Chapter One
Lead a Princess to Dance
Chapter 1
Life is a disaster. But as everything has an equal and opposite, I can say right now that I’m feeling the aster. Waves of melody and lack of concern crash into the walls with a sense of presence that defies the logic of a simple speaker system, as if the walls themselves had taken it upon themselves to sing to me the songs that move my hooves and bob my head in a way I could never do on my own. The music waves and weaves around me like a tapestry of direction, a collage of arrows and guiding lines that keeps me on my tips and never lets me stop as long as there is breath in my body. And with each exhale, and each beat, I feel more of it me, and more of it leave me, with each step, each move, I feel more at one with the air around me and less a single person.
If this keeps up I could dissolve into nothing forever, simply dancing myself into oblivion. Wouldn’t that be poetic?
But then I’d get bored
It’s easy to get lost though, in the string pulls and strums and sighs of musical contentment from one note to the next.
Then the song changes. Suddenly I’m in charge, I’m moving myself and chasing my own rhythm. Nothing can control me anymore, as I take one step into the next and the next like my hooves are cats in a field of mice with no idea which one to chase but not caring if they catch. Like they’ve had their fill and it’s all just for fun now. Which I guess is a lot like me, when I’m practicing. I know the moves more than I need to, and keeping in shape is just an excuse, but I can’t stop myself from moving to and fro and back and forth as if stillness is one of the great mysteries of life I may never know.
Moving into and around the notes permeating the walls and the skin and the air around me is easier than breathing, sometimes. I can lose my breath, have it catch in my throat as I stare at something beautiful or listen to the perfect song, but nothing could ever stop me moving. Dancing to me is perfect in a way simply living could never be.
I’ve tried dancing with others, and I muse on those experience as the song changes yet again into a smoother, more relaxed, yet somehow bouncier, melody, and my hooves pull in as my joints do all the work, the rest of my body jerking and bouncing in subtle motions as I just kind of stay in one place, yet never truly unmoving, hoping about in small circles with little care for the world.
Dancing with other ponies is possibly the closest anyone can get to fighting for air without drowning. It’s like trying to claim the air around you as your own with each motion, weaving yourself into space while it’s slowly taken from you by a crowd of people doing the same thing. Choreography? Don’t make me laugh. Or do. I’m always laughing when I dance, at least to myself. Or maybe I’m just dancing when I laugh, and I’m always amused. You could argue either way and never be wrong. Nothing is more restrictive to me than being told where and when to move a body I can’ even control on the best of days.
Ponies who watch me dance always say something about “muscle control” and “great reflexes” or talk about how flexible I am. I think it’s all kind of stupid, really, because it’s few and far between when I’m in control of myself, truly, actually, desperately, and those moments feel like a thousand chains bound in countless locks that do nothing but taunt and chafe.
Fortunately for me, dancing is my skeleton key.
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Practice, as much fun as it is, is always the most exhausting part of my day. Well, I call it practice, but really I don’t have anything to practice for. It’s not like I get paid to dance. I find the notion kind of silly, in a way. That’s what dance clubs and open fields and basements with bitchin’ acoustics are for. It’s like ponies that get paid to play games. Somehow I think it’s just too restrictive to let someone else tell you how to do what you love. I think that’s why so many ponies go into business for themselves.
Sure, others have promised I’d have all the freedom in the world, except for “this one thing”. And it’s always something innocuous at first, then more and more it becomes as restrictive as any other direct order. I mean, of course I’ve tried getting paid to dance. I’ve had my experiences on stage and off, dealing with ponies who know just what and when to say what you want to hear to get what they want. Eventually, I just stopped listening to everything except the music.
I guess that’s what I like so much about Ponyville. It’s easy to just exist here, to do want you want, hold down a small job, and etch out a quiet life while you spend the rest of your time doing whatever you want. For some, their talent, their job is their life, and I respect them for that. Dancing is my life, of course, but never by job. If you love what you do you never work a day in your life.
Of course, my job is dancing related, but not the way you think. I teach. Small classes, after business hours every day in the town hall. Different things to different ponies. I’ve never limited myself to just one style, so why should I limit others? So I guess in a way I am practicing for something. I mean, who wants a teacher off his game? I don’t really think of it as getting paid to dance, though. Just showing others how. I spend most of the time walking around the room giving advice. Of course, I tend to show off once or twice. A day.
I pull myself out of my reverent musings by walking muzzle-first into a locked door. I stare up at the big oak doors to the town hall, and wonder to myself why for they could be locked. So I back up a couple of paces, and tilt my head further back to look up at the clock. Ah, it seems I’m early. The janitor is cleaning the floors for end of business. He always locks the doors. Only time the poor soul gets any piece and quiet.
I think I’d go crazy with all that silence.
It’s not like I wear headphones everywhere, as I ponder about a certain silent DJ who makes a bad habit of never taking the damn things off. Led a guy who was looking for a tailor into a bowling alley, for goodness’ sakes. But neither is Ponyville a quiet town to live in. And when it does grow quiet, during the evenings or cold wintry days when nopony wants to go outside, there’s always noise to find inside. Gathering around warm fires, or playing loud music in nightclubs. The world is never truly silent.
Of course, with all that noise going on, and my own penchant for chasing wild thoughts down rabbit holes like so many Alices, sometimes I miss what’s right in front of me. Or beside me, to be fair, but the point still stands.
My attention reasserts itself as she asks for maybe the second or third time, “Um, Mr. Beat?”
I turn my head to focus on the distinctly feminine sound of a familiar face: Ms. Cheerilee. I shake some loose thoughts out my ears and smile at her. “Sorry, lost in thought. ‘Sup?”
Many ponies have told me my vocabulary is distinctly limited. I like to think at them till they go away. “Sorry to bother you,” the schoolteacher continues, “but I was wondering if you were still having class on Thursday?”
Thursday. A day I hadn’t thought about all day. The evening before I leave. My thoughts had been more on Friday, the day I actually depart for my not-really-needed-but-taking-it-anyway vacation to Canterlot. “Yeah, course I am.”
She smiles and sighs. “Oh good. I mean, I’m glad you’re taking this vacation and all, given that you work every day and you don’t really get a break, “ Pffft, yeah, sure, ok, “But that class is just the thing I need to unwind before a Friday, you know? Kids never want to sit still on Fridays.” She goes on a little more about how she loves her kids, but they can be a hassle, and so on, and I just sit back and let her vent. Sometimes I think they only thing I do as well as dance is listen. She goes on for a few minutes, during which I hear the lock on the front door click, at which point I slowly move up to open it and let her in. She follows, and walks in ahead of me, still going on. I don’t really think of her as somepony who talks too much, so much as somepony who doesn’t have enough listen in her life. She tapers off, and I nod appropriately to the usual “Know what I mean?” and “See, you get it,” and she trots to the back of the main hall to the changing room. My eyes follow, of course, cause I mean, come on.
I’m still a stallion.
“Heavy!” I hear the solid timber of a male voice behind me bark my given name, and I turn to face the newcomer. Thunderlane trots through the door, leading a couple other ponies through as my class starts to file in. “Hey, you gonna be on weather duty tomorrow?” I nod. I mean, it’s not like an hour a day pays the bills, you know? I just don’t think of weather patrol as my real job. Just a thing I do so I don’t go hungry. “Oh, good. Cause I might have to cut out early for a little bit, I got this doctor’s thing. But I’ll be back to help close up, don’t worry!”
I nod again, and extend a limb to welcome the slowly growing crowd into the room.
After twenty minutes or so, ponies have finished changing clothes, and have lined up for the start of class. So to speak. Some are off in the corner, getting in some warm-up stretches. Others are sitting around in their predetermined spots, waiting for the ball to get rolling.
Once everypony is settled, I line them all up, and get ready to explain today’s activities. I casually register the opening and closing of the big oak door behind me, but I’ve learned not to interrupt myself with other’s arrivals. “Right, so today we’re just going to do some revision, go over some class favorites, before I have to leave. I just wanted to- hey, Thunderlane, eyes front,” I adjust my sentence mid-thought as I see the Pegasus, and a few other ponies, stare at the door.
“Uh, Beat?” he responds, pointing a hoof towards what I can only assume is the newcomer. I turn to follow the gesture, and am… surprised. Mostly. Some part of me, somehow, isn’t, although I’m not sure how.
Princess Luna stands in the middle of the room, waiting patiently for me to notice her. She doesn’t give me a chance to address her, however, for as soon as she notices she has my attention, she says, “You are Heavy Bass, correct?”
“Heavy Beat,” I correct her.
She seems to muse on that for a second. “Yes, Heavy Beat. Apologies. I have come to ask a favor.”
A very large part of me says that whatever this is, I should just stay away. It’s common knowledge that favors for Princesses usually end in hospital visits or property damage bills. But the stupid part, the friendly, dancing, decent-pony part of me, speaks first. “Sure, what’s up?”
“I have come to ask you to teach me to dance in time for a wedding,” she explains.
The part of me that isn’t surprised gets bigger, as I remember a certain Captain of the Royal Guard coming to me with a very similar request. Half the ponies that take my classes do so for similar reasons. Hell, I had a full house most days of the week in the month leading up to Cranky and Matilda’s wedding. “Yeah, I can do that, Your Highness. Mind if I ask whose?”
She pauses for a moment, as if unsure whether or not she wants to answer, but does anyway. “Mine.”
“…what.”