Cure for Pain

“Hey Walker, wait up for a second!” I heard Twilight yell before I left the library to my job at the music store. “Yeah, Twilight? What’s up?” I asked.

“I’ve just been thinking about something. When do you want to start magic ‘lessons’?” she asked, seemingly out of nowhere. I was confused. “What do you mean ‘magic lessons’?”

“I mean that since you ARE a unicorn now, you need to learn magic to fit in. I know magic, Rarity knows magic, you’re the only unicorn I know that doesn’t.” She said, not even trying to sugarcoat what she was saying.

“Thanks Twilight. I was almost feeling good about myself today. Thanks for changing that.” I deadpanned. “It’s alright, Walker." She responded in a lackluster attempt to cheer me up. "You weren’t introduced to the concept of magic as a filly like everypony else, you only just recently became aware of it.

“If you want, we could hold lessons.” Twilight said. “Twice a week or so. I could teach you from the beginning with simple levitation spells and work our way up as you get more advanced.”

That wasn’t such a bad idea. To have an opportunity to learn magic from somepony like Twilight who is KNOWN for her magic wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing.

“Only if it complies with you schedule, but if it does, that sounds great!” I yelled back, hurrying out the door. As I walked to the music store, I heard Twilight yell from the library’s front door: “TOMORROW AT NOON!”

“So…” I heard John say from across the percussion room at work later that day. “What’s up? Anything new?” I grinned. “Not really, unless you count being transformed into a unicorn, sent to a different reality, and learning a completely new town ‘new.’” He tried to keep a straight face, but smiled. “Alright, smartass. Come over here and man the cash register for a second, I got to go take a piss.”

As I sat there, I thought about the magic that I would be learning. Levitation spells are the easiest? Then what’s after that? I guess that levitation would be the most simple when it gets down on an atomic and nuclear level, because you aren’t changing the form of something, you’re just changing the loca-

“HEY!!!” I heard someone yell in front of me. I jumped. When the hell did she get here? “Hi,welcome to Crescendo’s Music Store, how can I help you?” She looked familiar, but I couldn’t quite place where I knew her from. She was holding a large, bass-size gig bag, and she looked stressed. “The drummer for my band broke his final pair of sticks, and he couldn’t arrange to get them himself. What are your recommendations?” She said. “Alright, one sec.” I said, frantically walking over the the drumstick bin. “Here you go.” I said, handing her a pair of sticks I had been drumming with since I got my drum set. “That’ll be 9 bits.” She handed me the bits from her gig bag, grabbed the drum sticks from my hands and ran out of the store, her pink bowtie in a mess. Where had I seen her before, dammit?! Joe walked past her from the bathroom, almost getting smacked in the face by her gigantic bass bag, and resumed his position behind the register. “Woah, she was hot!” He said, doing a wolf whistle behind her. “How would I know? I’m not attracted to ponies because I, technically, am NOT one.” He laughed. “Well, I guess you’re gonna have to broaden your horizons!” He said. I shuddered at what he said, but I pondered it. He was right in a way. If I wanted or needed to fit in, I couldn’t be attracted to a species that doesn’t even EXIST in this reality. But I would wait to think about it. That’s future me’s problem.

“So…” I said as Coleton sat down on the couch beside me that night, breathing heavily. “How was flight practice with R.D?”

“It was an odd mixture of amazing, tiring, and terrifying.” He responded. “What do you mean by that?” I asked. I understood the tiring, but what made it amazing and terrifying?

He looked up at me with a thousand-yard stare. “When your favorite Mane 6 drops you from Cloudsdale and expects you to be able to fly all the way back up, it feels a bit scary, wouldn’t you agree?” I wanted to laugh, but the dread of what Coleton must have gone through made me hold my tongue. “Well, at least you’re learning to fly.” I said, shrugging. “Yeah, and what are you learning?” He asked.

“Me and Twilight have arranged a biweekly schedule. Two times a week for an undetermined amount of time she’s gonna teach me magic. Tomorrow at noon is our first meeting. It’s gonna be fun, you know?” I asked, but I was greeted with snores. I chuckled. Figures.

I exited the library and walked around. It was only seven on Friday evening, and everywhere you went there was something to do. It was interesting. I decided to head to a bar to get a drink and critique the alcohol they had.

There was a really loud bluesy joint at the end of the street Twilight lived on simply called “The Joint.” I walked in and sat down at the bar. “What do you guys have?” I asked the bartender.

He rallied off a short list of alcoholic beverages for me, and none of them sounded particularly good. “I’ll try the cider.” I said, giving him a couple of bits. He smiled and filled a large mug with reddish-brownish liquid and slid it over to me. I took a couple of sips. This is amazing! I thought, and before I knew it the mug was empty. “Um, bartender! Refill please!”

I decided to go to the stage in back. The band sounded phenomenal and I wasn’t even close enough to them to make out who was who. I sat down at a table in front of the band and looked in awe. Every single one of them was putting their heart and soul into their playing. They sounded like all of the music I liked back at home, but surprisingly better. They shook the entire room.

When the song finally ended, there was roaring applause throughout the entire room. The Guitarist was panting from the amount of energy he put into his playing, the singer was simply smiling, and the bassist was….

There she was. The pink bowtie, the Treble Clef cutie mark, there was no mistake that she was the one at the music store earlier that day. But she played bass. Why was her cutie mark a Treble Clef and not a bass clef?

I just enjoyed the music until they had an intermission and went to the bar. I had almost forgotten to get a third cider until they stopped playing.

I weaved through the crowd to get to the bar, which surprisingly few people were inhabiting. “Hey, Bartender!” I yelled. “Refill, please!”

I sat down by the bartender, and the rest of the band sat down nearer the exit. But the bassist walked over to me. “Hey, sorry for asking, but I think I met you earlier.” I smiled. “At the music store, I presume?”

“Yeah!” She said. “I just wanted to formally apologize for my behavior today. I was in a bit of a rush to get back to work, and I didn’t have time to talk.” She put her hoof out. “I’m Octavia, by the way.” I awkwardly “shook” her hoof back. “The name’s Walker.” Her eyes lit up. “I know you! You helped Twilight back when she went to the different dimensions in that reality transporter, right?” I nodded, sipping my cider. “You are correct.”

“That was really cool of you to house her while she studied.” She said, sipping whatever drink she had. “She volunteered to travel and gather information, and she hoped that wherever she went, someone like you would show up.” I laughed, but I still have a question. “Hey Octavia,” I asked. “Why was Pinkie with her, anyway?” Octavia simply chuckled and shrugged. “She’s Pinkie Pie.”

“When you put it like that, it makes sense.” I said. “Hey, I’ve got to get back to playing, but meet me after the next set, I need to talk to you.” She headed back up on stage and continued playing. I would have kept drinking, but if she was going to talk to me later, I didn’t want to be completely blitzed.

The minutes dragged by slow as a snail as I listened to their music, waiting for their set to end. Finally, after playing a great encore, they started packing up their stuff. Octavia jumped off stage to meet me by the door.

“Listen, our drummer…. he’s not good.” She said as if it was a secret. “We’ve been trying to replace him for a while, but… drummers aren’t all that common around here.” I had to agree with what she said about the drummer being bad. He had skill, but he executed it so wrongly. He would play loud during a slow and peaceful song, he would show off incessantly behind the drum set and play things when they didn’t fit. He didn’t make the band bad, he just made it “not as good it could be.”

“Why do you say that?” I asked. “Well, I was wondering if you would like to try out to replace him.” Octavia said. My mouth went dry. Was I seriously being asked to join a band? This close to getting here?

“Actually, that sounds good.” I said happily. “I’ve been looking to join a band since I got here, so it’s a relief to be asked to join a band that’s as good as yours.” she blushed.

“Well…” she got out a piece of paper and wrote down a number. “Here’s my number. We usually practice at my house, so if you call, I could arrange for a tryout.” She handed me the number and we sat down. We talked for a little while about what music we liked and other things of that nature. I did have a question for her though. “You play bass guitar, right Octavia?” She sipped her drink. “Yes I do. And I play cello in addition to that.”

“Why is your cutie mark a treble clef?” I asked. She simply chuckled. “I have yet to figure that out myself. My true calling is cello, but I think it was because my first instrument was classical guitar, which is usually notated with a treble clef.” I finished my drink, and decided it had gotten late enough to be home. “Alright, Octavia. I need to go, but I’ll give you a call when I get the chance, alright?” I gave her a solemn wave and left the building.

When I got home at around three, Coleton was the only one awake. He was watching TV on the couch. “Hey, man.” I said, sitting down on the couch. “Why are you home so late?” He asked, confused. “I went out to a bar and saw this really good local band. You know Octavia? The cellist?” He nodded, not looking up from the glow of the TV. “She was the bassist in this band, and they needed a drummer. We had seen each other earlier that day at the shop, but she was in a hurry and couldn’t talk.” I tossed the number to him. “She gave me this so I could call her if I wanted to be their drummer. Their current one is crappy.”

He looked at the number in disbelief. “You got a girl’s number?” I laughed. “It’s not for that. It’s for strict musical purposes.” He looked at me with a grin. “Riiiiiiiight.” I snatched the number from him and went to bed, pondering what he said. What John said earlier about me having to “broaden my horizons” came to mind too. I wondered where my attractions would lie. I was born a human, but I’m a pony now. Which of the two would I like? I had to admit that Octavia was pretty cool, but as of now I couldn’t attest to her “beauty.” I WAS attracted to her, there’s no doubt about it. But it seemed purely mental. I eventually fell asleep, but the thought wouldn’t go away after a simple night of sleep. It was going to stay in my mind, annoying me until I figured it out. Dammit.