Music of Time

“Mr. Akins, the Princess requests your audience at this time.” One of the servants said to me.

“Alright. Tell her I’ll be right there.” I respond. I lay down the paper and quill I had in my hand on the desk and rise. I glance at the mirror. I was wearing a simply navy blue suit with a lighter blue tie, courtesy of the castle’s tailor.

It had been two and a half weeks since my musical conversation with Celestia. I was moved from the medical ward to one of the guest rooms since I was for the most part healed. After a quick, and embarrassing, run down of why I wore clothes, the tailor was more than happy to make me clothes. However, the tailor decided to make me suits. Not that I was complaining, of course. The suits were very well made and it was a lot better than walking around shirtless in my jeans for an indefinite amount of time.

Back to the story.

I straightened my tie and started walking down the corridor to the throne room. The guards glanced up at me and nodded. The unicorn on the left’s horn glowed a dark blue and the doors swung open. I nodded back and smiled before entering. Celestia was sitting on her throne, reading through a scroll. She looked up and set the scroll off to the side of her throne.

“Hello, Zachary.” She said with a smile.

“Hello, Celestia. You called for me?” I responded.

“Indeed I did. I brought you here to call you out on a favor you promised me awhile ago.” She said with a mischievous smile.

“That promise was…?” I asked with uncertainty.

“You promised to play me a song on your instrument whenever you were healthy enough. It has been two and a half weeks, I’m sure you’re healed enough.”

I chuckled before responding. “Ah. That promise, of course. How could I have forgotten? I can do that for you, I just need my saxophones.” I said before turning to walk.

“No need for that, we already have them here.” She raised a hoof to stop me. “They’re in the corner to your right.”

I glanced to where she pointed to see four cases of varying sizes. I looked back to her and smiled before walking over to the black leather cases. I looked over my options and decided to go from the highest to the lowest. It was also because the Baritone sax was my favorite, so I wanted to save it for last. I assembled the Soprano sax and clipped onto my neck strap before walking back to Celestia.

“Well, you wanted a show, and that’s what I’ll give. Now, I haven’t played in a week or so, so forgive me if I mess up once or twice.”

“That’s quite alright.” Celestia said with a smile.

“Alright.” I lifted the saxophone up to my face. “Here we go.” With that, I started to play. She seemed to like it, whether it was the music or more dancing as I played, though I use the term ‘Dancing’ loosely since it was more swaying. After I was done, she gave me a short applause before I spoke.

“The Soprano saxophone.” I said, holding up the instrument. “Thank you. Now, I’m going to go grab my Alto sax and we’ll move right on.”

After packing away my current saxophone, I assembled the next one before walking back once again. Without a word, I started to play. She seemed to like this one too. I had mostly gotten out of my funk and was back to playing normally, so I decided to do a bit of improv during that song.

Once again, she gave me applause when I was over. I walked back over and repeated the same process as I did before. I stood before her again and held up my next saxophone.

“The Tenor sax.” I quickly said. Without another word, I started to play. This one was entirely improv, so I had quite a bit of freedom in what I could play, which is the beauty of improv. That’s why improv soloists can put a lot of feeling into their music.

Anyway, once I was finished, I received Celestia’s normal applause, but this time I heard some more from behind me. I turned around to see Luna and a plethora of staff members standing in the doorway. Their smiles told me they liked it. I took a bow before speaking.

“Well, I have no idea how long ya’ll have been standing there, but thank you for your applause. I have one more saxophone to show off, so why don’t ya’ll get on in here?” Everyone, or Everypony if you want, trotted in and formed a semicircle around me to watch.

I walked back and put away the Tenor before grabbing the Baritone’s case. I looked behind me, everypony was talking to each other and there was a pillar blocking most of their view. Good. I unlatched the four silver latches, and opened the black case. Inside, was a beautiful, gleaming, brand-new Baritone saxophone. I had only had it for about a week, and I had saved up for it ever since I got out of high-school. This eleven thousand dollar beauty was my pride and joy. I assembled it and clipped it onto the harness strap instead of a neck strap, since it weighed a good bit more than the others.

Standing up, I turned and started to play as I walked back. Once again, it was all improv. Everypony ceased their conversations as I casually strolled out. I had messed up on a few notes at the end, but none of them seemed to mind. When I finished, they applauded before I spoke up.

“Thank you all very much. Now, before I start I would like to say a couple things. One, ya’ll have been a fantastic audience and I hope to perform again soon. And Two, this is my pride and joy, the Baritone saxophone. This beauty is a Yamaha YBS62E Baritone Saxophone. This thing costs around eleven thousand dollars. Now, I think from what I understand, that’s about twenty-two thousand bits. So, yeah. Very nice instrument. Anyway, onto the next song.”

I started to play a song I saw someone play on YouTube once, and went off of whatever I could remember. I threw in a bit of improv to fill in the parts I didn’t remember. Once I finished, I took a bow as I received the pony equivalent of a standing ovation.

As a joke, I said. “Thank you, I’ll be here all week!” I then turned to put away my saxophone. Once I was finished I walked back over to Celestia and saw that everyone had left except her and Luna.

“Bravo! That was a wonderful performance!” Luna said to me.

“Well, thank you, my dear. It pleases me greatly to see your enjoyment.” I said, trying to copy her Old English dialect.

“You are a wonderful Musician, Zachary.” Celestia said from her place on her throne.

“Thanks. Both of you. I really do appreciate it. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to head back to my chambers.”

“I agree.” Luna said. “I also need to return to my chambers to get ready for the night court.” With that, she bid farewell to both of us and left the room. Before I could leave, however, Celestia stopped me.

“What are you doing in your chambers, Zachary? For the past week you’ve been locked up in there, only coming out to eat.”

I smiled. “Just a little something I wanted to do.”

“Will you tell me what it is?” Celestia asked with a smile.

“Nope.” I said simply.

“I assume it’s a surprise?” She asked.

“Of course. Goodbye for now, Celestia. I will be see you at dinner, correct?” I asked.

“Of course.” She said. With that I turned and started down the hall.

Today was a good day.