Brothers or Strangers

Chapter One

A Stranger In The Dark

The sun was setting, and Aura busily scuttled around his flat.
Aura checked the mirror to see if he at least looked decent.
He was still dark grey that’s for sure, the colour of his coat hadn’t magically changed during sleep, and his mane still looked like a bird’s nest, black with red stripes, matching his red eyes. “Well I guess it will have to do” he thought to himself.
He packed his guitar with his magic, as he headed towards the door. He proceeded out the door and continued his way down the long set of stairs.
When he got to the front door he bumped into the pony he least wanted to bump into, at any time. The landlord. A small pony with a light gray coat, green eyes and wearing a bowler-hat over his black mane. And a short fuse.

“Oh hello Aura, it’s funny, i was just heading up to your apartment. If I remember correctly you still haven’t paid your rent.” he said with a smug smile on his face.
“I was just heading out for a gig so I can pay you” Aura responded with a sigh.

“I bucking hope so, you better pay me at the end of this week” the landlord said. His voice getting a little impatient.

“Yeah, sure” Aura said with a tired look on his face as he pushed his way past the landlord. The landlord only snorted as he turned to follow Aura out the door, and then went their separate ways.

“Buckhead” Aura muttered under his breath.
While he walked onwards, Aura wondered why the landlord was always on his tail, as if he had a personal grudge against him. Aura had never done anything but being a bit late with his rent, but he’d never had any noise complaints or anything, he mostly stayed to himself as Aura wasn’t really a social pony, But Aura hated the landlord’s guts for it.

Aura headed towards the pub, where he was supposed to play a gig for a rather large sum of bits. Something with the pony who was supposed to play tonight had called in sick, and thus Aura was paid a bit more to play at this gig on such short notice.

As Aura walked down the street he quickly became distracted by the stars that had started to dot the sky. Aura loved the night sky; it was always so quiet and beautiful.
He had always dreamed of flying through the night sky. Not racing, just slowly enjoying the night as he flew silently throughout the sky, feeling the soft night wind in his face and mane, rushing through his non existing feathers on his non existing wings. Not a worry in his mind.
*THUD* “OUCH!” The daydream was abruptly ended as Aura crashed into a lamppost; he looked around as he picked himself up from the street, making sure, he hadn’t been seen by anypony. “Who put that stupid lamp post there” he thought as he walked around the post.

Aura passed a few blocks before he arrived at the pub, it was starting to get a bit cold outside and Aura could feel it.
He got inside and was immediately overwhelmed by the smell of beer, normally he didn’t mind but tonight it was as if somepony had spilt beer right up his nostrils. He considered going back out but quickly dismissed the thought as he needed the money. He walked past the small crowd of ponies that were waiting in line to get their beverage, while a stallion that had a coat as pale as snow and a mane that was as red as fire stood behind the counter and served as fast as he could “yee yee, ye beer is on the way, just calm down, aight lad”
“Definitely Irish” Aura thought to himself.

Aura continued straight towards the stage to get ready to perform.
The stage wasn’t much, it was just a small stage with barely enough room for a small band, the curtains that covered the stage was held up by a string that went across the room.
Aura was greeted by a couple of ponies that looked to be the band that was performing tonight; he also noticed the empty spot at the guitar.
He got into position but moved the guitar that already stood there back a bit so he could fit there with his own guitar; he had carried on his back. The singer pony looked back at him with a slight puzzled look on his face “I prefer to use my own” Aura said as he continued to get ready to perform.

There was a voice on the speakers, the show was about to start. “Fillies and gentlecolts, please welcome the band of the evening, Neighvana” a few ponies in the crowd stomped lightly as the curtains drew and we started to play.

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All the meanwhile, a mysterious pony sat in the furthest darkest corner of the pub, gulping down yet another glass of whiskey without a care in the world, lost in his own thoughts.

That is, until he noticed the music that had suddenly started playing. There was something about it that caught his interest, but he couldn’t exactly tell what it was, the lyrics were nice, but that wasn’t it, “bass?” He muttered under his breath, listening closer to it, to come up with the conclusion that, that wasn’t it either. “GUITAR!” He almost yelled out loud in his drunken fit, but kept it to a minimum.

The mysterious pony hadn’t heard a guitarist like this ever before. “Who is this pony!?”
The guitar was fantastic, the way the unicorn strummed the strings, and it just felt so passionate, like the guitarist was strumming straight down on his own heart, blasting all emotions into the air. And he didn’t miss a single note, all of them perfectly in sync with all the other band players.

What puzzled the mysterious pony the most is how he was even able to notice the music in the noise of the crowd and drunken ponies in the pub.
The music, especially the notes of the guitar, felt like it came bursting into his head without force, like a huge green burning aura of acid melting away every form of defence, leaving your ears and brain exposed only to the music at hoof.

“I must meet this pony!” The mysterious pony thought to himself. But the noise around him was getting so loud, that he could hardly hear himself think, or the music for that matter. It was like the ponies in the pub didn’t even pay any attention to the music at all. The mysterious pony was quite frankly annoyed at the fact that they were so ignorant of everything else but their cheap drinks and gossip.

The mysterious pony decided to show the crowd a bit of what was actually happening around them, so he attempted to turn the speakers up with his magic, but in return the crowd only got louder, so he turned it up another notch, and again the crowd got louder. As a last resort the mysterious pony tried to amplify the sound itself that the speakers were blasting. And it most definitely got amplified. *Fwoosh* “oops” suddenly the speakers were on fire.

The ponies around the bar quickly started screaming and running out of the pub, and the barcolt rushed to the stage with a fire extinguisher to put out the fires on the speakers.

Once the fire was extinguished, the barcolt stepped outside, to inform them that everything was now under control and they could come inside again however there would be no more music, as there were no more speakers.

The ponies started streaming back inside the pub again. Most of them only concerned about their drinks. Aura, who was visibly annoyed at the sudden turn of events. Packed up and left the stage. As he sat down at the bar, the barcolt walked up to him and handed him a small pouch of bits, which he then proceeded to spent at the bar. The night went on, still without a care in the world, but drinks.

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Aura sat at the bar slowly sipping at his beer, while he counted the bits he had made this evening. It wasn’t the exact amount he was promised, but the barcolt had to take some bits of the pay to be able to afford the repair of the stage and a new pair of speakers. Aura didn’t mind, it was still enough to pay the landlord, make it through the month and still have some spending money.

The mysterious pony was no longer sitting in the corner. He had decided to go up and apologize to the guitarist, eventually the other band members, maybe.
He had started to move through the crowd, somehow able to bump into only a couple of ponies. It was very obvious to the ponies in the pub that he had had one too many.

Once he reached Aura he tapped him lightly on the shoulder, and took a seat next to him, almost tipping over on the barstool. “Whoopsie there” the mysterious pony said.
Aura slowly turned his head to see who it was, it was nopony he knew. Some drunken tall white unicorn with red markings right above his hooves and around his orange eyes.

“Hello there.. *hic*... What’s your name?” the mysterious pony said.

“It’s impolite to ask for somepony’s name without introducing yourself first” Aura said as he took another sip of his beer, not even looking at the mysterious pony.

“Oh yeah, my name is... *hic*... Soundflux” Soundflux said to Aura.

“Hmm yeah, nice to meet you” Aura said, obviously not interested in the unicorn.

“Name?” Soundflux said.

“What?”

“Your name, what is it? I’ve given you mine, now what’s... *hic*... yours?”

“I guess it’s only fair, name’s Aura. Now, did you want anything?”

“Yes *hic*... Lemme just, BARTENDER! Two glasses of whiskey please!”

“I don’t drink whiskey..” Aura said.

“Oh, that’s not for you. Would you like another beer?”

Aura looked at his almost empty beer bottle, and thought “why not” and gulped down the last bit of his beer.

“Sure, but you’re paying”

“Haha of course, i offered. BARTENDER! Bring him a beer on my tab!” Soundflux said while pointing at Aura.

“Could you stop yelling, everypony is looking at you.” Aura said

“Oh yeah, oops.”

The bartender came around with 2 glasses of whiskey for Soundflux and a beer for Aura.
“There ye go” the barcolt said.

“Yes, okay back on topic please, you wanted what exactly?” Aura said with a slightly friendlier look on his face than before.

“Oh yes, I noticed you playing up there earlier, though it seemed no one else did, I came here to ap...” Soundflux was cut off by Aura before he got to the apology at hoof.

“Yeah, I know, I’m awesome.” Aura said with a smug smile.

“No no, I mean the speakers, I...” Soundflux was cut off again.

“Yes, that totally “blowed”, get it?” Aura said, laughing a bit at his own horribly bad pun.

Soundflux sat for a moment trying to make it sink in... “Nope, not getting it”

“Okay, That drunk...” Aura thought to himself. “Just how much have you had?” He asked Soundflux.

“Oh, eh” Soundflux started to get a determined look on his face while he held a hoof to his chin, seriously thinking about it.

“Yeah, okay whatever, never mind I asked. Anyways, they said it was a technical problem that caused an overheating in the speakers, which made them blow up and catch on fire. But good thing it wasn’t sabotage, I mean, really! I would’ve bucked the feathers out of whoever did it!”

“Yes technical error! Eheheh sabotage... that’s stupid c’mon! Who would do that...” Soundflux said sheepishly while rubbing the back of his head. “Hide the guilt, hide the guilt.” he thought to himself.

“What?” Aura said with a puzzled look on his face as he turned to look at Soundflux, who was doing a bad job at looking innocent.

“Nothin’, I just... *hic*... you know, sabotage, that would be stupid.” Soundflux said, doing his best to be convincing. Ending his sentence with gulping down a glass of whiskey.

“Yeah, whatever. I think I best head home now anyways” Aura said, getting off his barstool, heading for the door.

“Oi! Wait for me!” Soundflux said, considering giving his last glass of whiskey to the pony next to him, but quickly got to his drunken senses and gulped that glass down as well. Swaying towards the door, he left a small bag of bits on a nearby table, he whistled for the bartender’s attention, while pointing at the bag, and then proceeded to catch up with Aura.

“So Aura! How far is it to your house?” Soundflux said while catching up to walk next to Aura.

“What do you mean how far, do you think you are coming with me? And I don’t live in a house, I live in a flat, a small one, definitely not space enough for two ponies anyway! Beside that I hardly even know you”

“Aaw c’mon! It could be fun!”

“No it couldn’t..”

There was a *thud* before Aura got any further in his sentence, Soundflux had tripped and fallen head first into the pavement, face grounding, and was knocked out by the impact.

“Oh no you don’t! Wake up!” Aura said with an annoyed yet worried expression on his face, while he tried to wake up the drunken pony who was lying on the pavement.

Aura sighed as he couldn’t get Soundflux back to consciousness, “OH BUCK ME!” he thought, “well I can’t just leave him here” Aura looked around to see if there was somewhere he could put him, like a dumpster or something. “You’re not giving me a choice here, are you?” Aura said as he lifted Soundflux into the air with his magic.