I knew I had to be in a dream. There was a crowd of people all around me, though all of them were facing away from me, the closest ones being only ten feet away. I tried to walk towards them, but I encountered an invisible barrier only three feet from my goal. “Excuse me, but where are we?” Nobody responded to me, as if I wasn’t there. “What’s going on?”

Suddenly, the area was flooded with light from a number of stages, all of them with a band on them. From my spot hundreds of feet away from the stages, I couldn’t tell who was on the stages.

The people in the crowd started talking amongst themselves in excitement. I couldn’t make out what was being said, but they were looking forward to something. They went quiet when what had to be all the drummers hit their sticks together at the same time, then the music started.

Put down that chainsaw and listen to me: it’s time for us to join the fight.

Oh I, I just died in your arms tonight.

I’m waking up at the start of the end of the world.

I went back to the middle of the circle in surprise from all the different songs playing at once.

Coming up on overload! In a mystic new dimension.

I met a strange lady. She made me nervous.

He’s got two pointy ears and can be seen moving in the halls behind the scenes.

The music was louder than the crowd and coming from every direction. Not even covering up my ears helped with the noise.

We live each day like there’s nothing to lose!

He’s such a lovely robot. He’s such a tip top bloke.

The words we use are strong. They make reality.

I wanted to wake up and escape this cacophony, but I couldn’t. I was hearing all the music at once and with a cheering audience to boot.

Så rör på era fötter oa-a-a.

Geh diesen Weg, dreh nicht weider um, geh in bis zum schluss.

Unmei wa kimi hottokanai. Kekkyoyu was susumu shika nai.

I couldn’t even understand what some of them were saying at all, on top of not being able to understand anything from just how much was going on at once.

“It’s alright, Yang” a calming voice soon said. “You can stand up now.”

I opened my eyes and saw Luna standing in front of me. I wasn’t sure when I went into the fetal position, but when I took my hands off my ears, I didn’t hear the music or the audience. “Luna? What happened? What’s going on?”

“You have music magic now. A little alicorn fairy told me such earlier while Celestia and I talked with her. We’d honestly forgotten about Poppy since we sealed away the Unmusician. She wasn’t happy about that.

“As for what’s happening to you, I believe your body is simply trying to adjust to having music magic now.”

“How do I keep it under control?”

“I don’t know. Someone gaining music magic the way you have is unprecedented. Most of the time, it’s just something that’s learned while growing up, so there’s not much that can be done for you. All I can suggest is to keep your focus and not let it control you. If this dream is any indication, that might take a lot of effort to manage.”

“I’m sure I’ll be able to do it, Luna. It can’t be that hard, right?”

It wasn’t even noon and already I had flopped back onto my bed. Luna let me have a dreamless sleep through the night, but after I woke up, that was when the music started. And it just. Wouldn’t. Stop. Playing.

All morning, I was singing and dancing as I went about my routine to get ready for work, and I couldn’t help it. The music was controlling me. I tried to stop, but I couldn’t. I’m pretty sure I even sang something in a language I’d never heard before.

My eyes were on the verge of closing when another song started up and I shot to my feet. I was too tired to pay attention to the lyrics I was singing as I left my house.

“Twilight, I need help” I said as I collapsed in her throne room. I could just about fall asleep there. I was dancing and singing the whole way here and while I was waiting in line, and there was nothing I could do about it.

“Yeah, you do need help” she agreed as she produced a quill, inkwell, and scroll. “How does a nap and a letter to Gilda sound?”

“Tell her to put up a Closed sign. And why it’s closed. And where I am.”

“I’ll take care of that. Spike?”

“Yeah, Twi?” Spike said.

“Call for Rainbow to help you get Yang to a room. I’ll hit her with a sleep spell so she can rest.”

“Thanks, Twilight.” A moment later, I got hit with a purple bolt and the world went dark.

Once again, I was back in the middle of the crowd, and the bands were already playing. Or maybe they were still playing. I don’t know. I immediately put my hands back over my ears and closed my eyes.

Once again, Luna muted everything around me with her appearance and I relaxed. “I take it you haven’t had a good day since you’re already asleep?”

“I’ve been singing and dancing pretty much since the sun came up.” I sat down on the ground and Luna joined me. “I was ready to fall asleep sometime before noon, but then the music fired back up and I was moving again. I haven’t even been able to eat anything.”

“That does not sound good. Maybe, if this happens long enough, your hunger will stop the music.”

What? “Luna, that’s a dumb idea.”

“Magic needs some kind of fuel in order to work, and that often comes from food. Ponies who go for long periods of time without food often exhibit weaker magic, both unique and non-unique.”

“And if it doesn’t work, I’ll starve to death. Luna, I need an immediate solution, not an eventual solution.”

Luna was quiet as she thought. “What if Twilight creates a spell to hold back the music? It would be like a crutch for you, and it could weaken over time so you can get more control over the music bit by bit.”

“If that lets me live normally, I’ll take it.”

“I will let her know. Do you have any other questions?”

“Can music magic affect my body while I’m asleep?”

“No. Poppy made sure of that a long time ago. It can induce sleep, often through lullabies, and it can influence dreams, but it can’t directly affect the sleeping. There is no chance of you waking up due to the music magic, whether your own or someone else’s.”

“That’s a small comfort.”

“I will leave now, so you’ll be back in the middle of this concert ring. I hate to leave you like that, but it’s a good step to take towards getting used to it. Until we meet again.” When Luna left, the volume of the music and crowd began to pick back up. Since I was still stuck in this concert circle and still in the invisible dome, I had no choice but to take on the onslaught of sound.

After a while, I learned that it was indeed possible to blackout in a dream.

“Agh, my head.” I sat up in the bed I had been moved to, a migraine welcoming me into the world of the waking, not helped by the sun hitting my eyes. “Oh, this sucks.” The light hurt my eyes way more than it usually did.

After a few minutes, Twilight came in. “Good evening, Yang. Feel any better?”

“Did you put the music restraining spell on me?”

“Not yet. I just finished figuring out all the little details of it. Why do you ask?”

“I have a migraine. I thought the restraining spell might have a side effect like that.”

“I assure you that it won’t. Crafting the spell to what Luna suggested it do was the easy part. Making sure it was made so it wouldn’t induce any negative side effects was the hard part, especially since I don’t know a lot about your body. Biologically speaking.

“Maybe some supper will help your migraine go away?”

“What’s on the menu?”

“Well, if I recall correctly, we do have some chicken in the kitchen right now. We could have it put into something if you’d like.”

An enticing offer. “Can I order it and have it delivered here? I don’t feel like walking around with this headache.”

“Of course. What do you want?”

I want my head to be pain free. “How about some buttery pasta with cut up grilled chicken pieces in it and some toast on the side? And water.”

Twilight’s horn glowed for a moment. “Alright, the chef has his order and should be starting it right about now. While we wait, how about I put that music restraining spell on you?”

“Yes, please. Before a song starts up.”

Twilight’s horn lit up and a lavender aura surrounded me. The sensation of my music magic, I guess all of my magic, really, being restrained was an odd one. It almost felt like part of me was being physically restrained, yet it wasn’t a physical part of me.

Magic is weird.

“And that should do it. Your music is currently 99% restrained, so you can start to more easily get a feel for it. The restraint is designed to decrease by 1% every eight hours.”

Let’s see: 1% in eight hours, three of those in a day. . . “So, I have about a month with the restraints on my music then, right?”

“A little over a month, yes. I’ve also set it up so that as you gain more control over the magic, it can decrease the restraint as well. So, if you manage to get it under full control in less than a month, the restraints on it will be gone that much sooner.”

I took a deep breath to try and alleviate a bit of the migraine. I really needed to harvest the migraine, turn it into bread, and maybe loaf around a bit. At least then it would be gone. “Got anything for headaches?”

“I do have some aspirin in my bathroom.”

“Wait, you have aspirin here? As in, a medicine to help with general pains and headaches?”

“Yes. I’m guessing aspirin was available where you’re from?”

“Very common, pretty cheap and easy to get. I don’t know what it’s made from though.”

“Let’s hope the two are close enough in their composition to work for you. Anyways, you may want to cover your eyes before I teleport.”

“Good idea.” I lay back down and put an arm over my eyes. Even after I heard Twilight teleport away, I kept my arm there. The sun may be going down, but it was still a big ball of light, and my eyes were not in any condition to look at that.

It didn’t take long for Twilight to return. “Alright, I’ve got the aspirin and some water. If you need me to, I could make the tablet smaller.”

“Hm?” I sat back up and looked over at Twilight. In her magic was a glass of water and a tablet as big as the first section of one of my middle fingers. “Yeah, that’s too big for me.”

“I thought that might be the case. How small do you need me to make it?”

Question of the day there. “I think about as big around as my pinky nail and, oh, a third as thick as that fingertip.”

After she looked at the aforementioned finger, it didn’t take long for her to carve out a portion of the tablet as small as I specified. “If this is all you need, your body must be really efficient with medicine.”

“I don’t know about that.” I accepted the water and tablet, then downed them. Turns out I really needed the water. Just that gave me some degree of relief from the pain.

“So, how’s business been?”

“Quite good. I’ve got my routines in place, profits are being made very easily, and all my employees seem to like me. I don’t think I could ask for much more.”

“You are a hero too. That’s always good.”

“I could live without the hero status.”

“Ponyville tends to be rather low key with the hero and celebrity thing. Not even the nobility get special treatment here.”

Now that she mentioned it, she was right. Nobody around here really hailed me as a hero for long after Tirek’s defeat, and I haven’t noticed anything after taking out the Unmusician yesterday. Then again, I’ve been a bit. . . occupied today. “Did Gilda get the letter?”

“She did. And according to Spike, she said she understood and respected the message. She also said she was going to totally ignore it and open the Carne Den anyways.”

“I guess there’s nothing I can do about that.”

Our discussion eventually turned into a lesson on the basic principles of magic in general. I didn’t understand most of what Twilight said, but what I did remember was that concentration was the biggest part of getting that critical first grasp on the magic, and meditation was a technique often used by unicorns to get to that point. Right after I assured Twilight I would do some meditation, Spike came in with a tray loaded with two plates of food and a bowl of gems. “Here’s supper” he announced as he came in. “You doing better, Yang?”

“Yeah. Twilight figured out a way to help me with the music magic, so that’s good.” Magic is amazing stuff, especially in the right hands. Or hooves, I guess. Or would it be horns?

“If you give Twilight a magic problem and some time, she can solve it. If it’s to help her friends, she’s even better at solving it.”

Twilight relieved Spike of the tray and gave each of us our meals. “I wasn’t always this good though. When I was still learning about friendship after I chose to stay in Ponyville, I often did the magical equivalent of using brute force to fix the problems we faced, and that often wound up creating bigger problems.”

“Like the Smarty Pants incident. You made a problem out of nothing and got everypony in town caught up in it. Celestia had to step in to fix that one.”

“I’m never going to live that down. Still, at least things ended up alright in the end and we all learned a few things that day. Since then, I’ve become a lot more careful with my magic.”

Our discussion died down as we started on our food. It was good food, and my migraine kept weakening as I ate. Either that aspirin was quality stuff or just getting some food and water in me was doing the trick. Or maybe it was both.

Once we were done, Twilight teleported the dishes away. “So, is there anything else Spike or I can do for you?”

I thought for a bit. “Hm, no, not really. You’ve already helped me enough today. I really should go home to work so Gilda can go home if she wants.”

“Would you like a teleport there? Oh, wait, you’ve got your gauntlets on. Those don’t teleport.”

“I’ll just take the window out. Thanks for your hospitality.”

“Any time.”

I opened the window, looking over Ponyville at night. It was a great sight. I saw ponies leaving their homes and workplaces as they wound down for the day. A lot of them were heading in one particular direction. It looked like. . .

As I figured out where everyone was heading, I jumped out the window and hit the ground running in a direction away from the herd. It was going to be a busy night in the kitchen for me.

“Hey, you doing well?” Gilda asked as I arrived at the Carne Den.

“Yeah” I answered as I quickly caught what little breath I needed to. “We’re about to get really busy. There’s a whole herd walking here from town. I’d say we have five minutes at most to get ready.”

“I’ll inform the wait staff.” As Gilda went to do what she said, I went to the kitchen. Once I had informed the kitchen staff, I helped them prepare for the crowd.

So apparently, most of the town had a music bug going, since everyone who came in was singing to a tune that I could only faintly hear and found myself easily humming along to. The rhythm also helped us out in the kitchen, increasing our efficiency and coordination remarkably, though I appeared to get the smallest increase. It was like I was only tapping my foot to the beat while everyone else was dancing around each other.

The herd of musically inclined customers kept us busy until about 12:30, when most of them were gone and we were able to finally start cleaning up for real. Every surface was being wiped down and everything that was used was being cleaned up. It was a lot to do, but everyone worked together really well.

While the cleaning was going on, I went to the office to see just how much we had made. The chest was overflowing with bits. We had exceeded 10,000 bits in income today. I started picking up the extra bits that were laying around the chest and putting them on the desk.

While I was counting out the overflow of bits, I figured I could also work on next week’s schedule, which would basically be the same as this week’s. I like it when things are consistent. With consistency in the schedule comes a more consistent environment not just for the staff, but also the customers.

Just as I finished counting out the bits the chest couldn’t hold, the clock showed that it was 1. Closing time. Before I could go out to check on everything, Sylvia entered the office. “Everything’s cleaned up, so we’re going to leave.”

“Hm? Oh, right. Good night” I responded. “Since when did everyone get so fast at cleaning up?”

“Teamwork makes the dream work. One thing I’ve seen recently is that two of the griffons on the closing wait staff have become really good friends and share their cleaning work. Together, they can have a booth or table cleaned and ready in under a minute, whereas it takes a little over two minutes for one of them to achieve the same result alone.”

“Well, if they’re that efficient together, I see no reason to change that.” Why would Sylvia need to bring this to my attention?

“Neither do I. Aside from telling you we got done early, I figured you could use a bit of positive news today. Gilda heard you had a rough start to your day.”

“Lots of dancing and singing. And a migraine. At least those have been fixed and we ended on a good note. Good night again.”

“Good night, Yang.” Sylvia closed the door and left, allowing me to go back to the schedule. Once that was done, I wrote out a note for Brew about the bits, left it on the desk, and walked through the empty restaurant. I really had a good thing going here.

After taking care of my nightly routine, I went to bed. Even though I had a good nap before coming here and it was earlier than normal, I still fell asleep pretty easily.

My dreams were more peaceful, the music simply there in the background as I simply lay down on the roof of my house, absorbing the sun’s rays on a day almost too hot for anyone else to be out there. Even if it was only a dream, it still felt nice.

Author's Notes:

Something something, clever pun.