*errrr*
"Oh, dear."
At the top of the restricted staircase, Rarity and Patchwork found the attic. The subtle, wooden ceiling from the hall was the attic’s rickety, wooden floor. The walls and roof were still marble, encapsulating the expansive room completely in stone save for the small windows along its walls. In its correct place was a border of scaffolding and covered paintings leaning against every wall. Out of its place was the black box at the far end of the room, which Patch had quickly run to meet after they reached the top.
But the most prominent features of the attic had to be the powerful lights arraying the ceiling, perfectly still yet eagerly swallowing the attic whole in their light. Rarity shivered as they failed to bring her the warmth she expected from them, and she kept her attention on the floor as she walked timidly across it.
"How old is this floor?" she asked. "Listen to that."
*errr-errr-errr-errr*
Patchwork had run far enough ahead to not hear her concerns over the sounds of his own excitement. As Rarity made pursuit, she eyed the floor that was failing to quieten or louden with every step.
Patchwork's item of interest was a tall, rectangular stand with a foamy, mesh coating around its sides. At its top was a circular stand holding a perched disk with a needle hovering loosely above it.
"Is that a record player?" Rarity observed.
Patchwork stood beside it and beamed at her, before knocking a small latch out of its side. "Well, would you look at that," he added dumbly.
"Just where are we, Patch?"
The excited stallion began cranking the latch on the player. "The attic. This is where the museum stores all the paintings and sculptures that aren't being used. Thing is, this place can hold more than a thousand ponies, so it's like a ghost town up here."
"And yet there's a record player here." Rarity approached the loaded music station and studied the label on its top, which was wobbling loosely from Patchwork's rough turning. There was a brown haired mare wearing a cartoonish skull over her brow on it. Both were staring lifelessly through her.
"Yeah, what are the chances? Hey Rarity, have you heard of swing music?"
Rarity scoffed at the question. "Yeees, I've heard of swing music."
"Okay, ever dance to it?"
"Not really. A few times, but not... not enough to know any of the dances, you see."
"The dances," Patch remarked with a roll of his eyes, "were the worst thing to ever happen to swing music."
"I, um... I beg your pardon?"
"Here, I'll show you." Patch stopped turning the crank and pushed it back flush into the side of the box. He extended a hoof to the mare next to him while wearing the most charming smile he could muster. Rarity stepped back and looked away.
"Are you sure that’s safe? This floor is very worrying, don't you think?"
"The floor?" Patch questioned. He reared on his back hooves and delivered a powerful stomp to the floorboards. Instead of creaking, they absorbed the force with a tiny vibration and a tremendous boom. "The floor is the best part," he said, raising his hoof again.
"Oh, that's quite alright, darling. My hooves are aching from all this walking, anyways. I think I'll sit this one out."
"Too late!"
Patch gave the needle a nudge, and it lightly fell onto the record as it began to turn. An eager, ambient crackle filled the vast attic, and within two seconds the notes on the disk began to play.
It started with a casual drum beat and a lazy bass line. Patch grinned and strolled backwards in beat with the music, loosening the muscles in his neck and letting his head pivot left and right. Rarity smirked at the lethargy in his steps and giggled when he dramatically kicked off his dancing shoes. He lifted one foreleg to her again and pulsed on his other, repeatedly tapping the floorboards as if he were an extra member of the drum kit.
"Well... alright, but I should warn you: I wasn't lying when I said strange things happen around me when music starts to play."
"Funny, I don't feel warned."
Rarity coyly pushed Patchwork’s leg away and paced around the record player as she aligned herself with the rhythm. Her heartbeat began to rise again, though it was no longer in wonder or ponder, but in acceptance and expectance.
And as she began to dance in time, the floor fell away. Starting from the walls, each of the floorboards decided they were no longer needed, and began to drop one by one from the warming-up dancers to allow them more space. There were a thousand, then five hundred, then less than fifty, then only 8. As Rarity and Patchwork coolly circled each other the floorboards fell and rose to catch them, trading the opportunity to support them as the two travelled the empty space. Neither Rarity nor Patch looked down, as their eyes fell out of focus and shut so they could better hear the calming bass line that followed them around the room. The 8 floorboards became 7, then 5, then 3.
Then 5,
6,
7,
8.
Trumpets exploded in unison, and the floorboards were blown away by their strength. With an unreserved laugh, Rarity held down her dress and Patch cheered as they fell to the darkness below them, chased the whole way down by the generous lights above. The music was suddenly accented by a single note from an exotic metal instrument on wood, and Rarity opened her eyes to see a colourful platform rising to stop their descent.
Rarity landed first and Patch second, atop the head of a pony more than ten times their size, cresting over the surface of an endless ocean. They landed in her stark purple mane and rode its length down her water-slicked neck to her back. They grabbed each other briefly to regain balance before pushing each other away to improvise their own solo dances. Their eight wild hooves banged harshly against the mare's scarlet back and began to leave bruises on the surface, but when they looked towards her giant, craning head expecting fury, they were met with a warm smile. The mare's wings burst upward, surrounding the dancers with a torrent of cold, wet wind that encouraged them to continue dancing, stomping, and carrying on.
And they did carry on. As their platform took off in flight, Patch took off towards her tail—partially to see it, and partially to accept his inertia. Rarity followed—her hooves battering the mare's back in perfect time with the piano. When they reached the tail they halted as the music took a silent pause for breath. As the bass came in and played alone, Patch and Rarity gazed upon the ocean below them, illuminated by a mess of stars and a single ball of red light, casting warping reflections on their faces and leaving them stunned.
Despite their desire to soak in the sights, their platform had other plans for them. Without warning, she drew her hind legs out from underneath, causing them to holler and resume their fall. They looked back up to see her performing a backflip and winking at them as they fell towards the ocean below, a few detached strands of her mane and tail speeding past them into the water.
But before they crashed, a purple carpet raced into view, caught their hooves without deflecting, and sprung stiff in an instant. They absorbed their fall with closed eyes and gasps, and the music regained its wild pace.
Their new dancefloor was a royal, stone throne room. Ancient, unseen, and imperfectly dirty, it towered around them as though they were small critters come out from a hole in the wall. Lining the center carpet were several golden lamps, and next to the empty throne was the record player, dancing on its own with the boisterous music. Patch jolted his hoof towards Rarity, and she took it and drew him closer to her. With a sharp inhale and a laugh, they circled each other’s grasp in time to the drums, only to remember how free they were before they touched, and release.
“Oh!”
Rarity spun away uncontrollably, slipping on the purple carpet and landing on her rump. She blushed and bolted to her hooves, still rocking to and fro, and Patch leapt at the chance to drive his nose under the new furl in the carpet and toss it into the air. A lamp at the room’s entrance fell over as a kick drum played. Patch dove underneath the airborne carpet and prepared to throw it again, only for Rarity to pick the entire thing up with her magic and ball it up before his eyes. She packed it like a snowball, ignoring the kick-drum crashes of each of the falling lamps, and gave a hurrah as she hurled it at the throne, knocking it over with the sound of a blaring horn.
As laughs became guffaws, the dancers came together and danced again – for just a few seconds more – before the bottom half of a red and purple mare passing the entrance caught their attention. The dancers excitedly dashed towards her ghost, hearing her deep, sly laugh fill the halls of the castle while a pair of hooves tumbled down the keys of a piano.
They burst through a set of doors – uncaring of what was on the other side – and found themselves in the sky of a rain-filled forest clearing, where the music lost several instruments and became a touch more ambient. They dropped towards a raging river, dotted with a few rounded stones. Patch landed first and regained his balance on one of them, and laughed at Rarity as she struggled to stay on top of a different slick surface across the way. When she slipped off, another stone rose from the water with the sound of tearing fabric to aid her. She gained her balance on the two rocks and swayed dreamily with the quieter music, noticing a rising action of guitars from beneath the calm.
Patch slid down the side of his platform, kicking off from it and flipping backwards in the air. Another pillar instinctively rose to catch him, but he had lost height and hit the stone too early. The record player played two tiny ripping sounds as he stumbled.
Patch shrugged off his mistake and resumed his sauntering dance, turning with his date to a waterfall that was a thousand yards high at the end of the clearing. They hopped along the rising stones towards the crashing falls, making sure to land in time with every shriek from the trumpets. The torrential rain did nothing to push them into the river, and just as they leapt towards the waterfall, aiming to collide, the music paused for two seconds that lasted five.
With another boisterous clamoring, Rarity and Patchwork became entwined in the air and fell through the thin layer of water into the ethereal space underneath the attic. When they caught another glimpse of the scarlet mare flying upside down beneath them, they pushed each other away, each landing on one of her front hooves and resuming moving with the beat.
Their soaring platform clanged her hooves together, causing Patch to leap over Rarity as they switched hooves and howled with laughter. Then, without warning, the hooves were brought down to the mare’s chest and throttled towards the ceiling lights of the attic, launching the dancers happily towards them.
Patchwork performed several twists and spins in the air as they rose, and Rarity simply beamed as the enormous alicorn below them pierced the waters headfirst with a cacophonous splash that signalled the end of the song’s grand climax.
Just as Rarity and Patch wished to fall again, two groups of three floorboards rose and touched their hooves when their velocities hit zero, and rose up to meet the ceiling lights once more. When they were back at the proper height, Rarity and Patch swiveled around each other panting, moved about wheezing, and drew closer and closer to each other. The band on the record player had gone silent save for the drum and the bass players, still moving at a quiet yet blistering pace. The floorboards were 8, then 7.
Then 4,
3,
2,
1.
And the dancers exhaled.