The Synthesizers

by Wiz Ahmad


Rise From the Pain

Some fifteen minutes later, Smolder rose up again, awoken from her cat nap. Having landed one trick shortly earlier, she then decided to take it easy for the rest of the early morning. Walking over to her board, she hopped on and adjusted her legs, simply practicing balancing on the board in various simulated upper body positions. After more falls it became clear that leaning too much in any one direction would cause a “under-slide-out” in the other direction.

Basic physics, she thought.

After some rolling around, the flutter of wings was heard clearly from the door. Instinctively Smolder retracted out of the light and into the shadows, pressing herself into the wall in an attempt to stay as hidden as possible from whoever had just entered.

Then there was a click and a slight squeak of another door opening, then another slight click. From the shadows, out stepped a pair of hooves and sky-cornflower blue feathery wings, along with a pair of jet black wheels.

“Silverstream?” Smolder whispered.

“Smolder?! Is that you?” Silverstream replied, peering through the darkness beyond the single overhead light.

Smolder smiled and sighed. Hopping onto her board, she rolled out into the light.

“Good morning Silverstream, why are you up so early?”

“I wanted to practice with Spinner. You remember, the bike?” Silverstream replied excitedly.

Smolder nodded. “I haven’t forgotten. I’ve managed to get a decent amount of balance thanks to my short stature and strong legs, but I just barely managed to land a upside-down two-footer flip. I don’t even know if I can do it again.”

“Well, it just takes time to learn and get comfortable with what you do, and it’s all in practice and also observation,” Silverstream reassured her. “And the thrill of wanting to enjoy trying new things and getting them to perform the way you want kinda gets to you, you know? My wing still hurts, but I’ll keep riding! You ready to move and not give up?”

Smolder tapped the tail of her board, caught it, and held it up proudly. “I am ready. Dragon and hippogriff, creative riders!”

“Now until the end of time!” Silverstream added, sharing an air-punch of agreement, pride, and commitment, before gripping the handlebars and hopping onto her BMX bike.

With a few more light switches flipped, Smolder and Silverstream continued to ride around in the gym. Smolder tried to come up with a few new moves, while Silverstream attempted to get the hang of speeding up and slowing down smoothly. Smolder tried to slide her feet off the board, push the nose up, and then slowly but forcefully pull her arms in in an attempt at an upside-down spin, with the board’s tail as a pivot point. Silverstream squeezed the brakes hard to try and give a little leverage to lean forward and balance on the front wheel. Both got thrown off and fell hard - Silverstream got thrown over her handlebars and Smolder slammed face first into the hard floor. The consecutive “OWs!” rang out, but were followed with repeated attempts.

Just as a “YES!” rang out even louder, followed by a high-five, the gym doors opened up again, followed by a loud throat clearing.

Standing in the doorway with a cross look on her face was none other than the headmare herself, Twilight Sparkle.

Smolder held up her hands. “Let’s face it, this isn’t the worst thing we’ve done. We just… wanted to practice early before class began. There’s a lot that we can do, we just need to discover it as part of our play.”

“Yeah, as part of having fun!” Silverstream added. “Though… we should’ve asked you first.”

“Exactly,” Twilight hissed. “And that’s why four hours of detention are atop both of your heads. If you wanted to have fun, you could’ve just waited until gym class and we could’ve sorted things out with an adjusted schedule and everything. Now put those wheels away, breakfast awaits. I will be expecting your arrival in the cafeteria in three minutes.”

Without another word, Twilight turned tail and strode out of the gym.

“I can’t believe all this time we only managed to get two moves!” Smolder grumbled, kicking her board in disappointment. “I need to be the best board rider there is!”

Silverstream sighed and half-rolled her eyes. “I wish I could be the best biker too, but it’s going to take some time. A good amount of time, preferably periodically. And as you demonstrated by flipping the board from upside down to right side up, we need to innovate. We need to try and tell ourselves, how many different ways can we do this? Can we ride in this way or that way? No limits except that of our own minds and levels of balance.”

“Yeah, that…” Smolder nodded, vaguely pointing. “Balance. To do any of that, we have to perfect our balance. So as you said, basics for now, simplistic tricks and movements, then see how far we can take ourselves with balancing. Now let’s put our stuff away before Twilight comes back.”

Silverstream slid her BMX bike back into the gym storage room, while Smolder ran back upstairs, slid her board under her bed, and raced off to the cafeteria.