Friendship is Optimal: Friendship ist Kriegby anima draconisChaptersChapter 1Chapter 2Chapter 3Chapter 1"Of all the things you've done in your life, this is gonna be the most untrve ever, you know that?" Aurore looked at her friend with an amused smile, she knew he wasn't one to care about the 'trve' stuff, but she liked to poke him with that. Lucas gave her an annoyed look before flipping the middle finger at her. "This is how many fuck I give, just because it's you who said that." The 24 years old woman responded with a laugh and glanced at the box that was laying on the table in front of her. It was the box of a Ponypad, a gaming device that had been popular for some times now. The device wasn't really interesting to her; small, colourful horses wasn't her thing, it was even the opposite. For her one true passion was extreme music, since she discovered the joys of heavy metal in her teenage years, she was only living to hear what would happen to this music in the future. And it was more to be closer to the underground scene than everything that she left her small town in the French countryside for a large city where she studied history. It was on the university campus that she met Lucas who was a philosophy student. Because of their shared love for extreme metal, they quickly became friends. So here they were, at Lucas apartment, a simple one with a main living room completed by a small kitchen corner, a small bedroom and a bathroom. The walls were covered by various posters of bands, movies and video games, but mostly bands. And in some places, between the grim faces of black metal musicians, the blood and splatter of death metal covers and some corny 80s horror movie poster were pictures of little equines, the same equines who were living in the world of Equestria Online, the game supposed to be played on a Ponypad. Aurore knew Lucas was a brony, he wasn't one of those who hide it out of fear of being teased. He was one weird person, always out of this world, daydreaming about going away somewhere else. And he mostly was the one to love totally random stuff, he was a fan of gory horror movies and yet he watched My Little Pony and other cartoons, he was an absolute fan of all that was brutal death metal and other goregrind stuff but yet, his love for celtic folk music was also very strong. His behaviour was also a little weird, always making exaggerated gestures, always doing some silly dance moves when he felt like it, always telling you random things when you least expected it. He was Lucas, quite a silly but friendly dude. "Let's be serious one second there" he said "I thought that I would introduce you to the joy of Equestria Online, because it is an awesome game to play with friends and I know you're sad because I stopped kicking your butt on Unreal Tournament. But most importantly, in a few weeks, it would be the only way for us to be together." And this is why Aurore said Lucas was being untrue. Not because he wanted her to play Equestria Online, he had done much worse in term of proposition, but because he was planning to do what was called the emigration. It was a process that uploaded your consciousness in the virtual world of Equestria Online, and destroyed your physical body, so the process was only one way. She didn't really knew why, but some time after the public release of the game, some announcements were made and apparently, the technology that permitted people to upload themselves in the game had been created. It was kind of weird to her that of all the thing that could have been chosen, it would have been that cartoony world. And seeing her friend leaving everything behind to become a cartoon horse was probably the silliest thing she had witnessed in her life. Aurore was keeping a sort of poker face, inside of her, she was laughing at the absurdity of it all and somewhat crying over her friends telling her he's going to leave. This part of her that was laughing liked the way Lucas was thumbing is nose at life, it was like he was saying "I hate you life, you're a bitch, but I don't want to die because death is scary, and boring, so I'm gonna leave this world to a digital one where life isn't a cunt!" and it was so him that she was amazed he didn't choose to emigrate sooner. But yet, she was mourning in advance, he was the only person she was comfortable being around, and even if they would still be able to be in touch, he wouldn't be physically with her. And behind all the cynicism and misanthropy she was showing, she cared about the small group of person she had been able to sympathize with, and Lucas had been unconsciously pushing her away from what he called her "trve facade of black metal misanthropy with some cherry on the top". A part of her feared that his lack of presence would make this facade becomes her true self. She was stopped in her thought when Lucas took the box and removed the Ponypad from it. It was the size of a laptop screen and the thickness of a touchpad. Its back was yellow with three pink butterflies printed in the middle. A keyboard with the same color pattern, a mouse and a power cable were also taken out of the box. "Just wait a second, you'll see pony you in no time." said Lucas as he was setting the Ponypad up for its first use. Once the device was plugged and its battery charging, it was connected to the internet and finally, the game launched. After a title screen showing the Equestria Online logo, the Ponypad displayed the character creator. "So what do you want?" asked Lucas, "Some badass pegasus, a pretty unicorn or just a normal pony?" Aurore sighed, creating her equestrian alter-ego was gonna be a really long process. She knew absolutely nothing about ponies, and despite the obvious physical differences and the fact pegasus were able to fly, she didn't know the differences between the three types. And after asking Lucas for details, she was even more unsure as to what to choose. Unicorn could be great, magic and stuff were nice, but there were the pegasus who fly and lived in clouds, and also the earth ponies with their deep connection to nature. "If you want my opinion, you should take pegasus, so that you can see my house in the clouds, or take unicorn because there's a spell to walk on clouds, but it is hard to learn. But you're free to choose." Lucas smiled innocently and Aurore sighed. "Pegasus it is then." She clicked on the pegasus icon and on the screen appeared a white pony with wings and no tail or mane. About half an hour later, her pony was finally done. It was a female pegasus, somewhat short, with a dark purple coat, a grey and dark blue long and wavy mane and grey eyes. Aurore wasn't really trying to do a pony looking like her, what would be the point in a game that you played to go out of the real world for a moment. "And now, you are going to meet the almighty goddess of this world" announced Lucas "be ready to worship or burn her !" The screen flashed white. When the light dimmed, a throne room appeared. The place was simply gorgeous. The ground was covered by a crimson carpet, white marble pillars were going up on the side of the huge room, colourful stained glasses were on the wall and let sunlight enter the room in a whole rainbow of colours. The throne in itself was a large golden chair with purple pillows, and sitting on it was one magnificent creature. It was a pony of course, its coat was a sparkling white, its mane an ethereal rainbow and her eyes a hypnotic purple. It was wearing a golden regalia and a huge golden collar. It was as if she was directly looking at Aurore from the screen. Then, it spoke, its feminine voice full of kindness: "Welcome to Equestria my little pony. I am Princess Celestia, one of the two ruler of this land. You are here in my throne room to help me make your stay as enjoyable as possible. May I ask for your name?" Aurore was prepared to type an answer, but no window came. "You know" said Lucas "this thing has a mic, you can just speak." And so she speak. "Aurore, my name is Aurore." "I understand that it is your human name, Aurore, but in this world, you shall be somepony else as a new life awaits you here in Equestria. Do you want me to generate a name for you or do you want to think a little with the help of your friend Dunkelheit?" Aurore looked quizzically at his friend. His pseudo more important than how Celestia recognized him. "You called yourself Dunkelheit?" "Hey ! It's the only good song Varg Vikernes ever did, I consider it as a tribute." "Of all the names you could have chosen... And you forget War in Burzum's good songs." Celestia stepped in the discussion. "I guess that you and Dunkelheit share common interests may I propose a name that you might like?" "Go on." accepted Aurore, she had absolutely no idea what name pony her could possibly have. She didn't even know what a pony name was supposed to be, and no, Lucas had never talked to her about it, ponies weren't interesting her and she accepted to play Equestria Online for one and only one reason. "Is Vocal Vortex to your convenience?" Aurore thought about it, she was a singer (she and Lucas had created a musical duo, Lucas was doing the bass, guitar and used music softwares for everything else and she was singing), so Vocal was suiting, and Vortex... Was this a reference to one of her favorite singer? If so, how would she know that? It was kind of creepy, but somewhat awesome. "I guess it suits me, but how did you came up with it?" "It was easy" Celestia had a smug expression on her face "I know Dunkelheit fairly well, I just had to search a little on his Facebook page to find you and analyze your profile. I learned you were a singer and I saw that you shared a lot of song where you can hear the singer known as I.C.S. Vortex, so I deduced you were a fan, also, he is better in Arcturus than in Dimmu Borgir." And that pony was having great musical tastes. "If you have any other question, you might want to ask them now because your new life is about to begin." "I guess I will ask Lucas if I need help with the game in the future, but thanks." When she said her friend’s name, she heard the voice of her character, it sounded like her voice but a little bit higher, say the name of Lucas’ pony. She gave him a puzzled look and he shrugged. "It is the way it works, you can't say your real name or other similar stuff.Some sort of way to prevent private information being randomly thrown around, or maybe the game is just a roleplaying nazi." Aurore chuckled at the irony of defending privacy but also searching facebook pages to gather informations. Another funny paradox created by mankind infinite creativity. But enough reflexion about mankind and more playing. After all, if she was to play the game to keep touch with Lucas in the future, she may as well get in the game and discover what interesting things she can do. Author's Note So here it is, my first English fanfiction. I've been writing in French (my mother tongue) for some times now, and I've wanted to try doing something in English. Again, I've gor no editor yet, so if anyone i interested, send me a PM. Chapter 2Aurore was shrieking into the microphone. Her eyes locked on the paper where the lyrics were written that she was holding, and headphones were on her ears, blasting an instrumental made of furious guitars and blast beating drums. Next to her, Lucas was monitoring the recording on a laptop. After several minutes of shrieking -and some clean singing- Aurore stopped singing, removed her headphones and turned to Lucas. "So? How was I?" "Good as always. Maybe a little bit off during the clean vocals, but it's no problem since they'll be backing vocals." "I'll try to improve my voice, but as long as my shrieks are good... Anyway, what's going to happen during that moment I don't sing? It's not a really interesting part I think." A grin appeared on Lucas' face, he pointed at the laptop. "Don't worry, I have friends who can do a solo for us. We just have to choose which instrument will fit the best." "And who are those friends?" "Ponies, you haven't met them yet. There's Blackjazz, she's a saxophonist and a jazzmare, and you know, sax in extreme metal seems to be a sort of trend lately, you've heard Shining and Aenaon right? Then we can go classical, I know some ponies playing in a small orchestra. And also, I can easily go and search for other ponies in Canterlot." "Let's go for the saxophone, even if it is weird for you to follow a trend. And, this Blackjazz, how are going to record her in the game?" "Don't worry about that, I know how to record in game. Do you have your ponypad with you?" "You serious? I left it here yesterday. I didn't came back during night to take it and play at home. Remember, I came here just after waking up so what would be the point?" "I would totally have took it during the night, because the game is awesome" She sighed, and wished she has more than two hands to facepalm. Why was she questioning him? She hadn't questioned him on his motivations to emigrate -even if she already had her idea of why- so why was she trying? Anyway, she went from the microphone to Lucas' couch and sat just in front of the Ponypad, where she left it the day before, after doing her first step in the game. "So let's met that 'jazzmare', I'm curious to see what a pony can do". Aurore waited for her friend to get his own Ponypad, then she pressed the power button. The screen came to life and directly showed her character. Vocal Vortex was laying on a small bed in a white bedroom. The pony had bought a small apartment in the center of Canterlot. And it was a street away from her friend's. Lucas had told her that he lived in Cloudsdale, but he had 'forgotten' that he had moved to Canterlot. More hijinks. "I'm coming to your flat" said Lucas from his desk "and then, we'll go meet Blackjazz at the place she works". Several seconds later, a knock came from the door of Vortex's home. She tiredly got up from her bed and went to open it. Behind was Dunkelheit, a small pegasus mare with a grey coat, a black mane, teal eyes and a white shaky treble key, as if it had been done with a can of spray paint, as a cutie mark. "Here I am" said the man and the mare simultaneously "now let's go find our musician". It was weird to hear Lucas' low voice and Dunkelheit's high pitched one saying the same thing at the same time. Aurore was feeling a little sad that she would only hear Dunkelheit's voice in the future. Pushing this sadness aside, she made her pony follow her friend through the building and then the streets of Canterlot. The neighbourhood was quite colorful and busy, it was around noon and the streets were filled with ponies of every kind. There were a lot of shops taking advantage of the nice weather to put some displays on the streets and every terrace of every restaurant was full. The grey pegasus walked swiftly among the crowd, awkwardly followed by a Vocal Vortex who struggled to avoid bumping into everypony. They walked silently for several minutes to stop in front of what seemed to be a small cafe called 'The Jazzy Blues'. The front was painted in black, the name was written in gold letters and two huge windows from both sides of the door gave a good view of the inside, it looked classy. The terrace wasn't that busy, just a couple of ponies enjoying a drink before or after lunch. Inside, they were greeted by the smell of coffee and the sound of two ponies playing music on a small stage placed at the far end of the room. One was a sandy earth pony stallion playing the contrabass, he was accompanied with another stallion on a piano. There was a dozen of ponies listening to them from the black wooden tables near the stage. Dunkelheit went straight to the massive wooden counter on the side of the room and talked to the barmare without waiting for Vocal to come over. "Is Blackjazz here?" "If you want to listen her play" replied the mare with an amiable tone "she is on stage every night. And if you are a friend of hers, she's actually in her lodge." "We're friends yes. And don't worry, I know the way." She thanked the barmare and motioned Vocal to follow her. The duo went to the back of the room were was a door leading to the backstages. The grey pegasus opened it and quickly took her friends in before closing it even more quickly. "They allow non employees here" explained Dunkelheit "but they prefer to keep this fact not so well known". The duo walked through a small corridor with several doors, all of them had a small sign with a name on it. They stopped in front of one branded 'Blackjazz'. In the real world, Lucas turned to Aurore. "So, this is gonna be your first real interaction in the game with another pony player. Forget about the ones you've been interacting with in the tutorial, it is way different. And don't forget, talk in pony, it will be less weird to really speak like a pony than hearing pony-you speak different words." And with that, he made his character knock on the door. "Come in" came a raspy feminine voice from the other side. Behind the door was a small and cozy room. One wall was a full mirror glass were many pictures and posters were stuck, leaving only a small space of reflective surface. On the other side was a huge dresser filled with stage dress and fashion accessories and the third wall was bare except for a small window showing the small back alley behind the building. A pale yellow unicorn mare with a short black mane and emerald eyes was sitting on a cushion in front of a small table in the center of the dressing room, munching on a small sandwich. She motioned for her two visitors to sit in front of the table before swallowing. "Hey there Dunkel ! Nice to see you. Who is your friend?" "I'm Vocal Vortex" said Aurore through the microphone of the Ponypad. "Nice to meet you then, I guess she talked about what I do then?" "I just said that you're a saxophonist, and a good one. And that you'll be more than happy to record something for our song". The mare nodded and looked at Vortex with a smile. "So you're her bandmate then? I've been curious to meet you since I knew Dunkel had a band. But it's funny since he described you has a 'trve' who doesn't want to have anything to do with us ponies, even if I have no idea what this 'trve' thing is." Aurore turned towards Lucas and whispered. "You've been talking behind my back in an online game? The fuck man? And you know I don't care about the 'trve' bullshit" He just Shrugged and reported his attention back to Blackjazz. "Because you seem to ask Jazz, 'trve' is just acting like what is considered the true black metal way of life, like being a satanist, hating everypony and saying that nothing good was made after the 90s in term of music, and also ‘trve’ is written with a v instead of u, because it makes it looks more ‘black metal’, some also says ‘kvlt’. But honestly, it's more a joke than a real thing, at least for us, we are not really trve, we're more on the passionate and music lover side. One must be stupid to think an anti conformist music genre has jailed itself with codes... oh wait..." Aurore and her avatar rolled their eyes at their friend's irony, even if there was some truth in it. Meanwhile, Blackjazz still had her smile. "I see... Well then, it's a real honour Vocal Vortex. I hope our friendship will be as great as the one I have with Dunkel ! Now if it's no bother, I'll finish my lunch and then we'll get to business." Seeing the mare eat made Aurore realize that she hadn’t had something to eat since she woke up this morning. She took advantage of the lull in the discussion to get up and go over the Lucas' fridge. "I'm getting something to eat, want some?" "Yeah, grab me some cheese and ham, I need a sandwich. And also, a beer." The fridge wasn't that full, but had enough to feed a student for some time. Aurore grabbed the ham, the munster cheese, two Leffe beer and a plate of what was left of the carbonara spaghetti they had made yesterday. She put the plate in the microwave and brought the ham and cheese to Lucas along with the baguette that was on the counter. She went back for the beers and looked quickly at her Ponypad. Her pony was still sitting in front of Blackjazz who had almost finished her sandwich. She popped the caps with a bottle opener, put them on the table near her Ponypad and went to wait for her food to heat in the microwave. "Your beer's behind you Lucas" "Thanks girl. So what do you think of her?" "Right now? I don't know, she seems nice and all. But like any pony I guess." "She's nicer than the average, and she's also a good musician with great tastes, even if she is clearly on the jazz side of the force." The microwave beeped and Aurore quickly took her food back with her to the Ponypad. Blackjazz had finished her lunch and was in the corner of her dressing room, taking a case that was lying against the wall. "I got my sax with me. I'm ready to go." "Well then" Dunkelheit replied "we shall begin our small journey to Tartarus! Let's go honor the music gods and blow some raspberries at the others!" Author's Note Thanks to Cander for proofreading me ! Also, I'll try to do a Youtube playlist of songs and album to listen to in order to get in the mood. Chapter 3The Tartarus was a music shop located in a street near the commercial part of Canterlot. From the outside it looked like your average Canterlot shop, the entrance door was between two display windows, one with musical instruments, the other with CDs, vinyls and even tapes. Over this was a huge sign where “Tartarus Music Store” was written in yellow stylized letters. The trio entered and was greeted by the vision of a relatively normal shop. There were musical instruments displayed almost everywhere, on the left was a counter with a smiling blue unicorn behind it. On the far end of the shop was a huge shelf full of CDs. Vinyls were scattered in various record storage boxes and there was a little shelf by the counter for the tapes. What sounded like old progressive rock was playing in the place. “Hey Record!” Dunkelheit said to the unicorn “I hear that you’ve gotten your old Prince Crimson out of your personal shelf. What’s the occasion?” The unicorn, an old stallion, just smiled before responding. “For the sake of old days, young Dunkel. Also because I liked the rebellious music of the days. Now to be a musical rebel, you have to go to the extreme and even that has been swallowed by codifications.” Dunkelheit just nodded. “We need to go to the studio, can you open the door?” “Of course, of course” The stallion quickly grabbed a key from behind the counter and moved to the back of the shop, followed by the trio. He then unlocked a door leading to a corridor near the CD shelf. “Have fun recording your music!” They entered the corridor and the door closed behind them. On the other end was another door. Behind was what looked like your normal recording studio: a room with commands and computer, a window showing a playing room with foam covered walls and a door giving access to it. It was somewhat small; Aurore doubted that a full band would be able to fit in there, especially if the drummer had a drum kit of Mike Portnoy-esque proportion. But despite the size, it seemed totally legit. “Blue Record is an awesome pony” said Blackjazz to Vocal Vortex, “he often comes to see me play at the café and always calls me when a band needs to record some saxophone.” “He seems to be, remind me to rummage through his shelves when we’ll be finished here.” responded Vortex. “I won’t forget. But in the now, time to play.” The unicorn took her instrument out of its case and turned to Dunkelheit who was already adjusting the commands for the recording. “So what do you want me to do exactly? Because I just know I have to play my sax, but how and how long?” “Let me finish setting this up and then I’ll explain.” There was an awkward silence for one long minute before the grey Pegasus finished her thing. “Done! So Black, when you’re in the room, I’ll play you the full song and I’ll make a sign when it is where I want to put your solo. Then you’ll play whatever you want, get in the mood of the song and improvise, as long as it sounds good.” “Got it! Let’s play!” Saxophone in her magic, Blackjazz went into the playing room. She put her mouth on the instrument’s end and blew some notes out. She played to warm herself up for a dozen seconds, standing on her hind legs, holding her instrument with her forelegs and pushing the keys with her magic. “Okay, I’m ready!” she mouthed to Dunkel. The pegasus mare nodded and operated the control board. Suddenly, a fury of screaming guitars, thundering drums and tortured vocals flooded the room. Blackjazz, still holding her instrument, was beating one of her hind hooves to the rhythm of the song. Outside of the Equestrian world, Aurore looked at Lucas who had plugged a USB key into his Ponypad. “Isn’t it convenient that you can transfer everything from reality to Equestria and from Equestria to reality?” He said without looking to his friend, he was focused on his screen which displayed information about the recording. Back in Equestria, Dunkelheit waved her hoof at the saxophonist and she started to play. What came out of the saxophone was a stream of raging high pitched sounds. She played fast, her body moving quickly in a sort of fusion with the instrument. She sounded like she was totally losing control, on the verge of breaking down towards musical insanity, but an attentive ear could notice that she was still in total possession of her spirit. And when she saw Dunkel wave her hoof again, she just let a single last note going on for several long seconds. Aurore was looking at her screen with incredulous eyes. That pony just made one of the most amazing saxophone solo she had ever heard –not that she had heard a lot-, and it was totally improvised! She didn’t know how it was made possible. Was the human behind Blackjazz a talented saxophonist and just played in front of his Ponypad, or was the mare a NPC and the solo was totally created by the game? Disregarding the answer, it was still pretty impressive. The unicorn went back into the control room. “So, how was I?” “Just perfect Jazz” said enthusiastically Dunkelheit “I thought you would have needed one or two more tries to get into the mood of the song!” “I agree with her” added Vocal Vortex “I wasn’t expecting this. You just… played and it was perfect. Are you a renowned musician or something? Because you should be.” “Awww thanks you two! And nope, I’m just a normal musician who lives to play, I don’t really care about the fame, I just play.” ‘She’s one lucky person’ thought Aurore. Being able to live with your music wasn’t what the majority of musicians were able to do in the real world. It was a true shame to her, and she often thought about what would have happened if some musician were able to only focus on their music. “Do you want to listen to what you did?” proposed the grey pegasus. “Of course, I want to know if I’ll have to redo it or not.” After some button pushing, the music was played in the control room. Dunkelheit skipped to the saxophone part. It still sounded totally incredible to Aurore, the notes of the brass instruments were as furious as the song itself and it felt like it was on the verge of breaking down into madness. Blackjazz had her eyes closed, she was focused on the recording, judging her work, ears twitching when she heard something that grasped her attention. When her part of the song was over, she instantly looked at Dunkelheit and said: “I have to go back in there. There’s a lot of stuff I’m not happy with. I should have let myself go even more.” “Wait… you’re serious?” Vortex was totally baffled. The recording was perfect, what did the unicorn heard? The purple mare heard no responses; Blackjazz was already in the other room, ready to play again. Dunkelheit started the song, and then Lucas turned to Aurore. “You know, that pony is amazing. She’s totally dedicated to her music, and believe me when I say that we were in this recording studio for a long time. I’ve been helping her record a solo album she wanted to do some months ago. She is such a perfectionist and so meticulous with what she does that it took a week to do one song. Only one; and the album finished with twelve tracks. Also, she’s a fan of Shining and Naked City, and that’s a great quality to have such exquisite tastes.” “This… This is kind of extreme.” Aurore was impressed. “I mean, even on our longest and most complicated song we didn’t spent that much time!” “It’s not comparable, jazz listeners don’t have the same standards as metalhead. They’re in it for the performance; we’re in it for the ambiance and feeling. Also, you know as much as me about saxophone, so what tells you that she played perfectly? She might do the most awful playing ever but we’ll still think it’s awesome because it’s different from what we know.” While they were speaking, the yellow unicorn had started to play. It was the same as before, the same flow of raging notes, the same possessed movements, the same passion. Aurore had resumed watching and wondered how it might feel to be physically here, to feel the music through the instruments and not through the Ponypad’s speakers. It might be quite the thing to live. To fully witness this magical thing that was the creation of music. Aurore and Lucas might have been doing home-made records but it hadn’t felt the same way. It was more spending good times with her friend, venting out from her life, drinking some beers and finishing the day with a movie or two. Right now was a totally different situation, and the feeling was somewhat stronger. Once again, the song ended and Blackjazz was back. “Once again, you were fantastic” cheered Dunkelheit. “Thanks! Can you play it? I think I did better.” And so, the song was played again, the unicorn was once again focusing, listening attentively. At the end, she said: “Definitively better. But I think I have to go again, I don’t want you to have one correct solo, I want you to have the best thing I’ve ever played. And once again, she went back into the recording room. *** Two hours later, Blackjazz was still playing. Every time she listened to her work, she thought something wasn’t good enough to be put in the song and so, she went back to playing. After one hour of playing, she was starting to look exhausted from playing, but somehow she was finding the energy to carry on. To say Aurore was astonished would be an understatement. She was giving all her respect to this little pony. The unicorn finished playing and almost crawled back into the control room. “Don’t play it to me” she panted “I know this one is perfect. I need to rest for a bit.” So she laid there, on the carpeted floor, hugging her instrument and trying to rest. “I’ll go get her a bite and something to drink, you want something too Vortex?” Aurore was about to say that she wasn’t hungry but her pony character’s belly let out a loud gurgling noise. Lucas and Dunkelheit both laughed. “I get it, you need food. And you Dunkel? Do you want something? I think I’ll take some mango juice and sweet sweet muffins!” The pegasus rushed out of the studio, leaving Vocal and Blackjazz by themselves. An awkward silence, only broken by the heavy breaths of the saxophonist, took hold. The pegasus mare went to study the recording panel, trying to understand what all those switches and knobs did. It didn’t take long for the grey pegasus to come back holding a paper bag in her mouth. “It’s snack time girls! Crawl over here Jazz, I’ve got something to resurrect you!” She took a small can of soda and a chocolate muffin out of the bag and put them next to the exhausted unicorn who quickly took the can in her magic, opened it and emptied it almost instantly. Vocal Vortex went to the bag and took another muffin and what seemed to be a can of iced tea. “There you go, bon appetit!” Said the grey pegasus before hungrily munching on her own muffin. Aurore saw her character automatically eat without needing her to press any key. Pony-her seemed to enjoy her snack and she wasn’t against that in real life either. “Got any snacks here Lucas?” “Same place as always, though I’ll have to restock in the future. You know that you’re a food vacuum?” “I know, and don’t worry; I’ll pay my food debt with drinks at the pub, as always” She playfully blew her tongue in his direction before quickly going into the closet where snacks lived before being eaten and retrieved a bag of industrially made croissants. “I’ve got some for you too!” “You’ll still have to pay for this week’s food. I’d say it will cost at least three pints of beer at Friday’s pub.” It was a tradition for them to go to a nice little pub called The Middle Age every Friday evening, the ambiance was nice, the bartenders were awesome people, drinks weren’t expensive and there were a lot of choices to satisfy almost everyone. This Friday would be their last together; Lucas has planned to leave this world next week. Aurore was hoping that time would stop when they’ll be there so that she can enjoy her friend and her drinks forever. But she knew the world wasn’t about to grant her wish, so she only focused on making the most of this last evening. But right now, she had at two days to spend until Friday so her mind wasn’t too focused on that at the moment. “Now that our song is done” said Lucas “do you want to continue on another one? I have two riffs I recorded during my nightly insomnia and they’re sick.” She smiled; of course Lucas had new riffs. He suffered from some severe insomnia and when he was too tired to do productive stuff but couldn’t sleep, he messed around with his guitars and recorded that, went to bed when he thought he would finally sleep and listen to it just after awakening. “You know I’m always ready for that” answered Aurore. “Yay! Let’s just hang out with Jazz a bit more and then we’ll go to work on these riffs. I sense we are actually doing some top quality stuff right now. ” He was motivated and his motivation was spreading to Aurore. The day had been interesting; recording with Blackjazz had been one hell of an experience. She was in an even better mood than before to work on their music. Author's Note Here we go ! Again thanks to Cander for editing the story.
Chapter 1"Of all the things you've done in your life, this is gonna be the most untrve ever, you know that?" Aurore looked at her friend with an amused smile, she knew he wasn't one to care about the 'trve' stuff, but she liked to poke him with that. Lucas gave her an annoyed look before flipping the middle finger at her. "This is how many fuck I give, just because it's you who said that." The 24 years old woman responded with a laugh and glanced at the box that was laying on the table in front of her. It was the box of a Ponypad, a gaming device that had been popular for some times now. The device wasn't really interesting to her; small, colourful horses wasn't her thing, it was even the opposite. For her one true passion was extreme music, since she discovered the joys of heavy metal in her teenage years, she was only living to hear what would happen to this music in the future. And it was more to be closer to the underground scene than everything that she left her small town in the French countryside for a large city where she studied history. It was on the university campus that she met Lucas who was a philosophy student. Because of their shared love for extreme metal, they quickly became friends. So here they were, at Lucas apartment, a simple one with a main living room completed by a small kitchen corner, a small bedroom and a bathroom. The walls were covered by various posters of bands, movies and video games, but mostly bands. And in some places, between the grim faces of black metal musicians, the blood and splatter of death metal covers and some corny 80s horror movie poster were pictures of little equines, the same equines who were living in the world of Equestria Online, the game supposed to be played on a Ponypad. Aurore knew Lucas was a brony, he wasn't one of those who hide it out of fear of being teased. He was one weird person, always out of this world, daydreaming about going away somewhere else. And he mostly was the one to love totally random stuff, he was a fan of gory horror movies and yet he watched My Little Pony and other cartoons, he was an absolute fan of all that was brutal death metal and other goregrind stuff but yet, his love for celtic folk music was also very strong. His behaviour was also a little weird, always making exaggerated gestures, always doing some silly dance moves when he felt like it, always telling you random things when you least expected it. He was Lucas, quite a silly but friendly dude. "Let's be serious one second there" he said "I thought that I would introduce you to the joy of Equestria Online, because it is an awesome game to play with friends and I know you're sad because I stopped kicking your butt on Unreal Tournament. But most importantly, in a few weeks, it would be the only way for us to be together." And this is why Aurore said Lucas was being untrue. Not because he wanted her to play Equestria Online, he had done much worse in term of proposition, but because he was planning to do what was called the emigration. It was a process that uploaded your consciousness in the virtual world of Equestria Online, and destroyed your physical body, so the process was only one way. She didn't really knew why, but some time after the public release of the game, some announcements were made and apparently, the technology that permitted people to upload themselves in the game had been created. It was kind of weird to her that of all the thing that could have been chosen, it would have been that cartoony world. And seeing her friend leaving everything behind to become a cartoon horse was probably the silliest thing she had witnessed in her life. Aurore was keeping a sort of poker face, inside of her, she was laughing at the absurdity of it all and somewhat crying over her friends telling her he's going to leave. This part of her that was laughing liked the way Lucas was thumbing is nose at life, it was like he was saying "I hate you life, you're a bitch, but I don't want to die because death is scary, and boring, so I'm gonna leave this world to a digital one where life isn't a cunt!" and it was so him that she was amazed he didn't choose to emigrate sooner. But yet, she was mourning in advance, he was the only person she was comfortable being around, and even if they would still be able to be in touch, he wouldn't be physically with her. And behind all the cynicism and misanthropy she was showing, she cared about the small group of person she had been able to sympathize with, and Lucas had been unconsciously pushing her away from what he called her "trve facade of black metal misanthropy with some cherry on the top". A part of her feared that his lack of presence would make this facade becomes her true self. She was stopped in her thought when Lucas took the box and removed the Ponypad from it. It was the size of a laptop screen and the thickness of a touchpad. Its back was yellow with three pink butterflies printed in the middle. A keyboard with the same color pattern, a mouse and a power cable were also taken out of the box. "Just wait a second, you'll see pony you in no time." said Lucas as he was setting the Ponypad up for its first use. Once the device was plugged and its battery charging, it was connected to the internet and finally, the game launched. After a title screen showing the Equestria Online logo, the Ponypad displayed the character creator. "So what do you want?" asked Lucas, "Some badass pegasus, a pretty unicorn or just a normal pony?" Aurore sighed, creating her equestrian alter-ego was gonna be a really long process. She knew absolutely nothing about ponies, and despite the obvious physical differences and the fact pegasus were able to fly, she didn't know the differences between the three types. And after asking Lucas for details, she was even more unsure as to what to choose. Unicorn could be great, magic and stuff were nice, but there were the pegasus who fly and lived in clouds, and also the earth ponies with their deep connection to nature. "If you want my opinion, you should take pegasus, so that you can see my house in the clouds, or take unicorn because there's a spell to walk on clouds, but it is hard to learn. But you're free to choose." Lucas smiled innocently and Aurore sighed. "Pegasus it is then." She clicked on the pegasus icon and on the screen appeared a white pony with wings and no tail or mane. About half an hour later, her pony was finally done. It was a female pegasus, somewhat short, with a dark purple coat, a grey and dark blue long and wavy mane and grey eyes. Aurore wasn't really trying to do a pony looking like her, what would be the point in a game that you played to go out of the real world for a moment. "And now, you are going to meet the almighty goddess of this world" announced Lucas "be ready to worship or burn her !" The screen flashed white. When the light dimmed, a throne room appeared. The place was simply gorgeous. The ground was covered by a crimson carpet, white marble pillars were going up on the side of the huge room, colourful stained glasses were on the wall and let sunlight enter the room in a whole rainbow of colours. The throne in itself was a large golden chair with purple pillows, and sitting on it was one magnificent creature. It was a pony of course, its coat was a sparkling white, its mane an ethereal rainbow and her eyes a hypnotic purple. It was wearing a golden regalia and a huge golden collar. It was as if she was directly looking at Aurore from the screen. Then, it spoke, its feminine voice full of kindness: "Welcome to Equestria my little pony. I am Princess Celestia, one of the two ruler of this land. You are here in my throne room to help me make your stay as enjoyable as possible. May I ask for your name?" Aurore was prepared to type an answer, but no window came. "You know" said Lucas "this thing has a mic, you can just speak." And so she speak. "Aurore, my name is Aurore." "I understand that it is your human name, Aurore, but in this world, you shall be somepony else as a new life awaits you here in Equestria. Do you want me to generate a name for you or do you want to think a little with the help of your friend Dunkelheit?" Aurore looked quizzically at his friend. His pseudo more important than how Celestia recognized him. "You called yourself Dunkelheit?" "Hey ! It's the only good song Varg Vikernes ever did, I consider it as a tribute." "Of all the names you could have chosen... And you forget War in Burzum's good songs." Celestia stepped in the discussion. "I guess that you and Dunkelheit share common interests may I propose a name that you might like?" "Go on." accepted Aurore, she had absolutely no idea what name pony her could possibly have. She didn't even know what a pony name was supposed to be, and no, Lucas had never talked to her about it, ponies weren't interesting her and she accepted to play Equestria Online for one and only one reason. "Is Vocal Vortex to your convenience?" Aurore thought about it, she was a singer (she and Lucas had created a musical duo, Lucas was doing the bass, guitar and used music softwares for everything else and she was singing), so Vocal was suiting, and Vortex... Was this a reference to one of her favorite singer? If so, how would she know that? It was kind of creepy, but somewhat awesome. "I guess it suits me, but how did you came up with it?" "It was easy" Celestia had a smug expression on her face "I know Dunkelheit fairly well, I just had to search a little on his Facebook page to find you and analyze your profile. I learned you were a singer and I saw that you shared a lot of song where you can hear the singer known as I.C.S. Vortex, so I deduced you were a fan, also, he is better in Arcturus than in Dimmu Borgir." And that pony was having great musical tastes. "If you have any other question, you might want to ask them now because your new life is about to begin." "I guess I will ask Lucas if I need help with the game in the future, but thanks." When she said her friend’s name, she heard the voice of her character, it sounded like her voice but a little bit higher, say the name of Lucas’ pony. She gave him a puzzled look and he shrugged. "It is the way it works, you can't say your real name or other similar stuff.Some sort of way to prevent private information being randomly thrown around, or maybe the game is just a roleplaying nazi." Aurore chuckled at the irony of defending privacy but also searching facebook pages to gather informations. Another funny paradox created by mankind infinite creativity. But enough reflexion about mankind and more playing. After all, if she was to play the game to keep touch with Lucas in the future, she may as well get in the game and discover what interesting things she can do. Author's Note So here it is, my first English fanfiction. I've been writing in French (my mother tongue) for some times now, and I've wanted to try doing something in English. Again, I've gor no editor yet, so if anyone i interested, send me a PM.
Chapter 2Aurore was shrieking into the microphone. Her eyes locked on the paper where the lyrics were written that she was holding, and headphones were on her ears, blasting an instrumental made of furious guitars and blast beating drums. Next to her, Lucas was monitoring the recording on a laptop. After several minutes of shrieking -and some clean singing- Aurore stopped singing, removed her headphones and turned to Lucas. "So? How was I?" "Good as always. Maybe a little bit off during the clean vocals, but it's no problem since they'll be backing vocals." "I'll try to improve my voice, but as long as my shrieks are good... Anyway, what's going to happen during that moment I don't sing? It's not a really interesting part I think." A grin appeared on Lucas' face, he pointed at the laptop. "Don't worry, I have friends who can do a solo for us. We just have to choose which instrument will fit the best." "And who are those friends?" "Ponies, you haven't met them yet. There's Blackjazz, she's a saxophonist and a jazzmare, and you know, sax in extreme metal seems to be a sort of trend lately, you've heard Shining and Aenaon right? Then we can go classical, I know some ponies playing in a small orchestra. And also, I can easily go and search for other ponies in Canterlot." "Let's go for the saxophone, even if it is weird for you to follow a trend. And, this Blackjazz, how are going to record her in the game?" "Don't worry about that, I know how to record in game. Do you have your ponypad with you?" "You serious? I left it here yesterday. I didn't came back during night to take it and play at home. Remember, I came here just after waking up so what would be the point?" "I would totally have took it during the night, because the game is awesome" She sighed, and wished she has more than two hands to facepalm. Why was she questioning him? She hadn't questioned him on his motivations to emigrate -even if she already had her idea of why- so why was she trying? Anyway, she went from the microphone to Lucas' couch and sat just in front of the Ponypad, where she left it the day before, after doing her first step in the game. "So let's met that 'jazzmare', I'm curious to see what a pony can do". Aurore waited for her friend to get his own Ponypad, then she pressed the power button. The screen came to life and directly showed her character. Vocal Vortex was laying on a small bed in a white bedroom. The pony had bought a small apartment in the center of Canterlot. And it was a street away from her friend's. Lucas had told her that he lived in Cloudsdale, but he had 'forgotten' that he had moved to Canterlot. More hijinks. "I'm coming to your flat" said Lucas from his desk "and then, we'll go meet Blackjazz at the place she works". Several seconds later, a knock came from the door of Vortex's home. She tiredly got up from her bed and went to open it. Behind was Dunkelheit, a small pegasus mare with a grey coat, a black mane, teal eyes and a white shaky treble key, as if it had been done with a can of spray paint, as a cutie mark. "Here I am" said the man and the mare simultaneously "now let's go find our musician". It was weird to hear Lucas' low voice and Dunkelheit's high pitched one saying the same thing at the same time. Aurore was feeling a little sad that she would only hear Dunkelheit's voice in the future. Pushing this sadness aside, she made her pony follow her friend through the building and then the streets of Canterlot. The neighbourhood was quite colorful and busy, it was around noon and the streets were filled with ponies of every kind. There were a lot of shops taking advantage of the nice weather to put some displays on the streets and every terrace of every restaurant was full. The grey pegasus walked swiftly among the crowd, awkwardly followed by a Vocal Vortex who struggled to avoid bumping into everypony. They walked silently for several minutes to stop in front of what seemed to be a small cafe called 'The Jazzy Blues'. The front was painted in black, the name was written in gold letters and two huge windows from both sides of the door gave a good view of the inside, it looked classy. The terrace wasn't that busy, just a couple of ponies enjoying a drink before or after lunch. Inside, they were greeted by the smell of coffee and the sound of two ponies playing music on a small stage placed at the far end of the room. One was a sandy earth pony stallion playing the contrabass, he was accompanied with another stallion on a piano. There was a dozen of ponies listening to them from the black wooden tables near the stage. Dunkelheit went straight to the massive wooden counter on the side of the room and talked to the barmare without waiting for Vocal to come over. "Is Blackjazz here?" "If you want to listen her play" replied the mare with an amiable tone "she is on stage every night. And if you are a friend of hers, she's actually in her lodge." "We're friends yes. And don't worry, I know the way." She thanked the barmare and motioned Vocal to follow her. The duo went to the back of the room were was a door leading to the backstages. The grey pegasus opened it and quickly took her friends in before closing it even more quickly. "They allow non employees here" explained Dunkelheit "but they prefer to keep this fact not so well known". The duo walked through a small corridor with several doors, all of them had a small sign with a name on it. They stopped in front of one branded 'Blackjazz'. In the real world, Lucas turned to Aurore. "So, this is gonna be your first real interaction in the game with another pony player. Forget about the ones you've been interacting with in the tutorial, it is way different. And don't forget, talk in pony, it will be less weird to really speak like a pony than hearing pony-you speak different words." And with that, he made his character knock on the door. "Come in" came a raspy feminine voice from the other side. Behind the door was a small and cozy room. One wall was a full mirror glass were many pictures and posters were stuck, leaving only a small space of reflective surface. On the other side was a huge dresser filled with stage dress and fashion accessories and the third wall was bare except for a small window showing the small back alley behind the building. A pale yellow unicorn mare with a short black mane and emerald eyes was sitting on a cushion in front of a small table in the center of the dressing room, munching on a small sandwich. She motioned for her two visitors to sit in front of the table before swallowing. "Hey there Dunkel ! Nice to see you. Who is your friend?" "I'm Vocal Vortex" said Aurore through the microphone of the Ponypad. "Nice to meet you then, I guess she talked about what I do then?" "I just said that you're a saxophonist, and a good one. And that you'll be more than happy to record something for our song". The mare nodded and looked at Vortex with a smile. "So you're her bandmate then? I've been curious to meet you since I knew Dunkel had a band. But it's funny since he described you has a 'trve' who doesn't want to have anything to do with us ponies, even if I have no idea what this 'trve' thing is." Aurore turned towards Lucas and whispered. "You've been talking behind my back in an online game? The fuck man? And you know I don't care about the 'trve' bullshit" He just Shrugged and reported his attention back to Blackjazz. "Because you seem to ask Jazz, 'trve' is just acting like what is considered the true black metal way of life, like being a satanist, hating everypony and saying that nothing good was made after the 90s in term of music, and also ‘trve’ is written with a v instead of u, because it makes it looks more ‘black metal’, some also says ‘kvlt’. But honestly, it's more a joke than a real thing, at least for us, we are not really trve, we're more on the passionate and music lover side. One must be stupid to think an anti conformist music genre has jailed itself with codes... oh wait..." Aurore and her avatar rolled their eyes at their friend's irony, even if there was some truth in it. Meanwhile, Blackjazz still had her smile. "I see... Well then, it's a real honour Vocal Vortex. I hope our friendship will be as great as the one I have with Dunkel ! Now if it's no bother, I'll finish my lunch and then we'll get to business." Seeing the mare eat made Aurore realize that she hadn’t had something to eat since she woke up this morning. She took advantage of the lull in the discussion to get up and go over the Lucas' fridge. "I'm getting something to eat, want some?" "Yeah, grab me some cheese and ham, I need a sandwich. And also, a beer." The fridge wasn't that full, but had enough to feed a student for some time. Aurore grabbed the ham, the munster cheese, two Leffe beer and a plate of what was left of the carbonara spaghetti they had made yesterday. She put the plate in the microwave and brought the ham and cheese to Lucas along with the baguette that was on the counter. She went back for the beers and looked quickly at her Ponypad. Her pony was still sitting in front of Blackjazz who had almost finished her sandwich. She popped the caps with a bottle opener, put them on the table near her Ponypad and went to wait for her food to heat in the microwave. "Your beer's behind you Lucas" "Thanks girl. So what do you think of her?" "Right now? I don't know, she seems nice and all. But like any pony I guess." "She's nicer than the average, and she's also a good musician with great tastes, even if she is clearly on the jazz side of the force." The microwave beeped and Aurore quickly took her food back with her to the Ponypad. Blackjazz had finished her lunch and was in the corner of her dressing room, taking a case that was lying against the wall. "I got my sax with me. I'm ready to go." "Well then" Dunkelheit replied "we shall begin our small journey to Tartarus! Let's go honor the music gods and blow some raspberries at the others!" Author's Note Thanks to Cander for proofreading me ! Also, I'll try to do a Youtube playlist of songs and album to listen to in order to get in the mood.
Chapter 3The Tartarus was a music shop located in a street near the commercial part of Canterlot. From the outside it looked like your average Canterlot shop, the entrance door was between two display windows, one with musical instruments, the other with CDs, vinyls and even tapes. Over this was a huge sign where “Tartarus Music Store” was written in yellow stylized letters. The trio entered and was greeted by the vision of a relatively normal shop. There were musical instruments displayed almost everywhere, on the left was a counter with a smiling blue unicorn behind it. On the far end of the shop was a huge shelf full of CDs. Vinyls were scattered in various record storage boxes and there was a little shelf by the counter for the tapes. What sounded like old progressive rock was playing in the place. “Hey Record!” Dunkelheit said to the unicorn “I hear that you’ve gotten your old Prince Crimson out of your personal shelf. What’s the occasion?” The unicorn, an old stallion, just smiled before responding. “For the sake of old days, young Dunkel. Also because I liked the rebellious music of the days. Now to be a musical rebel, you have to go to the extreme and even that has been swallowed by codifications.” Dunkelheit just nodded. “We need to go to the studio, can you open the door?” “Of course, of course” The stallion quickly grabbed a key from behind the counter and moved to the back of the shop, followed by the trio. He then unlocked a door leading to a corridor near the CD shelf. “Have fun recording your music!” They entered the corridor and the door closed behind them. On the other end was another door. Behind was what looked like your normal recording studio: a room with commands and computer, a window showing a playing room with foam covered walls and a door giving access to it. It was somewhat small; Aurore doubted that a full band would be able to fit in there, especially if the drummer had a drum kit of Mike Portnoy-esque proportion. But despite the size, it seemed totally legit. “Blue Record is an awesome pony” said Blackjazz to Vocal Vortex, “he often comes to see me play at the café and always calls me when a band needs to record some saxophone.” “He seems to be, remind me to rummage through his shelves when we’ll be finished here.” responded Vortex. “I won’t forget. But in the now, time to play.” The unicorn took her instrument out of its case and turned to Dunkelheit who was already adjusting the commands for the recording. “So what do you want me to do exactly? Because I just know I have to play my sax, but how and how long?” “Let me finish setting this up and then I’ll explain.” There was an awkward silence for one long minute before the grey Pegasus finished her thing. “Done! So Black, when you’re in the room, I’ll play you the full song and I’ll make a sign when it is where I want to put your solo. Then you’ll play whatever you want, get in the mood of the song and improvise, as long as it sounds good.” “Got it! Let’s play!” Saxophone in her magic, Blackjazz went into the playing room. She put her mouth on the instrument’s end and blew some notes out. She played to warm herself up for a dozen seconds, standing on her hind legs, holding her instrument with her forelegs and pushing the keys with her magic. “Okay, I’m ready!” she mouthed to Dunkel. The pegasus mare nodded and operated the control board. Suddenly, a fury of screaming guitars, thundering drums and tortured vocals flooded the room. Blackjazz, still holding her instrument, was beating one of her hind hooves to the rhythm of the song. Outside of the Equestrian world, Aurore looked at Lucas who had plugged a USB key into his Ponypad. “Isn’t it convenient that you can transfer everything from reality to Equestria and from Equestria to reality?” He said without looking to his friend, he was focused on his screen which displayed information about the recording. Back in Equestria, Dunkelheit waved her hoof at the saxophonist and she started to play. What came out of the saxophone was a stream of raging high pitched sounds. She played fast, her body moving quickly in a sort of fusion with the instrument. She sounded like she was totally losing control, on the verge of breaking down towards musical insanity, but an attentive ear could notice that she was still in total possession of her spirit. And when she saw Dunkel wave her hoof again, she just let a single last note going on for several long seconds. Aurore was looking at her screen with incredulous eyes. That pony just made one of the most amazing saxophone solo she had ever heard –not that she had heard a lot-, and it was totally improvised! She didn’t know how it was made possible. Was the human behind Blackjazz a talented saxophonist and just played in front of his Ponypad, or was the mare a NPC and the solo was totally created by the game? Disregarding the answer, it was still pretty impressive. The unicorn went back into the control room. “So, how was I?” “Just perfect Jazz” said enthusiastically Dunkelheit “I thought you would have needed one or two more tries to get into the mood of the song!” “I agree with her” added Vocal Vortex “I wasn’t expecting this. You just… played and it was perfect. Are you a renowned musician or something? Because you should be.” “Awww thanks you two! And nope, I’m just a normal musician who lives to play, I don’t really care about the fame, I just play.” ‘She’s one lucky person’ thought Aurore. Being able to live with your music wasn’t what the majority of musicians were able to do in the real world. It was a true shame to her, and she often thought about what would have happened if some musician were able to only focus on their music. “Do you want to listen to what you did?” proposed the grey pegasus. “Of course, I want to know if I’ll have to redo it or not.” After some button pushing, the music was played in the control room. Dunkelheit skipped to the saxophone part. It still sounded totally incredible to Aurore, the notes of the brass instruments were as furious as the song itself and it felt like it was on the verge of breaking down into madness. Blackjazz had her eyes closed, she was focused on the recording, judging her work, ears twitching when she heard something that grasped her attention. When her part of the song was over, she instantly looked at Dunkelheit and said: “I have to go back in there. There’s a lot of stuff I’m not happy with. I should have let myself go even more.” “Wait… you’re serious?” Vortex was totally baffled. The recording was perfect, what did the unicorn heard? The purple mare heard no responses; Blackjazz was already in the other room, ready to play again. Dunkelheit started the song, and then Lucas turned to Aurore. “You know, that pony is amazing. She’s totally dedicated to her music, and believe me when I say that we were in this recording studio for a long time. I’ve been helping her record a solo album she wanted to do some months ago. She is such a perfectionist and so meticulous with what she does that it took a week to do one song. Only one; and the album finished with twelve tracks. Also, she’s a fan of Shining and Naked City, and that’s a great quality to have such exquisite tastes.” “This… This is kind of extreme.” Aurore was impressed. “I mean, even on our longest and most complicated song we didn’t spent that much time!” “It’s not comparable, jazz listeners don’t have the same standards as metalhead. They’re in it for the performance; we’re in it for the ambiance and feeling. Also, you know as much as me about saxophone, so what tells you that she played perfectly? She might do the most awful playing ever but we’ll still think it’s awesome because it’s different from what we know.” While they were speaking, the yellow unicorn had started to play. It was the same as before, the same flow of raging notes, the same possessed movements, the same passion. Aurore had resumed watching and wondered how it might feel to be physically here, to feel the music through the instruments and not through the Ponypad’s speakers. It might be quite the thing to live. To fully witness this magical thing that was the creation of music. Aurore and Lucas might have been doing home-made records but it hadn’t felt the same way. It was more spending good times with her friend, venting out from her life, drinking some beers and finishing the day with a movie or two. Right now was a totally different situation, and the feeling was somewhat stronger. Once again, the song ended and Blackjazz was back. “Once again, you were fantastic” cheered Dunkelheit. “Thanks! Can you play it? I think I did better.” And so, the song was played again, the unicorn was once again focusing, listening attentively. At the end, she said: “Definitively better. But I think I have to go again, I don’t want you to have one correct solo, I want you to have the best thing I’ve ever played. And once again, she went back into the recording room. *** Two hours later, Blackjazz was still playing. Every time she listened to her work, she thought something wasn’t good enough to be put in the song and so, she went back to playing. After one hour of playing, she was starting to look exhausted from playing, but somehow she was finding the energy to carry on. To say Aurore was astonished would be an understatement. She was giving all her respect to this little pony. The unicorn finished playing and almost crawled back into the control room. “Don’t play it to me” she panted “I know this one is perfect. I need to rest for a bit.” So she laid there, on the carpeted floor, hugging her instrument and trying to rest. “I’ll go get her a bite and something to drink, you want something too Vortex?” Aurore was about to say that she wasn’t hungry but her pony character’s belly let out a loud gurgling noise. Lucas and Dunkelheit both laughed. “I get it, you need food. And you Dunkel? Do you want something? I think I’ll take some mango juice and sweet sweet muffins!” The pegasus rushed out of the studio, leaving Vocal and Blackjazz by themselves. An awkward silence, only broken by the heavy breaths of the saxophonist, took hold. The pegasus mare went to study the recording panel, trying to understand what all those switches and knobs did. It didn’t take long for the grey pegasus to come back holding a paper bag in her mouth. “It’s snack time girls! Crawl over here Jazz, I’ve got something to resurrect you!” She took a small can of soda and a chocolate muffin out of the bag and put them next to the exhausted unicorn who quickly took the can in her magic, opened it and emptied it almost instantly. Vocal Vortex went to the bag and took another muffin and what seemed to be a can of iced tea. “There you go, bon appetit!” Said the grey pegasus before hungrily munching on her own muffin. Aurore saw her character automatically eat without needing her to press any key. Pony-her seemed to enjoy her snack and she wasn’t against that in real life either. “Got any snacks here Lucas?” “Same place as always, though I’ll have to restock in the future. You know that you’re a food vacuum?” “I know, and don’t worry; I’ll pay my food debt with drinks at the pub, as always” She playfully blew her tongue in his direction before quickly going into the closet where snacks lived before being eaten and retrieved a bag of industrially made croissants. “I’ve got some for you too!” “You’ll still have to pay for this week’s food. I’d say it will cost at least three pints of beer at Friday’s pub.” It was a tradition for them to go to a nice little pub called The Middle Age every Friday evening, the ambiance was nice, the bartenders were awesome people, drinks weren’t expensive and there were a lot of choices to satisfy almost everyone. This Friday would be their last together; Lucas has planned to leave this world next week. Aurore was hoping that time would stop when they’ll be there so that she can enjoy her friend and her drinks forever. But she knew the world wasn’t about to grant her wish, so she only focused on making the most of this last evening. But right now, she had at two days to spend until Friday so her mind wasn’t too focused on that at the moment. “Now that our song is done” said Lucas “do you want to continue on another one? I have two riffs I recorded during my nightly insomnia and they’re sick.” She smiled; of course Lucas had new riffs. He suffered from some severe insomnia and when he was too tired to do productive stuff but couldn’t sleep, he messed around with his guitars and recorded that, went to bed when he thought he would finally sleep and listen to it just after awakening. “You know I’m always ready for that” answered Aurore. “Yay! Let’s just hang out with Jazz a bit more and then we’ll go to work on these riffs. I sense we are actually doing some top quality stuff right now. ” He was motivated and his motivation was spreading to Aurore. The day had been interesting; recording with Blackjazz had been one hell of an experience. She was in an even better mood than before to work on their music. Author's Note Here we go ! Again thanks to Cander for editing the story.
