# Amber Guitar

Title: Amber Guitar
Status: Complete
Characters: Anon, Fang, Amber
Rating: SFW
Classification: One Shot
Author: Anonymous
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Anon smiled at Amber as he gave her a juice box, hoping to calm her down. She was still sniffling from earlier and her sleeves were damp with her tears. As Amber took a sip from the juice box, Anon sat down next to her and placed her guitar on his lap. When she’d run in with tears in her eyes and her guitar in her hands, he assumed it was broken. After all, it was a cheap no-name piece of junk. Neither Fang nor Anon thought Amber’s interest in playing would last more than a few weeks. Both were very surprised with just how much time she spent playing. Anon snuck countless pictures of his beautiful wife and daughter strumming away, and he’s sure Fang’s taken more than a few of him and Amber.
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Despite her passion, it was still a cheap guitar with cheap parts. The guitar itself was fine, but one of the strings had snapped. Anon put a reassuring hand on Amber’s shoulder, saying “It’s not your fault, honey. Strings wear out, and when they do, they break. That’s why we keep so many spares around.” Anon smiled at her. “It’s easy to change them too! Want to see how?” Amber smiled and nodded. Anon ran his gaze over the little guitar. For a cheap one, it looked very nice. It was a Strat-like with a pink body and white scratchplate. Very girly, but Amber loved it.
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Anon flipped the guitar over, placing it face-down on his lap. “The strings it came with aren’t very good, so we’re going to replace all of them. First thing we want to do is take out the string that broke.” Anon pushed one end of the broken string through the tremolo cavity and pulled it out. “Just like that, you see? You can push them out through the back of the guitar. Then, just take the other end and unwrap it from the peg.” Anon unwound the other end of the string, and placed both halves on the coffee table. “You want to be careful with these, and remember where you put them. You don’t want to step on them, trust me.” Amber smiled and giggled at that last sentence. “Now, we just go ahead and take out the rest. All you need to do is turn the tuning knob until the string comes loose, then push it through the back.” Anon demonstrated by taking out the E string, then turned to his daughter. “Do you want to try?” “Yeah!” she eagerly replied.
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Anon handed Amber the guitar, and she started removing the other strings. Watching her work, Anon thought back to when she first became interested in playing guitar. Amber had always liked listening to Anon and Fang play, but she’d never shown any interest in playing. One day, when she and Fang were looking through an old photo album, they came across the picture of Fang playing at the prom. Pointing at the picture, Amber exclaimed, “Mom! Look how beautiful you were!” “You mean, look how beautiful she is!” Anon said, walking into the room. Fang smirked, and said “Nice try, but I’m still going to tell her about how you had to borrow your dad’s old wine-stained suit.” “It added to the history. That suit’s got stories to tell.” Amber piped up “Oh yeah? What’s the suit’s favorite story.” Anon sat on the couch next to them. “Easy, prom night. That was when that picture was taken.”
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Amber had finished unstringing the guitar, and had carefully placed the old strings on the coffee table. Anon continued, “Now, we need to put the new strings in.” From a bag of brand new strings, Anon pulled out one of the strings and showed the end to her. “Now, the ends of these strings are pointy so make sure you don’t poke yourself Threading the string through the tremolo and up to the head, Anon paused before running the string through the peg. Looking at Amber, he continued, “Now this part’s important. We don’t want to cut the string too short, or it will slip out of the tuning peg. Once you’ve measured it out, put a little bend in it. Then run the string through the peg, stopping at the bend you just made.” Anon pressed his finger on the string, holding it tight against the head. “You want to press the string down so that when you tighten the peg, it coils properly.” Anon tightened the tuning knob until the string was tight, then cut off the excess with some wire cutters. “And ta-da! Freshly strung guitar. We don’t need to worry about tuning it for now. New strings stretch a bit, so we’ll need to tune it up a few times.” Anon offered the guitar to Amber. “Want to try stringing the rest?” Amber smiled and nodded. Handing the guitar to Amber, he kept thinking about earlier.
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Fang, Amber, and Anon sitting on the couch again. At the mention of prom night, Fang’s eyes teared up a bit as a smile crept across her face.