probably pale in comparison. And as I watched that madness, the wind blew out the candles, and left me in the dark, with streamers and balloons whipping around me and the pegasus's crazy song behind me.
I stumbled back into the room and, failing even to cast a light from my horn, I knocked over the table and a chair. I called out for the singer, begging her to flee with me. But she did not answer, or slowed her frenzied singing at all. Once I thought a soft, tangled mane, completely unlike either of ours, brushed me, and I screamed, but my scream was lost against her singing. Finally, I was hit in the side by her flapping wing, and I knew I had found her. I placed my hoof against her side and felt forward, then shook her shoulder to bring her to her senses.
She did not react, and still kept on singing without tiring. I moved my head close to hers, and felt her steady nodding as I shouted into her ear, repeating that we must both flee from whatever it was that was having a party out there. But she did not slow her indescribable music, while that strange, cupcake-scented wind rushed all through her room. When my cheek touched hers, I shuddered, but I did not understand why, until I felt her wide, unrelenting grin, continued even through her song. And then, as I was lucky enough to find the door, I ran away from that madly grinning creature in the dark, away from the folkish howling of the instruments beyond.
Leaping, galloping, teleporting down those endless stairs in the brightly lit house, running blindly out into the street, down the steep flights of stairs, hooves clattering on cobblestones and mosaics towards the rainbow-glowing river, and across that slender bridge of flawless marble, and onto the broad, dimly lit boulevards of Canterlot proper, all those terrible impressions still stay with me. And I remember no wind in the streets, and the full moon shone, and many windows glowed.
Despite my most careful searches, I have never since been able to find the Rue de la Selle. But I am not really sorry, neither for this nor the loss in undreamable abysses of the papers which alone could have explained the parties of Pinkie Pie.
Your faithful student,
Twilight Sparkle
