Now, where was I... Right, the wards. Well, after lunch was done I went right back down to my lab and got back to work setting things up. Though after Sapphire's Steadier and Starswirl's Radiant Containment, the remaining wards were pretty mundane: Scarlet Whisper's Privacy Shield to block unwanted divination; Evening Heart's Emergency Evacuator which could force-teleport all living beings, in addition to the room's entire air supply, to an outside area at a moment's notice (extremely handy in case of fire or poison gas); a double-layered Easy Drain Plus to drain the room from inside or out (getting the outside-facing layer working properly was kind of a pain now that I think about it); and, of course, the strongest unidirectional anti-teleportation ward that existed at the time to block unicorns and other magic-users from breaking in from the outside.
It wasn't nearly enough to stop Discord from getting in, but that's getting ahead of myself. Just something to keep in mind for whatever pony's reading this in the future. Maybe you'll do better than I did.
Anyway, after all that was done (which took a couple hours thanks to the rests I needed), all that was left was the door itself. That got the single strongest magical lock I could muster, and a note to myself to add another, better lock once I had recovered enough magical energy.
And because I was stupid and prideful and kinda sorta forgot to ask Twilight for help, moving all the shelves back into a formation that suited my purposes drained even more of my magic. Though I was able to get everything where I wanted it by pushing myself, at least. And, of course, instead of doing the smart thing and just taking another break, I decided to finally get to unpacking the rest of the lab instead.
While I was so tired I was barely capable of performing basic levitation.
“Let's see,” Sunset said to herself as she opened up a cardboard box using only her hooves. It contained a variety of books, both note- and otherwise. “Right. This should be easy enough...” She bent down and picked up the top book in her teeth, struggling for just a moment with both the weight and the grip. But eventually she managed to get it onto the shelf, and even standing straight up.
It promptly fell over. She grimaced, and set it back upright. It fell over again. She growled out of frustration, then huffed and turned around. “It doesn't matter. Once I put more books on it everything will be fine.”
She reached down and picked up the next tome on the stack, and quickly realized it was thicker than she what she could comfortable get her mouth around. “Get it together, Sunset,” she muttered, anger rising as she tried and failed to pick the book up again. “Don't get beaten by stupid things anypony can do, you're the Princess' personal student...”
Eventually, and with great effort, Sunset managed to get the thing onto the shelf next to the first book. Or, rather, on top of the first book. She stared at the pair for what must have been a good minute, then grumbled out “Whatever. I'll fix it later.”
Deciding to shelve, metaphorically speaking, that part of her plan for the moment, Sunset decided to turn her attention to taking out the various tools and instruments and such that she'd brought. She had, of course, already set up tables earlier when she still had enough magic to do things, and reasoned that setting up a simple workspace would be far less of a hassle than getting books properly oriented. After all, she'd only have to set things on the table, right?
All the simple tools – brushes, lenses, quills, clamps, and the like – were easy enough. Pick one up in her mouth, put it on the table, pick up the next one. Tediously repetitive, true, but easy enough. Feeling confident, Sunset decided to try one of the bulkier items. A resonance fork – like a tuning fork for musical instruments, except that it worked in reverse by reacting to existing thaumaturgic resonance thus allowing a unicorn to measure it – was lying on top of the open tool case, so she grabbed it first.
The metal felt strange in her mouth, even moreso than the other tools; she could feel it vibrating slightly against her teeth as it reacted to her innate magic. And when she finally spat it out onto the table, she noticed the dial on the end still spinning a bit – she made a mental note to calibrate it later. After that came her stage-1 amplifier, one of the most basic tools for measuring trace amounts of magic in all its forms, and that's when the trouble really started.
The stage-1 amplifier was a bulky thing, as all amplifiers were; a framework of treated wood with a variety of metal, glass, and crystal filaments sticking out of it in various directions that served as its intake and output. A plethora of knobs and switches, all dutifully labeled, allowed the settings to be adjusted. In short, it was not the sort of thing that had been made to be lifted by jaw, especially not by a pony so unused to the practice.
In hindsight, Sunset decided, she shouldn't have been surprised when she dropped it. Surprise that she dropped it on the resonance fork specifically, however, she decided was allowable.
The aftermath made her wince. The amplifier was basically unharmed, being mostly just a hunk of wood with bits sticking out of it, but the fork's dial – essentially the most useful part of it since it translated the frequencies into a readable form – had been smashed and would need replacing.
Sunset swore. Then she realized that she wasn't supposed to use that sort of language around Spike or, indeed, Twilight herself, and so she swore again at a softer volume and checked to see if anypony had actually heard her. Since the outer lab was empty as far as she could tell she assumed that nopony had, and thus allowed herself a third curse at normal volume.
“Where am I gonna find a new res fork in Ponyville?” she muttered to herself, staring at the remnants of her tool. “I'm pretty sure the only magically competent unicorns around here are me and Twilight, there's no way there'll be a supply shop within walking distance.”
She sighed in resignation, and allowed her gaze to drift upwards – first towards one of the grimy windows near the ceiling, and then towards the ceiling itself in the vague direction of where she presumed Twilight to be. “Guess I'll just have to order a new one from Canterlot... And hope Twilight has one I can use for the next couple days.”
Sunset looked back at the rest of her unpacked belongings and silently decided she was done doing things the earth pony way. She'd take a break and come back once she'd recovered more of her magic; she was feeling a bit peckish and a tad thirsty anyways so she might as well.
She headed for the stairs without delay.
To her surprise, she found Twilight in the kitchen washing an apple in the sink. It didn't take long for her to notice Sunset. “Oh, hey! How are things going with your lab?” she asked, turning to face her friend.
“Pretty good,” Sunset answered as she walked towards the bowl of fresh fruit her friend liked to keep stocked in a shaded corner of the kitchen counter. “Got the wards set up, so I'm taking a break before I do the rest.” She tried not to look as tired as she realized she felt.
“Great!” Twilight smiled. “Do you still want help moving everything back and unpacking your things? I'm not busy...”
Sunset shook her head. “Thanks, but no thanks. I can handle it.”
“Even moving the shelving units back?” Twilight asked with a small frown. “You said earlier that you might need help with those.”
“Believe it or not, I already got them where I wanted them,” Sunset answered with an almost cocky smile.
It only made Twilight's frown deepen, along with the furrow of her brow. “You did all that right after setting up high-class wards?” she said. “Aren't you risking burning yourself out?”
“I'm still standing, aren't I?” Sunset replied, not losing her smirk. She walked past Twilight, and picked an apple up with her magic – luckily, she had enough to keep it from wobbling. Much, anyway. “Besides, why do you think I'm taking a break right now?”
Twilight murmured in displeasure, but only said “Fair enough, I suppose. But I still think you should let me and Spike help with the rest.”
Sunset rolled her eyes. “Seriously, Sparkle, it's fine,” she said, pausing to take a bite of her apple. Twilight stared at her, but she chose to ignore. And, once she swallowed, she asked – in a totally not-awkward fashion - “So... I don't suppose you have a res fork, do you? Mine's broken, and I'm pretty sure I'm gonna need one before I can have a replacement shipped in from Canterlot.”
“You-” Twilight began to say, looking at her with disbelief. “You're asking this now? Why didn't you get a new one before we left?”
“It wasn't broken then,” Sunset answered with a shrug she was sure was nonchalant.
Twilight stared at her some more before saying, in a completely deadpan voice, “You broke your resonance fork trying to move it or something while you were nearly burnt-out on magic, didn't you?”
Sunset swore internally, and wondered how her Twilight could have actually picked up on that. Had she gotten better at reading ponies, or had Sunset just fallen so far out of practice that she'd slipped up and let her secret guilt show on her face? She wasn't sure. But she made certain to play it off with a laugh and a wave of the hoof, saying “That doesn't matter, does it? An accident like that isn't that big a deal...”
Twilight sighed. “Yes, I suppose it isn't. But you should be able to buy a replacement in town,” she said to Sunset's surprise.
“Really? I didn't think Ponyville would have a magic supply shop.”
“Well...,” Twilight began to reply slowly, averting her gaze in a way that told Sunset everything she needed to know. “I wouldn't exactly call it a magic supply shop, per se, but I have heard that it's the place to go for various rare tools and such.”
Sunset raised an eyebrow, then leveled it into a stare. “You haven't actually been to this place, have you?”
“No,” Twilight answered with defiance. “I haven't needed to. I'm responsible with my tools.” She even had the audacity to turn up her nose and flick her tail in mock haughtiness, no doubt a callback to Sunset's behavior from before they were friends.
Her mind replied with painful memories of being forgotten for a month, and questions of whether Twilight could truly call herself 'responsible' after doing so. But Sunset knew this was not the time for such a remark and so stifled it immediately, unwilling to open such a fresh wound in response to such a minor and jesting slight.
She would not always be so careful.
But regardless, for now she simply laughed dryly. “Fine. I'm taking a break anyway, so I might as well go check it out. Where is it?”
“Oh, I'll come with you and show you the way, I'm not doing anything important at the moment,” Twilight replied, quickly shifting back into a friendly smile.
Sunset sighed, not wanting to repeat the conversation they'd had this morning about the post office. Twilight had been quite disappointed that Sunset had turned her down, and in retrospect... she really shouldn't be turning down offers to spend time with Twilight, even if it was only for something stupid like being shown around town.
“Fine,” she relented.
“Great!” Twilight replied with a cheery smile that Sunset couldn't help but find infectious.
Not long after, the pair were walking down the streets of Ponyville. And just like the night before, Sunset was amazed to see Twilight exchanging greetings with several ponies as they walked past. Surely she couldn't know all of them, right? The citizens of Ponyville were just polite, and it had rubbed off on Twilight since she was all into learning about friendship now.
But still, Sunset wanted to make sure. So, when she found the opportunity, she asked her friend in a hushed voice “So who are all these ponies you've been saying hi too?”
“Hmm?” Twilight murmured in reply, her ears perking up. “Oh, well, you know, just ponies I've seen around here and there. At shops, or stands, or stores, or even in the library!” She finished with a light giggle.
Which reminded Sunset, again, that she lived in a library now. Which had seemed like a good idea back in Canterlot, before it had really sunk in that not only were strangers essentially free to come and go from her home as they pleased, they were basically invited to.
“By the way,” she asked as nonchalantly as possible, “exactly how often do ponies use the library, anyway?”
It seemed to take Twilight a moment, but she managed to process the meaning behind Sunset's question fairly well. She smiled. “Oh, don't worry, it's a little weird at first seeing strangers walking around unannounced, but you'll get used to it. Especially because it doesn't actually happen all that often.”
“Really?” Sunset replied with a smirk. “Color me shocked that the ponies of this town aren't too interested in reading.”
She was happy to hear Twilight giggle a little, but slightly dismayed when it was quickly cut short. “Come on, Sunset, be nice,” her friend scolded. “The school's not in session right now, and a lot of ponies are busy with the summer harvest and all the associated events and activities.”
Sunset gave a noncommittal murmur in reply, turning her gaze forward again.
“I can't wait for the harvest to really get started at Sweet Apple Acres,” Twilight continued, obliviously. “The early apples have been delicious enough, as have the apples they've stored overwinter, but according to Applejack the summer harvest has to be seen to be believed. I can't wait to see how they produce all their goods!”
Again, Sunset's reply was mostly just a murmur of thinly-veiled disinterest. Her attention was focused on looking for the supply shop they were supposed to be going to, and the growing realization that the mare that was supposed to be guiding her to it wasn't doing much guiding.
“So, uh, where is this place we're going, anyway?” she finally asked with a bit of a cough to get her friend's attention.
It worked, and Twilight stopped in her tracks in realization. “Oh! Right!” she said. “It should be around here somewhere...” She looked around for a few moments, and seemed to spot what she was looking for after mere seconds. “Yup! This is it, I think.”
“You think?” Sunset repeated with a healthy amount of skepticism, looking between Twilight and the fairly nondescript building she was now walking towards.
Like nearly every other building in town it was all thatched roof and half-timbered walls, though this one in particular had a sort of crammed-between-two-other-buildings sort of look going for it. Sunset could only assume that's how Twilight had identified it as it didn't stand out otherwise, at least from a distance; though as she got closer she could at least see a wooden signboard outside the front door that looked distinct.
Two lines of text, in all capital letters, curved around an image of an hourglass; the paint was peeling and shabby. It read “Time Turner's Technological Temporium”.
“...what's a 'Temporium'?” Sunset questioned after she and Twilight had stared at the sign for a fair bit.
Twilight shrugged helplessly. “Beats me. I thought Pinkie was mistaken when she told me the name, but apparently she wasn't...”
“Well, I guess we can just ask this 'Time Turner' pony or whatever about it,” Sunset said, more decisively than she truly felt.
They headed inside, and Sunset quickly noticed several things. The first was the noise. The second was the source of the noise, which seemed to predominantly be the countless clocks that littered the storefront – if indeed this was a store – with their hands ticking, pendulums swaying, and clockwork whirring with irritating asynchronicity. The third thing she noticed was just how much other stuff was in the room. Hourglasses and sundials and such, yes, but also music boxes and phonographs and cameras and things like that. And, of course, a variety of tools and gadgets of all sorts, including ones that Sunset knew to be distinctly magical. It was almost like an antique store and a hardware store had crashed together, and whoever 'Time Turner' was had decided to sell the wreckage.
The fourth thing Sunset noticed was that the room was far larger than it should have been, at least if the building's outer facade was to be believed. She thought it possible that it had simply expanded into what had previously been neighboring buildings, but... She also had the distinct feeling that she was in a magically-expanded space, although she couldn't immediately determine the cause. But she shelved her presumption that there was a bounty of books hidden somewhere in the clutter, because the fifth thing she'd noticed upon entering was walking their way.
“Why, hello!” greeted the single brownest pony Sunset could recall seeing in her entire life. He was an earth stallion, brown all over save his blue eyes and golden hourglass cutie mark. He wore a stiff white collar and teal bow tie, oddly enough, but they seemed to fit his distinct Trottingham accent.
“Time Turner's the name, of course,” he said with a sort of over-confident enthusiasm that quickly got on Sunset's nerves. “And you two, if I'm not mistaken, are the two-and-only students of our illustrious Princess of the Sun. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.” He finished with a short and shallow bow that managed to fluster Twilight and annoy Sunset even more – though she kept a neutral smile on her face the whole time.
“So you've heard of us?” Sunset asked, deciding to at least pretend to be amused – and to put just a bit of haughtiness into her words and bearing. After all, if he knew who they were, there was a good chance he'd tie himself in knots just to please them – and Sunset could make use of that if need be, though she recognized that Twilight wouldn't be too happy about it. “Good.”
“Oh yes, I suppose it is, isn't it?” Turner replied, unflinchingly. “I don't doubt that few ponies in this town have heard of you, although that isn't, ah, terribly unsurprising.” He looked at them both, and was shockingly unperturbed by the harsh stare Sunset was now fixing him. “You are, after all, merely students – a prestigious position, most certainly, but hardly among the movers and shakers of the Equestrian political scene.”
“Or so you've been told,” Sunset replied icily, raising an eyebrow. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed Twilight looking back and forth between her and Turner, who seemed to Sunset to have an expression of innocent dumbfoundedness upon his muzzle.
“Yes, I suppose so,” he admitted. “Although my sources are quite, ah, reliable, if I do say so myself. But, ah, I must apologize for so clearly offending you,” he told Sunset. “I merely wished to respond to your implication that most ponies have not heard of you. I had assumed you were used to it. Dreadfully sorry.”
Sunset's ears and eyes twitched in irritation, though she forced herself to smile through them. “Yeah, well, I'm not,” she said before she realized. She quickly stopped herself from saying more, and glanced quickly at Twilight to see that she was looking like she was finding the whole conversation awkward.
Which caused her to breathe a sigh of relief, at least internally. Even if Twilight had changed a little during the time they'd been apart, Sunset felt confident that her response to an awkward conversation would always be to change the subject and escape as soon as possible.
Her relief was, thankfully, justified. “Anyway,” Twilight said forcefully, putting a smile back on her face, “we were actually wondering if you had any resonance forks in stock.”
“Ah! A replacement, I take it?” Time Turner said with rapidly-dawning comprehension, annoying Sunset even further by looking straight at her as he said it. “Say no more, say no more,” he added with a quick wave of the hoof.
“So I take it you have one?” Twilight said hopefully.
The stallion tapped a hoof to his chin as he thought. “Quite possibly. I'll have to check the old books to be certain, as well as to find out where exactly it is.”
Sunset's eye twitched again as he walked back towards the desk and register situated at what was roughly the back of the room. “You mean you don't know what you have in stock?”
He let out a good-natured laugh. “Of course not! Have you seen this place, the Temporium's a disorganized mess!” He paused to bend down behind the desk, returning momentarily with a thick ledger clenched in his jaw. He dropped it on the desk. “Not to mention,” he continued, “I don't actually carry that many magical devices. I've always preferred a more scientific take on things, you see,” he said as he opened the ledger with a hoof and began to peruse it. “Well, perhaps not literally always, but you get the idea – I like to spend my time trying to explain that which magic cannot. I suppose it's not a pursuit that unicorns such as yourselves are particularly inclined towards, but on the same hoof I, earth pony that I am, am not especially capable of delving into the magical arts either.”
It occurred to Sunset that not only was this stallion annoying, and not only was he wasting their time by talking at length about his personal interests, but those interests weren't even interesting. She'd heard of ponies like him, ascribing to ridiculous ideas that there were things that magic somehow couldn't explain and then using the very techniques used to understand magic to somehow explain those things under the generic and misapplied banner of 'science'. It was asinine, the type of thing that belonged only in fiction, and it only served to make Sunset loathe this pony more.
She looked at Twilight again in hopes of a sympathetic glance in return, or at least a sign that she was holding her tongue lest they get delayed further by a pointless argument with a pony of no importance. But instead, she saw her watching and listening with... well, attention, certainly. Not rapt, of course, merely patient, but that was enough to throw Sunset off so that Turner's next exclamation caught her off-guard.
“Ah, yes! Here it is!” he declared, thrusting a hooftip onto the open page.
“You found it?” Twilight eagerly asked. Sunset echoed the sentiment in her mind, hopeful for any chance to cut this encounter short and leave forever.
“I've found the location of it,” Time Turner answered as he stepped away from the ledger and desk. “Specifically, I've determined that I have exactly one resonance fork in stock, and that I've been keeping it in the back so as not to lose it in the clutter of, well,” he motioned to the room around them, “all this. I'll have it ready for you in just a moment, just wait right there.”
He left without another word, or even waiting for their responses. Sunset spent the next few seconds looking around awkwardly until Twilight broke the silence.
“So, he seemed nice,” she said with a sincerity that baffled Sunset.
“Really? Seems kind of annoying if you ask me,” Sunset replied, taking care to keep her voice low lest Time Turner overhear.
“Sunset!” Twilight hissed, and Sunset didn't even need to look at her to know that she had a look of chastisement on her muzzle. Though she looked anyway.
“He annoys me!” Sunset hissed back. “The attitude, the cluttered store, the making us wait, all of it!”
“W-well,” Twilight stammered, clearly taken aback by Sunset's harshness – enough to make Sunset regret her tone. “It's not like he was expecting us to come asking for an item he's only got one of,” Twilight added after a moment. “And yeah, his hobbies are a little... different, but it's not like he's hurting anypony.”
Try as she might, Sunset couldn't stare Twilight's counterargument into becoming less reasonable. Still, she didn't want to leave it at that, and very nearly repeated her opinion more firmly before a pit of doubt opened in her thoughts. This wasn't such an important point that she'd risk angering Twilight by continuing to argue about it, right? She didn't want to be cast aside again...
Still, her stubbornness caused her to at least sniff and give a look she meant to convey 'I still don't like him', and she averted her gaze to look over the room again.
An awkward silence followed, lasting until Time Turner returned with the resonance fork in his jaw. He dropped it on the desk, looked at Sunset with a smile, and said “There it is. That will be twenty bits.”
Sunset made a show of picking the tool up in her magic and inspecting it, hemming and hawing all the way. Judging by the dial it was a slightly older model, around five years old, but it didn't look like it had been used more than a hoofful of times. With a bit of cleaning to get rid of the dust and bits of spittle, it would be usable. At least until she could acquire a newer one, of course.
“...it'll do,” she said in an almost bored tone of voice, as though more displeased by it than she honestly was. Tucking it away in her saddlebag, she took out her coinpurse and dropped the bits onto the desk – then made a mental note to reconfirm her stipend schedule with Princess Celestia. The last thing she wanted was to unexpectedly run out of money and burden Twilight while she applied for a scholar's fund.
“Excellent,” Time Turner said with a crisp, satisfied smile. “I do hope the two of you will come again, and not simply as customers! It's been too long since I've enjoyed a rigorous discussion on the nature of the world with qualified scholars such as yourselves.”
Sunset grunted noncommittally, already turning away. Behind her, she heard Twilight – after a brief pause – say “We'll... have to get back to you on that. We're a little busy at the moment with the move and all.”
“Ah, not to worry, I completely understand,” she heard Turner reply. “Have a nice day!”
“You too!” Twilight told him, and soon enough she was walking alongside Sunset again as they headed towards the door.
It wasn't until the door swung close behind them that they realized they hadn't asked what a 'Temporium' was.
“Well, I suppose we can just ask the next time we see him,” Twilight said calmly after a short sigh.
“If there's a next time,” Sunset said. “I don't plan on going back there again unless I have to.”
An idle glance to the side revealed the frown on Twilight's muzzle, causing a similar one to appear on Sunset's. “Come on,” Twilight said, “you haven't even given him a chance! I'm sure you could become good friends if you really tried!”
Sunset snorted. “Yeah, but what if I don't want to try? I'm fine with the friends I already have. Besides, I haven't even settled into living here yet.”
She looked at Twilight and saw her frown only deepen. “I suppose... But I do think you should try opening yourself up and becoming friends with more ponies. I mean,” she smiled, “it's done wonders for me!”
Sunset laughed, but it was a good-natured one – and genuinely so, almost to her surprise. “Yeah, well, you had some big life-changing experience,” Sunset said with a roll of both eyes and hoof, hoping she didn't sound as sad as she realized she kinda felt in that moment. “I'm still just me. And you know how long it takes me to warm up to somepony,” she finished with a side-eyed look she hoped was playful enough.
To her relief, Twilight laughed. “True. Well, I guess I can't expect you to make a lot of friends so quickly. Sorry for being pushy.”
Sunset let out another, smaller laugh as she decided what was probably expected of her. “Yeah, well, sorry for not being... I don't know, more open-minded or whatever. I'll... try to be nicer or something in the future.”
“Thanks,” Twilight told her, smiling again. “Now, let's get back home – I'm sure there's still tons of stuff to do before the party tonight!” she added excitedly, speeding up to a trot.
“Yeah...,” Sunset replied uncertainly, forcing her own smile as she followed a step behind.
Wow, yeah, thinking back on it, my motivation back then was... not good. All that really mattered to me was doing what I wanted while keeping Twilight happy, and I don't exactly think that's the healthiest mindset to have. Granted, I don't think I'm that much better now, but still...
Also not good was how much of a jerk I was to Turner, but I was a jerk to pretty much everypony back then so it's really not surprising. And as annoying as Turner can be at times, he doesn't really
Scratch that, Time Turner just roped me into a two-hour quest to invent a better toaster that got me electrocuted three times for three entirely different reasons. Idiot deserves what he gets.
That said, I will still count him among my friends. Reluctantly. He's saved my hide more than once, and he's one of the few ponies in town besides Twilight that I can have a conversation with about the workings of the world.
Anyway, where was I? Oh, right, droning on about my second day in Ponyville. You know, for how little I thought happened that day, I sure have written a lot about it. And I haven't even gotten to the party yet...