Bells and Whistles
By trombrony98
"Whoosh!"
Steam bellowed out of the chimney of a small shop near the river. Ponies were just starting to get up all around Ponyville, but Brass Button always awoke early in the morning to get started on his latest project.
Instrument making did not have a large niche in Ponyville, but there were a few faithful customers who would stop by every few days. Occasionally he might get a surprise visitor, such as that one time Rarity stopped by to order a flute, but usually it was limited to the few musically talented around Ponyville.
Brass was pouring hot metal into a mold when he heard the bell that meant somepony had entered into his shop. He figured it was probably one of his usual customers, who all knew that when they came in, he might be held up for a few minutes before taking care of whatever they needed. He kept pouring.
An unfamiliar voice spoke up from the showroom. "Hello? Is anypony in here?"
"I'll be back in a few minutes!" he shouted to the customer as he finished pouring the molten metal into the mold. He set a cinder block on top of the mold and walked out of the workshop and into his showroom.
On one wall of the showroom, he had a shelf lined with guitars. On the other side of the room, shelves lined with instrument cases of all shapes and sizes filled a good portion of the space. His masterpiece, a grand piano, was beautifully illuminated in the center of the room, being examined by an unfamiliar unicorn.
Brass Button spoke up. "Hello, ma'am. Can I help you with anything?"
She let let out a small gasp. "Sorry, I didn't see you there. I had heard from one of my friends that you make instruments. I was wondering if you could help me find an instrument I might like."
"Sure thing... what's your name? I don't think you mentioned it earlier."
"Oh. Sorry about that. My name is Twilight Sparkle. Pleased to meet you!"
Brass Button smiled at her enthusiasm. It wasn't often that he got a new customer that was this excited about getting a new instrument. He led her over to the shelves of instruments on the other side of the room.
He started to pull a few instrument cases down from the shelf. "Is there any type of instrument you're particularly interested in? I make a wide variety. I personally would recommend something along the lines of a clarinet for a beginner, but take your pick."
Twilight picked up a smaller case, one that Brass Button knew had a piccolo in it. He had made it about a month ago when he had a small amount of leftover steel after he completed a drum set for a musician from Manehattan. She opened it up and levitated it to her mouth. She blew into the instrument, creating a noise that sounded like a dying manticore.
"You're blowing into the wrong end."
Twilight blushed as she put the instrument back in its case. She tried to put it back on the shelf, but accidentally knocked over a few trumpet cases in the process. "I'm so sorry! Here, I'll help you clean up."
"No need. I'll pick them up later. Here, how 'bout I show you around the workshop? I have plenty of time on my hands; usually, I'll only get a customer once or twice a day."
"Well, I do a spa appointment with Rarity this afternoon, but I suppose this won't take long. Sounds great!"
Brass Button led her back into the workshop, stopping at the mold where he had been working earlier. He levitated the cinder block off the top and split the form, revealing a beautifully crafted mouthpiece in the center. Twilight's eyes widened as his aura surrounded the piece and dunked it into a chemical bath nearby, letting off a hiss as it sank to the bottom.
"Impressive! I've never seen that kind of quality put into something that small. How long have you been doing this?"
Brass Button hesitated. It wasn't often he had guests, and he hardly knew how to answer a question like that. " A while, I guess."
She seemed satisfied with his answer, so he went on with his work. He trotted over to a harp in the corner, on which one of the strings seemed to have snapped. He carefully levitated the two parts of the string together, and in a bright flash, repaired the string. Twilight's eyes widened in curiosity. "How do you do that? I mean, it's obvious that you're using some variety of a telekinetic repair spell, but where did you learn to do that?"
Brass Button was dumbstruck. These spells had came easy to him ever since he could remember. But her curiosity was bound to get the better of her before long. He figured that he might as well get it all out of the way early on. "You really want to know?"
Twilight nodded eagerly in reply.
"Well, here we go..."
********
Even early on, Brass Button enjoyed music. He would go to concerts whenever they came to town, and was often caught humming tunes while he did his chores. He also often would take broken kazoos and harmonicas he found lying around and took them home to fix them. This came at a price though. He often was caught daydreaming by his teacher, and was often teased by the other foals.
He did have a friend, though; a budding musician who went by the name of Lyra Heartstrings. She had gotten her cutie mark before school started, and would often sit in the corner of the yard during recess playing the harp. Brass Button would often sit nearby, humming along to whatever tune she was playing at the moment.
After the first few afternoons, Lyra became curious about the colt who was humming along to her music. "Hi, I'm Lyra. Do you like my music?"
Brass Button was a bit startled when she spoke to him, but responded shyly. "Nice to meet you. I'm Brass Button."
Lyra chuckled warmly. Most ponies just ignored her while she played, but here was somepony who seemed to enjoyed her music. "You didn't answer my question, silly."
"Yeah."
Lyra squealed with delight, then embraced Brass Button in her arms, which accidentally knocked her harp to the ground. The moment it hit the ground, one of the strings snapped. The sound reverberated in the air before it dissipated. Lyra let out a shriek when she realized what happened.
Brass Button was mildly confused at her anguish. Not knowing what else to do, he went over to the harp and picked it up. He levitated the two ends of the snapped string together, and fixed the string in a quick flash of light. He promptly fell to the ground, exhausted.
When he woke up, he was surrounded by the other students. They were quietly whispering amongst themselves, curious as to what had happened. They had seen the flash from his spell, and came over out of curiosity when they saw him go limp. He quickly collected himself and dusted himself off.
As he went to dust off his flank, he noticed something was different. Where there had been nothing only a few minutes before, he found a picture of a snapped in half music note surrounded by a blue aura. He smiled wide and let out a small squeal.
The other foals excitedly ran off to other areas of the school yard, but Lyra stayed behind to talk to Brass Button. The first thing she did was carefully set her harp beside a tree and gave him a big hug."Thank you, thank you, thank you! I was so worried that my harp was broken for good, but you fixed it. Thank you!"
The bell that meant recess was over rang. As he and Lyra went in, he smiled inwardly.
********
"... and after that day, I spent all the time I could repairing instruments for ponies around the community. I kept in touch with Lyra, even after I had opened up my shop and started to make my own instruments."
Twilight broke her attentive silence. "That was a lovely story. Well, I had better get going. Rarity's might get worried if I'm late to the spa. But it was nice meeting you. Maybe I'll see you around town!"
She got up and trotted to the door, taking one last look around the room before exiting through the showroom. Brass Button went over to the chemical bath where the mouthpiece was still soaking. He levitated it out and laid it on a towel, taking in the shine of the piece. In the distance, the school bell rang. He smiled inwardly, then moved on to the next project.