//------------------------------// // Metal Wing // Story: My Clockwork Stallion // by Aegis Shield //------------------------------// My Clockwork Stallion Part 10: Metal Wing The next morning greeted Twilight with an unfamiliar, feminine ache. The scent of salt and sweat was heavy in the room. She lifted her head a little, which made Time Turner stir. He was flat on his back with she atop him, and the twisted maze of blankets and pillows had made the sofa into a pony trap. They struggled a little before Twilight moaned to her hooves. She stretched, rolling her neck to let it pop and loosen.                 Time Turner turned onto his side, looking a little doe-eyed since last night. “Erhm… erhm… good morning,” he whispered. Birds chirped outside as Twilight stepped into the golden morning sun streaming in from the window. She smiled coyly at him, coming over to help him get untangled too. “L-last night was… was…”                 “Fun?” she offered, pecking his cheek and heading towards the restroom. By the time she’d emerged, he’d cleaned up the sofa (save for a few… ahem… “stains”) and folded up all the blankets for washing in his tiny utility room. Her slightly matted mane said she’d tried his brush but mostly failed, and Twilight offered him a shy smile as he went to take his turn. By the time he’d emerged, Twilight had fetched the free weekend newspaper and mail from his front porch and opened a window or two to let the place air out a bit. The crisp morning air was refreshing. They shared a quiet breakfast as two young lovers might, especially after sharing all of themselves the night before. It was Twilight that spoke first. “About the clock,” she said. “Suppose we took the sides off?”                  “Mm?” Time Turner said.                 “I mean, a large space contained in a tiny space, suppose you took the borders off?” Twilight mimed taking the wooden shell off of their strange artifact. “Can something that big stay small if there’s nothing covering it up?” Time Turner tilted his head. All this ‘bigger on the inside’ stuff still hadn’t really clicked with him. He was a pony of gears and edges and spacing, not of meta-magic and physics-bending. He chewed his toast carefully, not sure he had anything to add. “Think of it like… a water ballon!” Twilight latched onto a metaphor. “The balloon holds the water tightly inside until you pop it, right? All the water spills out.”                 “You want to spill the clock’s parts out all over the place?” Time Turner frowned. “That doesn’t seem safe.”                 “Maybe that’s the wrong metaphor…” Twilight tapped her chin with a hoof. “I think if we took the shell off all the parts would come out… and maybe revert to their actual size. However much stuff is in there, we could examine the whole if we could just see it all.”                 “Suppose its a hundred feet tall and weighs as much as a building?” Time Turner countered with a frown. He imagined a bronze-colored explosion of gears.                 “That would take one heck of a space compression spell…” Twilight was already running numbers in her head.                 “An alicorn made that clock, it’s not impossible,” he said slowly. Twilight gave a glum nod. It was true. If Princess Luna wanted to make such a mechanical wonder and make it so small, she probably could. And if that massive bronze flower was only the start… who knew how much was beeping, whirling, ticking and tocking in there. “We’d need a safe place to do this, then. Do you have a backyard?” she leaned to see out the window. “My house borders the Everfree Forest so… sort of,” Time Turner gestured for her to look. Twilight went to the window. There was a small stream, a bowed bridge and an overgrown path. “We could go, say, a hundred steps in. Clear a space, you know?” she offered. Time Turner nodded, thoughtfully, then looked down at his stack of mail again. “Oh,” he said, picking one of them up. “I can’t today.” He turned it over to show her. A green crescent moon with a round gear inside was on the seal. “What’s that?” Twilight wanted to know. “Y-y’know how I’ve been hiding all this?” Time Turner gestured to his leg-missing shoulder. “Well, I’m not the only one to have ever ended up like this. Sometimes the ponies at my old clinic have me come in to speak to… little ones, about this,” he said carefully. “If I got a letter like this-!” “A foal got hurt and has a clockwork limb like you?” Twilight offered. “They pay my train ticket, food, lodging, and the rest. It’ll only be for a day or two, I promise,” he smiled gently. “Oh no, take your time! We’re just dating!” Twilight quickly glanced at the couch, “Uh-buh-well, we’re a little more than dating now, but you know what I meant!” she splayed her ears in embarrassment. “I think that’s really noble of you, going all the way to… where is it?” “Canterlot.” “To Canterlot to help somepony adjust. Especially someone so young!” she leaned and kissed his forehead. “I should probably head out too. Have a safe trip!” she gathered her saddlebags and umbrella, smiling and waving to him. Time Turner waved back, then set to work when she was gone. Making sure all his windows were locked and his shades drawn, he got his shoulder-crutch and attached it firmly. Packing a small saddlebag and a few other things, he finally opened the letter. “Oh Faust, look’it you…” he said with sad sympathy. They got younger and cuter and more innocent looking every single time. A tiny filly, a grade-schooler with braces and a radiant smile, beamed up at him from the photograph. “Quick Clip, huh?” he murmured through the letter. “Caught on a tree… whiplash… neck injury… wing torn off by sheer momentum after being caught in a forked branch… knocked out… not found for hours… dead flesh… inoperable to reattach even with magic…” All the stories were about the same in the end. A poor foal suffering a worse agony than any ever should, and then not found in time to reattach the limb with surgery or magic. Time Turner had received probably… forty or so of these letters since he’d moved to Ponyville. At first he was embarrassed and turned them down. What was he supposed to say? ‘Hi I’m sort of patient zero in the civilian version of the clockwork junk you’re wearing, welcome to a new life of mechanical maintenance and private shame?’ But over time no, no he couldn’t turn them away. He was embarrassed for himself, yes, but not for them? Foals deserved better. Someone older and more experienced to tell them their lives weren’t over, just… different. He took the picture of Quick Clip, staring at her. Heaving a big sigh, he took the train ticket out of the letter along with the food vouchers and hotel reservation card. =-=-=-=-=-=                 Quick Clip, tiny pink filly Pegasus that she was, sat sniffling on her hospital mat. It was a playroom, but a hospital playroom none the less. It smelled sterile and artificial and the toys were cheap off-brand. The ugly black stitching gave way to a cold metal prosthetic that felt heavy and alien to her. The muscles in her back ached from the trauma, even weeks after she’d had the surgeries. She’d already screamed and cried herself out. Now she was just quiet. Quiet and sad. Her mother and father sat in the room as well, not sure what to do. They loved their baby so much, but… they knew nothing of clockwork limbs, or how to care for them or how to make their little one feel better. It shouldn’t have happened at all! She was so innocent and she had the very thing that made her a Pegasus ripped away so suddenly. All three of them had classes to attend soon, along with instruction books to read and many other things to learn. A tiny foal couldn’t take care of a prosthetic limb by herself, after all. She was supposed to be worried about little colts and playing with dolls and skipping around playgrounds! A knock on the door took everypony from their thoughts. A stranger leaned in, offering a soft smile, “Hey,” Time Turner said awkwardly, stepping into the room. “I’m Time Turner, the hospital sent me to speak with you? You must be Mister and Missus Clip?” he offered a hoof to shake the stallion’s, nodding politely to the mare. He murmured in quiet conversation with them, but his eyes were already slipping over to the little foal. “May I?” he asked. Both parents nodded slowly. He walked slowly as not to startle the poor traumatized thing. Quick Clip looked at him as though she’d not heard him come in. “Who’re you?” “I’m Time Turner. I heard you had an accident.” He gestured to her tiny metal wing. It fluttered a little, mimicking the other wing on her back. Her tiny body had accepted the clockwork nicely, but the skin and flesh hadn’t healed all the way yet. It must’ve still ached for her. She played with her hooves a little, not looking at him. “It looks like they did a good job saving you, though,” he offered a smile she didn’t see. He slowly sat next to her. “I never had a pair of wings, so I dunno what its like to lose one, but… you’ll be flying again in no time. I promise.” “How do you know?” The little filly asked softly, her huge innocent eyes looking up at him. “W-well… when stuff like this happens,” he gestured to her new limb. “A lot of ponies think that it’s all over, that everything is terrible and its never gonna get any better…” she nodded slowly at him, tears already welling up. “But it doesn’t!” he quickly amended to her. “It doesn’t mean your life is over, just that it’s gonna be different now.” “All the others at school are gonna make fun of me!” she whimpered, staring at the floor now. “They'll call me freak feather or tin pinion or… or something worse!” her Cloudsdale accent poked through and she began to cry. Her mother started forward and pulled her into her arms. “There’s magic that can hide it if you don’t want to share, it’s okay,” Time Turner said gently. “They’re called glamour spells, and can make you look and feel normal. As long as you don’t forget what’s really there, you can wear them whenever you want.” He was sure the parents had already had this conversation, but perhaps Quick Clip needed to hear it from another pony to show her it was true. “You… wanna see mine?” “Your what?” Quick Clip said from the crook of her mother’s arm. “My metal,” he smiled, bobbing his head to let his saddlebags slide off. She gave a slow, wide-eyed nod. The stallion looked and moved normal, what part of him was… was…! Reaching, Time Turner gently pulled the mana battery from its slot in his leg. The gears in his leg began to slow to a halt. The magic fizzled, then slowly unraveled. His hoof, then his knee, up past his shoulder, across a portion of his ribcage. He stood in a beam of sunlight, the reflective bronze throwing spectacular patterns across the sterile walls and ceiling. The young family stared in awe. All that work had been done to one pony? He’d looked completely normal to them! Moved completely normal to them! The massive gear that was one of his shoulders hissed when he turned this way and that so Quick Clip could see. “I lost my leg when I was a little older than you. Some ribs too. And here I am now. Just as fast. Just as strong. Just as…” Twilight’s face flashed across his mind’s eye. “Just as happy.” He said with a nodding confidence. Quick Clip left her mother’s arms to stand among Time Turner’s legs. They were like great brown pillars compared to her. She touched his clockwork leg. Grasped it. Tried to move it about a little. He lifted his hoof so she could play with the ankle joint. “It’s so cool…” she whispered to herself, sparkles in her eyes. Seeing a big pony like that had completely changed her perspective. “What happened to you?” she asked curiously. “I fell out of a window,” he said, leaving out the gory details for one so young. “And they gave you a cool new leg like this?” “Yep,” he offered a winning smile. “Why do you hide it?” Quick Clip whispered, looking him up and down. “Well… sometimes,” he glanced at the parents for a moment, then remembered to keep his voice low. “Sometimes ponies will treat you different, because you’re different,” he told her. “Some might think you’re weak because of your clockwork. Or that you need special help. I hide mine because…” he trailed off for a moment. “Well… it can make my day easier if ponies don’t stare at me all the time.” “Should I hide mine too?” her ears folded down forlornly. “No, I don’t think so…” Time Turner said honestly. “I think if you have yours in the open from now forward, ponies will get used to it and not worry about you once they see you in action.” “But not you?” the foal said stubbornly. “I… erm…” Time Turner stumbled a little. Embarrassment was all it was, really. Clockwork was rare, expensive, hard to care for, and could bring a lot of unwanted rubber-necking and pity-attention. Nopony wanted that. He wasn’t about to tell a foal that, though. “I think yours is way cooler than mine.” He finally said, offering a lopsided smile. “Can I see?” Turning, the filly extended her tiny wings. The clockwork mechanism rang like the sound of drawing swords. The sun sent dazzling designs all over the walls. The thin membranes of plastic and metal that had replaced her feathers were gorgeous. Light-weight. Mathematical. Perfect to make sure Quick Clip could still fly. “Neat!” she whispered. “I never stood in the sun before with my new thingy open like this!” she looked around. “A-am I doing that?” “Mhm!” Time Turner bobbed his head. “Your mom and dad will show you how to take care of it, and when you get bigger you’ll get a bigger one to match your other wing. Just like I got bigger ones as I was growing up.” The bright, sunlit reflections seemed to draw the little filly out of her shell, and they sat to talk for a very long time. Afternoon had passed into evening by the time it was time to say goodbye. The parents were haggard and the filly still hurting, but they were better than before Time Turner had come to talk to them. =-=-=-=-=-= Time Turner was exhausted by the time he got home, throwing down his saddlebags and other things aside for the moment. Quick Clip’s words kept coming back to him, though. Many of the foals he’d seen before had cried, begged him to make them better, or had to be dragged away so they didn’t hurt themselves and their new clockwork limbs. Each felt like a little piece of Time Turner’s heart being pulled away. But not her. “Should I hide mine too?” he said aloud, pensive. He pawed through the little sack of bits he’d been given for his time and trouble, leaving it on his coffee table. He could actually afford groceries this week, that was a plus. Taking off his leg and putting the cap on his shoulder he fell into bed, exhausted. The clock read close to midnight. Twilight Sparkle’s face danced in his head. Was it embarrassment? The want for privacy? The desire not to be pitied or shoved to the front of the line at the store because he was ‘special’ or ‘handicapped’? He’d… he’d forgotten. Even when his leg had been damaged in the timberwolf attack, he’d ducked between alleyways, tramped through gardens and the like… anything to keep ponies from staring at the stallion that bled oil. “I’m so tired…” he whispered, stretching out. Should I hide mine too, the little filly asked. Should I hide mine, too? The next day, with a nice sack of bits in hoof, Time Turner stepped out of his home with no glamour spell. He was gonna try this. He was gonna try this and maybe it would be okay. If a little foal could do it for the rest of her life, doing it for a day wouldn’t kill him, right? He slowly stepped out onto the sidewalk. The gears clicked a little, shining in the morning sun. He’d replaced the hose that had ripped and done everything he could to make it look clean and presentable. He took a few steps, looking down at the sidewalk. Not a lot of ponies were out yet in this part of town. He looked around. The birds still sang. The stream still bubbled. The world did not stop turning because Time Turner’s clockwork leg was out in the open. Swallowing a little, he started an easy pace towards the market and hoped for the best. “Remember what Princess Celestia taught us? That we shouldn’t let miscommunication or embarrassment get in the way of being happy?” Yeah. Yeah he did. End of Part 10