“Up and at ‘em Silv! It’s time!” Bellowed Cherry through Silver’s window, followed shortly after by a groan and grumble from Silv, tumbling slowly out of bed. She rubbed her eyes and looked at the calendar, before seeming to tense up. It was
March the 20th, and she was late for her first Winter Wrap Up. Rushing hither and thither, she grabbed her things and rushed out, colliding with Cherry in one of their frighteningly routine pony piles.
“We really need to stop colliding” Groaned Cherry, helping her friend up, before they both cantered off in the direction of the central square. Today was going to be a stressful day. After they arrived at the square, they moved swiftly into the crowd of ponies that had gathered, listening to the mayor’s speech, eager to get to work. Shortly after, they were arranged into squads. Sadly, Cherry and Silv were separated into different ones due to their vastly different talents. Silver would be with the animal team, working alongside pegasi and earth ponies to wake up the hibernating animals, while Cherry would be working along with Pinkie, breaking the ice up so that it can melt easily and safely.
Silver’s job, however, wasn’t as simple as she thought it’d be as she soon realised that she had been assigned with the task of waking the larger animals. Her percussion was too loud for the squirrels and hedgehogs, and so she’d be waking the... less eager ones. Namely bears and manticores, who do not take kindly to the simpler methods of waking, they needed to be awoken then unable to return back to sleep, otherwise they would turn aggressive before returning to their slumber. Sighing, Silver looked to the sky, before deciding that, while it may be a tad dangerous, at least it wasn’t Ursa majors she was dealing with.
Her group arrived at the first cave, and then she was left with a pegasi to sort out the bear within. The task was simple; Silver would wake the bear by creating beats as loud as possible, causing the bear to lose it. Then, while it was distracted, the pegasi would close its cave behind it, allowing the bear time to calm down from its tantrum and begin gathering its food. The only problem was Silv would have to keep calm as a bear would try and keep her quiet. She was in no harms way, the bear was aggressive but knew what was happening. He was just going to be extremely grumpy, sort of like being awoken on a Monday morning. Magicing up her drums, waited for her signal. Thinking to herself, she realised that this would be the perfect opportunity to try a faster paced tempo in her music. She struggled with the faster tempos as they require more... adrenaline. If she kept her heart pumping, she might be able to pass that stage.
Then it came. The pegasi signalled, and Silver began to play. A roar sounded from the cave, as a bear with baggy eyes dragged itself outside, looking in the direction of Silv with a look of pure irritation. Slowly, its growls started to heighten as he took a step forward, before rushing forward and starting to go after her. Silv’s eyes widened as she turned tail and ran, her heart pounding inside her chest, the blood rushing through her body as the pace of both her hooves and her beat increased, her horn glowing immensely. The thrill of the chase, she thought, is what I’ll call this piece. But there was no time for these simple thoughts. The pegasi dropped a boulder in front of the cave, and the bear turned towards her. Realising that he could no longer return to his slumber, he stretched and slumped away, grumbling. Turning back, she chuckled. In her eye, for a brief second, she saw herself in that bear’s actions, when she’d been waked by Cherry.
The rest of the day was much the same. At one point a manticore had offered to carry the two ponies to the next cave, despite minutes before chasing Silv, hell bent on quieting her. As they finished the last cave on time, she panted hard and collapsed. She didn’t want to see another cave for at least a year. Returning home and telling the mayor about their success, they were rewarded with cakes as thanks for their hard work and Silv waited for Cherry. She couldn’t help but burst into laughter, a soaked wet Cherry approaching.
“Ha ha bloomin’ ha” She grumbled, shaking her mane.
“W-what happened?” Giggled Silver.
“Somepony forgot to warn me the ice had begun to melt and I fell in” She was bluntly interrupted by Silv’s laugh once more, before joining in the laughter too. “Come on Silv, I don’t know about you but I am beat... Fancy coming over to mine?” Silver nodded, and the two headed down the road.