“Oh hello, Strawberry Sunrise. This is Applejack. I was wondering if you could tell her how you feel about apples.”
Strawberry took a deep breath. Images of red fruit danced in her mind; purple eyes and grey fur, a soft smile and a cello shining like a darkened star. A broken piano and a broken heart.
She smiled at Rarity, at her friend, and she shook her head. “Don’t like ‘em!”
The beat thudded through the barn, reverberating through the planks of the stage and in Strawberry’s very bones. She could feel it pounding through her, infectious in its haste, and a grin split her muzzle. It was almost time.
Her bandmates shifted beside her, and Strawberry could sense their anticipation as keenly as she could her own.
On stage, the three colts playing howled out the final verse of their song, all Momma’s pecan pie and down-home country ways, and despite the fact they were her competition, Strawberry’s head nodded along to the rhythm. She watched the green colt’s hooves hammering the keys of the honkytonk piano and itched for the moment when she could sit in that stool herself and the crowd would cheer for her.
A few twanging notes behind her signalled that Apple Fritter had finally finished tuning her banjo. Fiddlesticks was hopping from hoof to hoof, ready as always, a keen smile on her face. She lived for the stage, that one.
And behind the band’s fearless leader was her twin sister, her grey coat soft as a raincloud and her purple eyes deeper than forest pools. Strawberry was in the habit of searching for similes to describe Octavia, but all her attempts somehow seemed to fall flat.
Unlike the others, Octavia wasn’t watching the stage. She held her cello close, her hooves running across the strings of her bow, gentler than a mother stroking her foal’s mane. Slowly, she raised the bow to the instrument, almost but not quite touching, and began to saw it back and forth at a slow tempo utterly at odds from the boisterous music coming from the stage. She swayed as she moved the silent strings of her cello, and Strawberry watched, entranced. Gradually, the others noticed, and followed her gaze.
“Melody!” Fiddlesticks said at once, reaching out a hoof to stop Octavia’s ministrations to the bow. “What you bringin’ that useless thing for? You know we play without bows.”
Octavia flinched and flushed an ugly shade of red. “Oh — ah — sorry. I was just thinking…maybe I could try it that way today? I’ve was watching the orchestra ponies at the theatre, and they play it that way, so—”
“The theatre?” snapped Fiddlesticks. “Why you been hangin’ round there again? This is the Hoedown Showdown, Melody, not the flippin’ Canterlot Opera Hall. We want our bassist rhythmic and loose, not all hoity-toity and up herself.” She thrust an impatient hoof at the stage. “C’mon, Mel, the competition’s steep this year. You gotta take this serious.”
Her ears folding backwards, Octavia sighed and restored the bow to the cello case. The colts onstage finally wrapped up their number and exited to raucous applause, and Fiddlesticks painted on a grin and bounced out to take their place, Apple Fritter cantering to keep up.
Strawberry hung back, and gave Octavia’s hip a little nudge. “For what it’s worth, I kinda like the way they play it in the orchestra,” she said softly, hoping against hope that this would finally be the bridge that would allow her to cross the ravine of Octavia’s reserve. “The girls on strings in my school orchestra use bows.”
She was rewarded with a wan smile. “Thanks.”
Then Octavia was trotting out onstage, and the crowd were howling, and Strawberry was scrambling to take her place at the piano. She seated herself and sucked in a breath, pupils dancing against her closed eyelids as she listened to the thundering applause.
And then Fiddlesticks’ fiddle was striking up the tune, and Stawberry’s limbs moved on autopilot to hit the keys. Then the beat took her, and her eyes snapped open, her hooves flying across the ivories to crank out those jouncing, bubbling tunes that were forbidden in the starched white music-room at school.
Strawberry was the daughter of a mother who was determined to secure the finer things in life for her daughter; better things than a farm education could provide. Strawberry was sent to the best boarding schools, trained in the classical arts and taught to play beautiful sonatas on grand piano. Her days were spent reciting Prench poems and practising her elocution. Playing dreary tunes that plinked and plunked their way along with no heart, no beat. Counting down the days until the summer.
Summer, when Strawberry was finally free to gallop down the boulevard to Canterlot Station and leap aboard the Ponyville Express, drumming her hooves against the seat with impatience all the way, waiting for the moment when she could spring up again and gallop through those familiar cobbled streets. Home. Where her piano was delightfully battered, with hard-hitting hammers and a honkytonk tone, instead of polished and primped and tuned to within an inch of its life like those at school. Where she could work with her mother in the fields and get as muddy as she wanted and nopony would comment on the state of her clothes. Where she could sneak away to the hoedowns and listen to the rollicking, thudding songs she loved so much.
She slammed her hooves down onto those yellowed keys, and the metallic sound of Apple Fritter’s banjo twanged along in perfect harmony. Octavia’s bass was a rhythmic undertone to the impassioned yowl of Fiddlesticks’ instrument, just as the brighter-hued twin leapt and showboated at the very front of the stage, her sister a silent shadow at the rear.
The edges of the keys sharp against the sensitive frogs of her hooves, Strawberry Sunrise watched Octavia play.
From the moment Strawberry had been old enough to sneak away to the hoedowns and listen to the music, she had wanted to be up here on stage. She had worked for it, waited for it, all her life. But Octavia…somehow, her heart wasn’t in it. Oh, she plucked the strings at the right moment, nodded her head to the beat…but the passion wasn’t there. And somehow, that drained a little of Strawberry’s own pleasure from the moment too.
When she had answered that untidily scrawled advertisement — ‘Wanted: One honky-tonk player’ — she had little idea of what to expect.
“I’m Fiddlesticks, the head of this here outfit,” the yellow mare had said. “And my cousin Apple Fritter sings backup. We’re all Apples, here — but I’m sure you’ll fit in fine anyhow.”
Strawberry had smiled and nodded, and turned at last to the grey mare that she had most wanted to know the name of. “And you?”
She was rewarded with a small smile. “I was named after my great aunt Octavia.”
“And a right silly city name it is,” laughed Fiddlesticks, turning a tuning key. "We just call her Melody.”
“I— I like it,” Strawberry had almost said. “I think it’s a lovely name.”
But she had been…afraid, somehow. Fearful that these new, forceful friends would reject her if she didn’t laugh along. So she had smiled at the little jibe, and hoped that Octavia had been able to read the sympathy in her eyes.
Her body moving on autopilot as it recreated the chords she knew so well, Strawberry slammed out the final rousing chorus as Fiddlesticks howled out the vocals. Goin’ down haymakin’ on a summer’s eve, yeah we’re goin’ out haymakin’ on a summer’s eve — cut and scythe and wheels and rye — goin’ haymakin’ on a summer’s eve!
Then, almost before it had begun, it was over, and Apple Fritter was grabbing Strawberry’s foreleg to pull her forward to take a bow. Then they were scrambling down from the stage, audience and competitors alike pressing forward to congratulate them, the thunder of applause ringing in their ears.
The crowd spun them around, a whirl of colours. They were chanting Fiddlesticks’ name, and someone was howling into a megaphone that Fiddley-Faddle’s Fiddlers were through to round two of the Hoedown Showdown knockouts. A smile automatically coming to her lips as somepony pumped her leg up and down in a hearty hoofshake, Strawberry looked for Octavia, but she was nowhere to be seen.
When she had first seen the twins play, it wasn’t Fiddlesticks’ antics that had drawn her eye. It was Octavia. Her playing was mechanical, but scientifically perfect. And she clearly loved her instrument — she handled it with care, oiled the rich brown wood before every practice and listened to the tuning of the strings with an expert ear. Strawberry could hardly imagine what sort of sounds Octavia would be able to summon if she were to play and really mean it.
One morning, when she turned up half an hour early for practice, she had almost solved the enigma. She had heard strains of music emanating from the outhouse where they played, soulful stirrings of notes so low and slow they tore at the heart, and she had galloped to see who could be playing such beautiful and terrible music. But the noise of her approach had alerted her quarry, and by the time she had pulled up into a panting halt, the outhouse was empty.
“Melody! Melody! Where’ve you been?” Fiddlestick’s voice was strident, insistent, and Apple Fritter and Strawberry trailed in her wake as she bounded out of the enormous red barn, eyes fixed on her errant sister.
Octavia adjusted the strap of the cello case on her back. “I…I was just headed home.”
“Well, quit it!” Fiddlesticks waved the notion away. “We gotta stay here — we need to make a good impression on everypony; they’re the ones votin’ us through! And the party’s gonna go all night. Stay — it’ll be the best dang hoedown of the year!”
Shifting guiltily from hoof to hoof, Octavia hesitated, and then shook her head. “Sorry, I…I really gotta go. Need an early night. I’ve got to get a train at first light.”
Strawberry and Apple Fritter exchanged a wide-eyed look, and the smile left Fiddlesticks’ face. “A train? What’re you talking about? We’re performin’ in round two tomorrow.”
Her purple eyes downcast, veiled and hooded, Octavia didn’t look up. “No…I…I’m not.”
Fiddlesticks appeared at a loss. “Well…where are ya gonna be, then?”
A grey hoof scuffed at the dirt. “Fiddly, I’m really sorry…but you remember that application I sent off? They wrote back. I got an audition.”
“What?” Fiddlesticks shook her head, but Strawberry’s ears perked up. Was this, at last, an answer to the mystery? “That artsy-fartsy place in Canterlot? I thought you were jokin’ about applyin’ there.”
Another shake of the head. “…No.”
Seeing a chance, a moment, Strawberry took a risk and jumped. “Where did you apply, Octavia?”
The answer, when it came, was almost a whisper. “The Canterlot Academy of Fine Art and Music.”
Strawberry knew the name; many of the fillies from her boarding school had applied and already received curt rejection letters. “Really? And you got an audition? That’s amazing!”
A small smile blossomed into being on Octavia’s face, and Strawberry was rewarded with a flash of grateful purple eyes that set her heart thudding. But then Fiddlesticks was advancing again, her hoof jabbing accusingly at her sister, and Octavia’s head ducked down again, a turtle back into its shell.
“Is this some sort of joke, Melody? We’ve been trying to get into the Hoedown Showdown for years! This is our dream!”
Her shoulders hunched, Octavia let the storm break over her head. “N-not my dream, Fiddly. I’m sorry — I didn’t know when the audition was going to be. But I…I only get one shot. I wasn’t sure if we would get through to the second round, so I thought it might not be a probl—”
Now Fiddlesticks’ voice was icy cold. “You didn’t think we would get through?”
“No, that’s not what I—”
“—You didn’t believe in your own band? In my band?”
“I—”
“—Gah, this is the last straw, Melody! I’ve had it up to the ears with you! I’ve looked the other way from your moonin’ around all summer and sighin’ over Celestia knows what, and this is how you repay me?” She glanced at Apple Fritter for support. “Repay us?”
“I just — I want to play like they do in—” Octavia tried, but Fiddlesticks was incandescent.
“Do you think you’re too good for our music? Is that it?” She stabbed her hoof into Octavia’s chest, punctuating each word with a jab. “Well, I’ve got news for you, sis. It’s — it’s me or them. You can stay here, with us, and compete with the Fiddlers, or you can go to your dumb audition. Your choice.” Nostrils flaring with each breath, she glared down at her sister.
“Wait—” Strawberry took half a step forward to intercede, but the glare Fiddlesticks shot her was so white-hot that she stumbled to a halt.
Octavia swallowed hard, and then bowed her head. “I…like you said, Fiddly. I gotta choose my dreams.”
Slowly, achingly slowly, she turned away and began to walk.
Flanks heaving, Fiddlesticks watched, her mouth agape.
“Octavia, wait—!” Strawberry started after her again but Fiddlesticks’ foreleg shot out to block her.
“Melody!” she snarled, and then louder. “Melody, stop right there!”
That grey form kept on moving, and Octavia did not look back.
“Melody!” Fiddlesticks’ eyes had an odd shimmer of moisture to them as she shouted after her sister. “Melody! I’m warnin’ you! If you get that train tomorrow I will never forgive you! How can I compete without a cellist? Melody!” Her breath was coming hard. “Melody, get back here!”
But Octavia was already gone.
Half of Strawberry wanted to take wing and go after her; to comfort her after that verbal barrage and let her know that she still had at least one friend. There was always next year for the Hoedown Showdown, after all. But Fiddlesticks was still pale with fury, and the look in her eyes was enough to keep Strawberry nervously grounded.
There were a few beats of silence, as the three of them watched Octavia’s receding shape dwindle into nothingness, and then Fiddlesticks swung abruptly away to return to the party.
“C’mon,” she spat, as Apple Fritter fell into line behind her. “We don’t need her anyways.”
After one heartbeat, two, Strawberry fell into line behind them.
Strawberry Sunrise spent a sleepless night tossing and turning in her bed, wondering if she should go to Octavia and tell her everything.
“I…I like you,” she mouthed the words over and over into the darkness of her room. “I like you, Octavia. I’d love to hear you play. Can I come with you to Canterlot? We could go and get a coffee after your audition. Just a coffee.”
But the darkness pressed in on her, and the distant echo of the applause of the crowd at the hoedown held her prisoner. She couldn’t abandon the music she had fought so hard to be allowed to play.
“I like you,” she whispered, to nopony. “I like you.”
“She ain’t coming’.” Fiddlesticks’ voice was bleak. “I thought she might — thought she might’a changed her mind.”
“It — it’s okay,” Apple Fritter said hesitantly, as the three of them clustered in the wings, each paler than the next. “We can still do this. We can go on without her.”
In a flash, Fiddlesticks’ wheeled on her, teeth bared in a feral snarl. “No we can’t, you dimwit. I ain't never played without Melody in my life. All our songs include her! They'll laugh us off the stage.”
Gulping down her nerves, Strawberry raised a conciliatory hoof, unwilling to see another bandmate put to the sword. “But we—”
“And you,” spat Fiddlesticks, her eyes blazing, “I bet you had a hoof in all this. You encouraged her!”
Staggering backwards under the sudden attack, Strawberry floundered for words. “I — I didn’t—”
“Where else would Mel have got all these high-minded ideas?” Fiddlesticks asked, desperately. Her eyes were glittering with moisture. “Why else would she leave us all of a sudden? Leave me?”
“I didn’t do anything,” Strawberry protested. And it was true. She hadn’t. She had kept her feelings bottled up all summer, and now — now it was too late. Octavia was gone, and Strawberry had chosen the band over her. There was no way she could go after her now. “I swear, Fiddlesticks, I never heard anything about this audition till yesterday. Octavia and me aren’t even that close!” Not for lack of trying.
But Fiddlesticks shook her head, unwilling to hear it. She scrubbed furiously at her eyes and then took one step forward to plant the same hoof on Strawberry’s chest. “I don’t wanna hear it. Where has she been goin’ then, if not with you? Sneakin' off at night to your bloody high-minded soirees — you think I wouldn’t guess, city girl?”
“I—”
“—Your momma's so rich you think you're better'n us, ain't that it? You come down here to slum it with us and you give my sister stupid ideas, stupid dreams.”
“I didn’t do anything, Fiddlesticks!” Strawberry broke in at last, her voice high with desperation. She could feel the remnants of the band crumbling beneath her — and what would she have left then? The Fiddlers were her only friends here. Too posh for the farm-folk, too country for the girls at school. She didn’t fit anywhere. There had been a second — just one — where she had thought maybe she would fit with Octavia; but that was a stupid daydream, and it was over now. “I don’t know where she’s been going, but it wasn’t to see me. I love the band, you know that.”
Fiddlesticks sniffed. “So you say. But Mel was happy before this summer. She didn’t have any a’ these weird ideas. Who else could it’a been? And…an’ they’re gonna crush her at that high-falutin' academy, and you know whos gonna have to pick up the pieces? Not you. Me. Good ol' Fiddly Twang, always dependable, always discardable.” She dragged a furious hoof across the damp fur of her cheeks, her fury spent as quickly as it had come. “She ain’t comin’. This — this is over. The Fiddlers are done.” She pulled in a single shuddering breath. “We’re done.”
Broken and dispirited, the ragged remnants of the finest country band this side of Appleoosa filed out of the red barn, leaving the scraps of their dreams behind them. And when, three days later, Strawberry Sunrise descended the stairs of her home to find her beloved honkytonk piano, every inch of it as well-known and well-loved as her own flesh, smashed and scattered on the floor, somehow…she was not surprised. Heartbroken, yes. Devastated. But not surprised. She sank down onto her haunches and looked at the destruction, and at the note pinned to the top.
“My sister’s moving to Canterlot. Thought you deserved an accolade for your brilliant contribution to the Fiddlers, rich girl. — from Fiddly-Faddle Twang Apple.”
A tear slowly trickling down over her cheek, Strawberry Sunrise sat amid the amid the wreckage of her instrument and her first love, and shook her head from side to side. “Apples. I…I don’t like them.”
