//------------------------------// // The Spark // Story: The Synthesizers // by Wiz Ahmad //------------------------------// Breakfast was a rather noisy affair. Everyone seemed to be onto Silverstream and Smolder, questioning where they’d been and what had happened. However, Smolder shut them all down. “We woke up early, and we practiced with our ‘toys’, if you will, in the gym. Silverstream on her bike and me on my board. No biggie.” The air stood quietly thin for a moment, before Yona broke the silence with a proclamation. “Yak interested! What is this “practice” you speak of?” Twilight’s ear caught wind of that, and she eyed Yona. “If you’re interested, they’ll be practicing tomorrow after school for a couple hours.” “Just having creative fun,” Silverstream quickly added. In Fluttershy’s class on nature and the physical aspects of biology, Silverstream sighed loudly and tried to keep upright in her seat as Fluttershy herself walked into the room, pulling a stack of papers and some chalk out of her saddlebag. “Good morning Professor Fluttershy!” the students all replied politely in unison. “Good morning class,” Fluttershy replied. “Today we’ll be learning about the movement of various animals as they travel from place to place.” She then began by quickly sketching out a bird in flight several times, showing how the wings moved and rotated slightly with each stroke, then went on to describe a few details of how air currents work, before abruptly stopping. She pointed to the third row. The bored hippogriff sunk in her seat. Please not me. Not me. “Silverstream, would you be so kind as to quickly demonstrate for us how wings work?” Silverstream let out a long sigh and shrugged. “Why not.” Standing up, she spread her wings and hovered, flapping her wings rather fast, then did a pass in front of the whole class at a moderate speed, allowing Fluttershy to provide a better explanation. Next, Fluttershy brought out a ferret and - with Applejack’s help - a long table. “This is Sasha, a little brown-and-white ferret. Now, I need you all to pay attention to the way she runs. Take note of how her little legs move in succession to each other.” Now Silverstream was interested.  She shifted all the way to the front row and peered as closely as she could without disturbing Sasha. Riding a bike meant pushing up and down on the pedals. However, a cranking motion - a motion of bringing one foot forward, under, and then backward, then up and forward again - was needed. And Sasha appeared to be doing almost the same thing, except using both feet simultaneously. The rotational cranking motion of a bike’s pedals would make that impossible. Yet, Silverstream kept observing and taking mental notes of Sasha’s running pace and individual body and leg movements. A downward push was needed to propel the little ferret up and forward, as well as a strong “surge” movement from the chest muscles. Sasha’s front legs also extended outwards and were aimed at the next place of contact with the ground. For a split second her body leveled out, albeit with a bit of a curve in her back. Silverstream kept replaying the basic sequence of Sasha’s short running sequence in her head, over and over, trying to get something to click. There was something intriguing about it that she thought could be used in a way. But there was still one more small thing that she needed to know; could the same liftoff technic be used when actually jumping? Sasha then performed an actual jump on Fluttershy’s command - and the same “punch-down, self-propel-and-lift-up” strategy was used. Silverstream’s eyes glowed with realization: if something underneath could be held and pushed and pulled, then… “Got it!” she whooped, startling Sasha who ran and hid behind a bush, and all the other students turned to stare. “Oh my, is there something that’s got you all excited?” Fluttershy inquired after fetching Sasha. “Just...figured out how amazing Sasha’s running movement is,” Silverstream replied innocently, though her actual brainwave was hundreds of times more exciting.