Reading Instructions:

This story is designed with audio accompaniment in mind. While reading speeds vary, it is recommended that either before, after, or during your reading of this chapter that you listen to the companion improvisational piano piece performed by Elision.

There’s a small practice room with a piano. It’s big enough for the instrument itself and a pony or two—maybe three.

The latch on the lock clicks and the door opens. Two ponies step inside, crowding in the doorway as they negotiate the cramped space.

“I don’t see why you can’t just wait until we’re back to your place.”

“I am afraid I simply cannot wait. I need to see how your practice has been coming along. The evening will still be there when we are done.”

“Fine.”

The two voices dance together in a mix of contrast and harmony. The first is young, impetuous, and perky like a blast of cool ice-cream on an winter morning. It sounds put-out and eager to get on with things.

The second is vaguely foreign. It pronounces each word with a slight accent, something overseas, maybe Stalliongrad or Germaney.. It sounds more cultured as well—the diction is articulate despite the unfamiliarity of the syllables. Where the first voice sounds rushed, the second sounds relaxed.

The first voice belongs to a light blue unicorn with white stripes in her mane. She approaches the piano in center of the room, grumbling under her breath. Her horn glows and she pulls a set of sheet music from a nearby shelf, setting it on the piano without any particular care.

The second voice, the foreign one, is the voice of an earth pony—another musician as evidenced by her cutie mark: a treble clef stamped on her light-brown coat. Her hair is black, long, and flows down to the ground past her neck. She watches the unicorn with a smile.

The unicorn takes a seat at the piano with a huff. She readies her hooves at the keys without pausing to breathe.

A hoof on her shoulder stops her. She turns her head with one eyebrow raised.

“Minuette, my dear, please slow down. I would hope you do not plan to be this rushed for your recital.”

The unicorn sighs loudly.

“Can’t you just call me Colgate like everypony else?”

The earth pony shakes her head with a soft smile.

“You are free to go by what you wish when around your friends, but this is an atmosphere of culture. You are a beautifully trained musician at practice, and I shall refer to you as such. Can you not see why it is so?”

Colgate scrunches up her mouth as though she’s holding back a protest. The way the earth pony speaks seems always slightly off, even if the meaning is clear.

“But Octavia—”:

“No buts. You are going to play for me, are you not?”

Colgate turns her head forward again. The notes on the page wiggle at her under the dim lighting. She squints at them, as though sizing them up, daring them to run away. But they stay.

She sighs again.

“Yes."

Octavia pats her shoulder and leans against the nearby wall. “Please, go ahead,” she says.

Colgate scans the score for a minute. Her hooves trace over the keys until they find their place. She holds them steady for a second, then lowers them, drawing out a long ringing note that she sustains with a press of her hind-hoof.

“You should read the directions as you play. It will help you remember them much better when you perform the piece properly.”

Colgate grumbles but doesn’t draw her eyes away from the sheet music.

“Sostenuto,” she says. She holds the low note firmly.

The air beside her shifts, and Octavia moves closer.

As Colgate holds the note for the duration notated in her reading, she feels a warmth at her side. Octavia’s body, though not particularly warmer than anything else in the room, seems to stand out amidst the stifling air of the sound-proof shelter. Even though her focus is on the bass note she’s holding, Colgate can hear the soft sound of Octavia’s breathing as though it’s right into her ear. The passing of air between foreign, articulate lips.

Colgate swallows and moves her right hoof upwards. The delicate plink of high keys joins the bass, then take over as it the pedal note fades away.

“First movement a piano?” Octavia asks. She lets her hoof rest on Colgate’s shoulder as she plays the tiny sections of not-quite melody in a leisurely fashion.

Colgate doesn’t shift her eyes from the keys as Octavia’s hoof lingers on her fur, then glides along the back of her neck to her other shoulder.

“Pianissimo,” Colgate corrects her. She plays a soft, slow back and forth between the chord she finds at the high end of the piano.

“Ah,” Octavia says. She leans in close and rests her chin on Colgate’s shoulder as she removes her hoof. Her mouth is inches away from Colgate’s ear.

“You play it very sweetly,” she says.

“Dolce,” Colgate responds. She swallows a noticeable lump in her throat. Her voice sounds slightly shaken.

“Mmhm,” Octavia says. She extends her tongue as she murmurs, and the tip of it touches Colgate’s ear, which makes her jump slightly. But she stays in her seat, and continues her tapping of high notes.

“This part is so light, it is almost not there at all,” Octavia says. She cranes her neck further sideways and her chin runs along Colgate’s foreleg until she reaches its end. Octavia replaces her chin with a hoof, and runs that along Colgate’s shoulder as well, then along her side until she reaches her hindleg. She moves her hoof back and forth several times, just barely touching, only centimeters away from pressing into Colgate’s fur properly.

“Leggierissimo,” Colgate says. “Very lightly.”

“Very lightly indeed,” Octavia says. She leans forward and whispers the word into Colgate’s ear, treating her to another soft touch of tongue.

Colgate keeps herself from jumping. She keeps her eyes focused on the score as she comes to the next section. Her hoof begins to move in earnest.

Octavia pauses and looks up as though she’s searching for something in the back of her head.

“This section... it is very back and forth,” she says.

“Scherzando,” Colgate says. She sticks her tongue out between her teeth as she concentrates on the more demanding interplay of notes in different ranges.

Octavia doesn’t say anything. She disappears from Colgate’s periphery, and her touch as well. For a moment, Colgate wonders if she can focus properly on her perfomance to get it over with—but she feels Octavia reappear, then sees her as her eyes let her reorient her focus. She jumps again and her right hoof smashes down clumsily on a series of wrong notes to match the chord on her left.

Octavia peeks out at Colgate from underneath the piano bench. She grins widely.

“Do not let me distract you. It is important to learn to play with distractions, after all.”

The head between Colgate's legs vanishes from her sight for a moment. She tries to bring her focus back to the piano. She doesn’t manage to find more than one note before she something, there, and has to keep herself from closing her eyes and abandoning her playing completely.

A kiss. A kiss on the inside of her leg, so gently against her fur, so close to her...

Colgate shakes her head and returns her attention to the score. Only two more movements to go and she’s done. She can work through the distraction.

But this section isn’t as passive as the last.

With no warning, Octavia’s attention goes from light to insistent. A low thump of a note rings out. After a second, Colgate joins it with a gasp. Octavia's mouth jumps from the side to the center, and Colgate has no time to brace herself as she feels a tongue, Octavia’s tongue, the same one that was on her ear, pressed deliberately into her most sensitive place.

Colgate can’t help it; she’s wet. She felt the first trace of it when Octavia’s breath was on her ear. With a tongue on her slit, there’s nothing she can do about it.

She tries to ignore it. Her hooves jump back and forth as best they can manage with Octavia’s face buried between her legs.

Every few seconds, Colgate has to stop. Her tempo falls away when Octavia licks, dragging her tongue slowly up the whole of Colgate’s eagerly dampened pussy. Octavia alternates between kisses and soft licks, and hard, firm presses with the flat of her tongue against Colgate’s lips, or even higher, against her–

“Ah!”

“Directions, my dear?” Octavia asks, removing her tongue for a moment. “This section is particular in its technique, is it not?”

Colgate nods, closing her eyes for a moment and sucking in a breath through her teeth.

“Forte piano,” she says. “Heavy, then soft...”

“Precisely. Take care with your dynamics.” With that, Octavia dives forward again, and her tongue once more finds its place on Colgate’s clit.

“Ahhh... there’s... a cadenza... shortly...” Colgate says, managing the unfamiliar vocabulary through breaths and between traces of notes. She can barely manage the back and forth of volume and tempo with the delicate and not-so-delicate prodding of Octavia’s tongue—she has no idea how she’ll manage anything more demanding.

Octavia doesn’t seem to be listening. She circles around Colgate’s button, tracing the edges of it with the tip of her tongue, letting Colgate buck her hips forward to ask for more despite her need for focus.

The notes appear suddenly on the page like a wave of black. Colgate squints her eyes, trying to slow their approach.

Octavia’s tongue doesn’t stop. Colgate has no choice but to continue.

The section that’s meant to be skillful comes out shaky. Colgate tries to steady her hooves on each series of notes, but every time she attempts a run from high to low or a quick flurry of keys, Octavia presses forward further, lapping from bottom  to top, making soft slurping sounds as she drinks the evidence of Colgate’s arousal.

Colgate tries to find the end of the solo with enthusiasm, but she struggles not to slouch forward in her seat, not to let her body collapse onto the piano as Octavia pays attention to her increasingly excited snatch.

And then, just as suddenly as the notes stop, so does the tongue. The rest at the end of the bar lets Colgate still her hooves, and she feels the lack of warmth from Octavia’s breath as she pulls her head back as well.

Colgate gasps for breath, suddenly aware she’s forgotten to do so for the past minute.

Octavia’s head appears in the bottom of Colgate's vision, smiling, her mouth damp.

“Caesura, non è vero?”

Colgate nods and closes her eyes as she sucks in a mouthful of air.

“Yes,” she says.

Octavia smiles wider at her. “This section is important to give the performer a respite after their exhaustive display of expertise,” she says.

Colgate doesn’t bother to nod. She just breathes. She knows she has a few more measures, even with the abandoning of any consistent tempo.

She lets herself rest for a minute more before opening her eyes and struggling to sit upright again. Octavia’s smile is gone.

The final movement.

Colgate raises her hooves above the keys in preparation for  the song’s last refrain.

“Sforzando,” she says, almost under her breath.

She feels a proximity between her legs.

As her hooves crash down, so too does Octavia, diving with sudden ferocity, planting her lips on Colgate’s clit and sucking it between her teeth.

Colgate can’t help but cry out as she approaches the mounting tension of the piece’s crescendo. Her voice becomes an accompaniment to the performance, finding a strange harmony with the notes as she attempts to keep even a fraction of her attention on the sheet music and directions therein.

“Appass...appassionata..,” she says with her voice in a half-moan. Octavia nuzzles her muzzle into Colgate’s now dripping pussy, and Colgate leans forward, keeping herself held upright only by virtue of her hooves on the keys. “Accelerando,” she gasps, and Octavia licks faster, flicking her tongue quicker and quicker over the sensitive trigger of Colgate’s nub.

Colgate tries to blot out the focus on one thing or another, but both of them are inside her head, a collection of notes she can bareley make out through the haze of pleasure coursing through her. It starts from between her legs and works its way up through her whole body. Octavia’s mouth is like a delicate, tender kiss on Colgate's lower-lips, and every time Colgate feels another press of tongue against her clit, she knows she's close. The volume of her playing increases as the volume of her moans do the same, no more directions audible in the constant sound Octavia coaxes from her mouth, singing accompaniment to the increasing fervor of her hooves, building and building and building until the peak of the refrain’s climax, and then—

The notes ring through the tiny practice space as Colgate’s voice stops. Her forelegs shake and her eyes fall shut. Her whole body rocks back and forth, keeping a tempo that she’s changed so many times until now. The triumphant echo of the sustained chord hangs in the air like a celebratory banner. Octavia’s tongue lays in place on Colgate’s slit, caressing it as the shudders of orgasms work their way upwards, lapping delicately at Colgate’s lips as they twitch in the remnants of their ecstasy.

Octavia pulls her head back.

Colgate sucks in a breath of air and her hooves find the next note. A soft conclusion, building down in volume and tempo.

“Diminuendo,” she manages with a voice like a tired kitten. She leans her head forward over the keys as she plays, drawing out the last bits of melody like she’s struggling to pull them from the instrument, until the final low bass rings out. Colgate leans back and exhales loudly.

Octavia appears beside her seconds after, still smiling.

“A wonderful performance. You have certainly come a long way since you started learning.”

Colgate keeps her eyes closed for a few seconds longer as she takes in a few more breaths. She opens them and stares up at Octavia with her head upside down, leaning backwards on nothing but air.

“Thanks,” she says. She sits up and closes the lid of the piano. Her horn glows and the sheet music lifts into the air and floats back into its place on the shelf. Colgate wipes a hoof across her forehead, and it comes away wet with sweat.

“Now,” Octavia says, placing a hoof on Colgate’s shoulder. “Would you like to come back

to the attico so that I may play for you this time?”

A flicker of blue light flashes through Colgate’s eyes. She turns and stands from the bench in the same motion. She nuzzles her head into Octavia’s cheek, and Octavia returns the gesture, nuzzling back and letting her raven black hair mix with the blue and white of Colgate’s mane.

“I’d like that,” she says.

“I am glad." Octavia opens the practice room door and flicks the light off with her other hoof. “I must tell you though,” she says, leading Colgate outside, “that this particular piece is a duet.”

Colgate grins at her.

“I don’t think that will be a problem.”

“No, I did not imagine you might.”