Octavia’s favorite chord progression is a secret. She hasn’t told a soul about it, written any clues as to how it goes, and she doesn’t dare compose anything with it. She knows better. It’ll never sound as good as it does in her head.

But she thinks about it whenever she loses faith. When her pieces are frowned upon by her peers. When her orchestra plays Beethooven’s Xth Symphony for the thousandth time. She takes out her cello and plays the note that it hides behind.

C. 

It works at any octave. She plays that note, and the movement blooms in her mind, like vines traveling up the bell tower of a broken-down church and making the whole place worth visiting again.

It’s so pedestrian, on paper (figuratively). That’s why she loves it. Chord, scale, chord and scale. 

C-seventh (this she hears).

D pentatonic (this she would play). 

F-seventh (she hears).

G pentatonic (she plays). 

So the pattern goes. The notes don’t matter; there’s a million ways to order them, and it’s different every time she plays that C. It may even go further, if Octavia could ever work up the nerve to explore it.

“You must write it down,” her composition teacher, Filo Forte, scolded her when she accidentally let the secret slip. “If you don’t write it down now, somepony else will play it first. Then what will you do?”

Her answer was simple: “I will marry them.”



She wonders when she practices around others. Does anyone else hear it? Is she leaving bread crumbs in all her pieces that somepony will follow right to her door? She's tested it on her roommate. But when her pieces catch Vinyl’s fancy, she hums them later (usually when she’s washing the dishes), and it’s always the piece and nothing else. She hums them note-for-note. She doesn’t ask them what they’re hiding. And Octavia feels safe and alone. 

There are days when Octavia tries to forget it. Days when it isn’t hiding behind C, but behind every note there is. A bird sings [i]tea kettle tea kettle tea[/i] and the trill is the perfect set-up for the next pentatonic fluorish. It’s impossible to write. Her hoof, controlled by the melody in her mind, begins to scrawl the notes in the air.

On these days, she goes out looking for noise. The gushing water of the Ponyville dam, for example. Or the discordant voices at the Ponyville market (There’s nothing musical about two ponies haggling each other, except maybe some percussion). Anywhere that prevents her from humming, singing, or thinking. Even Vinyl’s raves do the trick. There’s nothing like a good blast of synthesized sound, scattered here and there with the tattered remains of a mare’s vocals. Hooves in the air. Beach balls bouncing off unsuspecting noses. The same glowing necklaces on every neck, hanging like religious keepsakes. It’s enough to make a tired musician relax and enjoy the creative silence. 

“Hey, y’all,” Vinyl says over the microphone one night, to the cheers and jeers of the crowd. Octavia watches out of the corner of her eye as the glowing performer adjusts her sliders and switches. She waits for the noise to come back. She can already hear her secret behind Vinyl’s voice.

“You know what’s great about being a DJ?”

There’s a cough.

“That’s okay, it was rhetorical.” And the crowd laughs. “What’s great is I don’t have to make my own music. I can just play other ponies’ stuff.”

Laughs, whistles, and a stray taunt here and there.

“But sometimes I can’t help it.”

The noise comes back and the beach balls fly again. Something sounding like rain on a metal field fills the room, and Octavia can relax again, until the synth blasts in and plays a note.

It’s C.

She laughs. There is no escape. That poor mare’s voice comes back, torn into new pieces, and everything is noise again. It’s almost nice, in fact, which must mean it’s part of a scale.

[i]D pentatonic.[/i]

Octavia stands from her chair as the F-seventh plays. She makes her way into the crowd, pushing and shoving as hard as they do. The sea parts. Her ears scream at the speakers, but the music cuts out, and only the vocals are left.

[i]G pentatonic[/i], Octavia mouths, as does Vinyl, who flips up her glasses and stares.

It’s so quiet here, before the chorus, before the vines rush out of the speakers. And they both know the chord that comes next.