Sunset wasn’t happy being forced out of her tower. It was comfortable, what she knew, where she could remain warm beside a pair of beautiful mares.
Instead, hours after the sun had set, she supervised Aria and Sonata as they operated a wooden contraption attached to a cart. Together they turned a large windlass, which lifted a length of rope through a pulley that hung high over the edge of the bridge. It was one of the few times she’d got them to do something for her without argument, but given what was at the other end, it wasn’t hard to figure out why.
When the limp, waterlogged form rose up in front of Sunset, she raised a hoof to the other two mares, who locked the contraption.
“She looks like garbage,” Aria said over Sunset’s shoulder.
Reaching into her lab coat, Sunset pulled out a black, metal cylinder and clicked the base. A crystal at the other end lit up, and she aimed the dim beam of light it produced at Adagio. “I really hope she isn’t,” Sunset said.
It was hard to make out too many details in the dark and through the harness around Adagio’s body. Still, Sunset could see enough to make a broad assessment. Adagio was dirty, with weeds and rubbish tangled in her mane and mud stuck to her skin. There were a few gouges across her skin, which was a shame, but nothing which couldn’t be repaired with a bit of patching and heat treatment.
“I think she’s missing a leg.” Sonata’s voice wavered, and it was a little too high and loud, but Sunset avoided shushing her.
She instead panned the flashlight over to Adagio’s back end. She was, indeed, missing one of her legs. The silicone flesh was roughly torn like the inside of a cake, looking rough and rocky. While she’d need to look closer, it appeared as though the joint there had sheered clean off, leaving just the connection at the hip.
Not an impossible fix, but one that would take a fair amount of work and calibration.
A hiss came from Sonata’s direction. “Is she gonna be okay?”
Sunset clicked the flashlight off. As her vision adjusted to the dark, she noticed an incredibly faint glow inside Adagio. “Maybe. Get her in the cart. We’re headed back.”
“We could just leave her there,” Aria said. “Like I said, she looks like garbage. Can’t be worth the effort.”
Sonata slapped Aria in the chest while shooting her an exaggerated pout and glare. Aria smirked back and shoved the leg aside.
“Joking, joking. But, like, seriously. Will she be alright?”
“I don’t know,” answered Sunset, “but we’re not going to find out standing here and talking about it. Again, get her in the cart. We’re going to be busy tonight.”
“Yes, ma’am!” Sonata saluted Sunset and hopped to the crane again, turning a lever that pulled Adagio back to dangle over the bed.
“‘We’?” asked Aria.
With a frown, Sunset huffed. “Don’t start all that again, not right now. You two are going to help me.”
On hearing a rattling at the front of the cart, Sunset turned to see Sonata had hooked herself up to the harness. She didn’t quite fit it since it was designed for a typical mare’s proportions, so it bit into her skin in places. She hoped that wouldn’t cause any tears.
“Y’sure you want her pulling that thing?” Aria asked.
Sunset smirked at Sonata before she hopped up onto the cart and pulled the windlass’s brake lever, letting Adagio drop to the bed with a sodden thump. “I’m not strong enough, and she volunteered. Are you saying you want to take her place?”
Aria backed up a step and shook her head. “No, thank you. I can feel my shoulders aching already.”
Sunset lifted her head and turned forward before giving the side of the cart two thumps with a hoof. Miraculously, Sonata understood the signal and started back the way they had come. Aria followed behind, swivelling her head one way and another, something Sunset had discussed with the pair before heading into town.
After unclasping the harness and pulling it away from around Adagio, Sunset ducked down to examine her body more closely. River water pooled onto the wood, dribbling from her mane and tail and out of her leg and presumably out of whatever deeper cuts and scrapes Adagio had suffered. Touching her body revealed that she was cold to the touch, save for a bit of warmth where the faint glow of Adagio’s core pierced through the strongest.
Sunset was reluctant to roll Adagio around in the cart, so she couldn’t properly examine the broken joint. Instead, she checked her front, clicking the flashlight to life again to make out the details.
When Sunset gently pulled Adagio’s eyes open, she sighed. The lenses were cracked, and when she poked at one of them, turning the eye down, water trickled out of the seams.
There wasn’t much she could do about that then, so she moved to the rest of Adagio’s body.
On closer inspection, most of the cuts on her skin were superficial. They were a mixture of cuts and scrapes, which meant an assortment of different fixes would be needed. The clean cuts would be the easiest, treatable with some carefully applied heat.
Sunset did this with a bit of help from her horn. The cart’s bed glowed around her as she summoned a little fire mote. She directed it closely to Adagio’s skin in a few places, letting the wounds remain open for a moment before pushing them together. In a blink, the ball of energy turned blue, rapidly cooling down the material, and then winked out of existence. A little pulling and squishing on the damaged surface showed no damage.
Everything on Adagio’s other side, and the deeper scrapes where material was lost, would need to be repaired back in her lab.
“Hey, Sunny, where do I turn?” Sonata asked.
Rising back to her hooves and leaning over the front, Sunset squinted into the night. They were along the road to her forest, just outside town, but she wasn’t sure where exactly. Not that it mattered much; Sunset had walked the routes plenty of times and had worn down plenty of hard-to-spot tracks. “Take the first gap on the left that’s big enough,” Sunset said. “Most ways in are fine.”
Turning back to Aria, Sunset asked, “See anyone along the way?”
Aria shook her head, her glinting eyes giving away the motion. “Nada. Saw some timberwolves, which was cool, and some birds—owls, I think—but that’s about it.”
Sunset chuckled. “I figured you could see well, but that’s impressive. Normally they keep well away from fire and groups, so we should be fine. How’s the clarity?”
“Almost like daylight. I could count the knots in their bark.”
Sunset whistled, then lowered herself as the cart jostled over the rougher ground in the forest.
It wasn’t long before the three of them were out from beneath the cover of the trees again, approaching Sunset’s tower. The stars above twinkled between the passing clouds, like eyes watching Sunset and the sisters at work.
Sunset clambered out of the cart while Aria squeezed past her and lifted Adagio onto her back.
“So, what sort of help do you need from us?” Aria asked. “I ain’t sure what I can actually do to help dead weight here—“
“Don’t say that!” Sonata snapped.
Rolling her eyes, Aria continued, making her way to the shack at the base of the tower and into Sunset’s home. “I ain’t got the skills or smarts that you do, ‘least as far as this stuff goes. I can outsmart you plenty elsewhere, though.”
“I’m ignoring that,” Sunset said while Sonata managed a little laugh. “As for what I need from you, one of you will need to be very, very still for a while.”
Aria and Sunset glanced behind them at Sonata disentangling herself from the harness. She paused and blinked at them before asking, “What?”
“Fine, I’ll do it. Can’t be that hard to sit still and do… whatever it is you want me to do.”
The shack was made out of old and discarded wood, it wasn’t the most secure structure, but the inside was dry and mostly breeze free. It sat at the old entrance to the tower, and the four of them ascended the first set of stone stairs to the level where Sunset’s lab was.
Things were still messy. The damaged, half-melted cables still lay across the floor while the smell of smoke lingered in the air. Sunset hoped that whatever was making the smell wasn’t still burning.
“Set her on one of the tables, and get on one next to her.” Sunset retrieved her gloves from where they were discarded onto the ground during the previous night’s tussle, then pulled them over her forelegs. “Sonata, go check the floor above for loose cables. I don’t need a lot, enough to reach between two of the tables with a bit extra for slack.”
Adagio dropped to one table in a heap, then Aria climbed onto another, laying on her front. Resting her head in her hooves, she asked, “So, doc, what are you gonna do?”
“Her energy core is still powered up,” Sunset explained, pointing at Adagio’s chest, “but I’m not sure for how long.” Sunset rolled Adagio onto her back and grimaced. The hinge was most definitely sheered through. Attaching a new leg would be a royal pain in the flank. “I’d rather see if she’s totally dry inside before we try this, but I’m not sure I want to find out what happens to her if she runs completely out of energy.”
Aria blinked. “Uh, that doesn’t sound good, but I meant what about me.”
“Oh.” Sunset turned back to Aria. “I’m going to plug you two together to share power. I have no real idea what it will do to you, either, but there’s only one way to find out.”
Rising on her front legs, Aria’s eyes widened. “Hang on, what? Why not use your big zappy-dially-thingy?”
Sonata appeared at the top of the spiral stairs leading to the top level, a cable loop hanging around her neck. “Duh, it’s broken.”
Aria glanced up at Sonata, then at Sunset, who shrugged.
“She’s right. I can smell smoke, and I’m pretty sure some vital parts popped last night. Any juice they stored will have drained away, too.” She pulled out a box of jagged metal clips. “Not sure how she knows it’s broken, though,” she added quietly.
“Okay, but if you’re not sure what’ll happen to me, isn’t that also, like, incredibly bad?” Despite her concern, Aria slowly lowered herself back down.
After Sonata hoofed over the cable, Sunset unspooled it, then pulled it out into two long strips. “I’m mostly certain you’ll be fine afterwards. It just might be a little weird in the moment.” She held out the bent end of the cable to Sonata. “Bite.”
Sonata dutifully bit down on the cable. It snapped under her teeth, leaving Sunset with two long strands and Sonata with a copper nibble.
“And what if you’re wrong?”
“Your core goes pop.”
Aria bolted upright again. “What does that mean!?”
Sunset jabbed each end of the cables into the base of the clips, then crimped the metal against them with another tool. She attached an end of each cable to the bolts jutting from Adagio’s neck. “Look, I don’t want to waste time arguing. You can either trust me or not. Your choice.”
Aria stared at Sunset for a few moments, then looked at the cable clips. With a sigh, she nodded and did what Sunset assumed was her best attempt to relax back onto her belly. “This better work.”
With nothing more to say, Sunset stood beside Aria. She attached one clip to her neck, then breathed out slowly before attaching the other.
The noise that filled the air was like an angry swarm of bees. Aria and Adagio convulsed on their tables, which sent Sunset jumping forward to try and remove the cables. Then she noticed the jerky, tensed motions of Aria’s legs and her jaw clenching up. A few smacks against the table later, and all her writhing stopped, save for one hoof that dragged against the bare metal.
“That looked painful,” Sunset muttered. “Aria? How are you feeling?”
“I am going to cuddle you until you can’t breathe,” Aria said through her teeth.
“I’ll take that as a ‘good enough’.”
Looking over at the other table, Sunset saw that Adagio had also gone still.
Sunset stood over her creation as she lay on her back, her head bent backwards, and saw the ruby warmth return to her chest. With a sigh, she fell to her haunches and smiled.
“Why’re you smiling? Did it work? Can I get these stupid things off?”
Sunset nodded. “Her core seems to be winding up again, but I want you hooked up for a while. She’s not awake, which is still a little worrying, but maybe it’s just a matter of waiting a little longer.” Standing back up, Sunset glanced around the lab, only finding three occupants. “Where’s Sonata?”
Sonata appeared from the upper level again, that time with some planks. Sunset wasn’t sure how, but she’d lashed them into something vaguely leg shaped. She’d even attached a small pot to the end, with the handle trimmed off.
“There’s Sonata.” Sunset tilted her head. “What Do you have there?”
Giggling on her way down the stairs, Sonata triumphantly held up the makeshift limb. “A replacement! There was lots of old wood and some nails. I know it’s not perfect, but I haven’t seen anything that looks like a leg we can use. I’m sure she’ll like it.”
Sunset opened her mouth, then shut it with a click of her teeth before looking over to Aria, who simply shrugged.
“Fair enough, but I need to work out how things actually broke before I can fix her leg at all—Hey!”
Sonata spat a few nails onto the table before dropping the wood limb on the floor. Gripping it in her fetlock, she lined up a rusty nail with the other and smashed it against the joint. Darting over, Sunset attempted to push Sonata away, but the bigger mare-bot simply shunted her back with one of her rear legs. She smacked the nail again, and then a puck of metal fell to the floor, ringing on the stone as it spun.
“What in Tartarus are you even doing?” Sunset yelled. “You’re going to break something! You’re not even using the right tools, for goodness sake.”
None of that phased Sonata as she twisted another part of the fake leg, turning the wood, so an end was lined up with the nail where it poked through the joint. She pushed the boards with both legs, producing a not-entirely pleasant cracking sound, and the nail snapped through.
Then she stepped back and gestured at her hoofwork. While it seemed to match Adagio’s proportions, Sunset wasn’t sure that the limb could hold weight. Between the rough treatment of the damaged parts and the play in the joint, she was sure there was more damage to come.
Sonata smiled at Sunset with nothing but glee and pride in her eyes. “Tada!”
Putting a hoof to the bridge of her muzzle, Sunset shut her eyes and breathed in deeply. “I can’t believe I got outwitted by you last night,” she muttered.
“Says a lot about you, huh?” Sunset fired a glare at Aria’s returning smirk.
Sunset made her way over to her desk at the edge of the lab. Unlike most of the rest of the furnishings and tools in the tower, that was one of the few nice-looking things, though it was nonetheless a little worn, and most of its polished had long gone. Made from several pieces of dark wood, it had plenty of drawers and shelves and several swinging compartments above the counter, some of which were still open. In the middle was a blotter filled with gutters and grooves from months, and probably years, of work.
Swinging one of the top compartments around, Sunset retrieved two cut gems from a pile. They were similar in size and shape to each of the sisters’ eyes, roughly ovoid and slightly curved. She peered through them, and the world on the other side turned a shade of purple but remained quite clear.
“New eyes?” Sonata asked, and Sunset nodded.
“New lenses. If the eyes themselves are broken, that’s going to be trickier to fix, but we won’t know if that’s the case unless she wakes up.” Making her way back over to Adagio, Sunset pulled out a tool that looked like a blunt knife with a rounded tip. “Sonata, lift her head and shoulders up for me.”
Sonata, seemingly wanting to behave again, did as she was asked.
The upcoming work was painstaking and frustrating and involved jamming the little tool into the impossibly small seams between the lens and mount in one of Adagio’s eyes.
The broken pieces popped out in two large chunks, then lots of little shards that fell over Adagio’s chest, leaving a hole where the lens was. A little more water trickled out with them.
“Geez, that looks creepy.” Aria shuddered. “Kinda like some weird doll.”
“We’re all weird dolls, Aria,” Sonata said with eery cheer.
“Yeah but… She’s taking out her eye. That’s weird, even if she made us.”
Clearing her throat, Sunset said, “Quiet, please.” The other two sirens shut their mouths while Sunset placed one of the working lenses into the mount. A firm push, then a few taps at the top and bottom, followed by a click, was all Sunset needed before she put the tool to the other eye.
She jerked away when the eyes’ owner blinked, and then Sunset heard the rapid, buzzing wheezes. Sunset and Sonata shared a look for a moment. Meanwhile, Sonata moved her hooves from behind Adagio to atop her shoulders, pushing her against the table.
“Don’t constrict her,” Sunset ordered, and Sonata backed off while Sunset clambered onto the table, looking down at Adagio. With life once more commanding the gizmos and gears beneath, Adagio’s face again took on the qualities of a piece of art, sculpted and moulded to perfection. It was twisted into an open-mouthed frown and carried so much pain and confusion. None of that took away from Adagio’s beauty.
Moving her head down, Sunset brushed her nose to Adagio’s, and the sounds of windless breathing slowed. “I’m here. You’re safe.”
The air was forced from Sunset’s lungs when Adagio’s legs wrapped around her chest, pinning them together. Her eyes bugged out for a moment, and her cheeks puffed up. Still, she calmed down when she spotted the relief on Sonata and Aria, in the way their bodies visibly relaxed.
“You need to make me waterproof.”
The top of Sunset’s tower provided an excellent view into the valley it presided over. Sunset sat there and watched the golden rays banish thin early morning fog and paint the fields and trees orange. Any remnants of the storm had long since vanished, as the stonework and parapets were bone dry.
And so was Adagio.
The golden mare’s mane was still limp, but all the detritus stuck in her curls had been brushed out. Some of it was attached to Sunset in trade, but that was something she could live with.
She also had puncture marks on her sides that led deep to her chassis. Some moisture glinted inside them, but the water that flowed out hours ago had dried up since.
She was also warm again, and with Sunset’s ear to Adagio’s chest, she heard her core gently thrumming away within her. It was occasionally interrupted by scraping from the makeshift joint at Adagio’s left hip. It stuck out awkwardly before her, not quite bending the right way.
Sunset turned her head to look up at Adagio. She didn’t turn her eyes off the valley, her expression remaining neutral. Her right eye was still cracked, with dozens of little spider webs radiating from the middle like jagged wheel spokes. The new lens in the left was a slightly different shade.
The two had sat there for a few hours by that point. Aria and Sonata had been banished to Sunset’s shack after a gleeful reunion hug from Sonata. That left Sunset free to work, but Adagio had been restless. She wanted to move, and Sunset relented and took her to the top of the tower.
Putting a hoof to Adagio’s chin, Sunset turned her head and looked into the broken eye. “You should really let me take care of this.”
Adagio’s expression remained unchanged, although she lifted a leg and wrapped her ankle around Sunset’s. “Leave it.”
“It won’t be hard,” Sunset said, her tone insistent,” it’ll only take me a few minutes at most if the pieces are jammed together.”
Adagio sighed and shook her head. She pulled Sunset’s hoof away before turning back to the view. “No.”
Okay, the cryptic comments were out.
It wasn’t what Sunset had expected. She knew at some stage her creations would likely gain some personality—it was baked into their designs at an intrinsic level, but Adagio and her sisters…
They were definitely a surprise.
Sassy, sarcastic, confident and independent. That last fact stood out so firmly to Sunset. Not just in how they came to their own decisions, but each had their own reasoning and thoughts. Not only that, but they were creative and curious, two aspects Sunset found endearing.
Then Sunset glanced at Adagio’s makeshift limb.
Well, she found them endearing most of the time.
“What did you learn out there today?” Sunset asked Adagio.
The broken eye flicked over Sunset’s way, then back to the valley.
“Trying to eke out some sort of morality lesson or something?”
Chuckling, Sunset simply shook her head. “No, I just… want to know. You were out for a reason, and I probably should have got my butt out to either stop you or help you.”
“Probably,” Adagio agreed, nodding, “but then you’d have the other two to lug along on my first misadventure. Need I say more?”
Sunset answered by shaking her head and laughing again.
A tiny smile crept across Adagio’s lips, and she pointed to the town with a hoof. “I didn’t figure out what that place’s name is. Never thought to ask.”
“Ponyville,” Sunset answered. “A quaint little backwater dead in the middle of Equestria. Somehow, despite the location, all the modernisation it’s managed to see is a railroad.”
“A what-now?”
Sunset thought for a few moments about how to explain that to Adagio. She might well understand it, but it would take time and energy that Sunset and Adagio both likely didn’t have. “It’s probably best to show you one day. We’ll get you a better disguise or something and go back into Ponyville.”
“That’ll be a good idea. I think I might have a fan down there.”
“Should I be worried?” Sunset asked.
There was a pause, then with a shrug of her shoulders, Adagio answered, “Maybe. She seemed to know what I was and was very insistent on finding out more about me.”
That fact snagged in Sunset’s mind. Another pony that could identify Adagio’s nature was a pony to be worried about or a possible ally.
“Do you know what you actually are? As in the proper name for the type of construct you are?”
Adagio shrugged again. “Never crossed my mind. I’ve had more important things to think about.” She flashed her teeth at Sunset and got a bashful smile in return.
“Um, well,” Sunset stammered a little. “You’re a golem, which isn’t really something a lot of ponies even know exists. It’s one of those technologies we’ve seen come and go throughout history, but the specifics never stick around for very long. Most ponies that find out about it dismiss it as folklore or whatever.”
“Except for you and her.”
Sunset nodded. “Maybe I could find and talk to her one day. For now, though, maybe we should limit your visits to Ponyville or do a better job of disguising you and the girls.
Nodding once more, Adagio let silence fall between them once again. Her good eye scanned over Ponyville from right to left. They could see the bridge they’d rescued her from where they were, just a sliver over a dark line where the river lay.
She raised her hoof again, a little higher. Sunset followed the invisible line Adagio made toward the mountains in the distance. “And that place on the mountain?”
For a moment, Sunset’s gut clenched. She forced herself to breathe in and then exhale slowly before answering in a level tone. “Canterlot. The capital.”
Adagio’s head whipped around, and she stared at Sunset with an exaggerated raised and furrowed brow.
“…What?”
“Sunny, you don’t strike me being that stupid.”
It was Sunset’s turn to furrow her brow.
“Oh for—“Adagio put a hoof to her face. “You live in a shack in a crumbling tower doing apparently marvellous things. You admitted you made my sisters and I for revenge—“
“It’s not revenge!” Sunset protested.
Adagio waved her hoof dismissively. “Whatever. My point is you’re definitely trying to avoid authority. So I need to ask, why here?”
Sunset felt pinned back by Adagio’s gaze. The broken alone was enough to leave her squirming, but Adagio’s good eye was piercing through her, and despite all the space behind to scuttle back, Sunset was stuck.
She looked over to Canterlot, gleaming on its mountain perch, bouncing golden rays across the sweeping hills and dense forests to Sunset and Adagio.
Telling a lie would be impossible, Sunset decided. She set her jaw and looked back into Adagio’s eyes.
“The same reason you’re refusing to let me fix your eye,” she said. “It’s a reminder.”
The moment stretched out between them, and Sunset worried she wouldn’t be understood or she overstepped a boundary with Adagio. Wind through leaves and distant birdsong filled the silence.
“A reminder for what?” Adagio eventually asked.
“That I made a mistake. It kept me focused when my experiments failed or when I had doubts. Any time I thought about giving up, I looked out from here or the window in my lab and saw that stupid palace.”
“And she’s there, right? Celestia, you said her name was.”
Sunset nodded, and at last, Adagio’s expression softened.
“I still think it’s stupid to stay here, but… That makes sense to me, I guess.” She sighed and shut her eyes briefly before opening them again with a soft smile.
Then Adagio sighed and shut her eyes before reaching forward and wrapping her legs around Sunset again, pulling her face into Adagio’s chest. Breathing in, Sunset filled her nose with the smell of earth and water and the faint smell of oxidised metal and burnt rubber.
She lifted her legs to Adagio’s side, following the small boreholes. To her surprise, Adagio twitched when she touched them, and Sunset lifted her chin up with a grin.
“Either that hurts, or your ticklish,” she said.
Adagio’s jaw tensed, and she squeezed Sunset a little tighter, squeezing some air from her lungs. “I’m not saying.”
Gosh, Adagio was stubborn, but Sunset found she liked that about her.
However, she could do with being knocked down a few more pegs, and Sunset brushed her hooves up and down Adagio’s sides. In response, Adagio tensed her face into a thin-lipped smile, scrunching up the bridge of her nose. She curled her legs against her while she squirmed and wriggled, shaking her lower half. In her fidgeting, Adagio rolled onto her back.
Sunset took advantage and rolled on top of her, attempting to use her weight to pin Adagio’s good leg down by straddling it. Meanwhile, her hooves continued their work, shifting from flank to shoulder in gentle, unpredictable movements.
The whine that rose from Adagio made Sunset laugh, and she doubled her efforts, pressing her body to Adagio’s convulsing form. She closed the gap between them, getting their faces just shy of touching when Adagio giggled.
“Glad I was able to prove that hypothesis,” Sunset said. “Constructs are capable of being ticklish, but you are just one case. I need to do some more studying before I can be sure of how true it is or if you’re some kind of anomaly.”
Then Sunset dipped her head down and bit Adagio’s neck. It wasn’t too firm, but she knew the material’s limits and how much pressure she could apply before damaging Adagio’s skin.
That got her a good kick to the shoulder, ripping her away from Adagio for a moment. However, the attempt to dive back in was ill-timed as she came into contact with another wildly swinging hoof that sent her hurtling across the stones.
Sunset blinked a few times, staring at the pink and orange sky. A great flare took the place of her nose, overwhelming any other feeling or smell. Slowly, she sat herself up and wiped her hoof over her nose. It came away bloody.
She looked up at Adagio, who looked back to Sunset with a wide-eyed frown.
“I—I’m sorry! I couldn’t stop myself—“
“It’s fine,” Sunset called back. Her voice was painfully nasally, and she turned her head to cough. “I shouldn’t be testing you like that. It’s my fault.”
“But—Your nose, I did that!”
Sunset shakily got to her hooves and held her leg to her snout. “Let’s just say it’s both our faults and get me a bandage,” she said. “I’m sure I have some gauze or linen somewhere. And then…” Sunset shook her head. No dizziness and the sleepiness wasn’t new. “I think I should get some sleep.”
Adagio looked uncertain, but she nodded. Without a word, she was back at Sunset’s side, guiding her with a leg and her flank to the stairs.