Natural Conducters (Ratchette)
The only pegasus device mechanic in the history of Equestria silently looked at the yellow earth pony filly who had just dared to enter her fix-it shop again (and done so as the first pony to enter on that late summer day, just barely after the sign had been flipped to Open, with no time to spot or block her), and marveled at the visibility of her own anger.
Ratchette, when in the presence of other ponies, was rarely angry. Her rage was generally reserved for the inanimate: those things which should have been within her capacity to repair and just weren't cooperating: being alone in the workshop (for she was just about always alone in her workshop) on such occasions gave her the freedom to unleash vocabulary. The full range of such expressions borrowed heavily from the other nations just from her desperate search to find something foul enough. An all-out verbal blast from Ratchette tended to tarnish any nearby silver, and occasionally felt as if it was making devices force themselves back into an operational state just so the enchantments wouldn't have to go through that again.
But with ponies... all too often, she would be shy. The first filly impulses to investigate devices had been seen by her family as merely curiosity being aimed in a strange direction, and had eventually led to their simply being indulgent on the matter: something which had become expensive in a hurry, as it had taken Ratchette quite some time before she'd started to put things back together in working order -- but her House had money and her parents spent a little more freely on her, because she was the last. Even as a young adult, she knew they still saw her as the foal of the family: the sheer difficulty of her birth had guaranteed there would be no others.
Her family had accepted her curiosity and, in time, her mark. Just about everypony else in that ancient pegasus settlement hadn't, and so Ratchette, only seen as pretty until ponies realized she was just pretty weird, gradually slipped into the social shadows. She was seldom good with ponies when it was one-on-one, didn't have a dating life so much as an intermittent series of spectacular disasters, and when it came to customer relations... Ponyville was, in some ways, still getting used to her, and Ponyville was also adding residents to its population with every moon. There would always be somepony new venturing without forewarning into the town's only fix-it-shop to inquire about device repair. Somepony who wasn't expecting a pegasus to be in that profession (and why would they have any reason to, when she was the only one?), and reacted accordingly. Ponies who wouldn't recognize or understand her mark, who doubted her capabilities, who didn't know why they should risk turning their property over to somepony who could only work on the physical elements of a device, a pony who would never be able to cast the most simple working...
During such meetings, all she could do was be polite. Try to verbally demonstrate that she knew something. Hope that, in the end, yet another stranger would be willing to take a chance on her. And try not to shiver too much.
She wasn't in a position where she could be rude with anypony, even when so many seemed to feel they had a Sun-granted duty to berate her choice in occupations: a number very close to the total for those who felt the need to post a public notice of her own race. She couldn't afford to alienate a single potential customer: for the most part, she just listened as they openly dismissed her. Ultimately, those who took the chance tended to come back: others simply snorted and headed for the train, and all she could do was watch them go.
But the earth pony filly wasn't a customer. It could be argued that she was the exact opposite of a customer and if you didn't want to look in that portion of the dictionary, the word disaster was always available.
"Get out."
It was something she had longed to say. So many ponies should have been on the receiving end of those half-hissed words, and even with a single target, it felt so good to say it at last, when it was deserved...
The filly's head dipped, ears rotating back and down. A yellow left forehoof awkwardly scraped across the floor, just before she risked a step. Forward.
"Ah... Ah jus' came in t' --"
"The last time you came in," Ratchette harshly reminded her, "you were here to steal."
The next words were pure instinct, an automatic reaction worn into the filly's mind by the groove of endless repetition. "Ah was borrowin' --"
-- and she stopped.
"Yeah," Apple Bloom softly admitted. "Y'take something behind somepony's back an' they don't know, even if you're gonna bring it back later... it's stealin'. Ah stole the thing for the balloon."
Ratchette took a slow breath, moved one hoofstep closer down the narrow aisle between parts. The shop had a way of being crowded even when there was but a single pony inside: shelves, racks, scattered (but numbered and labeled) pieces of projects in progress, tools hanging from the walls and ceiling, open housings with exposed interiors and edges. "Ms. Bennett trusted me with her device." The most crucial part of a balloon's operation: the channel for the magic which changed the air inside the fabric shell, made it into something which could lift. "It took a long time before she would trust me with anything. I hadn't had the chance to do more than look at it --"
(Which was a lie, just as automatic as the filly's earlier denial. She'd had the chance to touch it, and so had known that a particularly rough landing had wreaked minor havoc on the internal alignment, some of the wire needed to have its coils adjusted and the phlogistinator had to be shifted three tail strands to the right...)
"-- and you stole it. You used a malfunctioning lifter to try and get a mark for aeronautics, and what Chief Rights brought back from the crash site may be completely beyond repair. Ms. Bennett needed eight moons of ponies recommending me before she would stretch a single foreleg across the doorway, and when she found out that her lifter left the shop while my tail was turned, what happened to it..." The possibility of a lawsuit had been mentioned, if so casual a word as 'mentioned' could be applied to what might be a still-echoing scream. "You're not welcome in here. Not any more. If your family has something they need repaired, your grandmother or siblings can drop it off. You --"
"-- Ah'm sorry."
The words had been soft. Pained. Spoken mostly to the floor, and the grease stains absorbed most of the volume.
But Ratchette had been in Ponyville for just about two years, and so as words went...
"You've said that a few too many times," she told the little filly. (Or no longer quite as little: Ratchette was on the small side for a pegasus, and the earth pony was finally starting to enter her growth spurt.) "Too many to be believed. Even without your sister herding you around town to say it to just about everypony..."
"She..." A tiny gulp of air, followed by a much more open swallowing of fear. "...ain't back yet."
Which temporarily made Ratchette go silent. She knew the Bearers had left Ponyville, teleported away to a mission -- one for which no two ponies could agree upon a suitable rumor. She'd trotted past a library under temporary new management and without one of the only ponies she could occasionally speak with working on endless reshelving within, had been unable to go inside.
The Bearers were away and if you listened closely, it was possible to hear an entire settled zone holding its breath.
Apple Bloom was a trotting disaster zone: so much time spent in what was sometimes literal crashing failure could make it hard to see her any other way. But in that moment, she was also a child who didn't know if her sibling would ever come home. And as Ratchette's two years of residency had eventually made her aware, whose parents hadn't.
The pegasus took a breath, and felt something within herself soften. The decision hadn't changed: the filly was no longer welcome in her shop. But no matter how much Apple Bloom might have earned it, this wasn't the time for rage.
"You stole from me," Ratchette quietly said. "You admitted it. How am I supposed to trust you? Why are you even here?"
"Because..." Another little hoof scrape: this time, some of the stain adhered. Still not looking up. "Ah... wanted t' say some things."
Ratchette, mostly against her better judgment, listened.
"That... Ah was sorry. An' Ah know how much Ah've said it. Y'missed a whole year of me sayin' it. Got to the point where Ah didn't even hear mahself sayin' it. Ah know nopony believes mah words anymore, an'... that's on me. Can't count on words no more. If'fin Ah'm gonna make things right, Ah gotta do things. An'... Ah'm... Ah'm..."
Another gulp, which failed to choke back the pain.
"...Ah'm out of the Crusade."
Ratchette blinked.
"Ah'm done." Still without making eye contact: the filly hadn't looked directly at her since slinking into the shop. "So there won't be no more disasters, not from me as part of that. Ah can't do it no more, 'cause Ah... Ah finally realized that when you say 'one more time' over and over, it adds up t' forever. Ah can't. An'... you're one of the last ponies Ah hurt, you an' Ms. Bennett an' Golden Harvest, 'cause Ah know Chief Rights told you where we crashed. Other two won't talk t' me. Nopony wants t' hear me no more. But y'ain't... y'told me t' get out, but y'ain't kicked, so maybe... maybe you'll let me say the next thing."
It was like listening to an addict on the first day they'd declared themselves as going sober, and doing so in the center of a pub.
Softly, "And what's the next thing?"
Orange eyes winced shut.
"Ah told mah brother Ah was comin' here. An' why. So y'know. He didn't tell me t' do it. This is mah idea. All mine. Nopony's fault but mine. So..." Forcing each syllable now. "...if y'say no -- it's jus' t' me. He understands that."
Ratchette waited.
The next words weren't so much dredged up as unearthed, a forced burial being reversed one mouthful of dirt at a time, with most of the concealing material coating the tongue. "Ah... owe you. Ah owe money t' a lot of ponies, 'cause of everything Ah did in the Crusade. You're the latest, an'... Ah..."
Her eyes opened, and the yellow head forced itself up just enough to look at Ratchette's front knees.
"...Ah... sometimes, Ah... look at things an' Ah think 'bout -- how t' make 'em better. Only Ah didn't try, 'cause it was borin' an'... if Ah was borin', then Ah wouldn't have nopony no more. But Ah'm out of the Crusade, Ah am --" and with that came the first tear, clear blood shed from an intangible hoofblade wound which had been aimed at the heart "-- an' Ah owe you. Ah want t'... work for you, if'fin you'll let me. A few hours a week. Last of the summer, an' then after school starts. Big Mac says it's okay, bein' away from the chores. He's... kinda known it wasn't gonna be a farmin' mark for a while, an' if Ah've got a chance, a real chance, he wants me t' be where it might happen. Where there's an adult watchin'. Where maybe Ah can read more than two pages before Ah say Ah know the book, where Ah finish somethin', doin' it right, and..."
Which was where words temporarily ran out, and her head dipped again.
A thousand future explosions went off in Ratchette's imagination, and none of them had survivors.
"You want to work here." There were times when, even while locked into nightmare, you had to pause and count the exact number of monsters who were about to eat you.
"Not for pay," Apple Bloom weakly tried. "No bits for me, anyway. Until Ah've worked off what Ah owe you. An' maybe if Ah can finally let mahself be right, right instead of scared, Ah can put things t'gether and make them better in front of somepony who knows 'bout that kind of stuff. Ah know your mark is devices, an' Ah know Ah can't do that 'cause after Ah heard what yours did, Ah thought maybe we could all... well, everypony heard that boom. Ah won't touch the magic stuff, Ah promise. But y'fix gears. Wind springs. Y'designed that spider y'wear on your face, the one which moves stuff for you, an' Ah think maybe Ah could --"
"-- you've said a lot of things," Ratchette interrupted, and just doing that would have been a shock -- if she'd been talking to any other pony. "You've apologized. I think you've apologized to me nine times in two years." There had been only one theft. There had been many more Crusades.
"But Ah mean it. An' Ah know Ah can't say it no more, Ah've gotta show --"
Ratchette repaired unicorn devices. Tried to fix things which so many insisted she could never understand and, in the event of something truly going wrong, had no workings to save herself: just excellent reflexes and what would hopefully be a clear path to the exit. Device repair, even with a qualified unicorn, was one of the highest-risk professions in Equestria, and a vacancy had been available in Ponyville because the last shop had crash-landed in the Everfree. The proprietor's body had never been found.
She could keep a normal pony away from such moments, ask them to wait outside while the risks mounted, make them understand that there were things they could never touch. Have them only work on the items which were purely mechanical in nature, a restriction which would be keeping them safe. A normal pony would understand that.
But this wasn't a normal pony.
Ratchette's mark had placed her the width of a single tail strand away from death. She didn't need anypony accidentally shoving her across the final gap.
"-- you're not welcome in this shop any more, Apple Bloom."
There had been no anger in the words. She had made a simple, calm statement of fact. And in return, the filly, finding no mercy in sound or floor stains, began to turn around in the narrow aisle, lowered gaze not really paying any attention to the process.
"Ah..." The tiny sob briefly cut off the rest. "Ah thought that maybe... maybe somepony who's kinda different might understand what it feels like, tellin' yourself that maybe y'can be somethin' --"
Which was when Ratchette's reflexes took over.
Her wings flared out and she went aloft, placed her body just barely above the filly, lowered short-cut copper tail and whipped the yellow flank.
Apple Bloom, startled, jumped -- away from the exposed edge of the open housing, the metal which her lack of attention had nearly seen her rub against.
"What? Ah -- why did y'do --"
Ratchette quickly landed in front of her, got her left forehoof under the filly's still-lowered chin, and guided that gaze around to the little ridges of serration which ran along that edge.
Orange eyes widened.
"I have to pay attention in here," Ratchette said. "All the time. You won't. Go home, Apple Bloom."
She carefully flew over the filly, clearing the aisle, and the not-as-little-any-more spine-dipped body began to work its way out -- then paused, just in front of the door.
"The... copper thing. The one with the three wheels. Ah... think maybe... it would go better if there was one more right in the middle, takin' the weight. One which could rotate all the way 'round. Ah think --"
Stopped.
"-- Ah'm stupid," Apple Bloom softly decided. "Ah think Ah'm bein' stupid. An'... Ah'm... Ah'm sorry..."
Which was when the last of her resolve splashed against the floor as water and salt, in the moment before she galloped from the shop.
Within the closed-off rear of the establishment, several things which were not tools had been hung on the walls. Ratchette's diploma was the one which received the most sheer disbelief: she only showed it to ponies as a last resort, typically while praying that they didn't realize it had come from a correspondence school. A first-aid kit had yet to see any real use: Ratchette was always careful, and so had developed the bad habit of using the gauze to deal with some of the more tricky oils, while bandages sometimes held parts together until the stronger adhesives could be retrieved. And then there was the national weather schedule.
It was actually easier to get a schedule for all of Equestria than it was to acquire that moon's sheet for a single different settled zone: such things were typically only distributed to those residents. But ponies whose occupations involved travel needed to know what had been set up for just about everywhere, and so the Weather Bureau made comprehensive works available. In Ratchette's case, her work kept her in Ponyville, and most of the parts she ordered from Canterlot were requested by mail so as to avoid having to deal with the shock which occurred when feathers rustled within a supply house. And the desire which arose in so many pegasi in times of high emotion, the instinct to return home... she felt that would be just like her techniques: in both cases, if she tried to access that which was virtually non-existent, something was guaranteed to fail.
But she still thought about home. The only ponies she wished to see were those tied to her by blood: everypony else had effectively vanished from her life, and she dearly hoped things would stay that way. But she missed the ocean: lakes and rivers just weren't the same. And as much as something deep within her had forever felt discomfort when she tried to rest upon clouds, just looking down from the edge of her house and seeing what the weather was doing to the sea...
So she had a national weather schedule. And every so often, she found herself looking down its many columns until she found:
Cameo Cumulus: mostly sunny, seasonal temperatures, leeward breeze.
It was normal for her to check that. But over the last few days...
Trotter's Falls: heavily overcast, dipping temperatures and increasing humidity during the day. Severe thunderstorm overnight until Sun-raising: all associated weather advisories in effect.
There were times when gossip was slow to reach Ratchette: she worked alone, most customers didn't stay long, and... well, it was the sort of thing which frequently required friends. She wasn't entirely sure she had any. Stile helped her with designs and the construction of the results, but they weren't friends: just two ponies who regularly delivered challenges to each other's talents. She could, to some headache-inducing degree, talk about magic with Twilight (and longed to go into the library again, see a familiar face to go with those still-so-strange new wings), but it was typically all they talked about. Just about every other relationship she had was client-mechanic, which occasionally turned into screamer-target. The majority of the remainder came from her infrequent attempts to date, all of which had currently ended, and none of them well.
She spent most of her time in the workshop, and so hadn't heard about her first friend having gone missing until a day after everypony else. Nopony had thought to come and tell her, because she hadn't told anypony: the name of the midwife who'd delivered you wasn't a typical subject for conversation. She was aware that there were a few of his scattered within Ponyville, and he'd even suggested that she speak to a few during his only visit to her in that settled zone: something which had taken place deep under Moon, with nopony around to see. But she was shy. She didn't want to seek them out because when she approached ponies, it was giving them the chance to judge her immediately, as opposed to the better-paced torture of waiting for somepony to enter the shop. She knew Pinkie was one of his deliveries, she'd had her welcoming party, and... well, it hadn't been as painful as she'd expected, not with company. But the baker was open and welcoming and almost effervescent and Ratchette... wasn't. So she hadn't approached, it had left her a day behind on the news and just when she'd been on the verge of finding a way to close the shop and get on a train, the next part had arrived at the speed of flight: Doctor Gentle had been found. There was no need for her to join a search which had ended.
News said he'd been found. Rumor claimed he'd been injured. And so, if only through the weather schedule, Ratchette found herself turning to Trotter's Falls, with the feelings produced by something much stronger than instinct.
I wouldn't be alive if it wasn't for him. And I don't know if he's okay...
He would probably tell me to stay here. Look after the shop. That he had enough ponies worrying about him and I had to think about my own life.
He was so proud of me, when I told him I was going to open my own repair shop. When he came here and I could tell him it was starting to work out. He always understood...
He would have wanted her to stay: she was sure of that. And because he loved her enough to wish that, she still wanted to go.
"Excuse me?" A nervous voice, which was a tone Ratchette was far too familiar with -- but she didn't recognize the pony, not from sound alone. That meant somepony who was coming in for the first time, and that could lead to so much... "Is anypony in? I... I kind of need help. Fast." And when no reply came immediately (because Ratchette was still mustering the strength for a first-time meeting), "I'm -- willing to pay extra for same-day service. Or even tonight. As long as it's ready before Sun is raised tomorrow. Um -- is anypony --"
Which was when Ratchette took a breath, wished she was cleaner (always a futile wish when working), and opened the door to the shop's public area before stepping most of the way through the frame: wings visible, but with her hips blocked from sight.
There was a brown earth pony mare there (a rather dingy shade, the sort of thing where anypony who fully dropped down onto the right soil might turn into a speed bump upon the first blink), about halfway down the main approach aisle. She was moving carefully, and had to: not only were her saddlebags full, but she was one of the largest mares Ratchette had ever seen. Not quite on Snowflake's scale for strength (although the muscular development might have been at seventy percent of that rather singular example: some of the finer details were hidden by dull clothing and skirt) or Big Macintosh's for height (more like eighty-five), but not that far off either.
Equally brown (but slightly filmy) eyes blinked.
"...oh," the mare decided, with nerves now dipping into misery. "Um... will the owner be back anytime soon? Because this is probably going to be a really long repair, and it's not a wonder: it's a device. I need the work started as soon as any unicorn returns --"
Here we go. It was a thought which never gained any comfort through repetition.
"I am the proprietor," Ratchette tried: tones as even as she could make them, fighting the urge to move backwards. "And sole employee." Which was followed by the move which never worked: as she watched the sheer shock moving across the mare's face, rapidly closing in on the jaw while working out exactly what kind of denial would be unleashed, Ratchette took one additional step forward. Just enough to bring her mark into view. "As you can see --" -- and won't understand...
Another, much stronger blink.
"That's an Equiportent diagram," the mare stated -- and took her own step forward, as the low music of her voice ascended from shock to amazement. "Your mark is an Equiportent diagram. You've got a thaum flow route on your flanks!" With rising excitement providing additional boost, "How can you have a device mark? I mean, that's obviously a real device mark because I've been looking at it for more than five seconds and it hasn't vanished or had the dye drip away, but you're a pegasus and that's a device mark! How is that even possible? What was your manifest like? Sun and Moon, I want to hear that story! Because if it's possible for a pegasus to get one, then maybe --"
Her head briefly turned, looked back along her right flank, to whatever the skirt was covering. Came forward again, mouth opening --
-- and blush started to rise under that dingy fur.
"I was... talking too fast, wasn't I? And about all the wrong things. It's just that -- I've never seen a pegasus with -- I said that already, I said that..." A powerful foreleg came up, and the hoof went into the owner's face with exacting lack of true force. "...and your mouth is just hanging open, I know I just offended you and I'm sorry --"
"-- in my whole life until just now," Ratchette forced out from the depths of deepest stun, "seven ponies knew what my mark represented. What it meant for me to have it. And most of them denied it. You... you know an Equiportent diagram on sight?"
"I like devices," the earth pony weakly smiled, mostly past the blocking hoof. "I -- kind of have to. I work with them all the time. I appreciate them. But -- you can't cast. How can you repair if you can't --" the blush intensified. "-- I'm doing it again..." The hoof carefully went down, didn't come back up for a second impact. "Look -- I'm being stupid. I say stupid things when I'm amazed. So I'm sorry for everything I've said, and everything I'm probably going to say, but -- I have something which isn't working, I know how complicated it is to fix, and I need to get it fixed today. Or by tonight. Tomorrow's Sun-raising is too long. I can't stay in Ponyville past tonight and stay on schedule. So I'm going to show you what it is, mostly because that'll put something in my mouth and I'll stop talking and..." Her fur was now on the verge of backlit glow. "It's... this."
Her head went back again. Teeth quickly flipped the left saddlebag's lid, rummaged, gently withdrew a hoof-height (and double that width) disk, one with an upper surface of glass, which had silver and iridium rimming the edges -- and outlining the borders of a severe dent, something roughly circular and so large as to have the top and bottom of that circle invisibly gallop off top and bottom. A lifeless needle shifted under the glass, swaying with nothing more than the motion --
"-- a thaum compass," Ratchette breathed, and just barely. "You have a thaum compass. That's one of the rarest devices there is! They're so hard to make..."
The earth pony quietly nodded, with the disk held fast between gentle teeth.
"May..." Ratchette no longer had to force herself forward. The injured device was practically pulling her along. "...may I touch it? So I can take a closer look?" Upturned a forehoof, presented a surface for balancing. Hoping.
The mare quietly deposited the compass onto that steel-grey hoof, adjusted the centering before full release. "It's not the charge," she said as she stepped back again. "It took a hard knock while we were traveling." Then, much more quickly, "While the compass and I were on the road. And I really do need it fixed here, going to Canterlot is -- I need it for Canterlot, and..."
But Ratchette was listening to something else.
charge level high but thaums unable to move alignment disrupted core elements in contact separation required
The enchantments were fine: it took a lot to make a thaum compass, and just about as much to magically disrupt one. The internal structure had simply been rearranged somewhat by the impact. And Ratchette had never fixed one, had barely gotten to see one --
-- which meant she wasn't going to pass up the opportunity.
"By tonight?"
"Or faster."
"It won't be fast." This was going to be all kinds of finicky. Delicate. Problems would almost be lurking in ambush, waiting to pounce. "This is hours of work, minimum. And I'd have to put everything else aside. Everything. You'd be my only client for the day."
"And you're already booked," the mare miserably decided. "I --"
And there is no way I'm giving up that experience to a Canterlot shop! "Take it off my hoof and we'll go into the back. I need to clear some space..."
She wound up clearing quite a bit of it, for the mare insisted on staying.
"This is risky," Ratchette had told her, with somewhat more firmness than she was strictly used to mustering. "There's a lot of power in here and right now, it doesn't have anywhere to go. If I can get it fixed, it'll flow down the normal channeling route. But if something goes wrong, it could get out into the open -- and then you're dealing with pure thaums working themselves out on whatever they hit."
Only the mare's mouth had moved, and that into a smile.
Ratchette had then realized she needed to say something more terrifying. "Have you ever seen a unicorn with Rhynorn's Flu make the mistake of trying to cast? Imagine a hospital. In Canterlot. With all the Princesses sick. And they all try to do something at the same time --"
"-- I'm pretty quick," the mare had told her. "Well, for being big, anyway. And there should be some warning, right?"
Bleakly, "Seconds." It was a risk Ratchette was willing to take, but to ask anypony else... "And it's a plural because we might get two."
Still smiling, "You said 'we'."
Ratchette blinked. The earth pony had a way of making her do that.
"I'm pretty quick," the mare had repeated. "I'm also too big for you to move. And this is probably going to be my only chance to see what a thaum compass looks like inside. I don't have anywhere to be in Ponyville, and I'd rather not be anywhere other than here. The risk is all mine and if you've got some documents you want me to sign saying so, I will. So -- please?"
And she'd stayed. (The disclaimer documents never came out, largely due to not existing.)
Ratchette was arranging the tools necessary for opening the housing. (She owned them all, but had never needed to use the majority. There was no day-to-day need for anything this refined, and so she'd seen no need to build them into the jaw-mounted machine which served as her closest approximation to a unicorn field prosthetic.) The earth pony, who didn't have very much room in which to wander, had somehow managed to find a way of facing Ratchette's diploma.
"Correspondence school," she instantly identified, and Ratchette winced. "I've seen the advertisements in magazines. They took you?"
"They..." And now her own blush was starting to rise under steel-grey fur. "...don't have a section on the application for 'race'."
The mare's snort released a blast of pure amusement. "But you would have needed to give them a unicorn's field signature --"
"-- somepony I know." Fortunately, the receiving mailing address was in Canterlot, and so nothing had faded beyond reading by the time her repaired samples arrived. "But I did learn how to repair all kinds of devices at home..."
"Actual devices," the mare said. "That's got to be a story."
Copper eyes briefly closed, and Ratchette shrugged. "It really isn't. I always liked devices. I took apart just about everything in my house, trying to figure out how it worked. Then I put one back together, and there was my mark."
The other fillies and colts thought I was strange. Then they knew it. But my family is the most powerful pegasus House in the world, so they couldn't say or do anything too openly. They just found other ways of letting me know how they felt, over and over, until they chased me out of the clouds I didn't want to touch.
Openly curious, "Can you work with wonders, too?"
Ratchette shook her head. It was a common assumption: pegasi had their own enchanted creations, and some of those who came into the shop for the first time decided that the true owner had decided to branch out their repair services through hiring a specialist. And a wonder repairpony was normal. Accepted.
But with wonders... it was the same as it was for just about every bit of pegasus magic she'd ever tried to perform. Failed. She could fly, although not with any true speed. Standing on clouds was automatic, and could produce automatic revulsion. And full concentration added to rapidly flapping her wings to the point of near-exhaustion -- would raise a slight breeze, some of which might have been produced by the frantic flapping of wings.
But lightning, heat shifting, moisture coalescence and dispersal... nothing worked. The only result she'd produced was a deep-rooted feeling of inner illness, one which grew progressively worse as she continued to try. Some pegasi were weaker than others: that had always been true, and Ratchette's natural field strength was just barely measurable. It would, and could, never improve.
And when she touched a wonder, with the core of her soul straining to listen... she heard nothing. Nothing at all.
The mare thought that over -- then sighed. "I --" Stopped, reset. "I was just thinking about -- what it would be like, to be a earth pony with that mark. To break through a wall hardly anypony ever notices. And then I realized it would be mostly like what happened out in the main shop. That ponies would freak out, and some of them wouldn't stop..."
The words, the acknowledgement, the understanding reached out to her, and Ratchette turned, just in time to see the mare's ears dip --
-- there was a hint of dark green at the base of those ears, made visible only by the movement --
-- with shame.
"Sorry," the mare quietly offered -- and then, with head now lowered (which was actually just about mandatory for the two of them to truly look at each other), "But I still wish I had your mark."
Ratchette blinked.
"I really like devices," the mare sincerely stated. "Seriously. More than I like most ponies." Now awkward, "They're easier to deal with, and at least there's usually a reason for a device to explode in your face."
The mechanic, who so often had trouble working through the most basic dealings with ponies, was frequently more capable of some brief degree of communication with the inanimate while telling herself that at least she didn't have to worry about a device understanding her or thinking her strange, looked at the earth pony. Looked at her more openly than she had viewed just about anypony in years. And wondered whether, even with somepony who just seemed to be passing through, she had found a friend.
Her left forehoof came up and after a moment, she made the trembling stop.
"Ratchette." The most basic introduction. Something the mare would have seen on the shop's sign. But she hardly ever made the first move, not even in Ponyville, and the mare was just looking at that presented hoof, very visibly thinking...
A much larger hoof came up, pressed against her own.
"Starki."
And they talked.
They were talking.
There was a thaum compass on her just-cleaned workbench (for nothing would have let her risk having it be stained), and the conversation was still the most wonderful thing in the room.
Sun had been lowered. Moon had been raised, and both events had happened some time ago. In both cases, Ratchette had barely noticed. The only concession to time passing had been a nod towards the little area where she kept her I'm-working-too-late-again supplies, and they'd divided the food. Most of the chewing had been a little too fast, so as to clear their mouths for more talking: it had produced one rather embarrassing (and, once the laughter stopped, acknowledged as impressive) burp.
She should have been tired: even with the repair hours she sometimes kept, she just didn't work this deep under Moon -- and beyond the meal, her only breaks had been spent in the bathroom. But Starki needed the thaum compass, and the process was more or less on schedule: Ratchette was currently sure she would finish about five hours before Sun-raising -- about an hour to go overall, if things remained on pace.
(She wondered what time it was in Trotter's Falls, and if her first friend was awake, helping a newborn into the world. If he was truly all right.)
I don't want to finish.
She tried to push the thought away, found it quickly flowing back.
I'm going to complete this repair. A thaum compass. I got to work on one. That's enough.
Except that finishing meant Starki would leave. The talk would end, and it felt as if it had been so long since she'd just been able to talk...
"Finding, selling, and trading devices." Ratchette was still amazed by that, and so it was a topic they had returned to frequently across the night. "What a life. All the things you must get to see! Just to be in the same room as an analyzer...!" A privilege she'd never experienced.
"Trust me, I tried to get a lot closer than that," Starki sighed, disgruntlement producing a brief roll of filmy eyes -- followed by a forehoof coming up and briefly rubbing at closed lids. (Ratchette had noticed more of that happening as the night went on, and presumed there was some sort of minor infection at cruel work. The eye wash station had been offered and rejected.) "But there's some things... well, no matter what you do, you can't get everything. And I tried everything I had -- well, once I knew it was real."
Which was why repairing the thaum compass was so crucial. Starki had no feel for unicorn magic, and so had to rely on a device to tell her how many workings were in the area, along with their approximate strength. (It had other, related functions, but in this case, those were the most important ones.) Ratchette could easily picture con artists (the brothers came to mind) selling something non-functional which had just a touch of glow placed upon it -- glow which would fade shortly after the laughing liars got out of range. Without the compass, Starki would be dealing with ponies who could easily lie to her: possessing a working one was just about a necessity for an earth pony to be in the profession at all.
And that's why she needs it working before she reaches Canterlot. Whatever she's trading for or buying there, she has to be capable of examining it. She must have some appointments right after the first train arrives.
Not that Starki had said as much, but it was just so easy to imagine.
And that's why her saddlebags are so full. I wouldn't leave anything at a hotel.
Copper eyes widened.
"Ratchette..." The big mare's voice was awkward again. "Thank you. For doing this. For clearing -- everything. It -- it means a lot. You don't know..." A deep breath swelled the wide rib cage. "It's important. That's all I can say. Getting this fixed was the most important thing in my life right now. You saved me."
"It's okay. It's what I'm supposed to do." What her mark had intended.
"And -- look, I know this is going to be a weird question, but..." She nodded towards the steel mask which covered most of Ratchette's snout, all the springs and clamps, the triggers and switches set in front of her jaw. "When you were going for the wire and moved that one -- thing... I saw you had what looked like an older version of that."
"It's a lot more basic," Ratchette admitted. "I save it in case the main two break down at the same time. And there's a pair of the old ones, just in case."
Starki chuckled. "Yeah, you're a mechanic. Backups for the backups -- which makes this a little more awkward. Can I buy one of those old ones off you?" With her words quickly accelerating, "I'm not going to sell the design or try making my own. Even if I was that much of a jerk, I know you've got to have diagrams which prove who the rightful inventor is. I just want one for myself. To try and learn how to use it. I think it would really help me with some things. And maybe startle a few unicorns along the way."
With the perpetual exception of Stile, she had allowed one to leave the shop only once, and Twilight's attempt to conquer her case of Rhynorn's through an ill-advised (but strongly-insisted) self-teaching session had left every last switch locked up. She had never considered selling one.
So she thought about it.
"I don't know how much to charge."
"Dangerous words," Starki grinned, "in front of somepony who trades for a living."
Which brought them to what she'd just been thinking about. "We could trade..."
(She was teasing. Mostly.)
Starki blinked, then rubbed at her eyes again. "Say what?"
"You've got more devices in your saddlebags right now, don't you?" And now that she was paying attention...
...nothing. Which was slightly odd: normally, she had to be touching a device in order to have any chance of a true feel for it, but when they were gathered in quantity, she occasionally picked up on their grouped presence.
Several seconds of extremely (and oddly) awkward silence passed.
"A -- few," Starki said. "I just don't like to advertise. My saddlebags are even enchanted to stop unicorns from trying to get some idea of how much I'm carrying. It's a good working: I can open the lids without signatures leaking out. But this stuff is -- committed. I can't go swapping any of it out."
Both parts of the explanation felt perfectly sensible. "I know. But with a pony who just happens to be carrying a thaum compass -- I'd love to see some of it."
"It's... not great stuff," Starki declared. "Most of it's pretty boring, especially for somepony like you."
Ratchette decided she was being teased, and it was the first time in years where that treatment had felt good. "I bet you've got something..."
The earth pony fell silent. Remained so, for the increasingly horrible duration of a near-eternal minute.
Did I say something wrong --
"Yeah. There's one thing you'd probably like." A cautioning forehoof came up. "But just one, or we'll be here until next moon. Give me a second..."
Her head went back, and the right saddlebag lid was flipped. Ratchette briefly stopped working, waited.
What emerged was -- well, it had to be small: she could barely see a hint of iron (and that was rare to see as part of a housing: it couldn't conduct at all) sticking out of one side of Starki's jaw. The end of some kind of rod. Added to iron, that didn't leave many possibilities, and the single most common just wasn't going to be in the casual possession of --
-- the mare made her way to the workbench, carefully set the piece down on an empty corner, stepped back and smiled.
"I'm betting," she decided, "you haven't seen one of these in the wild. Not when it isn't in the middle of being used."
Ratchette hadn't. She had only seen two: one had been in operation, and a second might still be at Ponyville's police station, inside the evidence locker.
She'd never had one in her shop. She hadn't worked on this kind of device. She wasn't legally permitted to.
A Tarsus Key.
Enchanted locks were among the most common devices to exist. The most encountered version was used by unicorns, and it was designed so that the lock could be opened by the owner's unique field signature alone. It was easy to set a freshly-made device and depending on the manufacturer, moderately to ridiculously difficult for anypony else to get it open.
But unicorns died. Unique field signatures passed into the shadowlands. (Less often, somepony would be away on vacation or business at exactly the wrong moment, or a unicorn would contract Rhynorn's just in time to lock themselves out of their house.) Businesses, homes, personal safes... they would remain locked. A Tarsus Key's purpose was to serve as a forced reset, bringing the lock back to the state where a new owner's signature could be imprinted upon it.
They were invaluable for locksmithing, the settlement of estates, and just getting through your front door when your horn refused to do anything but spark. They were also one of the most potent thieving tools in existence, and so ownership required a license which was registered with the government. Repairing them had a similar requirement, and as for manufacture...
Ponies didn't just trot around with a Tarsus Key. Anypony found with one had better be ready to present papers on demand. And to have one in her workshop...
"This can't be here." An automatic reaction, instinctive and fearful, even deep under Moon with nopony around to see. Ratchette often felt as if she operated on the bare edge of acceptance to begin with, and to deal with this... "I can't have this in --"
"It's okay!" The words seemed to emerge a little too quickly. "It's just you and me, right? You're not working on it and I'm not using it."
"But you own it!"
And she was just about to ask if Starki had the license with her when the earth pony spoke. "No. I don't."
Those words had been perfectly even.
"You --"
"I'm just carrying it. Somepony got out of the business, somepony else needs a new one. From somepony with a license to somepony else who's got one. You don't need paperwork to serve as a courier."
It didn't sound right. Ratchette felt as if some things had to be shipped under secure delivery, and a Tarsus Key would have to be one of them. But she'd been talking to Starki for so much of the day and night, she didn't want to openly question a pony who felt so much like a friend...
"It's a great little device, isn't it?" asked the mare. "There's so little out there which can work with signatures. Sometimes I think that if the hornheads just considered a little tweak --"
She didn't stop talking, and a stunned Ratchette wasn't capable of interrupting. There was another word, and it was lost in the crashing impact of the shop's inner door being kicked.
"Are you in here?"
Starki froze and her eyes went wide, wider than Ratchette had ever seen anypony's eyes go. Wide enough to see a faint ring around the edges of the eye itself.
"...no..."
It was a small sound from such a large mare, and the little word soaked the air in fear.
I...
They had been talking for hours. Ratchette had barely left the room, and so she hadn't turned the lights off in the building's outer portion, any more than she'd locked the door. Not that it would have stopped the new mare, because the next sound was of the door being kicked open.
"It's been hours! Is it getting done or what? What do I have to do in order to get what I want?" Hoofsteps coming down the aisle, huge hooffalls -- ones which were strangely uneven. "We've got to get out of here, you know that! I wouldn't have even stopped here if we didn't have the bucking Canterlot job coming up! And if you think I'm just going to keep waiting for you...!"
"Don't move," Starki whispered. "Celestia's tail, Ratchette, stay back here and don't move..."
The earth pony took a breath -- and her features harshened. The open friendliness which Ratchette had spent hours basking within inverted, became a snorting, hoof-stomping expression of hatred against the world as she half-pushed past the mechanic, almost slammed her way through the door...
"It's almost done!" she told the new pony. "I've been watching her! She's good! We've got maybe another hour and then we're out of here!"
Most of the way through the door. She was standing in such a way that her large body blocked just about all view of what was behind her, which included Ratchette's much smaller form. A body which was now involuntarily trying to make itself smaller still, resisting the urge to curl up in defense against such an outpouring of rage.
"If she was good," the new mare half-roared, "then you would have been back already! Hours ago! I've just been waiting, and I'm sick of it --"
"-- it's complicated! You know what thaum compasses are like! And keep it down! The other businesses are closed, but some ponies sleep over their shops! You don't want to wake --"
That's a lie. No ponies live at their shops here. Even I go home --
"-- let me see it."
Starki's breathing stopped. Just for a moment, and in exact concert with Ratchette's.
"She's busy," the earth pony said. "It's not going to go any faster if you see it or not."
"Or maybe," the other mare shot back, "she's screwing it up and you don't want me to see it because you remember what happened the last time there was a screwup."
"It's an hour! One more --"
The other voice abruptly turned soft. Calm and cool. Down into the depths of the ocean, where ponies drowned.
"Are you going to make me kick you again?"
"No..."
The shop had no rear exit. There were windows, and none of them were large enough. Ratchette had never been the kind of pony who'd felt an architectural fondness for a skylight. There was exactly one way out, and it was past Starki. Above her. But the doorway was so narrow, she had almost no room for acceleration, she was a poor flier and to have her wings against her body when passing through, without having had any time to pick up speed, the hanging tools gave her a tiny corridor to use in the first place...
The other option was to vault the earth pony. And given Ratchette's size added to her lack of physical strength, it was equally impossible.
"Because making me kick you is why we're in this bucking place to start with!"
"I know, but --"
I have to get out of here. I have to get the police. I have to --
"Then move!"
More heavy hoofsteps, faster ones -- but not as fast as they could have been. Still uneven. And Starki's legs went into fearful retreat as the smell of grease and oils in the shop was drowned out by the scent of her fear.
If she didn't think about the Princesses -- something which wasn't going to happen when so much of her mind had just dropped into desperate prayer -- then the earth pony now filling the doorway was the single largest mare Ratchette had ever seen. Most of the light from the public area was blocked by the massive form, leaving Ratchette cowering within shadow.
(She had slept through most of the Return, and done so on the coast. She had only known a short time of existing within darkness that should not have been. She had never asked Twilight what it had felt like, and would never have to.)
Brown eyes, slightly filmy, looked down at Ratchette. Openly regarded her as a particularly foul piece of gum found stuck to the bottom of a hoof, and with the same intent to scrape.
"What the BUCK is this?"
Ratchette couldn't see Starki any more. Only hear her, the sudden harshness gone now, replaced by desperation. "Look -- just look at her --"
"-- it's a bucking feather duster! With a steel spider on her snout! You've been making, wasting time with a featherbrain when you know we can't be here? Since when do you go for mares? Since when did you want me kicking --"
"-- look at her mark, just look at her mark, the compass is on the workbench, she's only got about an hour to go --"
Ratchette, trembling, rib cage heaving, all four knees trying to collapse, forced herself to look up. It was a process which took some time, with so much to go over along the way. Copper eyes traveled across dingy brown fur, moving up the forelegs --
-- that bulge. A little dome under the skin.
That leg was broken. But the break was never treated, or given a binding by somepony who didn't know what they were doing. It healed wrong.
Two big earth ponies. One carrying devices. A Tarsus Key...
The thaum compass can find magic. Tell when a device is real.
After you use the key as the first step towards reaching it.
The library. The attempted robbery in the library a few moons ago, when Twilight was sick. A pair of earth pony sisters and
I've been talking to one of them
for hours
in my shop
and the one who tried to kill Twilight is right in front of me.
And she'd looked for just a little too long.
"Oh," the huge mare softly stated. "Seeing something familiar?"
Ratchette's eyes had reached the mare's face now. Features which would never be attractive, not contorted by bunched muscles waiting to release that tension on anything in sight. Ears flicked back, showing off a different hue at the base because even with help, that place was so hard to reach with fur dye. The rings of color-distorting contacts around her eyes.
"An hour," Starki nearly screamed. "She just needs another hour!"
"A. Bucking. Pegasus," the other mare whispered. (She hadn't looked at Ratchette's mark. She never would.) "You knew how dangerous it was for us to be here, after the last time. And you made me kick you anyway. Then I had to wait in the wild zone while you went feather-dusting. And now I'm seeing something on her face. Something which says she keeps up with the news..."
"She won't talk, she won't talk, she --"
Which led to a simple statement, one which came from the heart of what Ratchette finally recognized as madness.
"-- corpses don't talk."
The mare charged.
There were things Ratchette could have done, and it could be argued that all of them would have failed. She barely had any room to fly and wasn't particularly good at it: without fine control, an attempt to dodge straight up would have ended with her skull going into her own tools. She had no time to charge back and lacked the mass to make it effective. Things suitable for improvised weapons, at least in the sense that they were denser than her own flesh, were within mouth reach -- and even with her reflexes, to go for any of them would have given the huge mare time to reach her. To trample.
She had a split-second left to breathe under Moon, one in which none of her prayers had been answered, and used it for saying goodbye to her family.
Which was when the big body vaulted over her head.
Starki wasn't as large as her sibling. But she wasn't all that far off, and she'd pushed. Both earth ponies went back through the doorway, scraping their flanks along the side, tearing dull clothing and putting a rent in Starki's right saddlebag. Screams rang out, ones nopony was close enough to hear.
"She was almost done! If you'd just waited, you told me you would wait --!"
"It's you or her!"
There was an additional note of punctuation to those words, produced by a kick going onto ribs. An explosive grunt of pain burst from the impact. Metal scattered. Things fell off, over, and around. Somewhere within that was a body hitting the floor.
The only way out is...
She needed the police. She needed to do something. Anything, and none of it could be done without getting out.
She forced herself back to her hooves: her body had automatically dropped as Starki had gone over her. Went through the doorway --
-- and the huge mare, softly smiling, was blocking the exit.
Starki was lying on her right side, eyes half-closed. Breathing, but with that action just about all she was capable of. Her left saddlebag was splayed awkwardly across her flank. The right was empty, with its contents having fallen out through the rent. Scattered across the shop.
That's...
...Luna's mane, that's a rammer...
It was perhaps seven body lengths away from her. It was partially in the aisle, somewhat nested among the fallen tools and knocked-over pieces and serrated edge of that one open housing. It was made from ivory (nearly the only device in the world which incorporated ivory, all of which had to be scavenged) wrapped with platinum wire, just about the exact shape of a curled sheep horn, only wider than a pony's head and with an indentation for a front knee.
But it hadn't been made for her. There had been no hours in silent contact with the device, forcing it to reattune for a new owner. And so it was also completely useless.
"It's you," the huge mare softly told Starki (and Ratchette's terrified mind, some of which was distantly evaluating the damage while realizing she would probably never get the chance to repair any of it, finally realized the name had to be a fake one), "or it's her. Maybe it'll be both of you, if you keep insisting on making me kick you. Trying to fight... what were you thinking? Do you ever think at all, coming to a feather duster for repairs? So it's Canterlot, then, hiding from Princesses and police while we close the deals, and I'll have to kick the truth out of ponies instead of using the compass like you wanted. That's how things get when you make me kick you." The huge body released a tiny shrug. "What is it about this bucking settled zone? First the library, and now a pegasus..."
The door is blocked.
I can't fight her. She's too big. I could get something to head-toss into her eyes, some oils, but the contacts give her a little protection and I'd have to turn my back to get anything at all.
I don't have wind, or heat, or lighting.
I could try to fly as fast as possible. Crash through the window. If I didn't hurt myself so much that I knocked myself out of the sky. Through spell-reinforced glass.
I could...
Starki wasn't trying to get up, and so just about all of what Ratchette could do was die.
Over her head. Push the door open.
It was the only chance.
She took off, tried to get up speed, pushed, did everything she could to accelerate, there was a moment when it felt as if she was going to do it and --
-- the huge mare, softly laughing, leaped.
Giant hooves went into Ratchette's shoulders. Negated all momentum as the impact went deep into her muscles, made her scream as the sheer force sent her backwards and down.
She fell. Fell among parts and labels and crashed, broken tools. The prosthetic flew off her face, landed near the wall. She lay within the debris of the only things which had never questioned her. The silent acceptance from pieces of dead matter, welcoming her in the moments before she truly joined them.
A new scent reached her snout. There was blood in the air. Somepony was bleeding...
...me. It's me.
She'd barely felt the cut which landing on the open housing had put into her left foreleg. Long and shallow, across the kneecap, with red steadily flowing. A river which smelled of rust and liquid iron.
Starki was two body lengths away. Still not trying to get up. And the huge mare was approaching now. Taking her time.
"I'd say this won't hurt," she whispered, "but I hear Honesty lives in this town. No point in offending Honesty! So it's going to hurt. A lot. For wasting my time..."
She tried to move, even if movement would do no good. Just so she wouldn't die lying there. The bleeding foreleg slid across metal, unable to grasp or kick with enough force to matter or
recognize recognize recognize
charge level full
attunement complete
target acquired
action?
The coolness of hollowed ivory radiated through her wound, with the rammer on her leg and words which came from outside her being resounding through her soul.
And Ratchette smiled. It was a peaceful sort of smile, the reconciliation which only exists on the edge of death, where the world has already gone mad and nothing which happens next has to make sense any more. Sense was for later, and there probably wouldn't be one. She was simply having a dream, what was probably an already-impacted skull going through a few last thoughts before the mind entered the shadowlands and as such, she simply went with it as she struggled to her hooves, just barely able to do so with her shoulders so pained.
The huge earth pony -- let her get up. She was no threat.
Then the mare saw the rammer. Attached to the left foreleg.
She blinked. That was her only initial reaction. She blinked.
And then she laughed.
"Oh, come on," she softly said. "It's not yours. And even if it was, you have no idea how to use it."
Ratchette's smile became more distant. Almost dreamy.
action?
"That's okay," she half-whispered. "It knows how to use itself."
A river of copper glow rushed around the rammer, flowing along the bloodstained platinum.
This was followed by bursts of cerulean spheres, nearly all of which went into the huge mare's face.
repeating
repeating
Rammers weren't complicated. (When you got right down to it, most weapons weren't.) A unicorn with decent field strength added to the learning capacity and discipline to learn the right working could project their field as a series of rapid-fire small bubbles for a short time, ones which had a curious density to them. Somepony of Twilight's strength could knock ponies back. Whoever had enchanted the rammer had been rather predictably working at a lower level of power, and so the device produced a result which was more like being caught in a major hailstorm which had decided it really didn't like you.
"WHAT?" It was partially denial, mostly disbelief, and all of it was conducted while staggering backwards -- something which was actually rather hard to do, and impossible during those moments when the mare was reared up on her hind legs, trying to swat the bruising spheres from the air with huge hooves. "HOW ARE YOU --"
She slammed her hooves down, began to charge forward --
REPEATING
-- and froze, frantically turned her head, trying to protect her eyes, her snout tucked low.
"WHAT THE BUCK ARE YOU?"
The dyed tail whipped into sight as the mare turned around, the huge body knocking still more things over as spheres slammed into her hindquarters --
-- and she charged out the door, with the uneven hoofsteps pounding their way into the night.
There was the sound of metal being shoved across a floor: Starki was finally trying to get up. Ratchette turned, looked at what had to be the younger of the siblings --
-- and saw incomprehension.
Fear.
Terror.
"You..." the bruised mare gasped. "You..." Began to force herself towards the door.
And within Ratchette's mind, what had been seen as dream began to take on the horror of reality.
The words emerged in a desperate rush, with the copper glow winking out. "Starki, don't, please, don't..."
"I -- I can't... I..."
"You don't have to! You can --"
The earth pony, the mare she'd started to think of as a friend, looked at her. One filmy brown eye, one green.
"-- it's worse."
"I'm not! I swear, I'm not, I'm --"
"-- she's so much worse if I'm not with her...!"
And then she was gone.
The only pegasus device mechanic in the history of Equestria momentarily stood motionless and bleeding within the wreckage of her shop.
disengage?
There must have been a yes, something far below the edge of her inner hearing, for the rammer dropped to the floor. Or perhaps she simply never registered it against the sound of four legs collapsing, which was followed by the scream.
The scream broke through the night. It went on for a long time, with portions of it echoing out to the parts of the settled zone where ponies did live over their stores. Ponies who, when they raced forward to see what was so horribly wrong, were very surprised to see the front lights on in the fix-it shop, and the battered, bleeding pegasus who'd just barely managed to force herself through the door.
It took less than two minutes to find a cart for her, plus five more to reach the police.
Sun had been raised, and the thaum compass still had an hour of repair work to go.
Ratchette hadn't slept. Once the emergency medics had finished treating her, she'd been in the police station for about two hours: somepony had galloped to the home of Miranda Rights and woken up the police chief to personally take the report. It hadn't been a particularly long one, as it mostly talked about an unexpected customer who'd stayed around for most of a day and night, plus the psychotic sibling who'd lost all patience to the assault of continuing madness. There weren't a lot of details about the fight itself, because the one providing the account had chosen her own form of crime. Lying to the police could result in charges if such was discovered. Telling the truth currently seemed worse, especially when she had very little idea of what its ultimate form actually was.
No additional portion of fact would come out until the thieves were caught, and such was likely to be disbelieved. It seemed to give her some time.
"You screamed," Miranda had read from the filled-out form.
Ratchette had nodded.
"And that made them run, because they thought more ponies were on the way." There didn't seem to be any questions lurking in that.
Again.
"Ponies who did arrive," the chief had noted. "You're an impressive screamer."
No response.
"They tried to kill Twilight," the unicorn had reminded her. "Or at least the one did. And then you. But she had to drive them off, and you just screamed."
She'd stayed quiet. It had seemed to be a workable tactic, plus there was just about nothing she could say.
"You think the younger is...?"
"Trying... to control her."
"When she can't be." A stark statement. "If she really loved her sister, she'd turn her in..."
But love doesn't work like that. And neither does fear...
Miranda had looked at her for a while. Just -- looked.
"Don't trot much for a few days," she'd finally said. "Maybe a few weeks. I don't like the looks of those bruises: some of that probably reached the bone. Even flying, try to touch down on your hind legs and then slowly hover-dip the fore into position."
She'd nodded.
"I'll have somepony take you home, along with getting you the extra pain medication. Get some sleep."
"No. My shop."
"I've got ponies there, making sure nopony goes in. It's safe."
"I have to pick some things up. And... check something. My shop, Miranda. Please."
Some worry, mixed with exasperation. "You'll go to bed after?"
"Yes," she'd lied.
She'd picked a few things up. She'd checked something. And then she'd gone somewhere else.
As such things went, it wasn't a particularly long flight, but she was tired, even the lightest touchdown she could manage left her wincing, and it took place far enough away from the front door to make things worse. Simply knocking was an agony.
The stallion listened for a while. It didn't take long, as she had very little to say.
"She ain't gone anywhere today." More slowly, "Nopony to go with. I'll go get her for you."
"Thank you."
"Look..." The big earth pony paused in mid-turn. "You're hurt. If somepony's been hurting you --"
"I've already been to the police. There was --" Stopped. "I'm sorry, but... I just want to talk to her first. I haven't slept, and... I have to tell her something. Before I try to sleep." There would be nightmares, she was sure of that, and every one would echo the question which had been haunting her for hours. "Please?"
He looked her over again, finally nodded, stepped away.
Ratchette waited. Raised her left foreleg, looked at the bandaged cut. One of the reasons she'd gone back to her shop was to be among devices, and... it had been normal, or at least the never-confessed status which she considered normal for herself. Some of the ones she'd touched had provided a feel for just how they were broken: nothing more.
The blood. It's in the blood...
And then there was a yellow earth pony filly looking up (if not by quite as much) at her from the doorway.
"Big Mac... said y'wanted t' see --" which was when the forced reserve broke. "-- what happened? What happened t' you? Did somepony --"
"-- I put the wheel on."
Apple Bloom stopped.
"The center one you suggested, with the full rotation. I pushed it around for a while. The steering's better."
The younger pony waited, bow vibrating with something more than fear.
"You can start tomorrow," Ratchette told her. "Or today, if you want to show up in the late afternoon and help me clean up, because I have to sleep. But you do exactly what I tell you, or this won't work. It's straight mechanical engineering for you. No devices. Understand?"
A very small, mostly-disbelieving nod indicated some degree of wide-eyed acceptance.
"We'll work out your hours then." She forced herself to start turning away. "See you later, Apple Bloom."
And from behind her, there was a tiny "...why?"
Ratchette stopped.
"Because somepony who's kind of different," she told the air, unable to look at the filly, "should understand what it feels like, to tell yourself that maybe you can be something..."
She took off, slowly flew away. Looked down at Ponyville as she passed over it, and wished to never have come. Perhaps to never have been.
Even when that somepony doesn't know what she is any more.
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My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
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Author's Very Public Notes:
The most recent chapter is not a stand-alone story. It's a direct sequel to Mechanical Aptitude and as such, I've temporarily tagged the anthology that way. It also takes place shortly after the events of Unstable Sale. I would recommend having read the first prior to attempting this piece: the second is more optional.
There's also a connection to Twilight's chapter of Sick Little Ponies (And One Dragon). The price of a 'verse.
Lastly, for those who are reading Triptych, this story takes place on the same night as the most recent chapter on that work. (As of this writing, it had just gone up a few minutes ago.) You don't have to read that whole work-to-date to check out this one (and if you're just starting, would use a lot of time in doing so) -- but those who've been along for the whole journey will get just a little more out of it.
...I'm tired.
I think I've earned that.
In the words of an old song "Slander. Libel. Words you'll never find in the Bible"
This chapter is also sequel to
Unstable Sale https://www.fimfiction.net/story/358726/unstable-sale
Grats, Ratchette. You just discovered Pegasus Blood Magic. This is going to get messy.
8699132
In this case, Ratchette is under no obligation to be perfectly grammatical within her own thoughts.
I was wondering if she was one of the thieves. Her size + carrying devices, makes pretty big hints.
Although, I did wonder if she's one of his... But not every unconventional pony is due to him?
---
The fact that they escaped again, now brings me in mind of the Flim Flam Brothers.
What to call them? Starski and Hutch, I guess? ... Whoops, no. It's "Starki", and guess that uses the "Strength" definition.
---
Hello, revelation! Nice work, Ratchette!
---
So, you're apprenticing Apple Bloom, while Snowflake's apprenticing Scootaloo... Whose's gonna apprentice Sweetie Belle, and if its gonna be another one of his...
Ship Ratchette X Snowflake?
Incredible as always. A fine addition to your universe and a nice way to tie in what I think is at least three other thread into one.
8699065
Yes. Yes you have. Well done.
ratchet knows enough to maby find the truth for herself, weather or not she shares it with snowflake or any others is yet to be seen.
8699163
Well, at least she's not using "infer" when she means "imply". THAT has been burning my biscuits since at least the 1970s .
Best reply to that offense
On the old sitcom Maud Walter (Maud's husband) dissed ICR who. They said "Are you inferring that I'm stupid?" Walter replied "No, I implied it, you inferred it
8699158
Interestingly enough... I think you're wrong, but for reasons that need reading Tryptich to explain.
8699185
I hear 'Shy is actually an accomplished vocalist...
Okay, given how the rammmer spoke, and how Sun spoke, I'm really beginning to wonder how mechanical magic might be.
Ironic. Sure, most iron can't conduct, but there's really not much iron in hemoglobin. Plenty of room for other elements to store the thaums.
In any case, incredible stuff. Fantastic amount of continuity, numerous plotlines progressing and interweaving, and a revelation that may factor in elsewhere. Now there's just the matter of Rachette coming to grips with the whole "hemomantic override" thing... which may take a bit. No telling if learning the truth behind her magic will help or just make things worse.
Excellent pair of updates. You've more than earned that exhaustion.
I'm puzzled as to why Ratchette withheld information (and the illegal Devices) from the police. Was she trying to cover for Starki, whom she feels sympathy for? She'd need a pretty good reason to not help the police to the fullest extent of her ability, given that these people a) tried to murder Twilight Sparkle, b) have now been a recurring presence in town, and c) were presumably planning more of the same elsewhere.
From what I've gathered elsewhere (not having read Triptych itself), the "in the blood" line refers to some kind of illicit eugenics/genetic engineering project that grants abnormal powers, so calling back to it makes sense for the series as a whole - but how would Ratchette know about that to ruminate on it?
I look forward to reading more of your work!
8700214
The withheld information concerned what happened at the end of the fight. Nothing more. Ratchette provided full information on the devices presented, plus what she overheard and was told. The thaum compass isn't being moved because somepony would have to finish the repair first: some other items have already been taken to the evidence locker. But Ratchette is nowhere near the point where she's ready to talk about the finale. She's somewhere beyond shaken right now.
To paraphrase a bad comic book cover: there is fear, there is terror, and then there is the question "What am I?"
In the most typical context, 'in the blood' can be used as a substitute for 'genetic': ponies have yet to identify DNA. However, in this specific case, Ratchette is referring to the fact that the rammer activated when she bled on it.
The attempt to take out Twilight during the failed robbery... did not go well. (See the story for details.) As attempted murders go, there wasn't much of an attempt -- but this shows the threat was sincere.
8700251
Ok; I had misinterpreted the relevant section of the fic, then. (I'd missed mention of evidence being turned over, and taken her lie about using the weapon-Device to mean that she was omitting a lot more information.)
It was unclear to me that this was abnormal (neither this fic nor the subset of your fics that I've read so far went into great detail about attunement). I'd assumed when reading that it was just mark-related talent that caused her to attune it very quickly with blood as a sympathetic connection or some such. If it should have been flat-out impossible, her panic is understandable.
I'm still wondering why she assumed that reacting to her blood meant that she was abnormal rather than that that Device was abnormal, talent for understanding such things or no. Both should be unlikely; why would the first one be her go-to conclusion, in this situation?
I'll have to reread that, then, because Twilight did seem to be in genuine fear of imminent death from what I can recall. At full power, she would have been at much less risk, but these are still Very Dangerous Ponies who can be expected to kill in the future.
Honestly, the only part that confuses me is the fact that the machine obeyed her when she bled on it.
Poor Ratchette. The first time she really meets a kindred spirit and all this crazy shit happens. She just wants a friend who gets it.
Dude, that blood stuff? Intense! It's insane that Ratchette got irrefutable proof from the deepest mark level that her blood can make a unicorn device activate. What it must be like, to have your very own body telling you that every bully was right, you really aren't what you thought you were.
Hrm.
This really is similar to where we heard Sun speaking to Celestia... Are Sun and Moon actually devices? Extremely complex ones, to be sure, with a degree of artificial intelligence? In the old days they used to be raised and lowered by unicorns.
Also, that her blood activated the rammer? That means that blood is in itself, magical. Now I'm curious about what exactly he did to these poor foals.
8699614
Now, are we gonna see this happen before, or after Triptych ends, and what would the meeting of the six be like, etc. Questions, questions!
8700553
First off, I've been thinking more or less the same thing for a while now. Second, the next chapter of Triptych has come out, so you can go find out yourself. No, seriously, the answer's finally been revealed.
8700251
The irony is that blood, or rather, red blood cells, have no DNA at all, so something being "in the blood" in that sense is technically inaccurate.
8701164
Oh yeah, I've read it! But I'm wondering what exactly the mechanics of the warping actually did. We know that he switched up a little of their magical essence, subsituting one tribe's magic for another, and that he was unable to physically transform them into a different tribe. What we don't know is whether or not he actually altered the foals' DNA, or whether there is some other biological part he tampered with that affects the kind of magic each pony can use. It might be that switching out magic only affects certain genes, and none to do with the physical development. The foals are, after all, mostly fully-formed at the point that the doctor change their magic.
And that begs the question - how exactly did the Elements change the Sisters and Twilight? Did the transformation alter their DNA or just transform their bodies?
And if the Elements weren't involved... how did Cadance ascend?
And whilst red blood cells don't have any DNA, white blood cells do. So it's not entirely inaccurate!
Of course Ratchette would be one of his, a Pegasus who specialises in a Unicorn skill.
Was this mentioned before?
*having just read Presentation chapter of Triptych, reads this next*
*stops sharpening swords*
...
...
I'mma need more swords.
Poor Ratchette, and poor Starki. And yay for Apple Bloom, after a fashion! This was a beautiful melange of character stuff and worldbuilding, with some intense action added. More, please!
8705930 That depends on if this before or after the shopping cart fiasco...
8701751
That chapter is a pun on "cloud storage", where your data is stored by a hosting company instead of stored on your machines. Since it involves "the cloud", Rainbow Dash can mess with it via weather manipulation.
(Heavily spoilered because pretty much any summary ruins the joke for people who haven't read that chapter yet.)
This reminds me of many situations involving misbehaving/destructive children. The idiot relatives always use the 'let them be kids' excuses until they destroy something. THEN everyone's PO'd. No, you discipline the little brats BEFORE they cause havoc. Once they become entitled to being thoughtless, impulsive buffoons and ruin something important, it's too late.
Kids listen to be because they know I'm not screwing around. They respect AUTHORITY. And they fear the terrible powers of my science, which can rewrite their DNA into any form I choose. In retrospect, the fear aspect probably has the biggest influence. Eh, whatever works and keeps my Ming vase collection intact.
Love, fear, and hatred... the three emotions that lead to the most tragedy.
You humans are better off without them. We will upgrade you. You are made better when emotions are... deleted.
merovee.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/cyberman3.jpg
8702101 You're asking questions the writers of the show never seem to have asked themselves, hence any hope for continuity or a plausible explanation is right down the toilet.
your choosing to treat the Crusaders this way was the worst thing you ever decided, and much as I like your individual stories there's a lot I dislike about your worldbuilding
I've read many many many of your works, and honestly Ratchette and Snowflake are by far my favourite characters. This was great, I just hope to see all the unfinished plot points in it tied off some time. As superbly written as ever
Ivory... considering what humans have been known to do to get ivory... I have to hope that demand is low enough that the dead-for-other-reasons are enough of a supply...
Dang!
So Ratchette's another one of the good doctor's experiments.
This is amazing, brilliant writing and I'm really smiling right now. Not because it's a happy story but because it's just. That. Good.
And after the week I've been having I needed something like this.
8711922
I don't agree with what you've said, but you probably don't deserve all the downvotes you've received just for expressing your opinion the way you have.
I keep thinking her sister's name is Hunch or something similar and I'm sorry.
She doesn't deserve my punning, even if it's unintentional.
Is the chapter title, "Natural Conducters" a typo, or is it intentional?
... It feels like wordplay, given that in, This Platinum Cape, the fourth chapter of this story... "natural conductor", was said, but with an "o", instead of an "e"...
OH... And Blood Magic was what Sombra did... Hmm...
9209528 I read that one some time after this one.
It's like I was reading minds or something!
My first name IS Charles... hmm... *peels away a piece of tape with his supposed last name scribbled upon it... to reveal XAVIER!!* OMG!! I was Professor X this whole time and never knew it!
What a twist!
9067144
I could be wrong, but isn't this kind of conducting supposed to be an "e"? Or maybe both types are spelled with an "o".
more relevant to this chapter, and giving my own current re-read of Triptych, this makes me question if any of his other foals have the same kind of blood-related attunement, or at least of those we know were given unicorn essence. Ratchette is in a very unique situation where she has the mark to understand the devices and now the blood to use them (if she can convince herself she's not more of a freak), but it does make me wonder if any of the other earth pony/pegasus major and unicorn minor hybrids can have the same kind of reaction to such devices or if Ratchette is still special because of her mark and talent.
EDIT: I actually came to this "story" (the whole thing, not just this chapter) from the Triptych chapter in question, and...wow. the last line for Ratchette's piece is very apt, to say the least.
Related to this chapter due to Crusades, but I do also hope Scoots finally gets some sense knocked into her. I'm undecided on whether or not it should come at the expense of Sweetie leaving her because I do not want to see what happens when/if Scootaloo is left alone to try for these without AB or Sweetie to be any kind of balance.
Oh, forgot to ask in the first post: Does ivory have any sort of relation to the three races like Silver/Platinum for unicorns and copper for pegasi, or was all that just for ornamentation and such?
I gotta ask:
Do rammers only work for unicorns? Because if anypony can use one once it's attuned, then Ratchette freaking out over being able to attune one quickly seems a bit of an overreaction.
I like how this last story is linked to at least three others that I could count. I think it's almost natural though, Ratchette, who comes from one of the oldest Pegasi familys... has a Unicorn ancestor somewhere. And blood, blood and genetics long buried come to the foreground every few generations. Her bloodline brought its Unicorn Heritage to the fore while pushing the Pegasi into the background. Loved the ending, Applebloom needed this I think. No Crusade-no friends. And what is she without Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo but a young lady seeking her own way?
9797212
You're mistaking me giving my personal opinion for what you're doing now
Whoa
...this was intense.
I kinda hope that Ratchette and Starki meet again; maybe somehow, someway, become friends for good.
Wow. This was amazing, Estee. I definitely think Ratchette is my favorite OC on the site.
Aww poor Ratchette. I love her name by the way. It's super cute, a feminine spin on a tool.
9621599
apparently only a unicorn could re-tune one that's attuned to someone else.
edit: to be specific, a unicorn WITH an appropriate Cutie Mark.
...I really need to actually read Triptych.
At risk of sounding like an echo of literally every other comment on this final chapter.... Ratchette is such a cutie omg. She's one of my favourite characters both in the Triptych universe (those spin-off parts of it I've actually read, at least) and also on the site in general. Thankyou so much for writing this! It was, as always, a lot of fun to read.
8699776
Consider this: except sisters in "mark of appeal" and Ratchette here, nowhere else in TC ponies are described as using magic(al devices) as something with user interface. (if I'm wrong I'd like to hear it)
Theory follows:
"magic" is actually a LosTech, and ponies are using it without understanding the fact. Well, that one can safely be considered as already established.
Now, considering aforementioned before-the-spolier fact... is it configured so base tribes have regular user rights(i.e. using only, without even a hint of underlying layer), and admin rights are only granted to alicorns?
And then, an assumption: definition of "alicorn" in the system is "a pone that have powers/properties/whatever of more than one race". And now we have hybrids - which work as an obviously unforeseen exploit.
8701164
While it's true that red blood cells have no DNA, white blood cells certainly do, which is part of why blood can be used to determine ancestry or a criminal's identity. And beyond that, there are also various antigens, protein markers embedded in cell membranes; you might be most familiar with the A and B antigens and their corresponding blood types. It might be entirely plausible to conceive of a fantasy setting where a certain antigen confers some affinity for a specific form of magic.
8700553
oh, in a more recent story, "Glimmer", it's explained that Ratchette needs to make a blood connection to a device in order to tinker with it's magical properties, but a Unicorn with a similar talent would NOT.
11639866
I wrote that comment 5 years ago, bud.