Stomp Stomp - Stomp Stomp
Electric energy filled the air of Ponyville theater. The humble building shook from the dozens of stomping hooves that danced inside it, banging to the rhythm of the band atop the stage.
Stomp Stomp - Stomp Stomp
The band had already been playing for several hours. Their performance lasted well into the night. Sweat beaded down from the lead singer’s chin, a young mare with a fiery voice, able to make the harshest of screams sound like a beautiful melody. A melody the small crowd in the theater danced to happily. Their lead guitarist, a pegasus mare, had been strumming the chords with her wings for so long that the ends were blistered, but she continued all the same. Their final song of the night had to be the biggest, to send off their Ponyville fans with a bang. The bassist, a unicorn who held her bass within the amber glow of her magic, had grown a piercing headache from the strain of complex telekinesis she had been using since the beginning.
Stomp Stomp - Stomp Stomp
Even the audience had shown signs of fatigue. Excitement fueled energy could only keep a pony on their hooves for so long. Their dancing became slower, more sluggish. Each sway of their forms feeling heavier than the last. They didn’t care, for the final song was soon coming to an end.
Stomp Stomp - Stomp Stomp
Only one pony in the theater looked like he was ready for more. His hooves worked endlessly on the drums, creating the foundation for the heart racing finale the band formed. The hoof pedal on the floor under him created the simple baseline that the entire crowd has followed. The stallion was having the time of his life, up there with the talented mares on stage. His hooves hooked tight to the drumsticks, and threw them down with energy that nopony else could keep up with this late into the night.
Thump Thump - Thump Thump
Stomp Stomp - Stomp Stomp
The lead singer used all that was left of her lungs to belt out the final verse. The guitar’s riff came to a cataclysmic finale, and the high energy drum slammed down the final notes to the sound of a cheering crowd.
“Thank you Ponyville!” The singer cried out in between gasps of air. “We are The Night-Mares! Have a good night!”
“That was amazing!” Said Flowing Strings the guitarist, her dyed black hair bouncing with her giddy hops. “We had an actual crowd! Who liked what we were playing!”
“Yeah, that was the best crowd we had so far.” Low Tempo the bassist agreed with her far more excited bandmate. An icepack laid across her forehead after the long performance. Prolonged, complex telekinesis put a heavy strain on the mind. “Too bad we didn’t sell out.”
“Don’t worry, girls!” A hoarse Pink Lady exclaimed, her pink mane drenched in sweat. Giving her all into each song had taken its toll, but she still stood proud in front of them. “We just had the best concert yet, and there’s still room to sell out. We’ve got plenty of room to grow!”
“We can’t really grow until we get another drummer now.”
The three mares then set their sights on the fourth member of their concert. An earth pony stallion with a tan brown coat and a darker brown mane curled into a bun on his head. His bright green eyes are covered by a pair of bronze plated aviation goggles. While his lanky form packed up the drum kit he used for the show. He was lost in his own mind as the three looked on towards them.
“High Rise?” Pink Lady said, catching his attention. Pulling up his goggles to look at the trio.
“Oh! Hey, were you talking to me?”
“Yeah.” Tempo replied, “Are you really sticking around this town?”
“You were great out there today, we’d love to have you come with us to Manehattan.” Pink Lady said with a warm smile.
“Great doesn’t even cut it, that was the best drumming I've ever heard! We gotta have you stay on!” Flowing pleads. “It doesn’t even matter that we’re called the Night-Mares, we’ll give you the title of honorary mare.”
High Rise, the temporary drummer for Night-Mares, chuckled and waved his hoof in front of them, “I’m honored, but I have to refuse.”
The lead for Night-Mares sighed, but ultimately nodded her head. She wasn’t one to pry into the personal lives of other ponies. “I understand, it’ll be hard to find somepony just as good as you.”
The stallion shook his head this time. “I doubt that. There will be a mare in Manehattan who can play the drums better than you or I could ever dream of.”
“You know that?”
“For a fact.”
A giggle escaped the lips of Pink Lady. “I’ll take your word for it, will you be in Ponyville long?”
“Probably not, if things go how I'd like them to.”
“Well, if we ever cross paths again, don’t be a stranger, High Rise.”
“Come to our next show if we do! I bet it’ll be even better than this one!”
“We’ll keep a VIP ticket for you.”
“Thank you, girls.” High Rise’s smile was a genuine one, but it was one that he hoped hid the sadness he was truly feeling in that moment. “I’ll see you again when you’re all legends.”
“Aw yeah!” Flowing cheered in glee, with Pink Lady and Low Tempo waving him off as he left the theater. His first ever performance with the amateur band The Night-Mares. The band that had inspired him to play in the first place, not that they would ever find that out.
Midnight in Ponyville was a peaceful place to be. The occasional porch lamp accompanying the gentle moonlight to illuminate the dusk covered streets. With just enough darkness to see a vast sea of stars in the sky above. Not a single pony was outside after the concert had ended. High Rise’s hoof falls were the only sound that filled the town square. He had never been to Ponyville, and this opportunity he was given was fantastic to explore the town. To walk the streets where he couldn’t during the day. His time around other ponies came to an end the moment the show finished.
As much as High Rise enjoyed seeing the sights of Ponyville, he had one destination in mind. A place he had never seen, but knew from writings what to look for. Only a single building in the entire town was like it. Or at least should be like it. He could only go off of his memory of what was told to him about this place, or what he had read in the past. He hoped that navigating the small town in the dead of night wouldn’t be hard enough for him to find what he needed to.
Thankfully for High Rise, this building’s unique shape soon was in front of him. A large tree surrounded by Ponyville’s traditional style of housing. The inside was hollowed, with a door at it’s trunk and several windows carved into its wood. Despite how much of the inside was cut out, the tree still had bright green leaves at its top.
The Golden Oak Library. High Rise looked up the tree to see one of the windows at the top illuminated with light. The inhabitant inside was still awake, even this late at night. He was glad to see that he wouldn’t be waking up the pony who lived inside. He would have done it if he had to, but it was better this way.
Butterflies flew in his chest, a feeling that made him hesitate to reach out and knock on the library door. Was it really alright for him to do this? It was better than doing it during the day, sure, but was it right to do it at all? What would the consequences be for the action he was about to take? He really didn’t know, and that just made it scarier. His hoof quivered in front of the door, unable to make up his mind.
No matter how scared he was, he knew there was only one pony in all of Equestria who could help him, and she was on the other side of that door. So he worked up the courage, put aside the risks, and brought his hoof to the door.
Knock Knock - Knock Knock
It was with no conscious thought that High Rise knocked on the door to the same beat as the final song from the Night-Mares show. Nor was it conscious that his hoof continued to tap to that same beat against the floorboards under him. Despite his concerns, the high he felt from playing with his favorite band was still strong within him. Following simple rhythms and beats helped to calm his nerves, and he had all sorts of nerves to calm.
“Coming!” A mare’s voice called from inside the tree. Soon, High Rise could hear slow hoof steps grow louder until they reached the door he stood behind. He held his breath, though he hadn’t noticed, until the very moment the door opened.
In front of High Rise stood a purple unicorn mare, her horn aglow with magenta as her magic brought open the door. The straight dark purple mane on her head was frazzled, and her magenta eyes were accented by a darker purple ring around the lids. High Rise immediately regretted his choice of knocking on the door. He should have come at a better time, when she was well rested. Now he was going to make it worse. It was too late to change that.
“Good evening.” The mare rubbed her eyes and looked up at the tall colt. A face she didn’t recognize looked back down towards her. His expression was a hard one to read, a mixture of excitement, fear and caution painted his muzzle. Her fatigue didn’t help when weighing the thoughts of what this pony could possibly want from her this late at night.
“I’m sorry, but the library is closed for tonight. Was there something I could help you with?”
A lump had formed in his throat, blocking out any words that could possibly form in his voice. It was one thing to think about meeting the mare in front of her. It was another thing entirely to actually stand here, witnessing this in the flesh. The mare must have noticed his nervous hesitation, blinking her eyes.
“Um… are you alright, sir?” She asked.
What was he going to say? Would this really work out for him? Was he about to make a big mistake? How does he even explain this? How would she ever believe him? Will everything be okay?…
There was no way to answer all the questions that were formed in those few seconds. High Rise knew that the only way forward was to just say it!
“…I’m sorry, wrong door. Have a good night, miss.” High Rise stammered, bowing his head and briskly walking away. Chickening out at the very last moment.
Behind him, he could hear the lavender mare call out to him. To make sure he was okay, High Rise didn’t respond. Breaking into a gallop the moment he was outside of the library’s view. The mare was right to ask if he was alright, because he certainly wasn’t alright. He needed help, he needed her help. If only his courage could survive long enough to say the one sentence he needed to.
He fled into the night, to the outskirts of Ponyville, thinking about the one sentence he had to say.
“I need your help getting home, Twilight Sparkle. I was sent 100 years into the past!”
Twilight Sparkle watched the odd stranger bolt into the distance, rubbing her eyes once more to try and understand what had just happened.
“Twiliiiight.” Her assistant, Spike, called out weakly from his bed at the top of the library. “Who was it?”
“I don’t know, Spike. It wasn’t anypony i’ve seen before.” Twilight closed the door and let out a yawn. She had spent most of the night cleaning up the mess she had made after a particular panic fueled week. From panic proofing, to calming Cerberus, all the way to breaking into the Canterlot archives. All because of her first ever attempts at time travel.
She had finally finished fixing her mane, for the most part, and Spike had been sound asleep after a bad ice cream induced stomachache. She was just about to head to sleep before the knock had come to her door.
“What did they need?”
“I don’t know either, he said he had the wrong door.” Twilight could have spent more time thinking about the peculiar encounter. She didn’t know every single pony in Ponyville, but she was at least familiar with most of them. Since she knew that much, she knew for certain that the colt who came to her door had never been in Ponyville before. Maybe one of the visitors for that rock show going on at the theater tonight?
That was as far as her thoughts went, fatigue from the panic and worry she felt this past week were catching up to her. A single odd pony wasn’t a big deal compared to that. If he really was new, Twilight was sure Pinkie would have a party to introduce him. As she always did.
“Sorry for waking you, Spike. I’ll turn off the lights.”
“Okay… night Twi.”
“Good night Spike.”
With the morning sun came aches and pains from High Rise’s body. Sleeping in a wide open flower field may seem idyllic, but it was actually incredibly uncomfortable and highly likely to result in small critters crawling on your legs. A feeling that High Rise was not quite comfortable with, if the girly scream he let out was any indication. Shaking off his entire body of any critters that decided to keep him company. He wasn’t afraid of bugs, but he hated the feeling of them.
Ponyville laid out in the distance from the field High Rise had found himself sleeping in. His cowardice led him to flee from the town mere seconds before he could say what he needed to say. His fears on what would have happened if he had revealed the truth overtook his wish to go home.
Could he really tell anypony the truth? That he was from 100 years in the future? What ramifications would there be for a pony to appear in Ponyville a century too early? High Rise knew that Ponyville around this time was a key period in history, one that would set the foundations for the future he lived in. Seeing Twilight Sparkle, the unicorn student of Princess Celestia, was all the proof he needed of that. Everything in Equestria would change in this upcoming decade, and he was an outsider walking into it. He regretted his decision to come to Ponyville, he should have realized this stupid mistake sooner. He had already taken too many risks!
High Rise was trapped in his thoughts, he didn’t even realize the yellow and pink pegasus that had been trembling beside him. The softest of squeaks alerting him of her presence. The pink mane of the mare he snapped his gaze onto seemed to hide her entire face from him. Shrinking further and further into it. The only thing that High Rise could see of her features was the cutie mark on her flank, a set of butterflies.
His heart then sank.
“Um.” Her voice was merely a whisper, barely able to be heard. “Excuse me, I didn’t mean to wake you… but you happen to have slept on… um.”
Eyes pointed downward to the High Rise-sized indent in the flowers. What he hadn’t noticed in the dead of night was the small burrow that was part of his makeshift bed. A group of small, scared looking bunnies staring at him from inside it.
“They…they um, couldn’t get out.” She finally whispered.
“…” High Rise, shocked with his situation, made noises that nearly sounded like words, but the pegasus in front of him certainly couldn’t tell what they were. At least until he let them all out at once.
“Iamsosorrythatismymistake!-PleaseforgivemebutIhavetogonow.-Haveanicedaymiss!”
The pegasus didn’t have time to blink before the stallion she was talking to ran into the distance. Surprisingly fast for how skinny he was. Her gaze went down to the bunnies who shared just as confused expressions. Her warm and gentle smile helped to ease them out of their burrow.
“It’s alright, little ones. He was probably just embarrassed about it. You can come out now.
Everything should be fine, it was only for a minute that they interacted. He couldn’t have affected her day too much with that. Nothing should be changed. At least that’s what High Rise kept telling himself. Sitting underneath what he believed to be an apple tree, gently tapping a simple beat on the trunk to calm himself. Everything in Ponyville wasn’t going well, and the more he stayed here the worse it was getting. His stay in town started with the highlight of his entire life, and now it was quickly becoming the worst day ever.
He would leave Ponyville, as soon as he calmed down, he would get out of dodge. Just pick a direction and run. Whatever he did, he could not interact with these ponies. There would be no help to get here, only danger. No, they weren’t the danger. High Rise is the danger.
“Urrrgh. Could you stop all that tapping? It’s really distracting, man.”
His eyes shot upward, towards the cyan blue pegasus mare laying in the tree above, a vibrant, rainbow main dangling off the sides of the branches she was curled up on. Her eyes staring back down at his, her mild annoyance plain as day towards High Rise’s rhythmic taps. Before he could panic about this encounter, another voice came to their ears.
“Rainbow Dash! What’d Ah tell ya about sleepin in the Gala orchard!” A thick accented voice yelled while an orange coated mare with a stetson hat fitted atop her blonde mane. Before she could turn the corner to see Rainbow Dash, the stallion who had been at the base of the tree was long gone.
“Were you sleepin here with somebody, Dash?”
“What? No!” Dash narrowed her eyes at the other mare. “That guy just showed up while I was napping.”
“Uh huh, was he tryin to steal an apple from the tree?”
“I dunno, Applejack.” She shrugged. “Kinda looked like he was having a panic attack.”
“A panic attack? What for?”
All Rainbow could do was shrug again, Applejack scrunching her nose. “Well, tell me what he looks like, just in case he comes ‘round again.”
“Well he had some sorta drums for a cutie mark, and he-…”
The Whitetail woods held the isolation he needed. Not that he knew the name of it. Everywhere else he went to hide had been a disaster. First the field, then it was the orchard. Surely nopony from town would be here at the moment! He just needed a minute to collect his thoughts, to calm himself. His rear landed on the ground below him, and he laid back against a tree that he was sure wasn’t an apple tree.
Tap-Click Tap-Click Tap-Click
He focused entirely on the simple motions he was making. A tap to the ground and click of his tongue in repetition. An extremely simple motion, but one that kept his mind occupied and his thoughts away. Nothing else mattered, all that mattered was the simple music he played on the earth.
Ever since he was a foal, he’d always get lost in these simple songs he made for himself. Riffs that led to nowhere, but kept him at ease in their motions and sounds. A simple rhythm turned into a riff, where his hooves were the sticks and the world around him was his drums. It really was no surprise that his cutie mark became a set of drumsticks over a snare drum. Even as a young colt, long before he realized his talent, he would get lost in his own little world. Tapping along to a song he never heard until then.
Tap-Click, Tap-TapTapTap, Tap-Click…
He continued on and on, his riff growing more complex the longer he went. He first just used the earth to make his taps, but soon enough he used the trunk of a nearby tree, and even clopped his hooves together to add to it. It was hardly a song worth remembering, but it was the only one that mattered in this moment. High Rise’s heart had stopped pounding inside his chest, and his mind was clear enough to think without immediate panic. Just a minute or two longer, and he would be alright to plan his next step.
Tap-Tap-Tap-Beep!
A new sound had entered the chorus of his song, a sound High Rise didn’t make. His song was interrupted again when the beep! came again. Then again, and again.
High Rise then realized that the beep! sound was getting louder, and faster. In his laid back position, he couldn’t run away in time. The bushes in front of him were already rustling. He tried to scramble to his feet, but it was too late before the figure behind the beep! came before him.
BeepBeepBeepBeepBeeeeeeee-!
“Aha! The anomaly must be here! Now where is i-. Oh hello there good sir.”
A brown colt with a short brown mane came from the bush in front of High Rise. Two darker shades of brown compared to the other brown on brown stallion. With a distinctive blue bowtie wrapped around his neck. In his foreleg held a strange device that gave off a continuous beeeeeep! and upon his flank was the image of a sand timer. The stranger’s head cocked to the side upon seeing the terrified High Rise in front of him.
“Are you alright? You seem scared, a ghost perhaps? Oh! Did you see the temporal anomaly! You must have, is it here? I must get a good lo-“
The stallion’s words were cut off as he waved his odd machine in his grasp. When he pointed it away from High Rise, it began to beep less, but when he pointed it at High Rise, it went off with a high pitch squeal.
“Hmm… no that can’t be right, you’re just a regular earth pony like me. There’s no way you could be the anomaly.” He pondered, tapping his chin and taking a more thorough look around the area. “Perhaps you could scoot over a bit? Maybe the anomaly is underneath you?”
High Rise scooted to the side, and the stallion pointed his machine at where he once sat. Once again, it beeped less, until he pointed it again at High Rise.
“Well, that is quite odd. I’ve only seen one other pony create a temporal anomaly, and that one was last week! Certainly this must be wrong.”
He didn’t know what came over him at that moment. All the built up stress from the past twelve hours had created a mess inside of High Rise that needed to be released. So when this accented earth pony started talking nonsense to him, High Rise had to speak up.
“I need your help! I’m from one hundred years in the future, and I have no way back home!”
The colt in front of High Rise stared at him while he made his panic fueled statement. When he finished his plea for help, the machine he held was dropped on the floor.
“Great withering stallions!”
Beep!