Mr. Tock and the Royal Stopwatch
Clockwise to three, counterclockwise to 26, clockwise to five, and the clock shop safe opened. Sepia Tock pushed aside the bags of bits, the more valuable clock components, and legal papers to pull a much-loved shoe box to the forefront. He carefully removed the lid and set it aside, and flicked his head forward to toss the 3D glasses in to mingle with the personal letters, photos, and various trinkets. Admittedly, the only things with actual monetary value in the box were the letters with navy sealing wax.
“So, how did it go?” asked Colgate as she cantered in.
“Good,” Sepia answered. “I mean, the hourglass they used for the big countdown to the bomb going off clearly wasn’t running consistently, but other that was the only glaring flaw I saw in it.”
“No, not that!” said Colgate with a roll of the eye. “Your date with Roseluck! How was that?”
Sepia chuckled uncertainly. “What? I wasn’t on a date. I mean, yes, Roseluck was there, and we did chat a bit afterwards, but it mostly business. She’s thinking about making a floral clock.”
Colgate looked at her boss incredulously. “Really, because Sugar Grape said it looked like a date. Everypony’s talking about it.”
“It’s just gossip,” said Sepia, shutting the safe. “Better than the usual, at least. Maybe it will stick.”
The bell over the entrance jingled as Blossomforth entered, wearing the uniform of the Equestria Postal Service. The hat and bag were without blemish.
“Good evening,” Sepia greeted, taking his post behind the sales counter. “How may I help you?”
Blossomforth was momentarily awestruck, finding her composure when prompted by Colgate’s cough. “Er… is there a Sepia Tock here?” she asked.
“That’s me,” said Sepia.
“What? But you’re the…” Blossomforth started. “Oh! I get it! Secret Identity, right?” The white pegasus smiled, finally in on the joke.
“Do you have mail for me?” asked Sepia.
“Er… yes, right!”
“Where’s Derpy?” asked Colgate. “Is she sick?”
“Oh, no,” said Blossomforth as her wing dug into her saddlebag. “Feather flu did a number on the couriers over in Hoofington, so she’s helping out there, and I’m covering her shift!” Blossomforth finally found the letter, holding it up triumphantly.
An aura enveloped it. “I’ll take that.”
Blossomforth shook the letter until Colgate’s magic dispersed. “I was given strict instructions to see this letter goes straight to the hooves of ‘Sepia Tock’.” She gave Sepia a conspiratorial wink as she effortlessly slid in the inverted commas.
Sepia accepted the letter with a nod, and waited for the pegasus to be out of sight before passing it over to Colgate, whose eyes sparkled at the seal.
“Oh my. Sepia, this is Cadance’s personal seal!”
“How can you tell?” Sepia asked over his shoulder as he descended the stairs to the workshop.
“It’s her cutie mark in light blue wax with glitter,” answered Colgate. “Who else’s could it be?”
“What does it say?” Sepia called up.
Colgate popped open the letter and skimmed it. “‘Dear Mister Sepia Tock, you come very highly recommended by my aunts, and hope…’ yada yada,” Colgate mumbled through, squinting at the characteristic calligraphy of a scribe penned letter, then gasped once she finally got to the meat of the correspondence, “It’s a special order!” Colgate practically screamed. “I can’t believe it! A real life princess is contacting us for a stopwatch!”
“Luna sends us letters all the time,” Sepia said as he came back to the store front, a box of goods balanced on his back.
“Well, yes, but that’s Luna. Luna’s…” Colgate searched for the words, “Luna. Plus she’s never ordered anything.”
“You personally repaired the library’s clock for Princess Twilight,” Sepia continued, setting the box onto the counter.
“She wasn’t a princess then.” Colgate rolled her eyes.
Sepia smiled at his star-struck assistant. “Okay, fine. You can keep the letter if you’d like,” he offered, digging about the box. “You said stopwatch, right? I’ve got one in here.”
“What? No! You can’t give the Princess of the Crystal Empire just a regular old watch!” exclaimed Colgate. “It’s got to have gems, and precious metals and… and… and a crystal cover! It has to be a royal stopwatch for a royal pony!”
“That sounds really impractical,” said Sepia. “And expensive. What sort of budget does the princess have in mind?”
Colgate scanned the letter again. “‘Money is no object, I just need a stopwatch as soon as possible, preferably before the Equestrian Games.’ So chop chop with the gems already!”
Sepia sighed. “Okay, fine, I’ll see what I can do about making it appropriately gaudy.” He placed the stopwatch he’d been holding onto a shelf. “If you’ll mind the store, I should have my best stopwatch finished by tomorrow. Add a train ticket to the invoice, and you can deliver it personally.”
“Come again?”
“Well, she wants it as soon as possible, right?” Sepia said. “It could take any amount of time through the post office, and it’ll be fragile with all the crystal you’re making me use, so I might as well just have you hoof-deliver it.”
“I get to meet a real princess?” Colgate marveled.
“You were at the library just yesterday,” murmured Sepia. “Yes, I’m trusting with the delivery,” he answered Colgate, tactfully omitting that he just didn’t really feel like doing it himself.
Colgate beamed as Sepia compiled a list of supplies, reopened the safe to get a bag of bits, and passed to his assistant the shopping list and money. “Go get these, and make sure you get receipts.” Colgate levitated the items, and then galloped out. “Don’t run with the crystals, please,” Sepia shouted after her with a smile.
He pulled a large sheet of paper out from under his desk and begun designing the stop watch.
Sepia had worked through the night to finish it, as he wasn’t used to working with crystal, and it took him more than a few adjustments to get it right, but, as the sun began to rise, it was finished. Each increment was marked with sapphire, the case was rose quartz, and the metal gears were buffed to a shine. It was beautiful. He yawned as he picked up its maple box, which he took upstairs and placed on the sales counter, with a certificate of authenticity and a note for Colgate telling her he’d be sleeping in, and to take the box and hop on the earliest available train to the empire. Everything now sorted out, Sepia retired for much needed rest.
The alarms went off, as they always did, and Sepia Tock rose to inspect them, as he always dead, and each alarm clock was functioning as it should, as they always will. After shutting off every clock, Sepia Tock returned to his bed for a little extra sleep.
An hour and a half later, Colgate arrived, found the box and certificate, slid them into her saddle bag, and set out immediately for the first train to the Crystal Empire.
A further hour and half later, Sepia awoke, headed to the kitchen downstairs for a bowl of cold cereal, then to the workshop to start the day’s projects.
The rose quartz stopwatch sat on his workbench.
“Ah, finial,” Sepia mumbled. He carefully wrapped the timepiece in cloth, placed it into a saddlebag, and turned to gallop to the train station, then paused.
His shop would be closed all day because of this, losing what little business he could’ve expected. However, he was going to a city, which had the potential of customers. So he found the collapsible kiosk his father had built long ago, filled his other bag with whatever random back stock he could find gathering dust in the workshop, then ran for the Ponyville station.
The train ride to the empire was uneventful, and Sepia arrived by mid-afternoon. He walked towards the center of town, kiosk wagon rolling behind him, skipping at every lose pebble it had the misfortune to hit. The clockmaker paid the rattling no mind until it suddenly halted.
Sepia attempted a few tugs before unhitching himself and investigating the cart. Somehow a thick stick had lodged itself into the spokes. Sepia sighed, and carefully set his saddlebags down to work out the obstruction.
As soon as he looked away, a young pegasus swooped down from a nearby roof, and, in a single motion, grabbed the bag and fled to an alley way, nudging a trashcan, alerting Sepia that something was awry.
“Hey!” called Sepia before he took pursuit.
The pegasus colt’s eyes were filled with terror as he glanced back to see the angry brown earth pony gaining on him. Thinking quick, he took a couple hops, then fluttered to a fire escape ladder, clambering upwards.
Sepia slid to a stop. A couple stories above, the cyan head of the thief poked over the railings, blew a raspberry, then disappeared. Sepia attempted a few jumps, attempting to grab the ladder, finding it just out of reach.
“This isn’t over, kid!” shouted Sepia.
“Sepia?” Colgate walked over to her boss. “What’re you doing here?”
“You forgot the stopwatch,” Sepia replied. “Or I forgot to put it into the case. Anyways, I brought it, but a random street urchin stole it.”
“You sure it was a street urchin?”
“I saw the dirty flatcap,” Sepia answered. “Anyways, he flew up the fire escape, and I can’t reach.”
“I don’t know how you earth ponies survive sometimes,” Colgate said with the utmost respect meant. Her aura surrounded the ladder as it lowered.
“Magic and wings aren’t everything,” Sepia began. “For example, our hooves…”
Colgate cut him off. “He’s getting away, Sepia. Get climbing.”
“Okay, fine, it’s just…”
“Sepia!”
“Fine. Go find the guard while I run.”
Colgate nodded, and the two parted.
The street urchin was on the opposite side of the roof, looking at the distance to the ground, Sepia’s bags by him.
“Hey!” Sepia called, causing the thief to jump. “Look, just give me back my things, and I won’t press…”
The colt bit into the joining straps and jumped, his small wings beating furiously as he tried to get to the neighboring building.
Sepia ran forward, jumped, and grabbed a bag.
Unfortunately, the colt couldn’t come close to supporting Sepia’s weight, and so urchin, clockmaker, and bag of valuables fell several stories.
Fortunately, the dumpster was inexplicably filled with cardboard boxes. Unfortunately, only the ponies landed in them.
The urchin recovered, scrambled up to flee, but was impeded by the Sepia’s grip on his tail. Sepia dragged himself and the thief out of the dumpster, collapsing on the ground. After collecting himself, Sepia carefully pinned the colt’s tail with a filled trashcan.
“Look, mister, I’m sorry! You can keep the bags!” The colt bargained as he tugged at his own tail.
“Why’d you take it in the first place?” Sepia asked.
“I’m just an innocent street urchin,” said the colt, indicating his newsboy cap. “I was just hoping I could turn it into dinner and a warm place to eat.”
“That doesn’t give you the right to just take my saddle bags,” answered Sepia, examining his bags.
“How else am I supposed to make money?” asked the colt.
“Learn a trade, get a job, play the pity card on a pony whose bags you didn’t just steal,” suggested Sepia. “How’d you get that stick in my spokes, anyways? Or did you just get lucky?”
“I had a partner,” admitted the colt. “He’s good with a bow. He was under the fruit stand at the other side of the street, we were going to meet up later and split the loot.”
“Dang it, you broke it!” The shattered stop watch lay in the unwrapped cloth. “This was meant for the princess, you know!”
“So… you make clocks, huh?” the colt said. “You wouldn’t happen to be looking for…”
“I have an assistant, already,” said Sepia. “Also, I don’t hire felons. General life rule.”
“Oh… you sure? It’d be nice to get off the streets…” the colt continued.
Sepia sighed. “Look, I can’t promise anything, but… if you are interested in clockmaking, and I mean really interested in the craft, not just trying to get my pity, there’s a Clockmaker’s convention in Canterlot in about three weeks’ time. There’s always somepony looking for students there.”
“Thanks, Mister…”
“Sepia Tock.”
“Mister Tock. I’m Manespring.”
Well, he’s certainly got the name for it, thought Sepia. “Well… looks like you’ve cost me about half a thousand bits worth of loss here, not counting the stopwatch.”
“Sepia! There you are!” Colgate entered the alleyway. “I’ve found a few guards, however…”
“Is everyone here okay?”
Sepia looked at the princess who had joined Colgate, her royal procession not far behind.
“Oh… uh… good evening… your majesty...” Sepia greeted her.
Cadance’s head tilted. “You look familiar. Do I know you?”
“I’m the clockmaker you hired,” Sepia answered. “For the stopwatch?”
“Oh yes! That’s right!’ Princess Cadance said with a small laugh. “Sorry. For a second, I thought you were Doctor-”
Sepia cut her off, ruffling the feathers of her guards. “I’m not.” He looked at his stock. “Anyways, I made you a very nice piece; Made with rose quartz, embedded with gems, other fancy things.”
“Really? I just needed a normal stopwatch,” Cadance said. “I… accidentally lost my husband’s. He hasn’t noticed yet, but with the Equestrian Games coming up…”
“Oh, I see,” Sepia said, giving Colgate a sideways glance before digging into his bag, pulling out a stopwatch and giving it a couple test runs before giving it to the princess. “Looks like this one survived.”
“Oh, this is very nice,” Cadance said as she played with it. “I’ll have to thank Aunt Luna for suggesting you!”
A guard cleared his throat. “Not to intrude majesty, but I believe the unicorn said there was a crime happening.”
“What? Oh right!” Sepia indicated to Manespring. “He tried to rob me, and broke most of the stock I brought to peddle while visiting your fine city.”
The guard glared at the colt. “Ah, yes. I know him. Don’t worry, we’ll take it from here.”
Manespring frowned, tears coming to his eyes.
“Look,” said Sepia, silently cursing his bleeding heart. “Don’t go too hard on him. He’s got to be in Canterlot in a few weeks. Perhaps if we could figure out a way for him to repay me, I won’t press charges…”
“Why don’t we go sort this out at my home,” offered Cadance. “I can pay Mr. Tock for the stopwatch, and pay for the poor colt’s debt.”
“Your highness, he’s a thief, we can’t…”
Cadance stopped her guards pony. “He’s a citizen of our empire, Sergeant. He’s also a child. He’ll still pay for the damages; I’m just making sure Mr. Tock has one less thing to worry about, and an easier address for the thief to send the money to.” She brought her head level to Manespring. “You can remember ‘Big tower in the middle of the Crystal Empire’, right?”
“Yes, ma’am,” the colt whimpered.
“Good,” Cadance winked. “Well, now that’s settled, let’s head back to the castle.” She looked at an orange pegasus guard. “Please go cancel my spa appointment. More important matters have arisen.”
Flash Sentry saluted before leaving the small band.
Sepia hated the tea, it tasted like hot leaf juice. He quietly set the cup aside after the final bits of business were settled.
“Have you ever seen her sock puppets?”
Colgate giggled. “Oh my, yes!”
“They are quite silly, aren’t they?” Cadance said with a knowing smile.
“I don’t think so,” Sepia said. Cadance’s smile melted to concern. “I mean, they’re very important to her, and…”
Cadance shook her head. “No no, you’re right. They are important, and I mustn’t make fun.”
“The voices are a little silly,” Sepia conceded, then shoved a cookie into his moth so he could stop talking. They cookie was unbelievably dry.
Cadance smiled as she checked a wall clock. “Oh my, is that the time?”
Sepia glanced at the clock automatically. “No. Your clock’s two minutes fast. Not surprising, that’s one of Synchronome’s. He’s always valued style over consistency.”
“It was a gift from Aunt Celestia,” Cadance said.
“Well, I can improve it if you’d like. Just need to switch out the internal machinations. Nopony will be able to tell.”
“I’ll consider it,” Cadance said. “Anyways, my point is that the last train to Ponyville will be leaving in fifteen… er, sixteen minutes. I shouldn’t keep you two.”
Sepia and Colgate rose and gave a quick bow as they thanked her for her business, then followed a guard out.
“I’ll never understand how you can act so casually around royalty,” Colgate whispered.
“It’s easy,” Sepia whispered back. “When you’re a time lord, everypony’s beneath you.”