My Clockwork Stallion
Part 11: Jewelbox Dancer
Time Turner leaned about the corner, looking at the busy marketplace. Ponies milled about, to and fro, buying and selling, shouting and laughing. The farmer’s market was an everyday thing in the tiny earth pony town. He looked down at his clockwork leg. The veep-verp-veep-verp of his moving was soft compared to all the hub-bub, so it probably wouldn’t attract too much attention. Heaving a deep sigh, he emerged out into the open.
The brown stallion didn’t notice he was holding his breath until it wooshed out of him to make him breathe again. Glancing nervously at his shopping list, he made for this stand, then that stand, then that stand over there. He got strange looks, curious stares, but no words about his clockwork prosthetic. Until he got to the cherry stand with the less-than-nice Roxem Boxem. The gruff stallion with the cardboard box on his flank eyed Time Turner up and down. “Heck happened to you?” he asked rudely.
“N-none of your business,” Time Turner said, just as crossly. “Can I buy a dozen cherries? I need them for my healthier lunches.” he said, frowning and gesturing at the displays. (He knew if he had grocery money he had better spend it on healthy things)
“Well if you need ‘em that badly…” Boxem puffed some air between his horsey lips and the little three-sided sign in front of him rolled forward one face, changing from one bit to ten bits per cherry.
“Hey!” Time Turner said angrily.
“Supply and demand, kid,” the older stallion said with a smirk. Time Turner stared at him, then turned away. “Hey metal stallion, where ya goin’?!” he called loudly, laughing a bit. A few heads turned and Time Turner went hot in the face. He ducked his head like he might be struck. Too many eyes, too many eyes! He lifted a hoof, ready to bolt. He didn’t like being stared at.
“N-now you should be ashamed of yourself, Roxem Boxem,” a feminine voice said. A butter-colored Pegasus shifted out of the crowd, flipping his sign back to read ‘one bit’ again. “You’ll not have any customers at all if you keep doing that to ponies.” It was Fluttershy, one of Twilight’s friends.
“Ehh,” Roxem shrugged, shuffling his hooves a bit. “What’d’y’want?” he managed.
“Three cherries is three bits,” Fluttershy said, putting three golden coins onto the counter.
“I can decide for my own products, thank you!” Her wings flippity-flapped a little when he reached to turn his sign back again. “Hey!”
“Three bits, or none at all?” Fluttershy said, rumpling her muzzle a little and tilting her head back in a ‘hmmph!’ sort of way. Roxem Boxem grumbled like an angry dog, but took her money anyway. “Don’t let him push you around, okay?” she said gently, moving on in her shopping.
“Well?” Roxem said aggressively to Time Turner.
“Same deal,” Time Turner said, at last finding his confidence as the crowd had disappated a bit. “One bit each, or no bits at all?” he asked.
“Hey just because that mare-!”
“Twelve bits or no bits?” Time Turner said again.
“Stupid metal freakin’ fricka-fracka…” the angry stallion trailed off, pushing a small woven basket towards him. Victorious, Time Turner left him there and moved on.
Celery, oranges, hay salt, hay sugar, raisins, grapes, edible flowers, a chocolate bar, breakfast food, and much more went by without incident. But he needed a staple too. He stopped at the apple stand. Big Macintosh Apple and his sister Applejack ran the stand together that day, and he smiled at the familiar face. Veep-verp-veep-verp-veep-verp, went his clockwork limb as he cantered up to the counter. “Hello Applejack!” he said, enthused. “Can I get an eighteen case, mixed?” he pointed towards one of their package deals detailed on a hoof-painted sign.
“Eh-hey-thar, Time Turner!” Applejack said, her eyes snapping down to his metal limb. He knew the look. Curious, trying not to be rude, not disgusted but trying to be polite. “Big Mac, this is Twilight’s coltfriend, remember I told you about him?”
“Eyuup,” the scarlet stallion said stoically, already fishing under the counter for what his customer had asked for. His eyes flicked, but didn’t linger. Time Turner liked him. “Six bits,” his bass voice announced.
“For eighteen apples?! Wow, I must’ve come on sales day!” Time Turner said, hoofing over the bits and getting the little package into his saddlebags. It was a bit like an egg carton, just bigger since it held apples.
“Nice to see you back on your hooves and such,” Applejack offered, turning profile to show the bandages. “I’m still on light duty, m’self,” she smiled a little embarrassedly. Big Mac nodded, having been enforcing said light duty for days now. Time Turner remembered the huge sprays of blood in the fight with the Timberwolves.
“You were very brave out there,” The brown stallion said, “You should be proud.”
“I’m just hopin’ it don’t scar too much,” Applejack said. “What about you? Does eh… all that hurt? Or are you fixed, or…?” she didn’t seem to know how to ask. Time Turner studied her eyes. A lifetime of staring eyes had taught him who was being mean, ironic, or pitying him. Her expression was none of those.
“All fixed!” Time Turner chuckled good-naturedly.
“Oh good, well, tell Twilight we said hi if you see her!” Applejack waved him away as he went off to do more of his shopping.
“…funny leg,” Big Mac decided with a neutral frown.
“You be nice, he’s not had it in plain view in a while,” Applejack whispered fiercely.
“Meh,” the red stallion shrugged, deciding he no longer really cared. Time Turner had decided indifference was better than pity years ago, so he didn’t worry too much.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=
“Alright, here we go,” Twilight gingerly set the clock of five mysteries down on the picnic blanket. She and Time Turner stood out in the Everfree Woods, perhaps a hundred yards from Time Turner’s house. They’d spread out blankets, set up a little chest-high wall with fallen logs, and had brought various tools with them.
Time Turner, chalk-grinder in hoof, was making a clumsy white circle on the ground as Twilight had instructed. When he was done, they both stepped back. The purple mare checked the canopy. There was none directly above the clock—good! They were trying to be as safe as they could. “Okay, I think we’re ready.” He took his place behind the barrier, getting his little soft blanket of clock tools out. “Remember the screw I showed you. Just that one, okay?” he told her. She nodded. Technically there was no such thing as a ‘load-bearing screw’, but several things were pulling and pushing on that screw and he was willing to bet something big would happen if they took it out.
“Here we go!” Repeated Twilight, taking one of the tiny tools in her teeth. Lighting her horn so she could see better, she approached the artifact. The back panel (Dear Starswirl, Happy Birthday! Love, Luna) levitated off and she gently set it aside. The shiny inner workings still weren’t moving, and the massive bronze flower still remained. Eyeing its needle-like center, Twilight leaned under the petals at the base, fitting the tiny tool into the screw’s head. Holding her breath she turned, turned, turrrrned… it squeaked in protest a few times before it SPRANG from its resting place and right into Twilight’s eye. “OWCH!” she reared up in pain as the bronze flower jettisoned itself like a rocket out of the clock’s innards. It sagged, groaned, and then fell into a million shiny pieces.
“You okay?!” Time Turner shouted from a distance.
Twilight rubbed her eye a few times, then her ears perked. It was ticking. Ticking faster. Ticking louder. She could hear metal sliding, moving, fitting, grinding gear teeth catching, then locking, then unlocking and spinning wildly. Swallowing and turning her ears back nervously, she began to slowly back away. Was it going to explode like a bomb?
A METALLIC HOOF THRUST FROM THE CLOCKS INNARDS, SKYWARD!
Twilight squealed it terror, whinnying. She nearly tripped over her own hoofs, bolting and flinging herself over the chest high wall. Time Turner grabbed her around the middle, pulling her to safety as the metal monstrosity forced an opening from the tiny space. The wooden outside of the clock shuddered, groaned with age, and then shattered into a thousand angry splinters. Sheets of metal unfolded, clamping to the ground like great flat dragon claws. The flat surface expanded out, out, out and over the blanket until it formed its own platform and anchored itself to the earth. A long, spindly limb emerged from the clockwork as magics tsked and hummed and frothed over the mechanism. A second hoof and leg, until a whole face and upper-half shrieked into being like a foal from a metallic womb. It sagged a moment, the tick-tick-tick of gears and working clockwork thrusting it into life. Sliding metal plates opened outward, clearing the space for it to emerge until it balanced on just one back leg. Formed a pose. Stuck a leg out, like a…
“Jewelbox dancer?” Time Turner whispered.
The life-size metal pony finally froze in place, then slowly began to rotate. ‘Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy’ played from parts unknown inside the base. It rotated slowly, its feminine glass eyes glittering in the sunlight. Were they crystal? Glass? Gemstones? It was hard to tell.
Twilight and Time Turner slowly emerged from their hiding. Bronze and mirrored, iron and glass, metal and magic… it was a life-sized jewelbox dancer. They watched it slowly turn round and round, the music never stopping. Side by side they came close and Twilight saw a little panel had emerged. Touching a locking mechanism, she watched it jerk to a halt. She touched it again, and the music and turning resumed. Stopping it again, she looked at Time Turner, who had stuck his head under the sheet-metal tutu. “Hey!” Twilight said hotly.
“It’s hollow!” he said from in there, coming out again. “It must’ve been folded up perfectly, like the flower was.” He gestured at the pile of metal that lay to one side. “This,” he scuffed his hoof on the metal platform that had been made. “This is something else entirely, though.”
They spent the better part of three hours examining it after that. It was certainly too big to move now, and had anchored itself to the ground with its new size and weight. Time Turner visited town briefly to buy the biggest tarp he could find so they could cover it when they weren’t present. Twilight went over every inch of it with her horn lit while her examined the metals, the exposed gears and bits of machinery. The dancer herself seemed to be stuck in one position, if hollow, and didn’t weigh as much as one might imagine. The base and platform, however, were solid metal and would not move for anything, even Twilight’s levitation magic was having trouble gripping it.
“Oh this is brilliant, wow…” Time Turner said from under the dancer’s tutu.
“Is she anatomically correct?” Twilight prodded him, annoyed.
“What? No! Well, yes,” He stopped to look and sure enough, yes it was. “But look here!” he pulled her to come have a look. “See this rotating bit? And the slender boxes on each one?” He pointed to what looked like a record player, hosting a series of tall, thin metal boxes on its top. “These are wound coils, for the music box!” he fumbled, then turned on the music. The dancer slowly began to rotate. Twilight watched one of the boxes introduce itself to the bit that was playing music, a simple cylinder with prongs on it. When the wound coil began to be loose and unable to move the mechanism anymore, it lowered itself and the turn-table turned, putting a new coil in its place. That kept the music box going, and the old one was being rewound by a many-toothed gear. “It plays music, and right before it runs out it basically rewinds itself, and replaces the coil so the dancer and the cylinder don’t stop!” he marveled.
“This is amazing! It’s the closest thing I’ve ever seen to a perpetual motion machine!” Twilight said, running her hoof along the slender skirts of the dancer. “It’s beautiful,” she was scribbling notes and making little drawings as she went.
=-=-=-=-=-=
Princess Luna sat at her desk, late in the night. She was looking over the ancient texts of the clock of five mysteries. The first phase, the bronze flower, was for blooming love. She’d designed it to woo dear Starswirl and draw his interest to see what else the clock itself might hold.
The second phase was the jewelbox dancer. The beauty of young, fresh love. When you didn’t quite know everything about your beloved. The excitement. The slow dance of two kindred souls, the music of words and feelings and finding out more. The perfect bit before anypony’s flaws were revealed. Before you met the parents. Before anything too serious happened. The raw beauty of a strong, loving relationship.
The dark alicorn studied the drawings she herself had made hundreds of years ago. The mechanism for the perpetual music box wasn’t perfect, but very nearly so. It would play music for hours upon hours before giving up and having to be wound manually with a key. Just a few turns, and it would wind itself. Rather brilliant if she did say so herself. She’d gotten the idea from gazing at stained glass windows and admiring their mathematical brilliance.
She remembered Starswirl for a time. The thrill of midnight trysts, the loud giggling in shadows. Playing with his stubbly face. The poor thing tried his whole life to keep a clean face before finally giving up and growing a beard. His facial hair just grew quickly, was all. Her face colored as she remembered the nuzzles, the shy kisses, the--!
The clock struck two, pulling the princess out of her red-faced revere. The pain of eventuality welled up inside her. She crushed the scrolls between her hooves, throwing them angrily aside. Her heart hurt. Even after all this time, it hurt. She’d dared love so deeply, so completely, and he’d-! He’d-! She steepled her hooves, her alicorn mane whisping down over her face as she rested her head in her hooves. A quiet sniffle escaped her.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Twilight and Time Turner covered the clock of five mysteries with the tarp, then laid branches and leaves over it so it looked like an overgrown boulder. Hopefully no animals or curious ponies would come peeking. Twilight carefully put all of her parchments into scroll cylinders. She’d have to copy and re-copy everything later. Her field notes were always so messy, haha! She walked Time Turner home, then headed for Golden Oaks library herself. So much science and gears and learning! She cantered along, a big smile plastered on her face.
Silence fell over the forest clearing for a long time, until, under the tarp, a tiny voice could be heard. It sounded so far away, like a pony lost in a cave someplace, desperately crying for help.
“Hullo…? Is somepony there…? Luna…?”
End of Part 11