Shifting Ballads

by Rain-M24

Rating: teen
Tags: Rainbow Dash, Other, Tragedy, Slice of Life, Original Character, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
Length: 2805

The story of fame, loss, and a sort of questionable filly. Follow her story from the very beginning and maybe her own personal story may fall into place.

Meet--well no one really found out her real name, she doesn't use it for unknown reasons. Follow the story of this mare who rose up to gain it all, only to lose more that dwelled in her heart in an instant.

Published 2013-06-24 05:50:02 UTC
Last updated 2013-06-24 05:50:02 UTC

Reflections[Discovery]

In the Equestrian region of Filly Delphia, a pegasus pony resides.

A scarlet red-coated mare with a long blond and blue mane, wearing a tired expression. Her cutie mark always
concealed by a blue suit with yellow markings she bears on her coat that seems to be a bit too big on her. She had everything; fame, a future... but lost a thing even more important faster. How this mare came to be this way? I guess we should start with...

She was a filly who just got her cutie mark about a week ago when she first heard a rock band comprised of a group of stallions that appeared on the scene. On the way to school, she heard them playing and snuck to the concert, staying in the back of the crowd. There was a banner above the stage labeled Iron Hoof. She was taken aback by the powerful sound of rock, she couldn't help but love it all. She stayed throughout the concert, just listening.

When the concert was over, she snuck backstage to see them. However, she was stopped by their voices. She stayed on the other side of the curtain to listen.

"Listen, I honestly have great expectations for you three. The decision isn't up to me."

Another voice blurted out, "How is it not up to you? Can't you change their mind!?"

Decision? The filly was curious about the situation. Just what is this about? Maybe I shouldn't be butting into this in the first place....

Just as she started to trot away from the curtain, she hears an angry voice. "YOU EXPECT US TO JUST SIT HERE AND BE FIRED!?"

She stops, her eyes widened. Wh...what are they saying? Is it true?

An older stallion conversing with the band members replied to the hot-headed lead singer. "The record company just told me they wouldn't support you, nothing else. I'm sorry, but I think you shou--"

"BULLSHIT!", he inturrupted, before trotting out with the other two members. The filly was frozen. After a few minutes, she finally managed to run home. She would move into a cottage if she could, but Fillydelphia was a suburban city. Instead, she trotted to her apartment.

She wasn't old enough to live alone, of course, but her mother had an apartment just next to hers in the complex. The rooms weren't big enough to hold them both in the same one. Her father was away on a business trip in Ponyville, so they had no need to worry about more space. She goes into her room and sits in front of her standarly-lowered desk for ponies designed by the way they sit. Hesitant at first, she gets a pen in her mouth and starts writing.

The next day, the little filly went up to the location the band performed at the previous day. Not knowing where the stallions live, she set the note there and trotted off. It was a weekend, so she went straight back to the apartment and not the school.

The lead singer of the group decided to look around, looking back at his chance of fame. "Just where did I go wrong?" His facial expression showed he has attempted his career in the music industry several times.

He stopped at the venue of yesterday's concert. "It was here, another failure." He hits a folded sheet of paper with his front right hoof. He looks down at it. Confused, he leans over and open the letter with his mouth. After reading it, he retracted his face with suprise. "It's...it's good.....not only that, but it may be just what I needed."

He then looked back at the note and noticed that it wasn't signed. Sigh.....and it was so good too... I wonder if I can still use this.

[Chapter1: END]

Author's Note

This is about the first pony fanfic I came up with, so I hope I keep this interesting. Please look foward to chapter 2: The Reflections Arc - Deal.

Reflections[Deal]

The clearly joyous Iron Hoof lead singer, in a failed attempt to wipe the overjoyed expression off his face, bent back down to the lyrics sheet. He grabbed the sheet with his mouth and picked it up to save it. I guess I should wait to tell the manager about this after I atleast find out who wrote this. He turned around to put it in his saddlebag, but dropped it on the ground just before it fell in.

He bent back down to pick it up. Just before he could, however, he sees a hoof land right on the sheet. "Don't tell me you're even thinking about hiding something from your boss." The lead singer looks back up, looking into the face of the record company manager. He sets his hoof on the lyrics sheet in an attempt to steal it back from his soon-to-be ex-boss, but the manager slides the sheet closer to him with his hoof, tipping the singer down.

The record company manager removes his hoof from the lyrics sheet, picks it up with his mouth, and places it into his own saddlebag. "I'll go look this over in my office," he began. "If it's anything worth mentioning, i'll call you and the others in tomorrow. Of course, I expect nothing more than a screw-up from you, Masquerade." With that, the manager turned back and left the way he came.

The lead singer--or as his stage name goes, "Flame Masquerade"--follows his own path and slowly trots back home.

Knock, knock.

Flame tossed in his bed.

Knock, knock.

"Okay, this is starting to get annoying."

Knock, knock.

Flame shot up in his bed. "DAMMIT, WHAT DO YOU WANT!?"

....

"You really are a lazy son of a bitch, aren't you? It's two in the afternoon." A unicorn pony opens the door with his magic and lets himself trot into the home.

It takes a while, but soon enough, Flame recognized the stallion in front of him. "I thought-No, didn't you-You said you wouldn't-" His voice began to trail off, as the record company manager felt obliged to help the stunned stallion.

"--come get you if the song wasn't worth mentioning? Doesn't that tell you anything about why I would be here?"

Flames jumped out of his bed, but nearly collapsed. He set himself upright. "Are you serious!?"

"If I wasn't, I wouldn't have the others already waiting at the studio."

Flame suddenly felt a strong tug pulling against his hoof. His boss was dragging him to the studio right then and there--literally.

-----

The manager shut the door behind him with his magic as he set Flame down with the others. "Now, we need to have a serious discussion about this song."

Flame, rubbing his eyes with his right hoof, inquired in a manner that you can hear how agitated he was. "What's there to talk about? It's a song, a good one at that, too. So we can still be in work."

"That's not the problem!" The Iron Hoof manager shot a cold glance at each of the members, then pulled the lyrics sheet from his saddlebag with his magic. "THIS is the problem!"

"So, the song's not the problem, but the song's the problem?"

"YOU'RE the problem, Masquerade! You clearly couldn't have written this. The handwriting's too neat for a sloppy earth pony, and you couldn't have ideas anywhere near this good!"

Offended, Flame tried to calm himself so he could explain. "I didn't want you to find the song until I found out who wrote it. I never said it was mine."

"Well, then actually start looking instead of lounging around!" Their boss had all too clearly started losing his temper with his sub-par band. "By any means possible, we must find this colt! Or..well, perhaps filly, considering the neat handwriting."

He then kicked the band out of the studio by levitating them out the room, one by one.

-----

On the morning trot to the local Filly Dephian school, our pegasus protagonist stops after hitting something with her hoof. She looked down and found a flyer, trying to read what she could see on the top.

"Iron Hoof, 'better than ever' concert. Come mee-" Her hoof was covering the rest. She trotted past the flyer to try to get to school on time, but stopped herself to look back to read the rest.

"-t the band backstage. You could be our lucky colt or filly." Lucky?, she thought. Does that mean I would get a prize? Well, it wouldn't hurt to try. She looked again on the flyer, and it reads that the concert is scheduled to start at five.

Her thoughts are pushed aside from picking up the sound of the school bell, and she starts running to the school.

After the concert, the audience is told to form a line. If you have ever been to a concert, you would know the extreme length of this line.

"Ugh, still nothing." Flame was getting tired of testing the ponies to see who had written the song, and was preparing to give up too quickly. Their manager had been holding up papers for the fans with his magic and asking them to write so he could match their handwriting. None of the sheets went close to matching.

After perhaps a span of three hours, a red-coated pegasus trots into the room. The band was already exhausted, so she didn't bother to ask anything about the prize. The manager holds up her paper in front of her. "Um, what is this?" She inquired.

"This is the entry form." The manager started speaking in a bored tone, since he has been doing this for an estimated over three hours now. "Fill out this form to get a chance of getting the prize."

The filly reached into her saddlebag with her wing on the corresponding side, and pulled out her pen. She wrote on the levitating paper with her wing and not her mouth. Perhaps that's what makes her handwriting so neat. She finished writing and put the pen back in her saddlebag.

The manager boredly gives Flame the sheet to examine it side-by-side with the lyrics sheet. His eyes flew open.

"I-it's you.."

The pegasus met him with a confused expression. "I'm sorry? What's me?"

"This is!" Flame, sounding confident in his analysis, slides the lyrics sheet with his hoof towards the young filly. She looks down at it.

"You, you got my song..?" She looks up, facing the band, overjoyed. "And you, like it?"

"We love it," their manager spoke out, "and we want you to work for Iron Hoof, young mare. That is, if you--"

"Oh, OF COURSE I will accept!"

"Oh," her new boss was stunned at her sudden energy. "Well then. Could you please tell us your name so we could credit you?"

"Oh, my name?" She had a nervous look on her face. She looked around for a bit, trying to come up with a convincing fake name.

"My name is..Melody. Melody Songsmith."

The manager gives the nervous filly a warm smile. "Welcome, Melody."

[Chapter2: END]

Author's Note

Next time:

Chapter 3
Reflections arc
Family

Reflections[Family]

Let's skip forward a bit now. It has been about three years since Melody got to work with Iron Hoof, and she couldn't be happier. By now, she's already grown up to the age of a pony's life that they aren't considered a filly or a colt anymore. Unlike other mares, Melody already has a lot of bits saved up from her job. She's been using these bits from work to liven up things at her and her mom's apartment rooms. Since she went to work for Iron Hoof, Melody has been accompanying Flame and the band on tours around Equestria to witness their rising popularity.

After returning from an Iron Hoof concert in the Crystal Empire, Melody made it up to the second floor of her apartment building and pushed her door open with her hoof. As she let out a sigh and trotted into her apartment room, she heard a shriek from the neighboring room.

"Scarlet! SCARLET!!" The figure of a full-grown mare galloped into Melody's room. Her fur was cyan blue, her mane was multi-colored, and there were tears streaming down her fushia eyes.

"Mom..?" Melody faced her mother, her expression filled with fear and worry. "...What happened?"

Rainbow Dash wiped the tears from her eyes with her hoof. "Scarlet, it's..it's your father. There was an accident in Ponyville during his business trip..."

"You mean he's..?" Scarlet galloped into the arms of her mother in an uncontrollable fit of crying.

"Don't worry..we get to see your father one last time. Now, hurry up and get ready."

Rainbow and Scarlet rode the train from Filly Dephia to Ponyville. Once they arrived, they decided they had to ask directions to find how to get to the funeral. Rainbow spotted somepony in particular that she recognized from when she was around Scarlet's age.

"Pinkie Pie!" Rainbow cried out, calling the attention of a full grown mare with pink fur and a lighter-pink fluffy mane and tail.

Pinkie recognized that mane from anywhere and gasped once she saw her."OHMYGOSH RAINBOW DASH!" She galloped up to the two pegasi. "We have sooo much we need to catch up on! You know, i'm in charge of Sugar Cube Corner, right? Mr. and Mrs. Cake were thinking of letting Pound and Pumpkin Cake take over, but they got cutie marks that didn't have anything to do with baking, and I already baked lots and lots of cupcakes and cakes and other things before, like that one time when I baked the Marzapan Marzkapon Marang Madness. Anyway, they trusted me with the shop. Isn't that cool?" Pinkie took a big breath once she finished, after saying all of that in one breath.

"Yeah, Pinkie...great.." Rainbow sighed, as she tried to get her mind back onto her original purpose in calling the earth pony over. "We were actually wondering if you could give us directions to...where we could find Soarin'."

Pinkie gave the statement some thought, then lead Rainbow and Scarlet to the funeral home herself. The pink earth pony then decided to hide under their seat, as if somepony would suspect she wasn't close enough to Soarin' to be his friend. Rainbow smiled a bittersweet smile at the thought of Pinkie's antics, knowing that she hasn't changed that much from when they were fillies in Ponyville.

After the funeral session, Pinkie came out of under the seat. "Aww, so I guess this means you two will be heading back to Filly Delphia now, huh?"

"I guess so, Pinkie." Rainbow looked over to her side, where Scarlet was sitting next to her. "Are you ready to go back to Filly Dephia, Scarlet?" The red pegasus nodded her head, and they trotted out of the funeral home with Pinkie.

"Pinkie, you can't come with us."

"But Rainbow, we haven't seen eachother in sooo long. I'm sure the others would really want to see you again, too. Oh, especially Twilight, since Spike grew up and she had to give him away before he became super nasty since we all know what happens when a dragon grows up, so she lives alone with Owlicious, and Owlicious can't even talk."

"Way to make me feel bad for going back, Pinkie."

.......

"Pinkie?" Rainbow stopped trotting and turned back to face Pinkie Pie, stopping Scarlet from going farther than her. The pink mare's face was covered in tears. "Pinkie, I didn't try to hurt your feelings. Please...stop crying. I didn't want to make you feel bad. I just felt bad for Twilight."

Sigh. Rainbow put her hoof over her face. "Look, Pinkie. If I stay here in Ponyville, will you stop crying?" Pinkie's face lit right up after that question left Rainbow Dash's mouth. "I'm not just doing this for you, either. I want all of my friends here to be happy. Scarlet's old enough to make friends all on her own, too."

Scarlet looked up at Rainbow Dash. "You..mean it, mom? I'll be living all alone in Filly Delphia?" The cyan pegasus only nodded her head.

"Be careful, dear." Rainbow was waving her hoof to her child, who was boarding the train back home.

Scarlet got in and looked out of the door to her mother, hoding a case that contained Soarin's old Wonderbolts uniform, crying. "I will. Don't worry, mom. I'll come visit when I can."

The two pegasi waving, the pink earth pony sobbing while holding tight a yellow pegasus, the purple and white unicorns wiping the tears from their eyes respectfully, and the whole Ponyville Apple family sending Scarlet off,

ends our story.