Epilogue: Built to Last
Twilight sighed as she dropped her quill, rubbing at her tired eyes before pulling her hooves away and staring at the library ceiling. The flames of the candles in the chandelier overhead flickered now and again as a cool nighttime breeze drifted in through her bedroom window on the floor above. She didn't move her head as she took a lazy, upside-down glance at the wall clock behind her, confirming that it was exactly as late as it had felt.
She yawned and sat herself back up, knowing she wasn't done yet with her work. Three piles of paper were neatly separated on the table in front of her, one of them showing the tell-tale folds of letters recently peeled out of their envelopes, the empty husks of which littered the floor behind the table where they had been thoughtlessly discarded and left to be cleaned up in the morning.
Despite how tired she was, Twilight smiled as she laid a gentle hoof on the pile of received letters; letters back and forth from her friends and family all over Equestria. It had been a great undertaking, sending all of those missives to the ponies she couldn't meet face-to-face in Ponyville anymore and explaining what had happened to her on her great adventure only a week before.
She smiled as she pulled out one of her favorites, reading it again.
Twi,
You don't have to thank me for anything, sugar. After hearing everything that happened to you, I reckon it would have happened all the same way even if I hadn't said anything at all that night. It sounds like this fella and yourself were meant to find each other. Still, I'm glad I could be of some help, even if only a little bit.
Anyways, I wish I could make it to Ponyville like the rest of the gals, but I just can't seem to get away from all this wedding business. Why, for the love of apples, it has to be such a damned big affair I will never know. Still, it'll all be over and done with next weekend, and I'll be a married mare... dang, that feels strange to write.
That reminds me; make sure you bring your fella to the wedding. If I can't be there to meet him when he shows up, then I want to meet him here. After everything you've had to say, I ain't waiting a day longer to see him for myself than I have to. Aurus would love to meet him too, I'm sure, so don't take no for an answer. If he doesn't want to come, you tie him up and drag him along... some fellas need that sort of treatment.
I can't wait to see you all at the wedding, this Tinkermane fella included!
Love,
AJ
Twilight smiled as she set the letter back down on top of the pile, even allowing herself a small giggle. So many things about that letter in particular warmed her heart. The most amusing thing about it was how strange it looked; without all the 'sugar' and 'reckoning', Twilight would hardly be able to tell it was from AJ at all. The writing seemed abnormally proper, and she couldn't help but laugh, knowing it would have sounded much different than it looked if read aloud by her orange friend. Just as amusing was her imagining of Gearrick's reaction when he learned he was 'invited' to the wedding, something he had likely completely forgotten about, since it had only ever been mentioned in passing.
Her smile shrank slightly as she rested her hoof atop the pile of letters, her giggles dying out. Of all the messages she now had in her collection, there was one missing that she desired most of all. Even after a full week apart, she still had no word from Gearrick. She knew that if he were going to send something, he would have already done it, and it bothered her. Aside from his words when they parted ways, she had no way of knowing when he would arrive. Two weeks could mean anything in that little pile of days; anytime, on any train.
Despite all of the unknowns, Twilight hadn't let thoughts of doubt creep up on her. He had promised, and she knew he would be there, one way or another. She had taken it upon herself to rally her friends early, and invite them all back to Ponyville to meet him, no matter when he showed up. He would get a Pinkie Pie party when he arrived, or Twilight would die trying. She wanted him to feel welcome in Ponyville, like he never had in Manehattan. She wanted this to be the place he would come to and never want to leave again.
Her smile returned as she grabbed another blank sheet of paper, the quill floating in her magic aura once more. There was still work to be done before all of her plans were ready.
Twilight sighed to steady her nerves as she watched the train enter the station, standing with only ponies that were departing for company. She had done this many times already, and had long since given up any thoughts of dragging her friends along with her. Even she had learned the futility of attempting to catch each and every train that entered Ponyville station. After the first two days she had tossed it to fate.
This occasion, however, was different. This evening train was the last one in or out of Ponyville until morning the following day, when the promised two weeks would be past.
She caught her front hooves kneading the pavement in worry, though she had done her best to assure herself this would be the one. She knew her fear that he would not be on this train was pointless. He had gone so far and done so much to assure her that he would come, even before he had made such a promise aloud. The train's whistle sounded to announce it had come to a complete stop, startling her from her inner dialogue and drawing her eyes to the boarding doors of the many passenger cars, with ponies packed around them waiting for their chance to get on board and make themselves comfortable for the long evening ride ahead.
The station attendants slid the doors open, the stream of disembarking ponies pouring out almost instantly, as if the door had indeed been holding them back. She shifted her eyes between the many doors frantically for a moment, before she placed a hoof to the welding goggles around her neck, granting her a modicum of calm. She had made a habit of it lately, using that quiet, silent attachment to her missing lover to get her through the stressful times and lonely thoughts of the last few days.
She waited as patiently as she could will herself to as the ponies filtering off the train began to dwindle. Soon it seemed as if ponies were boarding as often as they were departing, and Twilight began to worry, her touch on the goggles around her neck growing more and more firm as her fear began to build. She hadn't seen the shock of reddish brown mane, or the pearl white blade of his smirk cutting through the crowd. No familiar laugh, no warm and wonderful voice.
She sighed in defeat as she dropped her hoof from the welding goggles, closing her eyes for a moment to try and compose herself.
"You should see the look on your face," came a quiet, distant string of banter, sailing on the wings of a familiar inflection and deep, teasing tone. Hoofsteps grew nearer as her ears perked up and she turned to look further down the platform, her heart soaring at last out of the veil of worry.
He looked just like she had dreamed for the past many nights, standing there and smirking in the sunset. He had a great many things thrown over his shoulders and across his back, and though it was clearly heavy he stood tall and gave her a sly wink as a widening smile grew on her face.
Twilight couldn't help herself as she broke into a run, her eager smile growing step by step. Gearrick only had enough time to drop his bags on the platform before he swept her up into a warm embrace, using her own momentum to swing her in a wide circle over his luggage and back around again, pulling her close as she at last came to a stop. No sooner had she stopped than he kissed her deeply, practically holding her up as she stood on the tips of her hooves to deepen the kiss in whatever small way she could.
Twilight took deep breaths as she rested her head on his shoulder, recovering slowly from her enthusiastic sprint into her lover's embrace, and the passionate kiss that had left her equally breathless. She closed her eyes as she felt his embrace around her shoulders tighten, the two of them propped against one another on just their back legs. A light kiss atop her head, barely felt through her mane, brought a smile to her face as her breathing grew more subtle.
"I missed you, Gearrick" she sighed into his coat, giving him a tighter squeeze in their ongoing hug. She didn't want to pull away from him just yet, even if it might only be for a few seconds or only a few inches away. Any distance was too far and any time too long just then.
Everything about it was better than her dreams. She could clearly feel his warmth, the beating of his heart in his chest, and take in the scent she had come to associate with him: a pleasant one subtly laced with the tang of metal and the strange smell of grease that would never quite come out, as if those things were just a part of him. All of those things seemed so simple, but in her dreams they had been little more than vague feelings her subconscious had done its best to replicate, all to no avail.
It was finally real again, and she was not letting go until she absolutely had to.
"I missed you too, Twilight," he replied quietly, his tone warm and gentle as he stroked her mane. "It's been a long two weeks, but-" he began, only to be cut off.
"I know," she said, pulling back just far enough to tip her nose up and look into his eyes, never pulling her cheek from his shoulder. "You had things you had to do."
"That's true, but it's not what I was going to say," Gearrick replied with a chuckle, fixing her with a look that playfully warned her to be patient and listen. Twilight managed it through the shroud of her curiosity, and so he continued. "I was going to say that it's the last two weeks you'll ever have to wait."
"What do you mean?" Twilight asked, her excitement growing as Gearrick backed away from her politely, setting her back on all fours as he turned to his luggage. From the mess of bags he pulled a large rectangular object, wrapped in cloth to protect it.
"Do you remember what I promised you? That if you waited two weeks, I wouldn't make you wait again?" he asked with a small smile, keeping his eyes on her as he tucked the thin, cloth-covered object under a foreleg and leaned on it idly. "I wasn't just being dramatic, though I know I can be from time to time."
"I did have things to do," he said quietly, his expression shifting from his fun-loving, humorous smirk into a warm and loving expression that set Twilight's heart to beating faster. "But almost all of the things I had to do were to keep that promise to you."
"I had to visit my parents... to tell them I wouldn't be coming home, even after all the trouble in Manehattan. They couldn't have been more understanding when I explained why. I went to see Tacks again, because I needed some advice if I was going to follow in her hoofsteps here in Ponyville."
Twilight's breath was caught as she began to realize what it was he was getting at.
"And I had to spend several days, and every last bit of my winnings from the contest, doing the most important thing of all," he said quietly, pulling the object in front of him and unwrapping it gently in front of Twilight's widening eyes.
To anypony else it would look like nothing more than a shop sign. To Twilight, it looked like the perfect embodiment of his promise to her: a simple piece of wood, saying nothing more than 'Gearrick's Gadgets’, which represented so much more than anyone would know.
"I'm going to set up shop. Here. In Ponyville, with you," he said warmly, unable to deny a quiet laugh as Twilight put a hoof to her mouth in disbelief, tears welling her eyes. "I don't need a guild, or contests, or anything else. I just want a place where I can work on my dreams. All of them... and especially the ones with you in them," he finished, giving her a wink.
Twilight laughed behind her hoof, still pressed to her lips as if to try and contain the outburst of happiness that would otherwise completely engulf her. Her happy laughter started out as a few staggered, uncertain giggles before, finally, she could not control it anymore. She couldn't see anything through the blur of her happy tears, but she knew that Gearrick was holding her again as her imagined sense of weightlessness became all too real.
"You're going to stay..." she whispered quietly, still sounding as if she couldn't believe it.
"But I'll have to live with you for a while... shops don't build themselves overnight," he replied with a chuckle.
Twilight grabbed the sides of his head and pulled him to her, kissing him roughly, deeply. "Stay as long as you like," she whispered happily, kissing him lightly once more on the lips, as if in apology for her sudden, fiery moment of passion.
"Welcome home."
"Ha!" Rainbow Dash cried victoriously, pointing across the library's bottom floor to the third in a line of seven cider casks situated atop one of the many tables that had been hastily erected just for the welcoming party. Dangling from the cask's spigot was a lone chocolate doughnut with rainbow sprinkles, slowly waving back and forth from the momentum of its landing only moments before. The crowd of ponies that had moved out of the way to create the throwing lane for the game applauded her loudly for a fantastic toss, many of the more sober ponies laughing at the sheer and undisguised inebriation of the players and a good portion of their adoring fans.
"Nobody beats team 'Pie Dash'!" Rainbow shouted, sticking a wavering hoof in Gearrick's face.
"I thought it was team 'Pink Rainbow'," Gearrick chuckled, very nearly tipping over backwards as he struggled to focus on something so close to his nose. He was grateful when Rainbow Dash toppled from holding her poorly-balanced gloating pose for too long, saving him the trouble of falling himself.
"That's stupid," she muttered from the floor. "If something's pink, how can it be a rainbow?" she asked, huffing as she pushed herself back up off the floor.
"Good point," Gearrick conceded, turning his attention back to the casks of cider that seemed really, really far away. There were only seven of them there, and the name of the game was to land four doughnuts on the spigots before the opposing team could do so. But, after missing his last two shots in a row at the same peg Rainbow had just scored, his confidence was not exactly brimming.
"What's the matter?" Rainbow taunted, clearly not at all concerned with how her falling over might have impacted her social image in the face of her overwhelming success at Cider Peg. "Afraid you can't make it?"
"I'm just worried you'll tip over again when I do, because you'll have to drink," he retorted with a smirk. With the taunting pushing him past whatever part of him remained sober enough to instill doubt, Gearrick grabbed his chosen doughnut.
"Pffffthbpt," Rainbow spat, rolling her eyes. "Alright then, hot shot, let's see it."
Gearrick raised his doughnut, eying his target, the last remaining peg, through the hole in its center. He waved it back and forth, trying to get a feel for its weight before he finally let fly. Every doughnut was different, so gauging his toss was paramount to his efforts of drowning Rainbow Dash in cider.
At last he could feel it on his swing forward, the universe in perfect alignment for his throw. He hadn't the sobriety left to ignore instinct as the nerves in his foreleg told him that all of the factors were right, and that this was the toss of destiny. Without warning he let fly, and it soared as majestically as a doughnut could through the air, as if in slow motion, heading on a dead line for the last peg of the game.
Everyone observing watched breathlessly as the treat hit the front of the cask flat, killing the majority of its rebound momentum. The doughnut fell, the hole aligning perfectly with the top of the spigot, where it caught fast and remained hanging, like some prized trophy on a wall, announcing his victory to the world. Cheers erupted as Gearrick pumped a hoof in the air and Rainbow stared, dumbfounded, at the doughnut of her demise.
"Drink!" Gearrick roared, shoving a mug of cider into her hooves.
"Yeah, drink!" Pinkie cried excitedly, clutching a mug of her own in preparation for the drink of defeat and not seeming at all upset by the loss.
"Whose team are you on?" Rainbow asked with a scowl, before she dropped the act and cracked a smile. "Fair's fair," she conceded, upending the cider mug and draining it in one go. Pinkie quickly followed suit, tipping her mug so far up that she eventually fell over backwards.
"Nice shooting, Derpy," Gearrick congratulated his cross-eyed partner, extending a hoof to her. She didn't seem to know how to locate it at first, but finally her eyes uncrossed enough to give her a clear shot.
"You too, Mr. Twilight's Boyfriend!" she said excitedly, shaking his hoof in long, lazy ups and downs. "I've never beaten anypony at Cider Peg before! You're really good at this game!"
That she had never won before didn't surprise Gearrick overly much, considering he had made three of their four pegs, and the one that Derpy made had definitely felt like an accident at the time, what with the way it had bounced off of the chandelier.
"Beginner's luck," Gearrick said with a laugh, extracting his hoof politely from her grasp, though her own leg continued to wave up and down as if she hadn't noticed. "Alright, so" he cried loudly, looking around the crowd with the narrowed eyes of a predator, "who wants to take on the winning team?"
Twilight giggled as Rainbow and Pinkie stumbled their way over away from the Cider Peg staging area, leaving Gearrick and Derpy to take on any one of a hundred teams shouting that they had the next game.
"Well, he's good at Cider Peg," Rainbow admitted, before Twilight had even said anything.
"Did you see Derpy's shot?" Pinkie asked, skidding to a stop on her stomach as her latest bounce attempt failed miserably.
"When I said I wanted you girls to get to know him, that's not what I meant," Twilight said with a sigh, rolling her eyes. She, like the rest of her friends, had a solid level of intoxication running now that the party was drawing later into the evening.
"Well it's not like I can challenge him to a race," Rainbow said in exasperation, clearly not getting the direction Twilight had been going for. "How else am I supposed to get to know him?"
"You could try just talking to him," Twilight muttered into her cider mug, taking a sip.
"We talked plenty when we were kicking each other's butts," she declared with a wave of her hoof, as if that should have been obvious.
"You were just trash-talking each other," Twilight retorted with a raised eyebrow.
"Trust me, I got to know him pretty well from all that," Rainbow said with a chuckle. "Trash-talk is the language of competitors. You can always tell when somepony means it and is being uncool, and when they're playing along and having a good time. It's a really good way to gauge the quality of the ponies you're competing against, because they expose part of their personality. That's the part I'm interested in the most," she concluded, shrugging her shoulders as if it was no big deal. "He's a good guy; I'd fly with him any day... if he had wings."
"Wow, Rainbow... That's pretty deep for you," Twilight said in honest surprise, setting her mug aside in mild shock.
"What? I'm deep all the time. You just can't tell, because you're always busy being dazzled by my awesomeness," she said, flaring her wings and putting her front hooves on her hips.
"And she's back," Rarity sighed, sipping on her margarita.
"Well, what about you, Pinkie?" Twilight asked, giving up on Rainbow at long last.
"He's hard to surprise," Pinkie said, putting a hoof to her chin in thought and trying to look pensive. Her best efforts weren't good enough as, inevitably, she zoned out and her eyes slowly began to cross, focusing on the end of her nose.
"Pinkie...?" Twilight asked, waving a hoof in her face.
"But that just means I'll have to try harder to surprise him!" she concluded abruptly, as if she hadn't tuned out in the first place.
"Yes, but what do you think of him?" Twilight growled her question, slapping a hoof to her face.
"Oh, he's great!" Pinkie replied excitedly. "I like his sense of humor, and he knows a lot of words I've never heard of, just like you do, and he has great taste when it comes to sweets, even though all the sweets I make taste great, and..."
"Fluttershy?" Twilight asked, deciding it might be best to just ignore Pinkie Pie, who was now so far into her light-speed rambling that there was no point in listening further. Twilight got the gist after the first few seconds.
"I like him," she giggled, wavering uncertainly in her sitting position on the floor. "He's nice."
"Are... you okay?" Twilight asked, raising an eyebrow in concern.
"I like him," she reiterated again, hiccupping suddenly and giggling at the sound she just made while swatting at the floor to try and catch herself as she abruptly lost her balance. "I like the... things," she explained vaguely, pushing herself back up slowly and then patting her cheeks to indicate the scars on his jaw. "And I like the way his mane is all... poof," she continued, pushing her own mane out to try and demonstrate what she couldn't figure out words for. "Oh, and he doesn't yell, even when Rainbow is picking on him. That's nice," she finished, giggling to herself. "He's nice."
"Okay..." Twilight said, stretching the word in slight confusion, until she decided just to assume that all of that was good news. "Rarity, please tell me you're still normal?"
"Never am, dear," Rarity said simply, as if that should have been obvious. But the smirk she was wearing told Twilight that she was still sober enough to tease, and that was a good start.
"Well?" Twilight asked, knowing that she would get the straightest answer out of her friend with the highest standards.
"He's a little rough around the edges," Rarity began, her tone turned up just the right way to signal the beginning of a list. "But he has a certain way of speaking and carrying himself that proves he's not as rough as he looks, what with his mane all... poof," she explained, widening her eyes and gesturing to her own mane, like Fluttershy had done only moments ago, wringing a giggle out of Twilight.
"But what I can tell more than anything is that he's madly in love with you," Rarity continued, gesturing with her margarita glass in the direction of the game of Cider Peg, where Gearrick was sneaking a look back at Twilight. "He's a clever stallion, and they're the most dangerous... but so are clever mares," she said with a small laugh. "I'd heard enough about him to write a romance novel before he even got here-" she went on, but Twilight interjected suddenly.
"Sorry about that, by the way" she muttered, blushing hot as she reflected on just how much she had really written in her letters to her friends.
"Don't be," Rarity chided, waving her concern away. "After all, it all turned out to be true. He really is as wonderful as you said he would be. It doesn't take a genius to tell that the two of you are perfect for each other," she said idly, as if it was just obvious. "All of my concern that you had stumbled into some fling on vacation was totally off-base," she admitted, finishing her margarita.
"So, you like him?" Twilight asked hopefully.
"It wouldn't matter if I didn't, since you love him so much," Rarity said slyly, giving Twilight a knowing glance. "But yes, I like him just fine."
"Good," Twilight sighed in relief, happy to hear that her friends, or at least most of them, approved.
"Why so worried?" Rarity asked, messing with the little umbrella in her empty glass.
"Well... he's going to be living with me for a while," Twilight admitted slowly.
Rarity dropped her tiny umbrella abruptly, whirling on Twilight with her eyes sparkling and her teeth showing in a wide, gossip-hound grin. "Really? Oh, how scandalous!" she cooed, putting her hooves together in front of her chest and shivering in excitement.
"I-it is not!" Twilight stammered, blushing hotly. "It's perfectly normal for mares my age to live with their boyfriends... right?" she asked quietly, practically begging for support. "Besides, it's only until his place finishes construction-"
"Which could take months," Rarity pointed out with a sly wink.
"Rarity!" Twilight groaned, her tone half accusing and half pleading her to stop.
"Alright, alright," she laughed, patting the air to calm Twilight down. "I'm just teasing. You don't have to convince anypony, Twilight, least of all your friends. If he's good enough for you, he's good enough for us," she finished warmly, giving Twilight a sure smile.
"Thanks," Twilight sighed, glad to have the teasing over and done with.
"And don't worry, I'm sure Applejack will love him," Rarity said with a small smile.
Twilight couldn't help but smile. "Oh, I know she will."
Gearrick took the seat that rose out of the floor with mild confusion. He had met with Aurus and Applejack many times since their wedding a few days ago, but this time it was different. This was no casual dinner or evening of drinking. This time it seemed almost too formal, with only Aurus and Gearrick in the study that afternoon.
"I'm glad you came," Aurus said with a warm smile, sitting at his desk within easy speaking distance. "I know we haven't been friends long, but it still means a great deal to me."
Gearrick shrugged, too confused by the strange feeling he was getting about this meeting to respond any other way at first. "Why wouldn't I? Fast friends are friends all the same, right?"
"Too true," Aurus chuckled, easing some of the tension Gearrick was feeling. "Still, I'm certain you're curious about why I'd want to talk to you, gan-zet-gan," he continued, using the changeling phrase for 'one-on-one'.
Gearrick just nodded, unable to shake the feeling that Aurus was looking through him, not just at him.
"I have a favor I want to ask of you," he stated simply, giving Gearrick a calming smile. "One I would not trust anyone else with, I'm afraid."
"A favor?" Gearrick asked in disbelief. Him, to do a favor for a king? Gearrick let out a half-laugh of disbelief, and shook his head. "I highly doubt you don't have anyone else you can trust for this favor, whatever it is."
"I never said I didn't," Aurus said slyly. "I only said I wouldn't trust anyone but you with this task."
Gearrick found himself out-worded for once, and unable to come up with a counter. "What could a king possibly want from me?" he asked seriously.
"Innovation," Aurus replied simply. When Gearrick fixed him with a curious expression, he simply smiled and continued. "I have worked for many years to make the changeling nation a strong force in this world, and it will take many more before I can truly say I have succeeded. I want what is best for my people in all things."
"Your nation has steamtech, a force equal in many ways to magic. The gryphons have what they call stormtech, and this, too, is a force to be reckoned with. Even the diamond dogs, disjointed as they are, have a common form of technology which they rely on, though none can say for sure how it works. But my people have no such thing," he finished evenly. "We have never needed technology for ourselves. You could probably say that we never will, because of the nature of our magic."
"But that isn't the point," he continued. "Or rather, it should not be. I am not interested in technology for the good that it would bring to T'rahk Enox. I am interested in technology for the good that it could bring to the entire world. I would like to research a way to make a new form of technology... one that does not rely on wind or lightning, like gryphon technology, or on coal like your steamtech engines; a form of technology that the entire world can use, without exception."
"An alternative energy solution..." Gearrick muttered, following the discussion as only a scientist could. "I can understand where you're coming from; it's why steamtech was separated from magitech in Equestria in the first place. We wanted to put technology in the hooves of the common pony, where before only unicorns could benefit from it."
"But there's always a limiting factor in technology: the power source. Even if you take away the dependency on magic, there's a dependency on something else," Gearrick continued. "If you could find a better power source than coal or magic, something that sustained itself, then you could do exactly what you want, but that kind of energy doesn't exist," Gearrick said, shaking his head the more he thought on it.
"It does," Aurus replied simply.
Gearrick shot the king a skeptical look, and sighed. "Alright, I'll bite. What energy could possibly be that renewable, that globally available?"
"Mine," Aurus said with a small smile.
"What?" Gearrick asked, dumbstruck by the answer.
Aurus didn't answer, simply pulled open a drawer in his desk and withdrew an item from within, setting it atop the polished stone surface and sliding it towards Gearrick gently. It seemed to be little more than a simple, steel ingot. A commodity found in any smithy, except for one minor detail. Gearrick picked the block of metal up, turning it over and looking at the symbol glowing on its surface.
"What is this?" he asked quietly, eying the glowing green lines of energy painting the face of the steel ingot.
"The energy source that your Equestrian scientists have been dreaming of for ages. A simple changeling rune that turns magical energy into electricity," Aurus concluded quietly.
"No different from a magitech turbine," Gearrick replied skeptically, though his tone showed he suspected there was more to it than that.
"Not quite. That steel bar will generate its own electricity. Even with no unicorn or changeling to actively fuel it, it will supply power. Changeling magic is a very different thing from unicorn magic," Aurus explained. "Eventually that rune will run out of energy, of course, but the steel bar will never expire. If one could simply recharge the rune..." Aurus trailed off, allowing Gearrick to pick up his train of thought.
"You would have a wasteless, renewable fuel source," Gearrick whispered, amazed. His amazement immediately turned into skepticism though, his scientific training preventing him from admitting so easily that something this impossible could be done. "And how will the runes be recharged? If they run out, how will ponies and changelings be able to rely on them? Where does the energy for these... these mana batteries even come from?" he asked, gesturing about with the bar in his hoof vaguely.
"From my body," Aurus said quietly, folding his hooves in front of himself on the desktop.
"You're kidding," Gearrick asked with a chuckle, sincerely believing the king was joking.
"I'm afraid not," Aurus said with a light, though empty, chuckle of his own. "I have more magical energy than you can imagine, Gearrick. More than anyone knows I have, and far, far more than I can control," he said with a sigh. "Control was never my strong suit. Every single day I have to expel magical energy in incredible amounts, just to keep from endangering myself and those around me."
"My body has reached the limit of its adaptive potential," he continued, fixing Gearrick with a serious stare, locking the tinker's gaze tight and sending a shiver down his spine. "I can't contain the magic that threatens to overwhelm me every day of my life forever, and slowly it is eating me alive," he whispered quietly.
Gearrick found himself unable to reply, for he couldn't think of anything to say in light of such a dark revelation.
"I do what I can to vent the energy and keep myself healthy, but it is such a waste," he whispered quietly. "If I must remove this energy to save my life, then it should improve the lives of others." His tone was stern, and his gaze unwavering, unafraid of the hoof fate had dealt him. "In the end, no matter what I do, this power will cut my life in half," he said gravely. "I want to do enough with the time I have to make up for the years I will never get to see."
"So you'll dump it into these mana batteries, and spread it across the world, putting technology in the hooves, claws, and paws of everyone," Gearrick said quietly, understanding now that not only was the goal possible, but it was also necessary. If what Aurus said was true, then these mana batteries would usher in an all new technological revolution.
And extend the king's life by many years.
"What do you want me to do?" Gearrick asked, looking away from the king and back at the steel bar in his hooves.
"I want you to lead the charge," Aurus said simply. "I want you to explore the potential behind these mana batteries and become the first pioneer in runetech. Twilight speaks very highly of you, and I know a good stallion when I see one," he said with a calm smile. "I want you to learn all that you can, adapt this power into technology the world can use, and to teach it to others. I want you to help me change the world."
"I'm not cut out to be a teacher," Gearrick replied quietly, though his words lacked the tone of a refusal.
"I was never cut out to be a king," Aurus replied warmly, his tone encouraging. "I don't expect you to become a professor, or start a university... When the time comes, those tasks will fall to the creatures who have been inspired by you. I am only asking you to do what you do best," Aurus said quietly. "I am asking you to create something from a dream."
Gearrick stared quietly at the iron ingot in his hooves for many moments, his brow creased in thought. He rubbed a hoof along its gleaming surface, and then sighed heavily; the sigh of a stallion who had made up his mind, for better or for worse.
"I'm going to need a lot more of these."
Gearrick smiled as he drove the nail home, pounding it flush with the crossbeam that ran along the outside of his shop. It was the last nail the shop needed: the one that would proudly hold the sign in place above the door for all to see. Applause rang out behind him from his many neighbors and friends in Ponyville, not the least among them the world-renowned King Aurus and Queen Applejack, who had come just for the grand opening and the open house that afternoon.
"Ladies and gents," Gearrick called out, throwing his foreleg around Twilight's shoulders as he dropped off the last rung of the ladder, "Gearrick's Gadgets is officially open for business!"
The excited applause gave way to a few scattered whistles and cheers, while Twilight planted a warm kiss on his cheek. It had taken four long months to finish the shop, complicated as it was. Twilight had often said that the place suited him even before it had been completed, sometimes even with a few nails poking out of her gritted teeth as she helped him with the construction.
Brass and copper piping was as visible outside the shop as in, all intricately angled and grouped to give the shop an elegant mechanical look in addition to the various functions all the wiring and piping served inside. The top floor was the living area, complete with the master bedroom, a small guest room, bathroom, and a little something inspired from his old, shoddy warehouse in Manehattan: the living room.
It was a cozy place, small because of all the other rooms piled into the top floor, with little more than a couch and nightstand for furniture. But what made the room truly feel like home was the west wall, made completely of sturdy windows that gave anyone inside a wonderful view of Everfree's edge, and Lone Peak far beyond. Of course, it would never have been complete without the hanging metalwork sculptures and the collections of colored glass shards that threw dazzling specks of color everywhere.
The lower level of the shop was little more than a storage room, a small kitchen, and the main garage, lined wall to wall with workbenches and racks for tools and parts in progress. It was absolutely everything Gearrick had dreamed of, and more.
"Well, who wants to see the place?" he asked, waving the hammer over his shoulder. It didn't take long for ponies to start pouring in, admiring the work of Gearrick, Twilight, and many of their own contributions. The entire town had helped to build this place at one point or another, and everypony was eager to see it in its completed state at long last.
Gearrick smiled as he gazed out the living room windows, sitting on the couch with his foreleg around Twilight as ponies came and went, complimenting them often on a job well done and wishing them the best in their new home.
"So this is what home feels like," he whispered, kissing the top of Twilight's head gently as she leaned into him.
"We couldn't ask for a better one," she agreed, smiling as she kissed him on the jaw, the easiest spot to reach in their comfortable embrace on the sofa.
Both of them had given up living in the library only a week before, when they had at last moved in all of the new furniture and other things that Gearrick had bought with his earnings as the world's first runetech tinker. He had started small, building simple projects on the library's tiny table whenever he wasn't working on the shop across town. He'd made great strides in learning how to use the mana batteries and build around them, and had improved many lives in small towns around Equestria with various appliances, all made more affordable without the need for a city-wide power grid or complex steam pressure systems. Compact, efficient, and cheap, runetech was becoming a popular option for anypony who had heard of it.
"Well, we can be comfortable later," Gearrick grunted, giving Twilight a gentle push to right her on the couch and free himself of her leaning. "Right now I suppose we should be starting the housewarming party."
"Don't say that too loud," Twilight chuckled, stretching as she got to her hooves. "Pinkie might hear you."
Gearrick yawned as he stumbled down the stairs, heading for the gentle pounding on his front door. He pulled it open slowly with one eye pinched shut against the morning light that came streaming through, granting him a blurry vision of the blonde mane and the grey hoof that was descending for another knock, despite the door being open. Gearrick dodged the hoof with practiced ease, both eyes coming shut as he yawned widely once more, blinking away the resulting tears.
"Good morning, Derpy," he greeted quietly, giving her a small smile before he spared a quick glance behind him at the clock by the stairs. "You're earlier today than usual," he half-grumbled, still not fully over being woken up so early while Twilight got to sleep in.
"That's because I have a priority delivery!" came the excited, muffled reply from inside the mail bag thrown over her shoulder as she promptly buried her face in it, searching for the mentioned item.
"Priority?" Gearrick asked, confused. He hadn't ordered any parts for fast shipping, and even if he had they would have come in a cart later on in the day, not in the tiny mail bag.
"Here it is!" the mailmare sang happily, the tune clear but the words muffled slightly because of the strings in her mouth that held the brown-wrapped box aloft. "Delivery for Mr. Twilight's Boyfriend, on schedule!" she declared as Gearrick grabbed the box with his magic, setting it down inside the door behind him.
"It's Gearrick," he reminded the mailmare casually, an exchange that felt automatic after months of practice.
"Sign here," she chimed happily, ignoring him completely, as usual, and sticking the clipboard and pen out to him.
Gearrick sighed and scribbled his signature on the shipping notice, passing the items back to Derpy.
"Thanks very much! Have a nice day!" Derpy called happily, waving over her shoulder before she galloped down the short walkway to the shop and launched into the air, off to deliver more mail with an ungodly level of cheer.
"You too," he called back lazily, sidling back inside and grabbing the package from the floor. "That girl likes her job way too damned much," he sighed to himself, setting the package on the counter in the kitchen while he fished around blindly in the refrigerator for something to curb the grumbling in his stomach, which was exceptionally vicious for having been woken up many hours earlier than expected.
Munching on a leftover sandwich, he finally turned his attention to the small, brown box. He scanned the shipping label idly until he noticed something strange: the package had no return address.
His curiosity piqued, Gearrick quickly untied the strings that held the brown wrapping paper in place, and popped the box open. Inside was what appeared to be a leather journal, with a letter atop it.
Puzzled, Gearrick pulled the book out and turned it front and back. It had no title on either side of the worn brown leather cover. Figuring that the letter would probably explain better than skimming through the book, Gearrick tore the envelope open and began to read. It didn't take him long before his eyes widened and scanned the page more frantically, taking everything in.
Mr. Tinkermane,
After one long year I am sure that this package comes as a surprise to you. I'm sorry to be sending you this without warning, but I'm afraid it can't be helped. I've been very busy during my time in prison, and I just wanted you to know that I have not been wasting the time I've been given.
I used my privileges from good behavior to get access to materials from the Royal Canterlot Library for research. This time I didn't work towards a technological endeavor, but rather a personal one. I have much left to atone for, but with the completion of this research at long last, I hope I am one step closer to being a better stallion.
After months of ceaseless study and speculation, I believe I have found a way to return Myla and Phyla to normal. If I have learned anything in the course of researching their fate, and reflecting on my own, it is that chaos has no god. In the end, chaos and suffering can only come to those who invite it. So, it can only be undone by the same creatures who welcomed it once.
The journal will explain everything. I would test my theory myself, if only I could. Instead, I'm asking you to do what I can't, and perform this experiment in my place.
Regards,
Mick Magnet
Gearrick tossed the letter into the box, snatching up the journal once more. His tiredness from before was gone, replaced with an eager hopefulness. While it was true that the twin mares had hardly been friends to Gearrick and Twilight, their misfortune was still a dark mark in Gearrick's life, however minor. In his hooves he held the possibility to right a wrong created years ago that not even the Elements of Harmony could undo.
Scowling in determination, Gearrick pulled up a chair to the small table, flipping through the journal. At first the pages were filled with simple musings, clearly made before Mick had gained access to his research materials. Slowly the theories began to take more form, touched up with revelations from historical accounts of Discord's rule and the effects of his chaotic magic. The hours passed, and the pages began to show numbers and formulas, most of which had been scribbled out and reworked many times.
It was ten o'clock when Gearrick had reached a strange portion of the journal. The equations and formulas suddenly stopped, giving way to a series of blank pages. Gearrick paused in concern, trying to recall everything he had read about the twin's history, any of the previous formulas or speculations. Yet, no matter what he remembered, nothing came down to a firm, conclusive action. The experiment he was to perform wasn't listed in the journal at all.
Puzzled and slightly alarmed, Gearrick checked inside the box, looking for a second journal. There wasn't one, and so he turned his attention again to the blank pages at the back, turning through them. They remained blank until the very last page. On the paper before him was a sketched chessboard, drawn with all the precision of a professional mechanical drafter. The board was blank, with no pieces to show any kind of arrangement.
However, beneath it were listed two columns of instructions, the items numbered carefully. Each listed item was a move for either the black player or the white, designating the piece and the destination coordinates on the board's grid.
Gearrick leapt from his chair and rushed into the neighboring garage, throwing open drawers and tossing various nuts and bolts into a tin can on one of the workbenches. Hoofsteps sounded on the stairs behind him as a very groggy Twilight Sparkle came down to check out all the ruckus.
"What's going on?" she yawned, looking at Gearrick in concern.
"I got a package from Mick Magnet this morning," Gearrick replied hastily, eying two bolts before he added them to the collection building in the tin can.
"Magnet?" Twilight asked, the name and his tone sobering her up a little bit. "What for?"
"He says he knows how to fix Myla and Phyla," Gearrick explained, rushing back into the kitchen with his tin can full of small bolts, screws, washers, and nuts.
Twilight trotted in after him, still not fully awake. "You're serious?" she asked, looming over him as he dumped the tin can over the journal, arranging the tiny mechanical parts into the likeness of the pieces atop the board drawn on the last page.
Twilight watched quietly as Gearrick concentrated, following the instructions to the letter. Pieces flew around the board and off it as they were taken, Gearrick's eyes never leaving the lists of instructions, lest he lose his place. The board seemed to be on automatic as the game played out under his copper magic glow.
At last he finished the final move, and Twilight gasped behind him, drawing his attention to the board.
Gearrick's face broke into a small smile, a disbelieving chuckle escaping his lips. "Mick... you're a genius."
Myla Trellon kneaded her hooves nervously for a moment before she stepped into the shop, looking around. There was no mistaking that this was the place, address or no address. "Hello?" she called loudly. Normally the shop bell would have rung as she entered, but the door was thrown wide to let the warm breeze of an early autumn afternoon sail through, leaving the signal silent.
"Welcome to Gearrick's Gadgets," came a familiar female call from further within the shop, along with a bang and a curse. "How can we help you-" Twilight began, rounding the corner from the hallway that led to the stairs. She went speechless when she noticed who it was at first, and then a smile slowly started to form on her face.
Myla didn't seem as surprised, or quite as comfortable, with the encounter, kneading her hooves once more. "Hello, Twilight," she greeted quietly, her tone nervous.
"Hello Myla," Twilight returned, her tone casual. For Twilight, this was an expected visit with a mare she had long since forgiven. "It's been a long time," she said quietly.
"More than a year, now," Myla replied, gaining some confidence in the meeting since it didn't seem that Twilight housed any outward resentment. The two had been tolerable together at the end of everything in Manehattan, but after a year apart, the black mare had been afraid to face Twilight again, complex as her emotions were surrounding the lavender unicorn. She had been nervous that those jealous feelings she had against Twilight, and Twilight's against her, would resurface because of their poor past and sudden parting.
"Don't be so nervous," Twilight said warmly, giving Myla a calm smile. "We invited you, after all. We just want to help you."
A short silence followed as Myla struggled to find what to say, and to arrange her various, overwhelming emotions. "Is it true?" she asked quietly, deciding to focus on her trepidation, the strongest emotion of all at that moment. "Will Mick's plan really work?"
"Well, every plan Mick ever tried to involve Gearrick in before now ended up failing miserably..." Twilight began to tease, but she stopped when she noticed Myla wince. "Mick knows what he's doing," Twilight said encouragingly, drawing a gentle nod from Myla. "Gearrick and I have both talked about this... With what we know about you, we believe that it will really work. You and your sister can live normal lives again."
Tears started to well in Myla's eyes as she nodded, unable to speak as she was overwhelmed with hopeful happiness. That strong emotion ruled her completely for a time until she turned around, facing back outside and trying to calm herself down. Twilight waited patiently until at last she was ready.
"Come with me," Twilight said warmly, leading the way into the kitchen, where Gearrick was washing his hooves. His face, however, was still streaked with grease and soot from his labors in the garage, though it didn't dim the wide smile that slipped onto his face as Myla followed in behind Twilight.
"Hey, Myla... Glad you came," Gearrick said pleasantly, clearly just as at-ease with everything in the past as Twilight.
Despite having resolved as best she could that Gearrick was off-limits, Myla couldn't help a happy blush as Gearrick mentioned he was glad to see her, particularly in such a warm tone. "Good to see you, too," she muttered back, afraid that if she spoke up too loudly her emotions would force her tone to turn into something Twilight wouldn't like.
"Are you ready?" Gearrick asked encouragingly.
Myla just nodded, still blushing and not really making eye contact. Her eyes darted to him every once in a while, but then skipped away again as if she had to keep yanking control of her eyes back by force.
"Then I need to speak to your sister," Gearrick said simply.
Myla wasn't able to fight her emotions at that point, and they swept over her as she locked her eyes on Gearrick. "Don't you like me better?" she pouted, her desire for Gearrick quickly twisting his request to speak to Phyla into jealous thoughts.
"Myla, stop," Gearrick warned her calmly, sounding as if he had been well prepared for something like this from the beginning. "I like you just fine, but this is supposed to be about turning you and Phyla back to normal, right?"
"Right..." Myla mumbled, turning around so she couldn't see Gearrick anymore and clenching her eyes shut just as an extra safety measure. She took several deep breaths to steady her nerves and fight the urge to turn back around and either flirt with him, or yell at Twilight. Then, at last, she delved into that divide between herself and her sister, her body going stiff and turning grey, the eyes behind the closed lids shifting to an empty black.
It didn't take long for the coat to change again, white with a few scattered black spots, the eyes shifting to a deep blue and coming only half open, the trademark of her blank and unwavering expression. She turned back around to face Gearrick and Twilight, both of whom were smiling, though not nearly as warmly as they had been for Myla.
"Good afternoon," Phyla greeted flatly, her eyes shifting from Gearrick to Twilight, and then back again.
"Afternoon," Gearrick replied with a sigh, having forgotten just how unpleasant speaking with the cold and emotionless mare could be. "Myla explained everything, right?"
"Yes," Phyla replied simply.
"And you're going to go along with Mick's plan?" Gearrick inquired, his tone cautious.
Phyla was silent for several seconds, looking at neither of them. This was the closest either had seen the hard-logic pony come to indecision. "Yes," Phyla said quietly. "Being empty is an easy life. Simple, logical, sensible," she explained. "It should be enough. But I want to be able to love my sister again, like she loves me," she finished evenly. "I want to be able to understand her again."
"Then I need you to memorize something," Gearrick said, passing her the journal, which was turned to the last page.
She read through the instructions idly, before snapping the book shut. "I see," she whispered, and for once Gearrick thought he heard just the faintest trace of excitement. "It never would have occurred to me."
"You know what to do, then?" Gearrick asked hopefully.
"Yes."
Myla made the moves her sister called out to her without question, trying to look far enough ahead at the board to understand where Mick's directions were taking them. It looked terribly like she was losing, and she was down to only a couple of pawns and her king. Phyla was likewise out of pieces, minus those select few, yet Myla knew from experience that her sister could work wonders with hardly anything on the table.
"Remain calm," Phyla cautioned her, seeing the tension building in her shoulders. "I am not going to make you lose."
"Then why are we playing?" Myla asked, terribly confused and scared. She had been the only one left out of the loop, because her emotions were a liability to the plan from the very beginning, and it made her nervous.
"Do you remember what Discord said to us, when we made our mistake?" Phyla asked calmly, moving her piece. "Move your pawn here," she added flatly, pointing to a black square directly in front of her own king.
"I remember..." Myla said quietly, moving her pawn into a place it was obviously going to get taken. "He said that if we won, we could continue to fight, but if we lost he would prove we were both right..."
"Yes," Phyla replied quietly, taking the pawn as planned. "Right about each other. Mick's plan revolved around that part of our story," she explained, gesturing for Myla to move her king to a new position.
"I don't understand," Myla began, moving as she was bade to do.
"We wanted to fight each other, to prove only one of us or the other was right. And even though we lost to Discord, we never stopped fighting each other. We thought that Discord had proven us both right by turning us into what we have become," she explained, moving her pawn in to be sacrificed, just as Myla had done only two turns past.
"But we continued to fight, and never admitted that the other was right. He made it harder for us to understand each other, impossible even." The moves continued to flow on the board as Phyla spoke, gesturing now and then to guide her sister.
"In the end, he never did prove we were both right," Phyla said darkly, moving her last pawn in front of Myla's lonely king. "It wasn't what he meant when he said it."
Myla took the offered pawn, looking at the board with nothing but their two kings left standing, a situation in which neither one of them could ever win over the other. She gasped as the realization came over her, and watched in amazement as both kings toppled of their own accord, the board cracking down the middle. The crack spread across the room, climbing the walls and even the ceiling.
"All we had to do to escape, and win this game, was to stop fighting," Phyla explained quietly.
Myla never had the chance to reply as the room blasted apart into a thousand shards, flinging her far away from her sister.
Gearrick and Twilight shielded their eyes from the blazing form of Myla and Phyla's empty, grey shell as it burst into red and black flames. A fierce wind sprung from the twins' body, twisting the flames around them into distinct tendrils, as well as turning the kitchen into a tiny maelstrom. Objects flew around on the harsh gusts that shifted constantly, smashing plates against walls and jamming forks into cabinet doors.
Twilight threw up a barrier around her and Gearrick, neither of them willing to leave in light of Mick's clear success. His strategy had done something, but whether it had saved the twins or not was too early to tell.
The grey body started to glow gently, half white and half black, the red tendrils swirling around them slowly, as if waiting. Soon the halves of the body showed no signs of overlap, not a speck of grey light showing between the black and the white. Without warning the tendrils raced in, latching on to the form. Where a red tendril struck the white body it became white as well, black ones following suit.
Slowly the limbs of flame began to bend and twist, pulling the halves apart slowly. Twilight found herself unable to look, fearing that the twin mares were being destroyed, pulled slowly in half in their agonizing final moments. Gearrick, however, mustered his courage and watched, refusing to believe that it would end in such a way, and prodded Twilight's shoulder suddenly as something spectacular began to happen.
As the halves came apart, new halves joined with them. Slowly but surely, a white pony and a black pony, fully whole, were emerging from what had once been the one as they were pulled further and further apart.
The wind died suddenly, and the tendrils of flame snuffed out. The glows surrounding the two bodies faded gently, revealing both Myla's and Phyla's separate forms standing together on the kitchen floor, their eyes closed tightly, their bodies stiff like the grey one had been when between owners.
Gearrick and Twilight looked to one another, speechless, before a sound drew their attention back to the mares. Both let out a low groan, like someone waking from a fevered sleep, each putting a hoof to their head like perfect mirrors of one another. Their eyes drifted open at last and Gearrick and Twilight let out sighs of relief, followed by excited and victorious laughter.
"It worked!" Twilight cried ecstatically, throwing her forelegs around Gearrick's neck and hopping up and down on her back hooves while he held her steady.
The two sisters looked to the rejoicing couple at first. Then slowly, as if finally realizing what Twilight was celebrating so loudly, they began to turn towards one another. They gasped in unison as they looked upon each other in the real world for the first time in six long years. They reached out to each other, touching hooves gently and confirming for themselves that they were really both there.
It all broke loose suddenly, the two mares bursting into tears and running to each other, sweeping themselves into a sisterly embrace. They just hugged each other and cried for a time, squeezing tightly and drenching one another's shoulders in tears until, at last, one of them found their voice, speaking in gasps between joyous downpours. "Phyla, you're... you're crying!" Myla shouted happily, pulling away and looking into her sister's tear-stained face.
Phyla gasped suddenly, putting her front hooves to her face and patting all over until they both covered her mouth in disbelief, her eyes wide with shock. The tears that had momentarily been held back by disbelief now resumed full tilt, the embrace becoming one sided as Phyla cried around the hooves at her mouth and Myla hugged her tight.
"What about you?" Phyla sniffed, finally finding her voice.
"I... I don't know," Myla replied, clearly confused. It was kind of hard to tell if her raging emotions had been cured or not, in light of the sudden passion she felt seeing her sister again.
"Well, why don't you come give me a kiss and find out?" Gearrick asked suddenly, smirking and drawing a cautious look from Twilight.
"I'd love to, but you have a girlfriend, and-" Myla began, until she gasped, eyes wide as she realized she had just turned down a kiss from the stallion who had been a burning passion of hers for the last six years.
"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" Phyla cried, surprising them all as she dashed across the kitchen and tackled Gearrick in a sudden hug, kissing him square on the mouth.
Twilight and Myla were both speechless as they looked from the kiss, to one another, and then back again, mouths hanging open in undisguised shock.
Twilight sighed contentedly as she looked at the pictures that had been delivered that morning, holding each one up in front of her as she lay on her back atop the bed. She shifted through them, each one a picture of the twins and something they had been up to over the summer. It had almost been a year since the Trellon sisters had been saved from their chaotic, inner hell. Since then they had become good friends and regular writers to Twilight, sending a letter and a package once a month full of pictures. Nopony had been more eager than Phyla to go across the world and experience all the things she had missed in her emotionless, six-year span.
She rolled over onto her stomach, setting the pictures in an album she had bought just for the twins, placing it with her magic on the shelf, next to a photo album of Aurus' and Applejack's baby boy, Archon. It, too, was receiving regular updates, since AJ sent pictures anytime the boy did anything remotely interesting.
Things had been going well over the last year or so. It was quiet in Ponyville for Twilight, especially on weekends like these when Gearrick was dragged away on business for out-of-town repairs, or to the recently established International Technology Institute to deliver his latest findings and designs for runetech. It hadn't taken the new institute long to grow into an amazing thing, with creatures all over the world rushing to discuss their individual technologies and gain an education in one of the many branches of engineering.
Slowly but surely, as Aurus had planned, all of the nations were beginning to edge towards runetech for their daily technological needs, and Gearrick was turning quite the profit as the world's chief mastermind of the fledgling science. It was still a young field though, barely two years old, and so there was still much work to be done. Still, it had its share of students, not to mention practiced steam and storm tinkers switching their focus to the mastery of runetech. It had made lives easier, now offering mana batteries in different shapes and sizes for varying pieces of machinery based on Gearrick's research, making it possible to design even small things that would run on their own.
Twilight stretched, flopping back on the bed as she stared at the ceiling. It didn't bother her that he had to travel to do the work he did from time to time. Most days he was with her in Ponyville, just like he had promised, and that was enough. The young couple had grown together more and more, always working with each other, whether it was simple housework or building new parts for the Nomad II.
She sat up abruptly as the sound of the shop bell reached her ears, promising her that he was finally home from his weekend trip to Manehattan, though she had been expecting him on an earlier train. Still, she knew it had to be him, since the summer sunset promised it was well past the shop's hours.
She smiled to herself as she waited patiently, listening to the sounds of his traveling bag hitting a workbench somewhere, and the metallic clink of a loving pat he bestowed on the Nomad II's half-built hull. At last came the expected call. "Twilight? You home?" he asked.
"I'm upstairs," she called back, shifting herself around on the bed and striking an alluring pose as she heard his hoofsteps start up the stairs.
Gearrick's already present smile widened as he caught sight of her on the bed, clearly teasing him. He let out two low whistles, closing the bedroom door slowly behind him. "Is this how you're going to start welcoming me home?" he asked, hopefully, making his way over to the bed. "Because I could get used to it," he huffed, rolling onto the bed from his standing position and wrapping her in a tight embrace.
Twilight giggled as he planted a gentle kiss on her neck, and then another on her lips. She took that kiss and deepened it slowly, teasingly, as she had done many times before. Without fail, as had always happened, Gearrick fell for it, trapped in the undeniable pull of her passionate kiss.
"I could get used to it too," she admitted when at last it was over, her hooves wrapped loosely behind his neck, resting her head on his shoulder as she always did. "How was your trip?"
"Lonely," he sighed, running a hoof down her side, and then along her back leg gently, "and boring."
"As usual," she hummed, enjoying the feeling of his touch after two long days apart. "What did they want to see you for, anyways? Didn't you just go there two weeks ago for something?" she asked, letting her tone take on a note of false annoyance.
"Yes, but this one wasn't for business really," he explained quietly, turning away from her and reaching down by the bedside suddenly.
"So you left me all weekend for a few nights of fun in the city?" she asked, giving him a scowl that he never saw as he was facing away from her. Still, she knew that he could tell what face she was making, even if he couldn't see it.
"Well, it's a good place to meet wonderful mares," he teased, coming back up and facing her, holding a bag she hadn't noticed him walk in with.
Twilight wasn't able to keep up her act of annoyance as he offered her the indirect compliment. The bag, however, piqued her curiosity. "What's that?"
"Just something I had the guild holding for me," he said slyly, baiting her with his tone.
Twilight reached for the bag, and Gearrick tugged it away playfully. When she reached for it more aggressively, he rolled over. Before long it was a full-on keep away, the couple laughing as they tossed the bed to pieces. Eventually, though, it came to an abrupt stop.
"Ow, ow, ow," Gearrick hissed, his right eye clenched shut against the pain as Twilight held his right ear in her teeth, biting gently, tugging on the strap to the bag all the while.
"Gimme th' bag," she mumbled around his ear, keeping him pinned.
"Alright, alright, you win," he chuckled, letting go. The nibble at his ear vanished immediately as Twilight sat up, clutching her prize excitedly. He'd often brought her presents when he went places, and this wasn't the first time they'd played this game.
Twilight popped the latch on the leather bag, smiling happily as she fished around inside. Her happy smile shifted to a confused scowl as she pulled out not one, but two pairs of welding goggles. One was a brand new pair with golden rims and red lenses, just like the ones Gearrick always seemed to wear. The other, pair, however, was unfamiliar to Twilight. They were rimmed in silver metal, with deep purple lenses.
Twilight looked between the pairs, growing suspicious as she noticed their quality. The golden metal on Gearrick's pair wasn't brass... it was actually gold, and the other pair was real silver. As she looked more closely, she noticed words etched in the metal frames, reading carefully.
"Twilight Tinkermane," she read aloud off the silver goggles, her voice barely a whisper as she finally realized what was going on. She whirled on Gearrick, her mouth hanging open and the goggles clutched in her hooves.
"It's got a nice ring to it, doesn't it?" he asked quietly, pushing under her chin and moving her jaw shut as he sat up to join her. "Will you marry me?" he asked seriously, his smile and hazel eyes drawing her in.
Twilight didn't know what to say at first. Tears started to well in her eyes and, finding that words would still not come, she simply dropped the goggles and grabbed Gearrick's face, pulling him into a rough kiss. She kissed him over and over, whispering her answer in the sparse moment she took to breathe. "Yes..."
The two of them fell back on the bed, the goggles forgotten as their passion built past anything either one of them had ever felt before.
Twilight stopped their kiss suddenly, propping herself up on his chest as she lay atop him looking deep into his eyes.
"Engagement goggles, though? Really?" she asked skeptically, her tone teasing.
"Really," Gearrick replied with a chuckle, pulling her back down into the kiss.
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At long, long last, here it is: the epilogue for Tinkermane, the thing that planted all of these ideas in my head and inspired me to write the entire story to begin with. I went through roughly 40k words just writing, rewriting, editing out and adding new scenes. Today I bring you damn near 13k of that 40k. As is typical with my epilogues, a lot happens and it bridges a lot of time, so some things are going to either be glossed over or completely unmentioned. If you think it was something important, and didn't see it here, that's probably because it's a spoiler for part of another Visionary Universe fiction.
Disclaimers and such aside, I am thrilled to be done with this at long last, and I could not personally be happier with the ending that I worked so hard for. I hope you all enjoy it as much as I do, and I will catch the braver bunch of you in my author's notes, where I drop all formality and get just plain weird while I discuss my adventure in writing this tale.
Thank you for reading!
Very, very well done.
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Never stop being awesome, Razorbeam.
Excellent ending to the story. Made my day. Also, engagement goggles are VERY 'Gearrick'. The part about the energy source is interesting, but what happens when Aurus is gone? Who will maintain it? There won't always be a ridiculously powerful king like him.
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Spoilers.
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Your wish is my command.
Can't wait for Part 3
You tied up all the loose ends very nicely along with giving Aurus something to do with his magic. Furthermore I can imagine AJ sending pictures of practically anything her little boy does
Dear Twi,
My little colt Archon bucked his first apple today. Kicked an apple right out of Aurus's hooves.
Engagement goggles.
Heck yes .
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Hooves*
Easily one of the best works of fanfiction I have read so far. Well done, and thanks for not leaving me hanging.
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And now the waiting for a sequel commences
Here, have some music for the final scene which I have shamelessly co-opted from another source:
And with this, a wonderful story comes to a close. I personally want to see more of this universe, but all things considered, I still find this a wonderful wrap-up to everything so far. As an aside, I have to comment on the Rune-tech being an interesting premise, and how I wondered if there was a giant Master Battery somewhere in Aurus' realm that he can sink his power into, which in turn links to the many receptacle batteries all around the world. (Mind you, that's not much just yet, but give it time.)
My honest curiosity to see where Rune-Tech might go is rather burning inside my mind. ...though the idea of armored suits...meh, that's my inner geek talking. I'm not talking steam-tech type either...I'm talking Rider-class, if you know what I mean. ...if not, ignore that last part.
Overall, very good fic, and I hope to read more from you down the line.
Ten months to write this story, I tip my hat to you. Such a wonderful feeling this must be to finish your story. Congratulations, thank you, pat yourself on the back and well written.
Perfect ending.
What an ending... what an ending...
An excellent story, Razorbeam, right on par with Visionary itself. Though I do notice you still have it marked as "Incomplete"?
So much
Runetech? Sweeeet.
Excellent solution for the sisters, and it's nice to have confirmation that Mick is doing well with his reformation.
And engagement goggles? That's either fantastic or a trip to the emergency room, depending on the mare involved. Good thing Twilight was the mare in question!
*meanwhile in Heimos brain*
...
Reader: "Damn I'm bored..."
Emotional: "Same here..."
*sound of running*
Main personality: "Holy shit holy shit holy shit holy shit, Reader, Emotions, get ready! Right. Fucking. Now."
Reader: "What is it?"
Main p.: "Tinkermane has updated... it's finally here..."
Reader/Emotional: "...
...
"HOLY FUCKING SHIT LETS BOUNCE MOTHERFUCKEEEEEER!!!!"
------the following post has been started 4am Finnish time (note: written completely with mobile)------
Bravo man... Bravo...
From stories like The Immortal Game and Sweetie Chronicles, there is a lot of good. Why? Because they are good stories.
But then, there is a story... the story that made its way to my heart in the first chapter, creating a new universe to explore. The story was called Visionary and it was made by this guy called Razorbeam. The story was amazing, in every way entertaining. It was what you call a good story.
When the time for the end of Visionary came, it actually never did. A new story was begun, a story that would soon make one Bauss go crazy... make this member of his tribe become known as "That madman who likes ponies".
Tinkermane begun...
For the first two chapters this story seemed to be a normal story with romance on it, but it started becoming something... oh so much, more than just that.
This story can be described with words like "Fucking amazing!" or "Holy hell this is good!", but one person thinks not even that is enough, it deserves more. It deserves something majestic.
If you'd be crazy enough like me and try to put it on one single phrase, it would seem something like this:
"Holy mother of Buddha flying on dragon while playing videogames with Batman and watching as Jesus high-fives Superman and Deadpool at the same time while chest-bumping Iron Man this is majesomeliciousMY GOD IT MAKES ME CRY BECAUSE IT'S SO GOOOOOOOD!!!!"
In all seriousness. Thank you. So. Fucking. Much Razorbeam. This story didn't only get me more interested in reading, but at writing too, learning new words in English. This one story just fucking jumped 100 meters over that Godlike-list and flew straight to Universal Masterpieces as the first story to get that high.
So far there has been NO story that has made me this happy. Whenever I saw it update, a shiver went up my spine and I started laughing. And oh man, how well this was made man. I still have to read the authors notes but fuck that! This is where this post belongs and you can't stop me!
I guess I'll never find a story this good. And I hope I won't so I don't have to say "This is better than Tinkermane."
NO! Never, will that happen, never ever, will that happen...
And for the traditional "Flip my shit"-moment:
YES!!! FUCK YES!!! I KNEW IT! I FREAKING KNEW IT! I FUCKING LOVE THIS! I FREAKING LOVE YOU! (Homo or not, I can't care right now)
*brain overload. Warning!*
HOLY... SHIIIIIIIIIII-brain.exe stopped working. Please continue after reboot.
------end of post, clock is 4:33am Finnish time------
I love this <3
Awww. Both positively and negatively.
Negatively, 'cause I fave Twi for her intelligence (implied or otherwise) and her OP magic (omnipresent). Earlier on, she was interested in the steamtech exhibition due to its obvious nerdiness. I actually went back for a quote, and
Now, Twilight stays at home waiting for Gearrick, and when he comes back, she strikes a sexy pose. Any mare would accept a pair of goggles from a character like Gearrick, and I'm not at all impressed by Twilight's complete switch to lovestruck generic female character.
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Ditto. I love this story.(About as much as him but I am more subtle).
I can honestly say that this is my favorite story.
Every time it updated, my day was made.
I can only hope that my future story will bring others the same awe-inspired happiness that this story has done for me.
I raise my glass to you Razor.
Here's to a fantastic author, and a even more amazing story.
And I look forward to reading more of Twi's and Gear's misadventures.
Engagement goggles, real classy Gearick, real classy.
That was so sweet, my grandchildren will be born on a sugar rush.
Awesome work, as always!
This is a great sotry and you ended it a nice and gooey, cheesy moment. I hope you write more just like it or even in the same world setting.
So what happens to runetech when Aurus dies? Is everything that relied on his magic now useless?
Honestly, no real complaints here. The story all in all was fantastic, and the only question I have is the same as the guy below has.
Very nice work.
2718567 2717937 If I had to guess I'd say whoever is the next king of the changelings would charge them or they'd get another group of them to start making runes, since it's changeling magic runes another changeling with some amount of magic to slough off should be able to charge them as well or maybe with research devoted to it they could find a way to charge them directly off of emotional energy in the native environment meaning they would/could work as long as someone has feelings around them (most likely has to be positive but I couldn't say not being the one to create this world meaning not my rules on any of this.) but this may take a more complex 'spell' or device while changelings have more or less evolved to function in this way already. Hmmmm now that I kinda think about that this makes this tech more "emotatech" then runetech I'd say in a way being in the end power that comes form emotions. (Nerd mode disengaging returning to normal operations now.)
I love this story and universe, keep up the good work Razorbeam!
Overall another story well done. I enjoyed almost every moment and honestly can’t wait to see what you come up with next.
One small thing that off put me about the last chapter though is that there was no hint that Twilight was still pursuing her own interests in magic. I personally take it as a given but it would have been nice to have foot note on what exactly is going on with her studies and her library. It was all very focused on Tinkermane.
I find it hard to believe they spent years of that never once running into a stalemate before buuut I kinda saw it coming. Maybe it had to be intentional, whatever. Fun story to read. This thumbs up is well earned.
2720342 But remember, Myla intentionally held her playing skills back to let Phyla think she was the superior player, making it so Myla would be able to win in the event something important would happen that involved Gearrick. When presented with a situation that could result in a stalemate, Myla could "accidentally" make a wrong move that resulted in her losing the match. Since one side was always trying to win, while the other was always trying to lose(but not lose too badly), a stalemate would be practically impossible.
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I suppose one possibility is that the Changelings themselves could make their own business recharging them, assuming the next King or Queen doesn't do it themselves. It could create an interesting symbiotic relationship as only the Changelings would be able to recharge the batteries, which would of course make them a superpower in the world and thus lead to the possibility of them abusing their position. That is until you remember that the Changelings need affection to receive magic in the first place. This could possibly make T'rahk Enox the powerful nation in the world, more powerful than every other nation combined, but for them to keep this power it would undoubtedly need to be deserved.
Welding - I mean wedding goggles, I should have guessed that one. Great way to end my favorite story on this site. It took me forever to get to it but am I glad I did. Also this gives me ideas, I can't believe how generous you are, a great story and ideas. What can't you do?
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i.ebayimg.com/00/s/NDI0WDcwMA==/z/Rn0AAOSw9NxTvuKP/$_35.JPG
Close enough, right?
Love