Winter Prom # 1

The music pulsed in the air around them, upbeat and fast-paced. Ponies bounded left and right, dancing with their partners and rocking around the room. The floor shook with the pounding of hundreds of hooves. After the initial shock of the heavy beats and dancing chaos, Steam took a deep breath and looked sidelong at Aria. “Uh-uh… Uhm…” Every time he looked at her, his throat closed and his face and ears flushed red with embarrassment. What was he doing? She was so beautiful… He was going to make a fool of himself! He ducked his head, the very thought of potentially embarrassing himself making him want to sink into the floor already.

Aria was standing on alert, her head turning in every direction and her ears swiveling back and forth, left and right, her nose twitching rapidly as she breathed in the varying wafts of sweetly scented treats, perfumes, and damp pony fur. Every time the floor shook, shivers traveled up her legs and a brief splay of grayscale clouded her mind, showing a change in movement and her surroundings which changed with every second. The ponies dancing around them, stomping, spinning, the grayscale ever-changing, made her feel dizzier than she’d ever been before in her life. The only stable thing, it seemed, was the washing grayscale form beside her, which she knew to be the nice pony that had asked her to prom. There was something about him that was eerily familiar… but she just couldn’t put her hoof on it. She shook her head a few times, attempting to shake the dizzying sensations that were now clouding her mind. Failing to do so, she suddenly turned to Steaming Water and smiled. “Hey, mind if we go somewhere quieter? There are just… too many ponies around.” She had to lean in close, speaking loudly to be heard over the wub-wub-wub of the music and the stomp-stomp-stomp of the ponies.

Steam flushed from head to hoof to see her so close, leaning over him, and his knees nearly buckled from under him. It took a moment for her question to register. He nodded rapidly in response, only to blush an even darker shade at the remembrance that she couldn’t see him nod. “Ooo, kay, Y-yes! Uh-Uhm…”

“I’ll just follow you.” Aria beamed at her very nervous date and together they began to weave their way through the crowds, seeking a less-suffocating room to enjoy their Winter Prom evening.