Finding a Friend

[Nightbow]

Whisper flinched when Storm's hoof stopped a little too close to her face for her comfort. Stiff as a stick as she were, she resisted the urge to exclaim an "eep" when she had to adjust her butt in her seat to maintain her balance, preventing her just from falling to the floor.

Flattery wouldn't bite one bit on the young mare, especially coming from an older (and weird) pony. Or at least, that's what she told herself. Whispering Wind couldn't honestly say she was used to being called pretty. Her ears tipped backwards with irritation but her muzzle flashed red underneath the lilac pelt.
Thankfully Silent Storm went on his merry way fairly quickly, and she was left with only the solemn memory of a certain young unicorn called Rouge. She had never known his name. Would she ever get the chance to ask for it?

Death is a good motivator, she thought darkly. Then at least I wouldn't have to die a virgin thousands of years into the future. No. She wouldn't die here. She mustn't think that.
Her cheeks continued to flash, feeling ashamed and hoping that the ponies of the future had not developed mind-reading abilities.

The adults seemed to handle the drunken dragon-pony well. Youth observed him with a bit of disdain, trying to keep her facial expression in check as he sat right back down beside her.
Okay, so one pony couldn't handle his liquor. That wouldn't mean this party would turn into a beerfest.
She dared not to move. If she wished it hard enough, maybe she could make Silent Storm go away?

She was genuinely confused about Razzaroo's offer. Calming nerves, yes - the teen knew that alcohol was good for that too. She smiled weakly at Kailani as she raised the single glass, hoping that it wasn't expected of her to share it with the pegasus.

[Becka]

[Sorry, I've been trying to figure out how to un-do my snafu with the spiked punch...]

It took a whole glass of punch for Roo to realize it wasn't actually spiked. With the Healing Stone's power it took a lot to get him drunk, but an entire glass of spiked punch should make him feel something. He decided not to tell the time travelers their drinks weren't actually spiked. Neither of them appeared to be in the partying mood, and the assumption might loosen their nerves a bit.

Roo got another glass of punch and poured a liberal amount of alcohol into it himself. Much better.

He was bursting with questions for his grandmother, but didn't want to start blabbing them all in front of the guests. It was probably best to steer clear of questions about the past and future or the party atmosphere would quickly dissolve. No one wanted to think about Eclipse just now, he was sure.

"Tell me," he said to no one in particular. "What exactly are we celebrating tonight? Other than a reunion, of course."

[Kiernan]

"Tomorrow's the belated Summer Sun Celebration. There were complications, and they had to postpone it. So my party was delayed as well," grunted Kai, tugging the rather large karayoke machine with him. As it took up the new temporary position to theleft of his bedroom door, he picked up the plug. He was rather drunk, so he began looking for a wall outlet to plug it in. After a few minutes of waggling his tail in the air without realizing it, he remembered that he had no wall outlet. It was at this point that he reached into his bracer, pulling out a blue topaz, and wedging it between the protruding prongs, supplying power to the machine. [Don't ask how, it just works that way.]

"Okay, who should sing first?" He said, collapsing against the bookshelf momentarily, then regaining his balance, and opening a third bottle of spiced rum.

[Nightbow]

The little unicorn wasn't one who was keen on getting attention, but her choices were sitting uncomfortably close to Silent Storm while running the risk of being served alcohol herself, or embarrassing herself in front of some ponies she probably wouldn't have to look in the eye tomorrow morning. "I will," she volunteered, standing up, her voice a little louder than usual to make sure Kai would hear her.

She hadn't actually seen a karaoke machine before, but she had seen a television set and she knew it could play music. Whisper Wind didn't consider herself a good singer, but unless she pushed it she wouldn't be out of tune. Besides, from what she had heard, entertaining drunks wasn't much of a feat anyway. What did she have to loose? This was supposed to be a joyous occasion, after all.

Whisp stepped up to the party host and fired off a shy smile. It faded when Kai blundered into the furniture. "Oi, you okay there?" He seemed to recover quickly, so the unicorn decided not to pay any more attention to what had just happened.

"I um ... how do I go about this, exactly?" She asked, eyeing the equipment with genuine curiosity.

[Kiernan]

"Oh, it's easy. Just pick a song, and start singing into the mic," smiled Kai. Grabbing the mic stand, he suddenly realized there was no microphone in it. "Just a moment..."

Wobbling back into his bedroom, and digging through his closet again, he found histeleportation pad, flamethrower, sniper rifle, two sinks, a dead tree, two beds and a coffee machine [Savage Garden reference for the win] before finally finding the desired microphone. Five, in fact. [Kai does a lot ofweird stuff. Actually, the sniper rifle belongs to another OC, who probably won't make an appearance]

"Here we go. Just pick a song, and start singing. The words show up here," he said, pointing at the screen.

[Nightbow]

Youth examined the listed titles and realized, to her utter horror, that none of the songs looked familiar. But what on Earth had she expected then? Ponyville had been excessively modern in its musical style compared to the Xanadian hymns, and Whispering Wind was not overly interested in music to begin with. She only ever caught what happened to be on the radio in Ponyville, and now she was in the future! What made the top list in Ponyville those lost-in-time weeks ago had hardly survived the turning of tides.

Her green eyes narrowed, gaze landing upon a party pop-song that supposedly was tame enough for her taste. Gusty Beaver, Baby. She ponited at the screen. "I'll pick this one." Kai would have to assist her, for the unicorn was practically technologically impaired.

The song came on. Whisper couldn't discern if the singer was a little filly or a pre-teen colt. She stood quietly, listening to the opening "oooh":s and "woaaah":s, feeling stumped. When the lyrics begun she instantly wished she could go back to the wailing instead.

"... love me ... I know you care. Just shout whenever,
... And I'll be there. You want my love, you want my heart.
And we would never, ever, ever be apart ..." She stumbled through the first verse, followed by an annoyingly repetitive chorus.

When the second verse came around, she tagged along better:
"Oh oh For you, I would have done whatever. And I just can't believe we ain't together. And I wanna play it cool, but I'm losin' you ... I'll buy you anything, I'll buy you any ring. Cause I'm in pieces. Baby fix me!" Wow. Materialism in exchange for love. She hated this song already.

Realizing how awful she was sounding not knowing the song properly, she came all out and decided to sing it as intensely as she could, exaggerating the embarrassingly bad lyrics by overemphasising certain parts:

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
I'm sixteen and I thought that you'd be mine,
I used to neigh you and text you and call you and hit you on Muzzlebook all the time!"

The chorus just went on and on, but eventually it was finally over. Whisp bowed to her audience with a smile, cheeks flashing. It was getting warm in here. She dragged herself back to her place, not minding the dragonlike pony all that much anymore. Her little show must have set off some almount of endorphins.
"That was horrible," she snorted. Now hopefully she'd be excused from further inconveniences. She caught herself thinking that she needed a drink.

[Kiernan]

After setting up the machine to play Whisp's song, Kai returned to his seat. She stumbled a bit through the first verse, but that was to be expected, as the song was one more recent, only a year old, at most. Her performance leveled off during the second verse, and despite the fact that her face showed discomfort, her voice was great. Better than the original artist, in fact, though that wasn't all that difficult. Finally, when she came to the third verse, she seemed to finally have a bit of fun with it.

"That was great," he said, as she sat back down. "I had no idea you could sing."

"I could've done better," grumbled Frost, winning him a swat to the back of the head by Tundra.

Kai stepped forward. "I suppose I'll go next." He popped out the other disc, and in went the Doug Trotter movie soundtrack. An accoustic guitar came through the speakers, thrumming a few bars before turning electric.

"Read these stories, and let us do our thing! This road is long, but we have to walk it today..." He missed a few words, due to not seeing the movies in a few months. Upon reaching the chorus, Tundra jumped up, and joined in, and they two began swaying back and forth to the beat. "I don't want to end this way... In my flight of fantasy... stand by my side, it will be okay..."

Tundra took over the second verse, as Kai took a swig of rum. "Go first, my good friend, I will be back here, watching. Just in case I will mayhap run away..." Once more, for the chorus, they joined voices. They even sang the third verse together. "We went blind with the promise of fame, but now that I think of it..." the chorus went twice more, then the guitars slowed to a stop. The two stallionsfinished their song, and took a bow. Kai leaned a bit too far forward, and landed on his face, letting out a laugh as he stood back up and walked back to his seat.

"Who's next?"

[Person]

"I guess I c-could give it a shot." Silent Storm said. He'd never really sung before, but he supposed there was a first time for everything. He could hum and whistle in-tune, all this was is adding words, right?

The odd pegasus stepped up to the karaoke machine and selected a song he'd heard a few times on the radio. It was a defiant rock rhythm, backed with guitars and heavy drums which he rather liked.

He grabbed the mic and sang out the first verse, mentally attempting to eliminate his stutter;

"Another promise, another seed...
Another, packaged l-lie to keep us trapped in greed...
And all the, g-green belts wrapped around our minds...
And endless red tape to keep the t-truth confined..."

With a bit more gusto, he went into the chorus which he knew well enough,

"They will not force us,
They will stop degrading us,
They will not c-control us,
We will be victorious!"

Sil was starting to have a little more fun with himself, so he went on to the second and last verse after air-guitaring the solo beforehand.

"Interchanging mind control,
Come let the r-revolution take its toll,
If you could flick the switch and open y-your third eye,
You'd see that w-we should never be afraid to die."

He closed out with the chorus once again,

"They will not force us,
They will stop d-degrading us,
They will not control us,
We will be victorious!"

Sil gave a slight bow, then nervously left the mic and got off of the stage, reclaiming his seat next to Whisp and cautiously eyeing the two stallions who'd entered earlier.

[Becka]

Hy clapped in delight as Kai brought the karaoke machine out and set it up. "I love karaoke!" She let some of the others go first as she tried to decide which song to sing, and once the dragon pony was finished she jumped out of her seat before anyone else could.

She scrolled through the songs until she found what she was looking for: "Cassiopeia" by Sara Marellies.



The music started, sounding a bit spacey, which suited Hy just fine. She began to sing.

"Come in close now, it's time to tell a story.
Long ago and so many years before we
Ever were, ever dreamed we even could be,
There was her and her very first heartbeat.

All alone in the corner of the night sky.
Spiral bones of a supernova starlight.
Fell in love with another burning bright.
She dreamed of a way to ignite.

She said,
"Tonight
Come on, come on
Collide.
Break me to pieces, I...
I think you're just like heaven.

Why
Come on, come on
Collide.
Let's see what a fire feels like.
I bet it's just like heaven"
(Just like heaven)

Such a shame
Nowhere near, even the near mist.
Lightyears away
From the hope of being sun-kissed.
Anchored home in her interstellar sea
But, poor lonely Cassiopeia.

So she sighs and she burns with desperation.
Learns to cry over love of constellations.
Then the spark from a star shooting too close.
They both smiled
What a day to explode.

She said,
"Tonight
Come on, come on
Collide.
Break me to pieces, I...
I think you're just like heaven.

"Why
Come on, come on
Collide.
Let's see what a fire feels like.
I bet it's just like heaven"
(Just like heaven)

Long ago in a sky built before us
A supernova grew up to be stardust."

Hy took a dramatic bow and grinned brightly as she found her seat again.

[Kiernan]

Usu had been listening from the kitchen the entire time. As he brought out the last of the food, some Truffles Kai had made a few days ago, Hy was almost finished with her song. He whispered something into Kai's ear, provoking him to nod. He then whispered into Tundra's ear, provoking another nod from him, and then the same to Frosty at the same result.

As Hy finished, Usu stepped up to the mic, Along with Frostbite, who looked a bit irked to be doing so. As per their somewhat silenced agreement, Kai's horn glowed for a moment, dimming the
lights, and Tundra, who had stepped off to one side, shone a light on the two of them, emanating from his own horn.

Three piano chords later,

"Oh Baby, Baby"

Not only were they singing, in their usual off-pitch tone, the two were dancing. To help the two convey their point, Tundra let his light become a light show, despite the fact that he was chuckling softly to himself.

"Oh Baby, Baby"

If Kai hadn't been laughing so hard on the inside at this sight, he would have released his spell, and let the light shine from the ceiling as it normally would.

"Oh Baby, Baby, How was I supposed to know
That somethin' wasn't right here?
Oh baby, Baby, I shouldn't have let you go
And now you're out of sight, yeah

"Show me How you want it To be
Tell me baby, Cause I need to know now,
Oh because

"My Loneliness is killin' me
(and I)
I must confess, I still believe
(still believe)
When I'm not with you I lose my mind
Give me a sign
Hit me baby one more time!"

Almost giddy with himself, Kai allowed a chuckle to escape his lips. The spectacle was downright silly.

"Oh Baby, Baby, The reason I breathe is you
Boy, you got me blinded
Oh pretty baby, there's nothin' that I wouldn't do
That's not the way I planned it

"Show me How you want it To be
Tell me baby, Cause I need to know now,
Oh because

"My Loneliness is killin' me
(and I)
I must confess, I still believe
(still believe)
When I'm not with you I lose my mind
Give me a sign
Hit me baby one more time!

"Oh Baby, Baby
Oh Baby, Baby"

As the music faded a bit for a vocal interlude, Tundra dimmed the lights emanating from his horn,to a simple, soft white spotlight that only shone on Usu, and then only on Frosty.

"Oh Baby, Baby, How was I supposed to know
Oh pretty baby, I shouldn't have let you go"

As the music kicked back in, Tundra's spotlight flared back into a multitude of colors and effects.

"I must confess
That my loneliness
Is killin' me now
Don't you know I still believe
That you will be here
And give me a sign
Hit me baby one more time!

"My Loneliness is killin' me
(and I)
I must confess, I still believe
(still believe)
When I'm not with you I lose my mind
Give me a sign
Hit me baby one more time!"

Usu sang the final verse one final time, as Frosty redid the chorus. Their timing matched up perfectly for the last two lines.

"Give me a sign
Hit me baby one more time!"

As if on cue, Kai raised the lighting level, and Tundra released the spotlight spell. Usu and Frostbite found their seats again, and Frosty found the vodka.

"Well," chuckled Kai. "I know who I want to hear from next." He grabbed two Mics, and held them out to Kail and Roo. "Please?" he added with a smile.

[Becka]

Kail was too exhausted and worried to enjoy most of the singing. She smiled when Whisp really got into it, but zoned out for the rest of the songs. When Kai stuck a mic in her face she frowned and leaned away from it.

"That's ok. I don't sing." Unless it was hymns to the Rainbow or nursery rhymes for the children. "I don't even know any of these songs."

"Time to learn one," Roo said gleefully and took the mic from Kai. He pulled his grandmother to her feet as she reluctantly took the second mic. He scrolled through the songs on the screen until he found one she could probably learn quickly, hit the start button, and began to sing.

"Oh, the night makes you a star
And it holds you cold in its arms
You're the one to whom nobody verses I love you
Unless you say it first
So you lie there holding your breath
And it's strange how soon you forget
That you're like stars
They only show up when it's dark
Cause they don't know their worth

And I think you need
To stop following misery's lead
Shine away, shine away, shine away"

Roo elbowed Kail as she stared at the screen. "Your turn". She took a deep breath and started out softly, doing her best to sing the words as the scrolled over the screen.

"Isn't it time you got over
How fragile you are
We're all wait-
Waiting on your supernova
Cause that's who you are
And you've only begun to shine"

Roo joined her for the rest of the song.

"There are times when
The poets and porn stars align and
You won't know who to believe in
Well that's a good time to be leavin'
And the past, it knocks on your door
And throws stones at your window at 4 in the morning
Well maybe he thinks it's romantic
He's crazy but you knew that before

And I think you need
To stop following misery's lead
Shine away, shine away, shine away

Isn't it time you got over
How fragile you are
We're all wait-
Waiting on your supernova
Cause that's who you are
And you've only begun to shine

Yea you've only begun to shine
Won't you shine, shine, shine
Shine over shadow, oh oh
Shine, shine, shine
Shine over shadow, oh oh
Shine, shine, shine, shine over

And I think you need
To stop following misery's lead
Shine away, shine away, shine away

Isn't it time you got over
How fragile you are
We're all wait-
Waiting on your supernova
Cause that's who you are
And you've only begun to shine

Yeah you've only begun to shine
Yeah you've only begun to shine"

Kail's gaze dropped to the floor and she blushed as the song ended. She'd never sung in front of near-strangers before. She handed the mic back to Kai and sat quickly, too embarrassed at her bad singing to look at anyone.

Roo plopped down next to her with a smile. "Good job."

[Kiernan]

[Sorry, I was ill for a time, and then this just got away from me... sorry.]

"Spectacular," smiled Kai. After a few moments of fiddling with the karayoke machine, it began to play a song that wasn't on the track listing. The reason for that was because it had no lyrics. As the sound of Gluten King filled the room, at a lower volume than the karayoke had been, Kai once more disappeared into his bedroom, only to come back moments later with a game of pin the tail on the pony, and a big grin.

"I know it's supposed to be a game for foals, but trust me, the spinning room makes it a lot more fun." He quickly set it up on the wall, then held the tail out. "Who wants to go first?"

[Person]

[Maybe we can get this thread moving again.]

The odd pegasus listened on with great joy as a lot of the other ponies sang, undoubtedly better than he, he thought to himself. The two stallions that had walked in, and only seemed to know Kai, worried him a little, but he tried not to think about it too much. The festivities went on, and Sil lost some of his buzz whilst eating the various snacks that Usu had brought out for everypony.

The last song was sung, and everypony was comfortably positioned in the living area. Kai left momentarily and walked back in with a poster of a tailless pegasus and a fake tail in his hoof. Or at least Sil hoped it was fake. He shifted a little in his seat, unsure of himself. After a few moments thought, he rose.

"I g-guess I'll play," Storm said, anxious at the number of eyes he assumed were on him, "But I-I d-don't know how to p-play. How does it w-work?"

[Kiernan]

Kai smiled. "Okay. First, we blindfold you. Then we spin you around and around, then you just walk forward and pin the tail to the wall. Whoever gets closest wins." With the rules explained, Kai gave Sil the tail and tied the blindfold loosely around his eyes. "Are you ready?"

[Person]

Sil clutched the tail in his hoof, a bit afraid at being blindfolded. He didn't know of any fun game where he couldn't see, but others could see him. He let out a sigh and tried to relax.

"S-sure," Storm said uncertainly, "I guess I'm ready."