An Odyssey

“Well done, Mr Horseshopin,” the conductor said firmly, tapping his baton against the music stand. “Perfect performance, but-”

Always with the buts. How can my performance be perfect if there’s a but. I am no Paganeighni, but I strive towards perfection. Why is there a but in my perfection? I don’t need my perfection to be tinted. Tainted, even. I’ve come here not to perform, but to collect. Yea, this one here is a materialist. I love music, I really do, but. When a coin goes jingling in your pocket~ Ah, I’ve got spurs that jingle jangle jingle… And every cob a spur pierces my flank. Pain. A long time since I’d experienced it. A week ago, with the stomachache. No, that’s. A usual pain, I guess. Something you get used to.

“-but the coda is rather dry.” The conductor opened his mouth again, but closed it without uttering a word more. “Rather dry,” he repeated, “if you get what I mean.”

Dry. Hang them out to dry, like old clothes. Otherwise? Undry. Sprinkle them with water. Whip them with wheat. There are your clothes again. All mild and good. Undried.

“Of course, sir.” Frederic nodded, slowly, estimatingly, and turned a little towards the conductor on the piano stool. “Thank you for your input, sir. I’ll try to rectify the mistakes, sir.”

A sound of a cello, coming from another room. So sweet, so prim. So everlasting. An everlasting instrument, hers and mine. Why hers? Because it’s a mare playing the cello. I can feel it. The gentle hooves caressing the neck of the instrument. Like a lover.

Free thought will soar, like free speech, like free music. Instrumental music is always the key of expression. Let’s take jazz. It’s so completely apolitical that it is the most freedom-seeking music in Equestria. The wordless blues, played with a slide on a solo guitar. Call-and-response. That’s the music of the soul. And classical. It may be sweet. Prim. Everlasting. But in the end it is a form. And a form can, and will, contain a soul. This is what you cannot understand, conductor. This is what separates me from you.

“I’ve read your recent article on the role of classical music in the development of militarism.” The conductor stood up and walked in a small circle, choosing the words carefully. “I see you are an adversary of both our military and our social regime, am I not right?”

So this is what it is about. So? No work, and no pay. No pay makes Freddie a dull boy. Ah, those damn articles! For money I write them. For money. And the irony is that it all turns against me. Eventually. “You would not be wrong, sir.”

“I am a liberal pony,” said the conductor, “but I must say that you are dancing with fire here.” Playing. Playing with fire, you should have said. “You are a very respectable soloist, Mr Horseshopin,” the conductor said. “You must strive for good publicity.”

“I fear publicity,” said Frederic, “in all of her forms.”

“Ha!” The conductor laughed a dry, coda-like laugh. “No, no, Mr Frederic. You may not love our Princess, but you must at least pretend that you are not against Her.”

“How can I be against the rising sun, sir?” said Frederic. “I need it to survive, and thus I need Her.”

“As I have said,” the conductor continued, “I am a very liberal pony. I don’t mind your anarchist views, Mr Horseshopin. But you must understand too.” Here, he cracked his baton against the music stand. “We are surrounded by enemies. Faggots. Zebras. Griffins. All the scum of the world is against Equestria now. So,” he concluded in a fashionable manner, “you must understand that even the best of us have no choice but to submit to Her rule, to break those enemies of ours.”

The cello stopped. They are no enemies of mine. I don’t mind gays, let them be. Zebras are potent medics and brewers. Griffins make the lower grade of our military that you seem to like so much. “I have no enemies,” said Frederic vaguely, “within Equestria, or outside.”

There was a silence, interrupted only by the returned sound of the cello. Now, it sounded angry. Potent. Furious. I wish I could command my instrument with such power. But no. I can only submit. Is that all there is? Is that all I can do? Submit to my instrument. Submit to my ruler. Submit to Neon and Harpo. Go back to the countryside. Say I was wrong. That it is my damn house and that I am gonna sleep there whatever they do. Yes. Do that, and… No, no. That’s impossible.

“I almost forgot,” the conductor said, his face blasting with a smile. “Your pay for last month. Your performances were spectacular. Here.” He offered Frederic a pouch, which the pianist readily grabbed. “It’s fifteen bits. You have earned it.”

Fifteen! I thought I would make at least twenty. Maybe twenty-five! No. Smile. There. Say thank you. I hate you. Say thank you sir. I want to murder say. Say. Say it! “Thank you, sir.”

“You are very welcome, Mr Horseshopin,” the conductor said, nodding the pianist away. “I believe you had other matters to attend to, apart from practice?”

No, none whatsoever. Apart from maybe getting beastly drunk. Blast it! “Of course, sir.”

“Like maybe writing an apologetic article to the paper?” the conductor suggested.

Frederic looked at him in dismay. No, he can’t… He can’t make me, can he? O, he can. He pays me. He’s my master, and I am the serf. No freedom for me.

“Of course, I am merely kidding,” the conductor quickly said, smiling at the terror-stricken pianist.

Frederic barely managed a smile and a nod before getting up, and, to the sounds of the cello, going away. Through the door, down the corridor, and- freedom! The fresh air! Down the steps. Quickly.

“Mr Horseshopin!” the old conductor rasped after him, limping down the stairs. “Do you want to know why Equestrian gays never march for their rights?”

Stop now. Pay him some heed. “Why, sir?” said Frederic, a frown tugging at his lips.

“Because we never gave them any!” The conductor coughed with laughter, holding his chest with a hoof, laughing, rasping, coughing, laughing. “We never gave them any rights to march for!” More laughter, rasping, coughing, laughter. “We never gave them any!”