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Organised by
RogerDodger
Word limit
2000–25000
First Instrument
Silence has a way of resonating for a lot longer than most sounds do. Sure, yelling at the walls of the right canyon or concert hall can be fun, but that kind of echo is really just stretching out the same sound for a few seconds. Unlike a yell, or a chord, or a thunderclap, a good enough silence can stick with you for years, and it can even come back on you when you thought it had ended.
Silence can whisper. Silence can roar. Silence can sing. Silence can accuse.
Follow Spot slammed my front door for what I was sure would be the last time, and the silence left in the wake of that single heavy bang was the kind that did all four of those things at once. Now that the house was empty, it was all I could hear.
I stood there for a long few seconds, staring at the inside of my front door. It was a sturdy old thing pounded together from planks and nails, just like the rest of the house. I thought about throwing that door open and running after him, yelling his name like a damn idiot, begging him to come back to me. I also thought of throwing that door open and yelling something else entirely--something along the lines ofFuck you, I never needed you, I hope the next girl gelds you in your sleep. I almost did the second one, except that I had already been standing there thinking about it for long enough that I decided that it was too late anyway.
So I just turned and headed back to my bedroom. Except I didn’t make it there--I knew I would still be able to smell Follow Spot on the sheets. So I headed for the fridge instead, but I didn’t make it there either--I altered my course when I realized just what it was that I needed, far more than a drink or a pillow to cry into.
Behind the kitchen table was a closet, and on the floor inside the closet was a bundle of black cloth, and beneath the heavy cloth was a dull wooden case, exactly four spans long and one span across. The treble clef on the cover was just as precisely, perfectly carved as I remembered. I smiled for the first time in I don’t know how long, and held that smile even as I gripped the handle with my teeth. The weight, the shallow scratches in the surface, the grooves that my teeth had etched into the grip after countless times hefting it like this... it had been waiting for me, and for a long time at that. Who was I to deny it what it deserved?
The sun was nearing the horizon and the trees were starting to whistle in the cool breeze rolling in from the lake. The smile on my face just got wider as I felt the wind pull at my bandanna and hat. My roof would give a perfect view of what was sure to be a beautiful, cloudless sunset.
The latch on the case clicked open with only a light touch--it had been designed and carved by a master, after all. I took a long, cleansing breath as I lifted the lid away. The black satin lining the case hissed softly as it was exposed to the air for the first time in years, and golden sunlight flashed harshly against the polished surface of my fiddle.
Not a violin: a fiddle. My bow would never rise and fall in unison with a rank of identical bows; the instrument I played would never stand at attention with its “section” in an orchestra.
I lifted it from its resting place without reverence or ceremony; the fiddle and I knew each other too well for that, even if it had been years since we’d last played together. Its weight melted into my body as I braced it against my shoulder, and the bow was an extension of my hoof, as if it had always been there.
A few passing ponies looked curiously up at my distinctive shilouette as I reared and prepared to play. Balanced on my hind legs, with fiddle rasied and hat angled to block out the sun, I closed my eyes and took just one more deep breath before flowing into the first stroke.
Feeling its small weight against my hoof and shoulder, smelling the lacquered wood for the first time, was a moment of electric intimacy that I would never forget. I angled my head slightly and felt the smooth, cool wood against my cheek while the overlarge pad dug into my jaw and collar. The bow was also too large, but in my hoof it was a magic wand, the medium through which I could interact with this new world that I was discovering.
“Very nice,” said my instructor’s distant voice. “Most fillies take a lot longer to learn how to hold a fiddle properly. Now, turn to the first page of the music book...”
I wasn’t listening; I was too busy exploring the thing’s neck with the tip of my hoof, tracing delicately down its side, head to base and then back again. At the time, I didn’t know what to call the curves and indents of the instrument’s body--I only knew that they were beautiful. The neat, flowing edges, the way the taut strings hovered low over the face, suspended by their ends, tightly controlled but free to hum.
The sound that came from the fiddle as I drew the bow across its strings was an unabashed wail of pure, dissonant glory. It sounded like the blare of a horn crossed with the yowl of an old tom defending its territory. The bow shivered in my hand as it tasted the strings with tentative firmness, and the fiddle vibrated into my shoulder in return. I stretched the note out as long as I could, filling the room with raspy joy that felt like it was coming directly from my heart. When I reached the end of the bow, I started pushing back towards the other end, bringing out another keening cry.
Mrs. Fuji ended the lesson early and sent me home to practice with the fiddle. She didn’t even tell me that when I turned my back on her, I also flashed her my freshly earned cutie marks--a blue treble clef on each haunch.
Mahogany was his name. He was a rakish young thing, with evergreen eyes that belonged to a colt, not a stallion--no matter how much he wanted to be a stallion at that moment. His autumn coat and wildfire mane were dull brown and orange in the low lamplight, but his eyes actually seemed more reflective in the near-darkness.
He was young. Well, we both were, but he was younger. I’d had a pair of cutie marks for close to three years, whereas Mohagany had only learned his destiny as a woodcarver a few months ago. His cutie mark depicted a chisel peeling a curl of wood from a board.
“I love you, Fiddle,” he told me in a scratchy whisper. I lost sight of his eyes, but I felt his fluttering breath against my neck as he leaned forward to nuzzle me--an awkward motion when the two of us were crammed into a storage shed, so small that we were braced against opposite walls and still nearly bumping chests with each other.
“I love you too,” I murmured back.
For a little while, the only sounds in the room were the expectant heartbeats of a mare and a stallion, and the hesitant breaths of a filly and a colt.
I made the first move. I scrunched my body backwards so that I could face him again, then kissed him. Sweetly at first--then pressing forward until it was a kiss unlike any I had ever given him before. I wanted to breathe my soul into him, to pour my being into him with lips, tongue, and breath until there was nothing left in me and he had all of both of us. He pressed back, stopping my tongue with his, my fervor with his. He raised one forehoof, rested it against my head, then traced the tip delicately down the side of my neck.
I broke away, leaving Mahogany mouthing at empty space. I somehow managed to twist a full hundred eighty degrees in the tiny space, without knocking over one of the racks of tools, and backed towards him until my rear nearly touched his chest. “Come on,” I panted, flashing him both of my freshly earned cutie marks. “Come on...”
He finally understood when I flicked my tail at him, first to the left, then to the right, like a single sweep of a metronome. Before the second beat, he almost knocked me over with a botched attempt to mount me, a crookedly aimed lunge that ended with him trying to drag me down sideways.
His second attempt landed his forelegs squarely on my sides, and we both gasped as something of his brushed against something of mine. He shifted his weight, and pressing the head into me just enough so that it came to a rest there, poised at my entrance.
“I love you,” he said again, directly into my ear.
“Do it!” I gasped back.
At those words, I felt Mahogany inhale sharply, like a singer getting ready to belt the first note of a song.
He entered me in a single flowing stroke. It hurt. I wanted more. I sang back an unabashed wail of pure, dissonant glory. When he reached the end of my depth, he pulled back again, drawing out another keening cry as his flare glided painfully, wonderfully, across places on my body that had never been touched before.
We went on that way for only a little while more, long enough for him to discover some of the notes that he could play on my body. He slowed, sped, and rested without rhyme or reason, exploring my body unfettered by rules or expectations. Sometimes he touched me almost reverently, exploring my body with the innocence of a curious foal. Other times he plunged me without restraint, daring to let his instincts impose their primal will upon both of our bodies.
We parted ways at the end of the night, but we promised to meet again. Eventually, we developed a kind of code in a childish attempt to keep our “secret” from classmates and parents: we called our little sessions “music lessons.”
“Very good, Fiddlesticks. I can tell that you’ve gotten much more diligent about practicing.” Mrs. Fuji smiled at me as she said it, but there was a question in her smile.
I just nodded.
“Well, let’s move on to the next song. Turn to ‘Eastwind Sonata’.”
I turned the page, raised my fiddle, and poised the bow.
“Six, seven, eight...”
I played. I did well. Mrs. Fuji was right--I had been practicing with the fiddle a lot recently, in order to fill the silence that had suddenly taken hold of my life. I played in perfect time, controlling the pressure, speed, and placement of my bow to produce a perfect sound.
“Very good.” She smiled that same questioning smile at me, and allowed the silence to settle over the room for a little while.
I quickly spoke up. “What shall I play next, Mrs. Fuji?”
This time she didn’t let me win so easily. “Why did you suddenly decide to start practicing so well?”
“I have more time now,” I monotoned.
“Really? What was your time occupied by before?”
I tried to turn away before letting Mrs. Fuji see how my expression had soured at that question. I failed. “Other music lessons,” I said, hefting my instrument and poising my bow again as a way to demand that Mrs. Fuji give me the order to play the next song. “I’ve decided that the fiddle is the right one for me.”
Mrs. Fuji nodded once. “Good. I’d hate for you to quit after you went through all the trouble of getting a friend to carve you that nice carrying case. I’m glad you’re back in the saddle, as it were.” Her smile was still the same.
This time, I just let the silence hang. I’d already been forced to hear that silence in every gap between songs and conversations for the last few weeks, so what was the point in trying to fight it now?
“Well, never mind. Turn to--Ah, I see you already have. Ready... five, six, seven eight...”
The last note echoed through the streets of the town for a few moments, and then was gone. No applause, of course--just the hiss of the wind in the darkening post-twilight, mingling with my own panting breaths. I realized that I was sweating, and that my forelegs hurt from how frantically I’d been playing.
My bow hung limp at my side, but I still balanced the fiddle on my shoulder as I looked out over the darkening town, trying to close my ears to the silence that I knew would soon follow the ending of my song. I wondered if the rutter who’d slammed the door on me this morning had heard me play. I envisioned him stopping in the middle of the street, then turning to look towards the roof of the house he’d stormed out of, only to see me there, playing a song that he was no longer part of.
And then, before I could stop myself, I dared to wonder if Mahogany had heard me play. I imagined him wandering the streets doing this or that--and then he’d stop, upon hearing the voice of an instrument that he’d been intimately familiar with, so long ago. He’d look up, and see me, shilouetted against the evening sky with fiddle raised and hat lowered...
And maybe he’d turn back to his mare and keep on leading her home. “It’s nothing,” he would say. “Just someone playing a song that I used to like.”
Or maybe his breath would catch in his chest, and he’d drop whatever he was doing and start running towards where he’d heard an echo from his past, rushing to join me in singing this song that had always been about him and him alone. He would run to my door and knock three times without a second thought, only then stopping to catch his breath. When I came to answer the door, I would see Mahogany there, with his autumn coat and wildfire mane, and he’d look up at me with those eyes, deep evergreen eyes that still belonged to the colt from all those years ago, shining all the brighter in the dying sunlight. I’d invite him in, and...
I set the fiddle back into its case, then fitted the lid back over the top, and latched it.
Dusk faded into night, and the world around me lay silent.
Silence can whisper. Silence can roar. Silence can sing. Silence can accuse.
Follow Spot slammed my front door for what I was sure would be the last time, and the silence left in the wake of that single heavy bang was the kind that did all four of those things at once. Now that the house was empty, it was all I could hear.
I stood there for a long few seconds, staring at the inside of my front door. It was a sturdy old thing pounded together from planks and nails, just like the rest of the house. I thought about throwing that door open and running after him, yelling his name like a damn idiot, begging him to come back to me. I also thought of throwing that door open and yelling something else entirely--something along the lines ofFuck you, I never needed you, I hope the next girl gelds you in your sleep. I almost did the second one, except that I had already been standing there thinking about it for long enough that I decided that it was too late anyway.
So I just turned and headed back to my bedroom. Except I didn’t make it there--I knew I would still be able to smell Follow Spot on the sheets. So I headed for the fridge instead, but I didn’t make it there either--I altered my course when I realized just what it was that I needed, far more than a drink or a pillow to cry into.
Behind the kitchen table was a closet, and on the floor inside the closet was a bundle of black cloth, and beneath the heavy cloth was a dull wooden case, exactly four spans long and one span across. The treble clef on the cover was just as precisely, perfectly carved as I remembered. I smiled for the first time in I don’t know how long, and held that smile even as I gripped the handle with my teeth. The weight, the shallow scratches in the surface, the grooves that my teeth had etched into the grip after countless times hefting it like this... it had been waiting for me, and for a long time at that. Who was I to deny it what it deserved?
The sun was nearing the horizon and the trees were starting to whistle in the cool breeze rolling in from the lake. The smile on my face just got wider as I felt the wind pull at my bandanna and hat. My roof would give a perfect view of what was sure to be a beautiful, cloudless sunset.
The latch on the case clicked open with only a light touch--it had been designed and carved by a master, after all. I took a long, cleansing breath as I lifted the lid away. The black satin lining the case hissed softly as it was exposed to the air for the first time in years, and golden sunlight flashed harshly against the polished surface of my fiddle.
Not a violin: a fiddle. My bow would never rise and fall in unison with a rank of identical bows; the instrument I played would never stand at attention with its “section” in an orchestra.
I lifted it from its resting place without reverence or ceremony; the fiddle and I knew each other too well for that, even if it had been years since we’d last played together. Its weight melted into my body as I braced it against my shoulder, and the bow was an extension of my hoof, as if it had always been there.
A few passing ponies looked curiously up at my distinctive shilouette as I reared and prepared to play. Balanced on my hind legs, with fiddle rasied and hat angled to block out the sun, I closed my eyes and took just one more deep breath before flowing into the first stroke.
Feeling its small weight against my hoof and shoulder, smelling the lacquered wood for the first time, was a moment of electric intimacy that I would never forget. I angled my head slightly and felt the smooth, cool wood against my cheek while the overlarge pad dug into my jaw and collar. The bow was also too large, but in my hoof it was a magic wand, the medium through which I could interact with this new world that I was discovering.
“Very nice,” said my instructor’s distant voice. “Most fillies take a lot longer to learn how to hold a fiddle properly. Now, turn to the first page of the music book...”
I wasn’t listening; I was too busy exploring the thing’s neck with the tip of my hoof, tracing delicately down its side, head to base and then back again. At the time, I didn’t know what to call the curves and indents of the instrument’s body--I only knew that they were beautiful. The neat, flowing edges, the way the taut strings hovered low over the face, suspended by their ends, tightly controlled but free to hum.
The sound that came from the fiddle as I drew the bow across its strings was an unabashed wail of pure, dissonant glory. It sounded like the blare of a horn crossed with the yowl of an old tom defending its territory. The bow shivered in my hand as it tasted the strings with tentative firmness, and the fiddle vibrated into my shoulder in return. I stretched the note out as long as I could, filling the room with raspy joy that felt like it was coming directly from my heart. When I reached the end of the bow, I started pushing back towards the other end, bringing out another keening cry.
Mrs. Fuji ended the lesson early and sent me home to practice with the fiddle. She didn’t even tell me that when I turned my back on her, I also flashed her my freshly earned cutie marks--a blue treble clef on each haunch.
Mahogany was his name. He was a rakish young thing, with evergreen eyes that belonged to a colt, not a stallion--no matter how much he wanted to be a stallion at that moment. His autumn coat and wildfire mane were dull brown and orange in the low lamplight, but his eyes actually seemed more reflective in the near-darkness.
He was young. Well, we both were, but he was younger. I’d had a pair of cutie marks for close to three years, whereas Mohagany had only learned his destiny as a woodcarver a few months ago. His cutie mark depicted a chisel peeling a curl of wood from a board.
“I love you, Fiddle,” he told me in a scratchy whisper. I lost sight of his eyes, but I felt his fluttering breath against my neck as he leaned forward to nuzzle me--an awkward motion when the two of us were crammed into a storage shed, so small that we were braced against opposite walls and still nearly bumping chests with each other.
“I love you too,” I murmured back.
For a little while, the only sounds in the room were the expectant heartbeats of a mare and a stallion, and the hesitant breaths of a filly and a colt.
I made the first move. I scrunched my body backwards so that I could face him again, then kissed him. Sweetly at first--then pressing forward until it was a kiss unlike any I had ever given him before. I wanted to breathe my soul into him, to pour my being into him with lips, tongue, and breath until there was nothing left in me and he had all of both of us. He pressed back, stopping my tongue with his, my fervor with his. He raised one forehoof, rested it against my head, then traced the tip delicately down the side of my neck.
I broke away, leaving Mahogany mouthing at empty space. I somehow managed to twist a full hundred eighty degrees in the tiny space, without knocking over one of the racks of tools, and backed towards him until my rear nearly touched his chest. “Come on,” I panted, flashing him both of my freshly earned cutie marks. “Come on...”
He finally understood when I flicked my tail at him, first to the left, then to the right, like a single sweep of a metronome. Before the second beat, he almost knocked me over with a botched attempt to mount me, a crookedly aimed lunge that ended with him trying to drag me down sideways.
His second attempt landed his forelegs squarely on my sides, and we both gasped as something of his brushed against something of mine. He shifted his weight, and pressing the head into me just enough so that it came to a rest there, poised at my entrance.
“I love you,” he said again, directly into my ear.
“Do it!” I gasped back.
At those words, I felt Mahogany inhale sharply, like a singer getting ready to belt the first note of a song.
He entered me in a single flowing stroke. It hurt. I wanted more. I sang back an unabashed wail of pure, dissonant glory. When he reached the end of my depth, he pulled back again, drawing out another keening cry as his flare glided painfully, wonderfully, across places on my body that had never been touched before.
We went on that way for only a little while more, long enough for him to discover some of the notes that he could play on my body. He slowed, sped, and rested without rhyme or reason, exploring my body unfettered by rules or expectations. Sometimes he touched me almost reverently, exploring my body with the innocence of a curious foal. Other times he plunged me without restraint, daring to let his instincts impose their primal will upon both of our bodies.
We parted ways at the end of the night, but we promised to meet again. Eventually, we developed a kind of code in a childish attempt to keep our “secret” from classmates and parents: we called our little sessions “music lessons.”
“Very good, Fiddlesticks. I can tell that you’ve gotten much more diligent about practicing.” Mrs. Fuji smiled at me as she said it, but there was a question in her smile.
I just nodded.
“Well, let’s move on to the next song. Turn to ‘Eastwind Sonata’.”
I turned the page, raised my fiddle, and poised the bow.
“Six, seven, eight...”
I played. I did well. Mrs. Fuji was right--I had been practicing with the fiddle a lot recently, in order to fill the silence that had suddenly taken hold of my life. I played in perfect time, controlling the pressure, speed, and placement of my bow to produce a perfect sound.
“Very good.” She smiled that same questioning smile at me, and allowed the silence to settle over the room for a little while.
I quickly spoke up. “What shall I play next, Mrs. Fuji?”
This time she didn’t let me win so easily. “Why did you suddenly decide to start practicing so well?”
“I have more time now,” I monotoned.
“Really? What was your time occupied by before?”
I tried to turn away before letting Mrs. Fuji see how my expression had soured at that question. I failed. “Other music lessons,” I said, hefting my instrument and poising my bow again as a way to demand that Mrs. Fuji give me the order to play the next song. “I’ve decided that the fiddle is the right one for me.”
Mrs. Fuji nodded once. “Good. I’d hate for you to quit after you went through all the trouble of getting a friend to carve you that nice carrying case. I’m glad you’re back in the saddle, as it were.” Her smile was still the same.
This time, I just let the silence hang. I’d already been forced to hear that silence in every gap between songs and conversations for the last few weeks, so what was the point in trying to fight it now?
“Well, never mind. Turn to--Ah, I see you already have. Ready... five, six, seven eight...”
The last note echoed through the streets of the town for a few moments, and then was gone. No applause, of course--just the hiss of the wind in the darkening post-twilight, mingling with my own panting breaths. I realized that I was sweating, and that my forelegs hurt from how frantically I’d been playing.
My bow hung limp at my side, but I still balanced the fiddle on my shoulder as I looked out over the darkening town, trying to close my ears to the silence that I knew would soon follow the ending of my song. I wondered if the rutter who’d slammed the door on me this morning had heard me play. I envisioned him stopping in the middle of the street, then turning to look towards the roof of the house he’d stormed out of, only to see me there, playing a song that he was no longer part of.
And then, before I could stop myself, I dared to wonder if Mahogany had heard me play. I imagined him wandering the streets doing this or that--and then he’d stop, upon hearing the voice of an instrument that he’d been intimately familiar with, so long ago. He’d look up, and see me, shilouetted against the evening sky with fiddle raised and hat lowered...
And maybe he’d turn back to his mare and keep on leading her home. “It’s nothing,” he would say. “Just someone playing a song that I used to like.”
Or maybe his breath would catch in his chest, and he’d drop whatever he was doing and start running towards where he’d heard an echo from his past, rushing to join me in singing this song that had always been about him and him alone. He would run to my door and knock three times without a second thought, only then stopping to catch his breath. When I came to answer the door, I would see Mahogany there, with his autumn coat and wildfire mane, and he’d look up at me with those eyes, deep evergreen eyes that still belonged to the colt from all those years ago, shining all the brighter in the dying sunlight. I’d invite him in, and...
I set the fiddle back into its case, then fitted the lid back over the top, and latched it.
Dusk faded into night, and the world around me lay silent.