“Time to get up, Tavi!”
Octavia Melody rolled over and groaned and the last shreds of sleep deserted her exhaused body.
“No.”
Sweet Celestia, even her voice sounded drained. She groaned again as a headache began to pound its way through her skull.
“You have thirty seconds.”
Octavia turned her head halfway and cracked open one eye. She saw a white unicorn with a two-toned blue mane holding a bucket of water in her pale blue telekinesis.
Octavia immediately shot up, eyes flying open.
“Alright! I’m up! I’m up!”
Vinyl Scratch grinned and set the bucket down hard on Octavia’s bedroom floor. “Good! It’s almost ten, you know that, right Tavi?”
“I always get up at ten,” Octavia replied. “Why would you…” Her voice died as she caught sight of the calendar hanging on the opposite wall. “Oh. Is it Tuesday already?”
“You better believe it!” Vinyl was already on her way out the door. “Derpy just dropped by with a note—Carrot Top and Rose are already at the theater, and most of the crew are on their way. Shake a leg, Tavi, or we’re gonna be late!”
Octavia rolled out of bed, moaning softly as she did so. Her head hurt like fury—probably a result of staying up until two o’clock am studying sheet music. She stumbled over to her desk and scribbled out a quick to-do list:
• Grab sheet music f. next show—Minuette
• Bed—early
• Painkillers
“Come on, Tavi!” Vinyl yelled from the kitchen of their apartment. “We’re gonna be late!”
Octavia growled softly, grabbed her cello case (along with a folder of sheet music) and hurried out the door.
***
Golden Harvest, better known as Carrot Top, trotted briskly through the Ponyville Center for the Performing Arts, better known as the Ponyville Theater. She made her way along the back of an auditorium and through an open doorway marked Backstage – Staff Only. Just on the other side she was awaited by a cream-colored mare with a magenta-and-pink mane.
“Rose! Glad you could make it.”
Roseluck gave a half-smile in return.
“Same here.”
“Got the script?”
“Right here.” Rose turned her head to pull a thick pile of papers from her saddlebag. “For tonight’s performance I’ve got The Winter’s Tail. It’s an old romantic drama—copies have been found from as far back as Princess Platinum’s reign. I did a little re-writing to fit our cast.” Rose paused, her smile slipping ominously away. “Speaking of that—”
“Everyone could make it, right?” Carrot Top asked hurriedly.
“Everyone but Daisy. She’s out with the flu, so we may need Vinyl to fill in on a few scenes.”
Carrot Top let out a small sigh of relief and nodded. “Right then. I’ll be up in the loft.”
“Where’s… Ditzy?”
The clumsy pegasus’s name was spoken with a low tone of dreading respect. Ditzy had been messing up plays since the theater troupe was founded, but recently a particularly spectacular accident (dubbed “The Burning” by Vinyl Scratch) had led to a newfound respect from the other troupe members, Rose especially. Not that Ditzy had ever noticed the change.
“She’s coming,” Carrot Top answered. “She stopped off at Vinyl and Octavia’s to deliver a message.”
There was some relief in Rose’s face as she nodded.
Carrot Top nodded to her script writer, and then headed for the stairway that led the stage director’s loft.
***
Bon-Bon, née Sweetie Drops, hurried into the Ponyville Theater at the head of a small group of ponies.
Just behind her were Lyra Heartstrings and Minuette, having an animated conversation about some pre-classical composer. Behind them were Goldengrape, Sea Swirl, and Lily Valley, and behind them Vinyl Scratch and Octavia, along with Sassaflash and Sunshower Raindrops. At the tail end of the group came Caramel and Shoeshine, walking slowly so as to stare into each other’s eyes.
As soon as she entered the theater, Bon-Bon made a beeline for the door marked Backstage – Staff Only. As she entered the backstage realm she nearly plowed into Roseluck.
“Oh—sorry!”
The cream earth mare only smiled. “Excited about today’s performance, are we?”
“You bet!” Bon-Bon exclaimed. “I talked to Cheerilee earlier this morning, and she said she’d watch me today—maybe even put in a good word for me with a recruiter, or Twilight Sparkle!”
“That’s great,” Rose said, smiling sincerely. “Here’s a copy of your lines.” She lifted the papers in one hoof.
“Great!” Bon-Bon took the papers in her mouth and dashed off. Rose smiled fondly after her, then turned to brief the rest of the troupe as they filed in.
***
“…until Rarity brings the costumes. Hopefully she’ll leave us time for a dress rehearsal…”
Octavia stifled a yawn as Carrot Top droned on, laying out the plan for that day’s play. Last night’s leftover exhaustion had not worn off, even after two cups of coffee, and the headache persistently pounding out Manethoven’s 5th symphony in her head had not been deterred by the painkillers she’d managed to snag on her way out the door.
“…Any questions? No? Good. Orchestra, you’ll be with Minuette; Vinyl, you can go set up in the back. Everyone else, come with Rose and me.”
The troupe split up, and Octavia sluggishly followed the small orchestra group.
The group consisted of one cellist, one harpist, one violinist, and one harmonica player—hardly enough to be called an orchestra, but it was what the troupe had, so they went with it. Any other needed instruments were added courtesy of Vinyl Scratch’s extensive collection of symphonies-on-recording; occasionally the conductor, Minuette, filled in as a second violinist.
Deep within the orchestra pit, Octavia slumped into a chair, lifted her cello, and wished for sleep.
***
Roseluck, alias Rose, stood to the side of the stage, just inside the wings. Sea Swirl and Goldengrape were just taking their places for the practice of a scene. During the actual play they would be heavily made up and in costume; for now they were just working on placement, lines, and emotion.
Sea Swirl struck a casual pose, as though looking, awestruck, at a landscape. Goldengrape posed similarly, vaguely following Sea Swirl’s position.
“And… Clementine,” Rose called, referring to Sea Swirl’s in-character name. Sea Swirl began.
“The climate is delicate; the air here most sweet,” Sea Swirl began. “Fertile is this island, and Brísinga’s temple surpasses the praise oft said of it.”
Rose let out a tiny sigh and looked down at her copy of the script. Okay. So far so good. Now if Goldengrape could just remember his line…
The pale stallion paused for a long minute, and then spoke:
“But most of all surprising was the voice of Brísinga’s oracle; akin to the cry of Mjölna’s thunder, so that I was rent far awestruck.”
“Alright, stop!”
Sea Swirl and Goldengrape immediately dropped into more natural positions, and turned to look at Rose as she stormed out onto the stage.
“For the second time, Goldengrape, that’s Sea Swirl’s line!” the irate scriptwriter declared. “Your line is, ‘I was foremost caught by the grim and cer’monious habits—’”
“‘—Of the grave tenders, and the sacrifice they declared’,” Goldengrape finished, looking ashamed.
“Right! Now go backstage and keep studying.”
Sea Swirl and Goldengrape filed silently off the stage. Rose took her own place behind the curtain once again as Bon-Bon and Lily Valley filed onstage to practice their scene.
Rose cleared her throat.
“Alright. Bon-Bon, you start…”
***
From her perch in the director’s loft, Carrot Top watched the members of her troupe as they exchange places on stage, practicing the play. After a few scenes she turned and touched one of the wall-mounted two-way radios with her hoof.
“Vinyl? This is Carrot Top. How’s it going?”
“Awesome! I got everything set up. Just waiting for Minuette to finish warm-up.”
“Great. Feel free to do a sound check whenever you’re ready.”
“Got it!”
Carrot Top switched to a different channel and spoke again.
“Ditzy? You there?”
“Yup!”
The clumsy pegasus’s voice was as obliviously cheerful as ever. Like most of the troupe members, Ditzy’s special talent was something far removed from theater; however, when Carrot Top had offered to head the volunteer group, Ditzy had been more than happy to join as well.
“How’s it going?” Carrot Top asked.
“Okey-doke! No sign of trouble out here, boss!”
Carrot Top sighed. After “The Burning” (as Vinyl called it) Ditzy had been permanently switched to security guard duty. The pegasus would be all but useless in a real fight, but real fights were few and far between in Ponyville, and Carrot Top figured her roommate would at least be able to warn them of trouble before she was knocked out by whatever assailants might target the theater. The only real problem with the arrangement was that Ditzy had taken to calling Carrot Top “boss”.
Carrot Top adjusted the channel on her radio again and contacted Minuette.
“Minuette? How are things down there?”
“Fine,” the unicorn replied. Her voice was muffled slightly by the various orchestral noises of an orchestra pit. “We’re about done with the warm-up. Tell Vinyl she’s good to go.”
“Great.” Carrot Top punched a few buttons. “Vinyl, Minuette says you’re good to go.”
“Awesome.”
***
Bon-Bon tilted her head forward slightly, focusing intently on Caramel. They were in the midst of a dialogue, on that required focused attention from all members.
“For I have heard it said,” Bon-Bon intoned, “that there is an art, shared in piousness, that may create a—”
Vinyl Scratch’s voice blared through the theater, abruptly cutting off Bon-Bon’s line.
“Yo!” the unicorn DJ yelled into the booming sound system. “Sound check!”
Her voice patched out and was immediately replaced by some hard-rock song blasting in at top volume. Bon-Bon winced, reaching up to cover her ears with her front hooves. The scene's already ruined anyway, Rose isn't going to mind, she rationalized.
The audio torture lasted for about a minute before cutting out. Bon-Bon let out a loud sigh of relief and reached up to massage one ear.
“Alright, from the top,” said Rose’s irate voice from the wings. “I’ll be right back.”
Bon-Bon took a deep breath and began again.
“For I have heard it said…”
***
“Vinyl Scratch!”
Rose stormed up the stairs and into the loft that served as Vinyl Scratch’s personal sound booth. The white unicorn took off her headphones and turned.
“Yo, Rose. What’s up?”
“What’s up is that you ruin my rehearsal with those stupid sound checks of yours, every! Single! Practice! And I’m sick of it!”
“Geez, Rose, calm down. I have to do that to make sure that—”
“‘You have to do that to make sure everything is still working right’, blah blah blah blah blah! You’re doing it on purpose! You never use audio that loud during the actual plays!”
“But I might.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Look,” Vinyl said, her casual demeanor disappearing. “Who’s the sound system expert here? You? Or me?”
“You,” Rose muttered, through grit teeth.
“Right. So back off, let me do my job, and I’ll let you do yours.” Vinyl put her headphones back on and readjusted her goggles. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have mixing to do.”
Rose turned and stomped back down the stairs, ruing the day she first met Vinyl Scratch.
***
Minuette tapped her podium with her conductor’s baton, and then raised it in her blue telekinesis.
“Alright, everypony. Instruments ready?”
Octavia raised her hoof to signal her readiness, then moved it to massage her forehead.
Minuette moved the baton up and to the left.
“Then we begin. And a one, two, three, four—”
The orchestra began.
Octavia inwardly winced at the noise. Without the numerous recordings Vinyl would overlay during the play, they sounded fairly ragged. Pitch Perfect’s harmonica and her own cello generally drowned out the other two instruments, and Lyra’s harp corresponded badly with Baritone’s violin. None of it helped the headache already throbbing in Octavia’s skull.
The group hit a particularly sharp note, and Octavia winced.
Oh—why didn’t I get more pills when I left the house?
Another sharp note. Another wince.
I really could’ve used one more… or maybe two…
Alright. Maybe ten.
A blast from Pitch Perfect’s harmonica brought the number to a close. Minuette nodded approvingly.
“Well done! Now. Next number. One, two, three, one, two, three…”
Octavia’s moan was drowned out by the clamor of instruments.
***
“Hey, Bon-Bon, could ya come help me with this scenery here?”
Bon-Bon glanced up and saw Shoeshine fumbling with a tin of green paint and a wooden garden set piece.
“Sure,” she said, trotting over. “What do you need?”
“Just some flowers,” Shoeshine answered. “That’s all Rose said, anyway.”
“Right.” With a few strokes Bon-Bon outlined a hydrangea bush, then a rose bush and a carnation plant.
“Whoa,” Shoeshine said. “You’re like a serious artist, Bon-Bon! How do you do it?”
“Years of decorating cakes with a perfectionist for a mother,” Bon-Bon grunted. “You pick up some stuff. That good?”
“Yeah, that’s great.” Shoeshine painted a few flowers of her own, and then spoke again. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
“You’re, like, the most motivated person on the team. Why do you do it?”
“I think it’s my special talent.” Bon-Bon turned to look at her cutie mark. “I mean, don’t get me wrong—decorating candies and cakes and stuff is great. I love it! But I think these three bows represent the ability to dress up and become someone I’m not on stage. And I love that too.”
“Do your parents know?”
“Of course! My mom’s a little disappointed—she always wanted me to become a confectioner like her—but they’re real supportive. My dad’s even trying to get me into the Canterlot School of the Performing Arts.”
“Cool.”
Some silence passed as the pair moved on to a few other set pieces. Then:
“Can I ask you something else?”
“Any time.”
“Do you really have a crush on Red Delicious?”
“…On second thought, no.”
Shoeshine just grinned cheekily.
***
Carrot Top was jolted out of a nice contemplative moment by the ringing and vibrating of her radio. She jumped up to her hooves and hit the button with her hoof.
“Ditzy? What’s up?”
“Mayday, I repeat, Mayday! I’ve got Miss Cheerilee comin’ up the front walk! Mayday, mayday! This is not a drill!”
“Ditzy…” Carrot Top closed her eyes briefly. “If I’ve told you once I’ve told you forty times. ‘Mayday’ is for emergencies only.”
Ditzy giggled. “Oops, my bad! Anyway, yeah, we got Miss Cheerilee coming in.”
“Got it.” Carrot Top powered down the radio and trotted out to the theater lobby, where the schoolteacher was just entering.
“Carrot Top! Good to see you.”
“Good to see you too,” Carrot Top replied. “What can I help you with?”
“Well, I was wondering if I could bring the class in for your performance this evening. We’re studying the history of Equestria, and it would be a wonderful opportunity to discuss Warming-era literature.”
“Well…” Carrot Top rubbed at the back of her head with one hoof. “This is kind of short notice. We’re pretty sold out as far as tickets go, and I don’t know if we can rustle up more space quick enough.”
“So, is that a yes, or a no?”
Carrot Top thought for a moment.
“…Yes, I guess. Though ya might end up with a nosebleed spot if there’s no other seats.”
“I think we can make that work,” Cheerilee said. “Thank you!”
“Anytime.”
The magenta mare turned to go, and Carrot Top headed back into the auditorium.
***
Roseluck hurried past the various actors and set pieces and trotted into the wings just to the side of the stage. Sunshower Raindrops, better known as Sunshower, and Caramel were onstage along with Lily Valley, Sassaflash, and Vinyl Scratch, who was filling in as a background character.
“Erm, miss Rose?”
Rose turned halfway to see Bon-Bon looking at her worriedly.
“What? Is there something in my tail?”
“No, no, it’s not that—it’s about one of the sets.”
“Then it’ll have to wait. This is an important scene.” She turned back toward the stage.
Caramel, acting as Lion Tail, was just reaching a crescendo in his rant to Sunshower, or Heron Mane as she was called in the play.
“…Thy foal hath been cast out, no father owning it in its bastard state; so thee shall feel our justice, and thee shall taste the bitter rain of death.”
Rose smiled. Thank goodness Caramel can follow a script better than Goldengrape! Finally, everything is going according to plan.
***
“Well done, everypony!” Minuette said, placing her violin back in its case. “Don’t worry, we’ll all sound a lot better with Vinyl doing the overlays for the final thing. Any questions, comments, or otherwise?”
Octavia tentatively raised her hoof. The other hoof lay limp at her side, not bothering to hold her cello up; her eyes were wide and she was breathing deeply in an attempt to allay the nausea sweeping her body.
“Octavia?”
“I—uh—” Octavia pointed feebly to the door that led to the mares’ room. Before Minuette was finished nodding she had bolted through the door, down the hallway, and into the restroom.
A few minutes later she was hanging over the toilet, emptying her stomach of the little she’d eaten for breakfast and lunch.
Sweet Celestia… what is wrong with me? Shakily she got to her hooves and stumbled to the sink to rinse out her mouth. “Okay, Octavia. Pull it together. This is just a little… pseudo-hangover thing from last night. You can do this.” She smoothed her mane back with some water and left the mares’ room feeling somewhat more refreshed.
The already-dingy room began to subtly reek of vomit.
***
Carrot Top punched a few buttons on her radio and held it up to her ear.
“Minuette, report.”
“Practice is all done! We could use a practice with Vinyl’s overlays, but that’ll get done during dress rehearsal anyway.”
“Great.”
A few more buttons were pressed.
“Vinyl, report.”
“All good to go up here.”
“Rose, report.”
“Rehearsals are just finishing up, and we’ve got most of the scenery done. That’s all.”
“Got it. Ditzy, report. Any sign of Rarity?”
“Noperoony, boss!”
“Right then. Everypony can go home for now; meet back here at one hour to curtain. Hopefully we’ll have the costumes by then.”
“Got it.”
“Will do!”
“I hear you.”
“On it, boss!”
Carrot Top sighed.
***
At an hour to curtain Bon-Bon trotted through a side door and into the backstage area of the theater. Rose and Carrot Top were already there, standing next to each other and quietly discussing the script. When Bon-Bon cleared her throat they looked up, and Rose immediately went into director mode.
“Hi,” she said briskly. “Got your lines?”
“Yep.”
“Okay, you can study them until the others get here. Then we’ll start the dress rehearsal.”
“Hopefully,” Carrot Top cut in. “Assuming Rarity gets here in time.”
“Hopefully,” Rose echoed. Bon-Bon just nodded and trotted over to a randomly placed chair, where she sat down and began studying her lines.
Just as she was getting comfortable with the old-fashioned style of writing, a door slammed somewhere and Lily Valley stormed in.
“Honestly!” she yelled. “What, does Rarity think we can do a dress rehearsal in the last half-hour before curtain? How last-minute does she want to operate?”
“Yelling won't help,” Bon-Bon said softly. Lily Valley snorted and stormed away. Bon-Bon watched her go before looking at the paper again to study her lines.
***
“Tavi, come on! We need to go now!”
Octavia’s voice was too weak for her to reply. It was, she reflected, probably a good thing she wasn’t an actress; this little bout of… illness would probably cause her to let down the whole troupe.
The grey mare swallowed another painkiller, took a tentative sip of water, and stumbled out of the bathroom.
Vinyl’s magenta eyes widened at the sight of her.
“Geez—what happened to you? Are you okay?”
“Fine,” Octavia croaked. Her throat hurt from the extended vomiting the last half-hour had brought, but the painkiller would take care of that.
Hopefully.
“Okay,” Vinyl said uneasily. “If you’re all good then we really should be getting out of here.”
“Right.” With some difficulty Octavia picked up her cello case and followed her friend as she left the apartment.
***
“Okay, from the top…”
Rose stood back and watched critically as Sassaflash and Caramel went through their opening lines for the first scene. Their recitations were word-perfect, but their glaring lack of costumes was a huge problem. Rose activated her radio.
“Carrot Top, this is Rose. Any sign of Rarity yet?”
“Nope,” came the reply from the radio. “Though Ditzy’s spotted the first audience members arriving.”
“Got it.” Rose turned off her radio and beckoned to the two actors onstage. “Sassaflash! Caramel! We’ve got the first bits of our audience coming in!”
The pair heeded her warning and dutifully trotted offstage. Sunshower tugged at a rope attached to a pulley, and main curtain fell.
Rose bit her lip and eyed the door. At this point their entire production was hinging on Rarity’s ability to make it on time, and things weren’t looking good.
***
Carrot Top powered down her radio and slammed one hoof into the loft floor, rattling everything on the walls.
“It’s fifteen minutes to curtain! Where is Rarity?”
As if in answer her radio lit up, vibrating madly. With a growl Carrot Top punched the button.
“Mayday, mayday! I’m got Rarity coming up the side way, heading for backstage door number three! This is not a drill!”
Carrot Top ignored Ditzy’s blatant abuse of the emergency signal and replied. “Does she have the costumes?”
Ditzy paused, then asked, “Does ‘negative’ mean yes or no?”
“Just tell me if she has the costumes with her!”
“That’d be a yes, boss! She’s got three racks of stuff!”
“Good.” Carrot Top shut off the radio before Ditzy could reply and hurried down the stairs.
Rarity was just pulling the third rack of clothes in through the door. When she spotted Carrot Top she stopped and put on a dazzling smile. “Golden! So sorry I’m late—one of the gowns had a torn stitch in the hem and I simply couldn’t allow it to go onstage like that!”
Carrot Top scowled. “That hardly matters! Thanks to you we now have no hope of a dress rehearsal—do you even know how important that is? And—”
“We don’t have time for ranting, either,” Rose snapped, sending a pointed glare in Carrot Top’s direction. “Sassaflash—Caramel—your costumes are far left on the first rack. Lily, you can do makeup. Sunshower, Goldengrape, Bon-Bon, Shoeshine, Sea Swirl, get ready for scene two. You have ten minutes, ponies!”
***
Octavia sat as straight as she could, holding her cello upright. The rustle of papers filled the room as the motley orchestra arranged their various musical prompts. Minuette was at the front, anxiously checking her hourglass every few seconds.
“Two minutes to curtain,” she announced, just as the rustling was winding down. “Instruments ready!”
Octavia positioned her bow just over the strings of the cello. For what seemed hours the ensemble waited there, poising themselves for the right moment.
“Wait for it,” Minuette muttered, mostly to herself. “And… one, two, three, four—!”
A wave of dizziness chose that moment to sweep over Octavia.
The ensuing chaos inside her head caused her to miss the first few notes of the symphony. Minuette shot her a warning glance, but didn’t say anything.
Come on Octavia. Pull it together!
Octavia took a deep breath, straightened, and joined in on the fourth measure. The dizziness dissipated a bit, allowing Octavia to follow the song fairly well.
Okay. We’re all good.
At that moment, in a loft far overhead, Vinyl Scratch turned up the volume on a recorded symphony, causing dull vibrations to shudder through the orchestra pit.
Octavia moaned.
***
Bon-Bon bit her lip, feeling the familiar sensation of nervousness and excitement flutter through her stomach as she waited to go onstage. What does Pinkie call it? ‘Nervicited’? She shook away that thought and took in a deep breath. It was almost time.
The theater darkened, save for a few dimmed lights backstage. Sassaflash and Caramel trotted offstage, and Bon-Bon headed in the opposite direction. She quickly took her place and struck an appropriately dramatic pose as she waited for the lights to come back on.
When they did, Bon-Bon waited the allotted three seconds before launching into her first line as the character of Pollen. Caramel, acting as Lion Tail, replied with his line, and with that they were off. Bon-Bon felt the inexorable joy of theater seeping into her, and she was sorry to have to leave the stage when their lengthy scene finally concluded.
***
Rose took a deep breath, trying to calm herself as Sea Swirl and Goldengrape took their places on the darkened stage, preparing for their next scene. Okay. We’ve practiced this scene plenty of times, and it’s short, so there’s less to remember. Come on, Goldengrape. You can do this.
And… Clementine.
“‘The climate is delicate; the air here most sweet,” Sea Swirl intoned. “Fertile is this island, and Brísinga’s temple surpasses the praise oft said of it…”
Rose let out a tiny sigh. Perfect. Then her gaze went to Goldengrape. Please, please, please get it right, just this once…
Goldengrape seemed to pause for a long moment, before starting in slowly and hesitantly.
“‘But most of all surprising was the voice of Brísinga’s oracle; akin to the cry of Mjölna’s thunder, so that I was rent far awestruck.’”
Rose closed her eyes and let her head droop in disappointment. Aaand wrong line. Again. When she looked up she saw Sea Swirl staring at her with confusion and a bit of desperation in her raspberry-colored eyes.
“Ad-lib it,” Rose mouthed, and Sea Swirl gave an almost imperceptible nod.
The scene went on, and both actors did fairly well even without the script, to Rose’s relief, though she resolved to give Goldengrape a good dressing-down afterwards.
The play went on, and Rose prayed nothing more would go wrong that night.
***
Halfway through the play, Carrot Top’s designated stage-side radio vibrated loudly from its place on the wall. The orange earth pony sighed and activated it.
“Rose. What’s wrong?”
“One of the sets,” the scriptwriter blurted. “It just collapsed, and we need a replacement, pronto. Bon-Bon’s onstage and won’t be available for a good few scenes, and no one else is going to have time.”
“Okay,” Carrot Top said, massaging her forehead with one hoof and using the other to tap out a nervous pattern on the loft floor. “Okay. Substitute something else. There has to be something you can use in the back storage room. I’ll send Ditzy down.”
“D…Ditzy?” Rose repeated. She already sounded faint.
“What, would you rather I pulled Caramel out to do it? I can’t come—Vinyl and Minuette are giving me non-stop chatter from their vantage points.”
“You know, I think I’ll just go… myself,” Rose said. “Yeah, myself. Check you later.” Her radio abruptly went dead.
Carrot Top powered her own radio down and began to pray that for nothing else would go wrong, and for once one of their plays would go right.
***
Octavia took a deep breath. The nausea was finally subsiding, and though she still had a headache, it was nothing like what it had been an hour ago. On the other hoof, she had something new to worry about: Lyra had left to use the mare’s room during a brief interlude in the music, and hadn’t really left the dingy restroom since. Vinyl had the harp music situation mostly under control, but Octavia was worried about her friend.
When the next interlude came, Octavia excused herself and hurried in to see how Lyra was doing.
She was almost immediately greeted by the now-familiar sound of a pony vomiting.
“Lyra!” Octavia dashed forward in the unlocked stall was greeted by the unsettling sight of Lyra hanging over a toilet bowl. “Oh my gosh, are you alright?”
“Y—Yeah,” Lyra rasped, before lunging forward to hurl again. “Okay—maybe—not quite—”
“You need to go home,” Octavia said. “This is the flu, isn’t it? I think it is—Daisy had the flu, and then I think I had it earlier, so I must have passed it to you—oh my gosh, this is all my fault—”
“’S not your fault, Tavi,” Lyra said. “Just—tell Minuette I can’t—act, ’kay? I was s’posed to, but I guess now Vinyl’ll have to—” She was again cut off.
“Right,” Octavia said. She bolted from the room and hurriedly informed Minuette, who radioed Carrot Top.
As Octavia took her place behind her cello, she silently sent up a prayer to Celestia.
Please, don’t let anything else go wrong…
***
Carrot Top turned off her radio and sighed, gritting her teeth immediately afterward. She punched another radio’s “On” button and said into it, “Vinyl, we need you down here. Lyra’s out of commission, you’re filling in for her. You’re onstage in—” She checked her hourglass. “One minute.”
Vinyl cursed into what Carrot Top hoped wasn’t an open mic and punched her radio’s “Off” button with an audible thwack. Carrot Top did the same, with considerably less violence, and then peered out the loft’s window in the direction of a blissfully ignorant audience. She immediately saw Cheerilee and her class, none of whom seemed to really care about the play. Next to the schoolteacher sat an easily identifiable lavender unicorn.
Carrot Top sighed.
I sure hope Twilight Sparkle is having a nice evening…
***
Twilight Sparkle frowned disapprovingly at Cheerilee’s unruly students. Most of the foals were whispering and giggling amongst themselves, and a few were attempting to hit other audience members with spitballs; only a few of the class members were actually focusing on the play. Twilight, for her part, was very impressed by the theater troupe’s dedication; the acting was good, in her opinion, and few of the actors were recognizable under their well-made (and wonderfully period-appropriate) costumes.
Twilight settled back in her chair as yet another scene began and sighed blissfully. This is nice. I really should come down to the theater more often.
At that moment the theater pulsed with an unseen. unheard, burst of magic. Twilight sat straight up. Her horn glowed as she attempted to identify where the magical pulse had come from.
That—looks like Vinyl Scratch’s magic. But—why would she be using it? That’s her onstage… isn’t it…? So logically, the sound systems should be on autopilot…
Far below, on the boards of the stage, a white unicorn widened her eyes. An expression of near-panic flew across her face before she managed to regain control of herself.
A loud, deep pop! sounded from the theater’s speakers. There was a moment of silence, and then an obliviously cheerful voice blasted through the theater.
“MAYDAY, MAYDAY! I HAVE THREE FILLIES TRYING TO BREAK INTO THE ORCHESTRA BOX! MAYDAY, MAYDAY! THIS IS NOT A DRILL!”
