The End - Part 1: Alicorn of Music · 12:38am Aug 20th, 2019
Welcome to the end, we'll start things off with the story that I'd already begun writing: Alicorn of Music. Originally a story by Elu, that had grown quite infamous, I decided to try my own hand at the concept. Only when I was starting to finish up Divine Intervention, did the plans to integrate this story into the Divine Universe take shape. During Intervention, I dropped hints to this happening, although nobody picked up on it, which was just as planned. More on what those hints were, later. I'll start this summary off where the story left off, and as a special little sumthin sumethin, I'll actually post what I'd already written of the next chapter here. Enjoy:
I awoke with a start, looking around with confusion as it took me a second to realize that I was safe. A nightmare had woken me up before the roosters usually did, and even though I tried to remember, the contents of said dream were rapidly fading. For some reason the image of a well dressed man trying to take away my clothes remained in my head, though.
Annoyed, I shook my head in an attempt to get rid of my remaining sleepiness, before taking another, calmer, look around. I was still safe and sound in what has become my bed, and while I wasn’t wearing any clothes, it wasn’t due to some suited maniac taking them away from me. My hoodie still rested on the chair beside my bed, just where I left it.
The fact that it was steadily getting brighter inside the room tipped me off that it was just about dawn, and sure enough, just a little while later the rooster outside crowed to greet the mornig. Seeing as I was wide awake already anyway, I got up from the bed and started patting down my hair and fur where it was out of place. It would be easier and faster to use a brush for this, but since I couldn’t magically levitate things, and my hoof skills were rather bad still. I was better off just doing it like this.
I spread out my wings a bit and gave them some experimental flaps, which had become something of my morning ritual. I still didn’t have much skill in moving them, but after at least trying every now and then, I was beginning to gain some semblance of control. One of my feathers seemed to have gotten loose and fell to the ground, a sight I had gotten used to as well.
Every now and again, a feather or two would just naturally fall off. I would then take great care to collect, hide, and then discreetly dispose of them when nopony, and no animal was watching. After the close call at Rarity’s boutique, I made sure that I always treated my wings with care. Today as well, I tried lightly pawing at my wings to see if any more would fall out. Thankfully, none of them seemed to want to vacate their positions, so I went on with my morning and put on my trusty hoodie.
“Good morning Fluttershy,” I said after going down and into the kitchen, where my host was alrady preparing breakfast.
“Good morning to you too, Beat,” Fluttershy smiled at me, seemingly excited about something. “Did you sleep well?”
“Yes, I did. Thanks for letting me sleep in a bit,” I sat down on my chair, which was remarkably bunny-free today.
“We wouldn’t want you to be sleepy on your first day of school now, wouldn’t we?” she let out a happy chuckle, setting down a pitcher of freshly pressed orange juice in front of me.
“I’m sure I’ll still won’t be able to retain everything I’ll learn today,” I said as I poured myself a glass with only slight difficulties. “There’s going to be lots of new things.”
“Yes, isn’t it exciting?”
“It most certainly is,” I replied to a beaming Fluttershy. She seemed almost more excited about this whole school thing than I was, although I couldn’t quite figure out why. “My body is ready to get more knowledge.”
“And just think of all the friends you’ll be able to make,” Fluttershy set down the finished breakfast on the table, which turned out to be quite a spread, most likely to celebrate my entry into school-life.
“Oh yeah… that,” Fluttershy didn’t seem to notice my rather unenthused answer, absorbed in her own little world. Obviously, our intentions differed greatly from each other which caused the conversation to derail slightly. Thankfully it was held together by Fluttershy’s rather unusual enthusiasm.
“Are you sure you want to walk to school alone?” Fluttershy asked, suddenly turning rather serious.
“Yes, definitely,” I nodded. “I wouldn’t want you to neglect all the friendly animals that live around here just because of me. Besides, I know the way and I can take care of myself. I’ll be fine.
“I’m sure they wouldn’t mind waiting a little bit before I tend to them…” Flutteshy pouted a little, which almost caused me to cave by sheer force of cute.
“Probably not,” I agreed, “but I could really use some alone time before going to school, you know? To mentally prepare myself and stuff.”
“Alright then, I wouldn’t want to impose…” and just like that, regular Fluttershy was back. She had been quite adamant about accompanying me to school, almost giddy even, before I dropped the bombshell on her that I wanted to walk there by myself.
Ever since then it had been a mixture of her asking me if I was sure, and her assuring me that she was respecting my wishes. I felt a bit bad denying her this simple wish that would have definitely made her happy, but I really needed some time alone. Ever since I emerged from the Everfree Forest I was always in close proximity to another pony. Always having to hide the real me was already starting to take a toll on me, and I just needed a bit of time to myself so I could relax, and just be me.
“Thanks Fluttershy, I really appreciate it,” I showed her a genuine smile, which seemed to relax her somehwhat, before digging into the hearty breakfast.
It wasn’t long before it was time for me to leave, and Fluttershy insisted to at least see me off. She accompanied me up to the small creek in front of her cottage, giving me a hug, and then waving after me until I was out of sight.
Once I was sure she couldn’t see me anymore, I breathed a huge sigh of relief, feeling as if a giant weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I took a few deep breaths and took a look around me, taking in the admittedly beautiful and undisturbed scenery. I took a moment to just sit at the side of the path leading into ponyville and rest my mind, before taking up the walk again. If I took my sweet time with getting to school I could probably get about twnty minutes of time for myself, which was just fine with me.
As I walked, I actually got pretty excited about going to school myself. Ever since I got here I had to dodge dicey questions, hide my identity, not just as a plane-walking anomaly, but as an alicorn as well. And now that I had settled the most crucial parts of my arrival, I was starting to appreciate the opportunity that presented itself before me, which was to explore a completely different world than the one I came from. There were people back on earth that would kill for a chance like this, and I here I was, living the dream.
I happily strolled along the path, and felt a little song bubble up inside me. Hearing it always made me feel happy for some reason, and although I wasn’t a good singer by a long shot, I felt this urgent need to just… sing. I bobbed my head a bit as I could practically hear the jaunty little tune that was the opening of the song, before jumping on my cue to start.
“I’m sitting here in a boring room, it’s just another rainy sunday afternoon. I’m wasting my time, I got… nothing… to do?”
My happy little rendition of Fool’s Garden’s Lemon Tree came to a sputtering stop, as did my body. I furrowed my brows, as there were several things wrong with what had just happened.
First off, my voice sounded amazing. This might come off as a little egocentric, but I could definitley confirm that I had never before sang so on key as I did just now. While I could chalk this one up to me inhabiting a completely different body, with a matching set of vocal chords. The other thing was a bit harder to explain.
Fucking. Music.
I was one-hundred percent sure I was able to actually hear the music that accompanied the song. Not just in my head, but in actual real life. It was enough to cause me to question reality, and check my surroundings for some sort of hidden orchestra or band that was hiding behind a bush that just so happened to accompany my little musical stint.
My confusion persisted as I proceed to not find anything of the sort, before slowly picking back up my pace. I was beginning to chalk the weird phenomenom up to magic, the true explenation to everything, before realising that I could just try to verify through experimentation.
I picked up where I left off and continued singing with my newly discovered amazing voice. Much to my happiness, the great voice persisted, which meant that I could now sing my favorite songs without feeling bad for the artists who made them. The same thing couldn’t be said about the ethereal music, since it vehemently refused to show up again.
Not for a lack of trying, since I continued to belch out various songs all the way to ponyville, before stopping due to not wanting to get a weird reputation as “that one singing colt”. I made a mental note about asking either Cheerilee about it, or maybe Fluttershy later and continued walking through ponyville while keeping a low profile.
It didn’t take long for me to arrive at the path leading up to the dainty school building, and I could already hear the commotion that came with lots of children being gathered in the same place. Before long, the school as well as all of it’s attendands came into view, as I got my first look at what would be my classmates for the forseeable future.
Just as their adult counterparts, these fillies and colts were just as colorful in their appearance. A veritable rainbow unfolded before me, as seemed to be the norm whenever you set foot outside your house in Equestria. After a quick glance, I counted twelve young ponies waiting outside the building, divided into little groups, as was par for the course for any school, really. Even alien ones, apparently.
While it wasn’t as easy to categorize them compared to humans, mostly due to the lack of clothing, I was fairly certain I could see two of the rich kids being snooty relatively close to the door. The tiara and haughty atmosphere gave it away, and I made a mental note to not engage with them, since I had more pressing matters to tend to aside from being looked down on by a bunch of children.
As I let my eyes wander, an oddly familiar white filly seemed to spot me, her face brightening up immediately. She got the attention of her two friends to shift to me as well, before making her way over.
“Hey, you’re Steady Beat, right?” The white filly asked.
“Uhh… yeah, that’s me,” I furrowed my brows a bit. “I’m sorry, do I know you?”
“Oh!” An adorable little squeak escaped her. “I’m sorry! I’m Sweetie Belle, Rarity’s sister.”
“Oh yeah, I think I remember seeing you now…” I thought back on the time at Rarity’s boutique, making the connection. “Pleased to meet you again.”
“Likewise! These are my friend, Apple Bloom,” she pointed at the yellow filly, with red hair adorned with a pink bowtie.
“Howdy partner!” Apple Bloom jovially greeted me.
“And Scootaloo,” Sweetie Belle pointed to the orange filly with a messy purple mane.
“Hey, what’s up?” Scootaloo tried to be cool, but the effect failed due to her being a tiny orange horse.
You might notice it cutting off at a rather interesting point. It's the point where I realized my internalized annoyance with small children might hinder my ability to write this story, since they would play a major part in this story. That's what we call a big oof around these parts.
Anyway, if you read it, you might have noticed Beat's first brush with the magic of music. Since the first chapters basically only dealt with Beat establishing his presence in this new world, the titular theme would have started appearing more and more over the next few chapters. The rest of this chapter would have consisted of the classic confrontation with Diamond Tiara/Silver Spoon, because Blank Flanks, amirite? Some school learning would happen, and then finally, Miss cheerilee would tell our boi to go meet Twilight Snarkle for some dank magical training.
The next chapter would then obviously consist of Beat learning magic, and since he's a cheat character with alicorn powers, he'd be somewhat adept at it as well. (For readers of the Divine Series, his affinity would be Energy/Orange Mana). Twilight would also start being a bit suspicious about his abilities, bringing the amount of people who might have an inkling about Beat's real identity up to two!
In the next chapter, which would be very slice of life-y, Beat would go to Ponyville together with Fluttershy, where he'd witness a full blown musical with Pinkie as the center of it all, which would also be where they meet for the first time. Pinkie's shocked to find Beat, since her Pinkie Sense is apparently not working whenever he is involved. Beat decides to talk to Twilight about this weird musical phenomenon the next time they have one of their lessons.
At this point, I'd have more or less just faffed about a bit, wherever the story woulda have taken me, until finally, the story would have reached the point where Tirek showed up(4-5 chapters maybe). At this point the stories would intersect Beat was present when the giant array was set up, and there would be a chapter dedicated to the happenings of that day from Beat's point of view. And this is one of the hints that was dropped in intervention. Atlas sensed two auras that were similar to his own, but couldn't quite place why they felt so familiar.
Most people guessed that these auras were changelings, but no, they were actually ponified humans. If you remember, all the way back in entertainment, it was mentioned how fucked up Atlas mana pathways looked, compared to regular ponies.
Again, much unplanned shenanigans would ensue, whith Beat slowly understanding his connection to the magic of music, while dodging some close calls of his alicornhood almost being discovered, until he eventually would get his cootie mark. The story would end with Atlas finding Beat, because Atlas can easy peasy scan the entirety of ponyville to find Beat's special aura, ultimately finding out that Beat was also a human from earth(and an alicorn).
I'm sorry if this all was a bit vague, but hey, that's how I write stories. Big plot points and a lot of unplanned faffing about in between :D
Well, that's all for AoM. Join me next time on: The End - Part Two: Tales Of The Divine.
When did it say that the magical signatures were similar tl his own, all it said was that they were "oddly familiar"
5108777
Well, his signature isn't very familiar when comparing with a normal pony pathway, considering how effed up his ones are.
So... wait you cancelled this fic and it was also originally a different fic?
5108789
I'm not sure I follow, but yes, AoM is cancelled, and it was a part of the universe I created with my previous trilogy.
5108777
Oh well, different wording than I remembered. Whether they be just familiar or similar, doesn't matter much in the end. It was supposed to be a vague cocktease, and I think it did it's job.
A pity to see this story go but I understand why. Often the little in-between bits are the hardest to make.
a pity and I weep, but I foresaw this.