Lesson 3: For Old Time's Sake!
“Thanks for leaving me behind by the way, Twilight.” said a sarcastic voice, accompanied by the crush of small stones beneath Spike's feet claws as he walked alongside her.
Twilight Sparkle turned to him, his claws crossed in front of him. She then looked ahead as they approached one of the bridges of the tow., stretching across the smoothly flowing river below. The night was still, the only sounds being the gentle flow of the river and the crunch of their hooves on the dirt path.
They stopped on the bridge and she sighed, “Sorry, Spike. I was just afraid Mayor Mare was gonna scold or scream or berate me for being late.” she explained as she placed her hoof on Spike’s shoulder.
“Of course you are.” Spike rolled his eyes, scoffing in frustration.
“Spike…” Twilight said worriedly at him.
Spike turned to Twilight as he firmly gripped the sides of the stone bridge. “Besides, what did she want to talk to you about anyways?”
Twilight hesitated for a moment as she rested her hooves on the side of the bridge. “Well, a telegram from Princess Luna told her to approve the checklist of the organisers the princess gave me.” she bit her lip, before continuing. “ But since I lost it, Mayor Mare won’t let me access the library until I have that checklist approved.”
“Ouch.. that’s kinda harsh.” Spike said sympathetically.
Twilight’s frustration grew, “And the worst part is, Mayor Mare is going to be busy for almost the entirety of the celebrations! So, even if I DO finish checking everything, I'll still have to wait for hours before I can even get her to sign a single piece of paper,” she exclaimed, her voice tinged with disappointment.
“UGGGH, this is so frustrating!” she groaned, running a hoof through her mane in frustration.
“So why not we get it back, it can’t be that hard right?”
“That’s we’re going to do Spike. Mayor Mare told me that Winter’s workshop is somewhere near the river bed. He has my checklist and I’m getting it back!” Twilight said, her expression showing a look of determination. “Or so help me, Faust..”
“What was that?” Spike turned to the sudden mumbling.
“Nothing!” said Twilight.
Nero Severus stood stoically beside his boss, Mayor Mare, as she meticulously worked her way through the papers on her desk. The documents were messily scattered all over the desk, with only a small pile neatly stacked in the corner. The mayor’s frown of concentration deepened as her pen moved swiftly across the pages ,struggling to keep up with the never-ending stream of documents.
The room was silent except for the sound of the pen scratching against the paper and the occasional sigh from the mayor as she tackled another difficult task. Mayor Mare looked up from her paperwork, her eyes tired and her throat dry. She cleared her throat, drawing Nero's attention to her.
“Well, Severus,” she said, her voice strained from the hours and hours of concentrated work. “Do you have anything interesting to talk about while I finish up all of this work?”
Severus thought for a moment before he quickly responded, “Well earlier, when I went to inform Miss Twilight Sparkle about her schedule with you, she panicked and ran off towards the Town Hall.” he said, his tone measured.
Mayor Mare’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion, “ Okay… and?”
Severus continued, “Apparently, she was accompanied by a baby drake, very much young. She left him with me, sprinting straight towards the Town Hall for you.”
Mayor Mare's expression softened as she imagined the young dragon being left behind and feeling panicked.
“He seemed rather annoyed really, he turned and spoke to me, ‘Can you carry me to the Town Hall? I can’t really trust Twilight on her overreaction like this every single day.’He said it in a very matter-of-fact way, as if it were a common occurrence for them.”
The mayor’s eyes widened, then lightly chuckled. Turning to the changeling, “And I’m assured that he got here safely?”
Severus nodded. “The young drake did ask a lot of questions, most notably my scar.” he said frankly whilst looking at the mayor, “I made sure he got to the Town Hall safely and that he was comfortable while waiting for Twilight. We stayed in the hall to not disturb your meeting but also to distract him a bit.”
Mayor Mare chuckled a bit louder, “Well that certainly made this night a lot brighter than usual. Thank you for handling that well, Severus.”
“Thank you, Miss Scrolls.” he said, his mouth showing a small but otherwise dutiful smile.
Mayor Mare looked at her desk, with loads of paperwork messily laid about, still needing to be done. Then, she stood up and started to clean up almost all of them, sorting them into different piles neatly.
“I think it’s about time we take a little break tonight,” said the mayor. “Let’s get to the kitchen hall and-”
Knock Knock Knock
Mayor Mare and Nero Severus turned their towards the source of the sound. A dark shadow from the outside window, which appeared to be floating above from the balcony. She looked at her secretary and nodded, and Severus nodded back in understanding.
They approached the window cautiously, with Severus firmly gripping his magic on the window handle. As he opened the window, a gust of wind blew into the room causing the curtains to flutter, and the office light began to illuminate the shadow, slowly revealing its pink coat.
“PINKIE PIE?” they jointly yelled in surprise.
Pinkie Pie, who’s now clearly visible, was hanging from the balcony by a bunch of balloons tied around her chest. She was grinning from ear to ear and had a small notebook on her left forehoof.
“Hi Mayor! There’s a new pony that came to town today, she looked kinda grumpy and meanie but she didn’t mean anything by it!” said Pinkie Pie as she started popping off the balloons one by one.
“And now because she’s here, I want to know where she’ll be staying! Detective Pinkie needs a location to prepare her surprise party!” Pinkie grinned bouncing up and down on the balcony, her cotton candy mane bounces.
Mayor Mare gasped in surprise while Severus merely let out a hmmph under his breath.
The mayor then closed her mouth as she looked at Pinkie with widened eyes. “Pinkie, who in Faust’s name are you talking about?”
Pinkie looked at the mayor, still grinning. “The purple unicorn who came to town, she had a baby dragon with him and OH MY GOSH OH MY GOSH HE’S SO CUTE AND CUDDLY AND SMALL AND CUUUTE!”
Mayor Mare realised that she was talking about Twilight Sparkle, the new pony in town. She let out a chuckle, “Pinkie Pie, Twilight Sparkle is our new temp librarian here. Unfortunately due to-” she began to say but then was interrupted by a loud boom that sounded like a cannon.
“Alrightieseeyalaterbyeeeeeeeeeee!” called put Pinkie’s voice getting farther away.
Mayor Mare and Nero Severus rushed out the balcony just in time to see Pinkie Pie somehow flying across town as if she was just out of cannon.
“She shot herself into the air using her cannon.” said Severus nonchalantly as he turned to his left. Mayor Mare turned to see where Severus was looking, seeing a large pink cannon perched conveniently behind the balcony railing.
“Oh Pinkie…”
They walked along the river bed on the outskirts of Ponyville, the trees rustling softly through the breeze of the wind and night getting colder every second. At least, for Spike.
“Achooo! Achooo! Ahh.. AHHH.. AACHOOO!” he sneezed, with fire coming out of his mouth every time it opened and his nose.
Twilight could only watch her assistant sneezing incessantly. She didn’t bring a tissue nor a coat for him. The last time they had a coat was last week, where it got immediately burned, no thanks to Spike.
“Spike,” she said. “Why don’t you place yourself on top of me, and wrap your claws around. Body temperature of dragons can be easily regulated if an external heat source transfers its heat to a baby dragon’s body so thermal equilibrium can be achie-” she started mouthing off before she felt a familiar claw wrapped around her neck and her mouth.
“Ppplease ssstop talk ke..ke.. king aa.. Aand let us find that wwuh wuh.. worksshhop please?”
Twilight quickly nodded, walked a bit faster past the array of houses. As she walked, Twilight’s eyes scanned the area, looking for any signs of Winter’s workshop. Mayor Mare told her to look for the only one that has a water wheel in the river.
Finally after what it felt like forever walking, she found a building with a water wheel next to it and quickly sprinted towards the front door.
As she approached the door, she took a moment to take in the look of the workshop. The workshop was a 2 floor house, fashioned in a somewhat rustic design. Metal bars covered the ground floor windows while the 2nd storey had no bars on it, just simple curtains. Above the front door medium sized sign:
Steel’s Ponyville Hardware and Workshop
Twilight stopped in front of the door as Spike held on to her neck, this time his sneezes are a bit softer as his temperature is getting a bit warmer, not a lot but still better. Twilight used her magic to ring the doorbell, at least, she thought that was a buzzer. It was actually a buzzer, letting out a loud and staticy bzzzzzzzzzzzt at the door.
A few seconds of waiting, a window opened on the 2nd floor and a head popped out. Twilight to get a good look at the figure, “We’re closed!” the figure said out loud in a young and feminine voice before quickly closing the window.
“Great, achoo! What do we do now?” Spike asked.
I’m not having anymore of this crap, Spike’s cold and I need that checklist, Twilight thought for a moment before a lightbulb turned on inside her mind. She had an idea, an annoying and probably risky idea but the only one that might work. She turned back to the door and rang the buzzer again, this time holding it down. She could hear the staticy bzzzzzzzzzzzt from the buzzer echoing through the shop.
The window opened and the figure reappeared, poking her head out the window as she sounded even more irritated, “What in the fucking Faust’s flanks are you doing! Don’t y'all realise that this is 4 PAST 30 NOW!” she shouted at the unicorn below, unaware that she was carrying Spike.
Twilight stopped ringing the doorbell and looked up at the figure in the window. The figure is a grey young thestral, somewhere in her early teens. Her mane was a dark navy blue with light white strips along. She spoke with a extremely heavy Phyrish accent, and she could almost see the anger and irritation in her red eyes.
She took a deep breath and spoke with a confident tone, “I need to see Winters urgently! My name is Twilight Sparkle, and he’s expecting me.”
“Wait I didn’t know he was-” Spike started but was promptly cut off by a shush from Twilight.
The figure paused for a moment. “Him? Hold on!” she said, before closing the window again. Spike and Twilight stood outside the front door, waiting for either the thestral or Winters to open the door.
A couple of seconds later, there was some noise behind the front door. Spike held onto Twilight even stronger as his body felt like it reached its temperature in the negative. Twilight waited, soon enough metal sounds came from the door.
Door locks, typical of a Steel.
The door opened, the bright lights from the inside almost blinding her. A young thestral mare stood in the doorway, the shop’s illuminating behind her, casting a soft shadow over her body.
The thestral mare had a distinct accent, the words coming out with a sort of roughness. She looked at Twilight with a wary expression.
“He’s downstairs,”the thestral said, “Just don’t cause any trouble ‘round here.” She motioned to her to enter, before disappearing into the shop.
Entering the shop, Twilight was greeted with the sight of rows upon rows of hardware and tools. The walls were adorned with hammers,saws and screwdrivers, and various other items were scattered about on the shelves. Although the shop was brightly lit, it had a rusty, industrial feeling to it.
It smells both clean and nauseating! she thought to herself as the smell of metal and wood invaded her nostrils. Twilight took in the room around her while the thestral stood in front of the counter where all the purchases were made.
“Welcome to the Steel Ponyville Hardware and Workshop. Here you can commission Steel Winters to either repair your wares here, from simple clocks to the complex of radios. You can also browse ‘round the shop and purchase various tools for yourself, with compliance of course!” the thestral suddenly said proudly, her snout pointing upward and her pose in a self-pride moment.
Twilight simply stood there oddly, unsure how to respond.
“Tis some marketing I’m doin,” the thestral said, dropping her earlier proud gesture. “My name’s-”
“Apprentice!” A voice called out from the curtain behind the counter. The curtains moved forward as someone walked into view behind the counter. A familiar grey stallion, wearing a white canvas vest though his beret was nowhere on him. Winters immediately stopped after seeing Twilight in front of his counter.
He took a moment to recollect himself, “Te te… Twilight uh.. What’re you doing at my shop?” he asked her.
Twilight used her magic to lift up Spike from her body onto the warm wooden floor. She then turned to Winters who’s standing next to the younger thestral. They all looked awkwardly at each other, waiting for somebeing to break the silence.
Great Faust's Flanks, FLAME BREATHER!” the young thestral shouted, pointing at Spike with one hoof while the other hoof reached under the counter and pulled out a Steel and Whistler Model 86 revolver. She quickly pointed it at Spike with her wings.
Twilight’s heart raced quickly as she quickly stepped between Spike and the young thestral, shielding him from the gun.
“APPRENTICE, WHAT IN THE WORLD ARE YOU DOING!” Winters widened his eyes and yelled at her as he quickly took the gun away.
“Sir! THA- THAT'S A DRAGON IN THE STORE! YOU SAW HOW THEY BURN EVERYTHING, THE-THEY-THEY'RE MONSTERS-” she tried to explain, but her words fell on deaf ears as Winters closed the distance between them.
“That's enough!” he shouted, his tone growing angrier by the second. “Now I want you to apologise to two of my friends right this now!”
She slowly backed away from her employer, “Oh fine!” she said angrily. She turned to both of them and bowed, her face expressing a snarky tone. "I'm sorry, you two." she apologised semi-sarcastically, but Winters didn't seemed to notice.
Instead he turned to look at Twilight and Spike, the former frozen in place while the latter just looked at him in confusion without saying anything. He turned back to his apprentice.
“Up.” Winters pointed his hoof towards the floor above him.
The thestral took another look at the two in front of the counter, before moving past Winters and disappearing into the curtains, her hoofsteps slowly getting fainter.
Winters sighed before slumping himself on the counter.
…
…
…
That.. was... too… close.
“Are you okay Spike!” she asked him, worriedly and a bit relieved looking at him.
Spike turned to look at Twilight, with a calm but confused look on his face.
“THAT.. WAS AWESOME!” he shouted excitedly.
“IT’S JUST LIKE POWER PONIES SEASON 3 CHAPTER 4, WHEN THE HEROES SHIELDED A YOUNG FOAL FROM GETTING SHOT BY-”
“Spike, I don’t think it’s like in the comics you’ve been reading,” Twilight interrupted, her tone eerily calm for some reason. “Because SOMEONE’S APPRENTICE DECIDED TO PULL UP A GUN ON ME AND SPIKE!” she turned quickly to Winters as she changed her voice to anger.
Winters, who was examining the gun in his hooves, accidentally dropped it as he shrivelled up in fear seeing his old friend, now seething in anger directly at him. “Twilight! I uh.. I’m sorry?” he said nervously. Twilight marched closer to him and pulled Winters close to her face over the counter.
“You better be.” she said in a low voice. Seeing the fear in his face, Twilight calmed down her tone a bit though it didn't make her any less pissed about this. She let go of Winters much to his relief and walked back to Spike behind her. She picked him up with her magic and then placed her on her back.
Turning to Winters, “When I came here, originally I wanted to get my checklist and have Spike warmed up, at least until the sun comes up.” she said. “ As soon as I take a few steps inside, immediately I get held up!” her tone hinting much of frustration.
Winters held up his hooves in conciliation, “I’m sorry okay, I’m sorry! Apprentice usually doesn’t get along well with dragons!” he said in regret. “BUT, I promise you that she won’t ever do that again.”
Twilight took a deep breath, trying to calm herself down. She decided it's better to just momentarily forget about that incident. Besides she wasn’t here to make friends or whatnot, she has work to do.
“You know what, let's just forget about that.” she said, shaking her head dismissively.
Winters, who picked up the gun, nodded his head slowly. “Uh, yeah. Sorry, Twi..” he said, still ashamed at what happened. He placed the gun on the counter, seemingly not knowing what to do with it.
“Well.. anyways, the reason I'm here is to get my checklist that YOU took.” she emphasised.
Winters looked at him in curiousity, then widened his eyes, “ Oh, OH! I think I did take an odd paper.” Winters told her as he looked back and quickly disappeared into the curtains. Twilight stood there wide eyed, before quickly picking up Spike, jumping over the counter and chasing after him.
“Woah! Twiiiilight!”
Emerging from the curtains, Spike saw a stairwell leading downstairs, which looks like it leads to a deep abyss of darkness and despair and there’s absolutely no way he’s going down there just for the sake of a -
“Let’s get that checklist!” Twilight said, stepping down the stairs.
Twilight rushed into the abyss below, plainfully unaware of Spike’s fear of the dark as they descended below, “Twiiiilight!” Spike shouted to his dismay.
Reaching the end of the stairwell was complete darkness. Twilight nor Spike couldn’t see anything, stopping just at the ground.
“Uh.. Twilight I can’t see anything…” Spike whined, already fear creeping into his voice.
“It’s fine Spike. Let me just find a light switch.” Twilight assured her assistant gently, it’s not like she hasn’t been in the dark for a few times, most of them were in the Royal Canterlot Library after hours.
FTANG
“Did you hear that!” Spike said quickly, hugging Twilighttighter on her back. Twilight took a step back before-
FTANG
FTANG
“That, THAT!” Spike shouted, his fear quickly taken hold of him.
But it quickly evaporated as the lights came on suddenly, illuminating their surroundings. Twilight closed her eyes from the sudden brightness, “What in the world..” Twilight said to herself before a loud voice shouted “Hahahaha, you ain’t gonna best me unreliable light!”
Twilight opened her eyes and saw Winter holding a broomstick under the light bulb. “Winters!” Twilight shouted at him.
Winters turned to her, “Oh uh.. Twilight, I thought you would be waiting upstairs?” he said nervously.
Twilight let out a groan before putting down Spike, now realising that the darkness will not be smothering him to death. Spike looked around in astonishment, basking in the environment of the room.
On the sides of the walls were various shelves, drawers full of diagrams, and blueprints. There were metal sheets and pieces of wood everywhere on the floor, and in the middle of the room was a large workbench, something that looks almost like a unfinished machinery under the table bieng covered by a large white cloth.
“Welcome to my humble workshop, this store doubles as a commercial service and repair centre for all of the residents of Ponyville!” Winters said, smiling proudly. "And of course, it triples as my gun smithing room!" he continued, unravelling the cloth to reveal an unfinished thingamajigs or prototype or something. She hasn't got a clue what it is supposed to be.
She turned to him, unamused. "Winters, are you going to get my check list or waste my time hearing about your shop?” she said with a snark and a frown.
"Right-right, hahaha! Almost forgot about that. Come here!" he said with a nervous chuckle, gesturing for them to follow him. They walked for a moment before arriving at a study desk with a couple of drawers, on the right side of the desk were a couple of baskets filled with rolled up blueprints and diagrams.
There’s so many of them… and so disorganised.
“What were you doing carrying so much?” Twilight asked incredulously as she pulled out a smaller diagram paper and a large blueprint.
He didn’t even label these, like he just tossed them in like a laundry basket.
“Because I make stuff for a living, and repair them?” he replied, turning to look at Twilight with a blank look. “Anyways your checklist should nea-”
“Oh cool!” Spike shouted excitedly, holding something in his claws.
“OH NO!” said a familiar voice.
Twilight and Winters turned towards the sound of the voices, and saw Spike and the thestral from earlier engaged in a tug of war over an unfinished project of Winters. It looked like a metal pipe of some sort, according to Twilight's best guess.
"Don't ever touch one of me sir's projects, ya darn flame breather!" the thestral apprentice spat out, trying to pull the metal pipe towards herself. "Get your filthy fire breathing paws of off it!"
Winters quickly stepped between them, taking the pipe from them both with a panicked expression. “What are you both doing to my grip handle!” he shouted, his voice filled with alarm.
I was just-" they both said together in unison, before glaring at each other, their eyes locked in a tense stare down.
“Alright both of you, especially you Spike. Don’t touch any of these projects lying around, they're all unfinished and potentially dangerous.” Winters explained with a worried look on his face.
The young thestral, who had been standing beside Winters, rolled her eyes. "Yeah, yeah," she said, sneering at Spike. "I'll make sure to keep a close eye on him, especially."
Spike, however, didn't seem fazed by her attitude. He met her gaze with a hint of sarcasm in his own voice. "Oh please, like your slit eyes could ever keep an eye on me."
Wide-eyed and clearly not pleased with Spike's sarcasm, the apprentice shot back, "Oh, you slimy little lizard!"
“THAT'S ENOUGH!” Winters suddenly shouted.
Both Spike and Winters’ apprentice recoiled at the sudden outburst, shock and surprise on both of their expressions. Even Twilight herself yelped while still sorting through the dozens of diagrams of paper, most of them on the floor.
"Apprentice, up." Winters said, his tone and expression serious. The apprentice looked at Spike and then at Winters, shame written on her face, before disappearing into a different room, curtains covering the entrance.
"Phew, what a relief," Spike said, looking at the now-absent thestral. But he soon realised that he may have said it a bit too loudly, as he not only had one pair of eyes but two glaring right at him. Turning to his right, he saw Twilight and Winters glaring at him. "Uh...I'm innocent?" he stammered.
“Spike… Couldn't you control your tongue for a while?” Twilight said in a disappointed tone.
“But she started it first!” Spike said, trying to defend himself.“I was just trying to have a look at it because it looked cool!.”
Winters looked at him, his eyebrows raised in disapproval. “Without touching my grip handle?” he asked, his tone making it clear that he was not pleased.
Spike laughed nervously, realising the gravity of his mistake. “Well, hahahah uh.... good point,” he stammered, looking at them both.
The workshop was silent for a moment as the tension lingered in the air. Finally, Twilight broke the silence with an annoyed tone, “You know Spike, I don’t really have time to mess around here.” she said.
“Not only do I have to first find the checklist and supervise the celebrations, but I still need time to find Star Swirl’s Unabridged Magical Theorem of Space and Field Volume I!” she exclaimed in frustration, before a cough escaped from Winters.
She looked at Winters on her left as he turned to look at her, “Your checklist? I think I kept it in my drawer.” he said excitedly.
Twilight’s eye twitched, “Oh.” she said calmly, trying to hide her annoyance at having wasted time searching for the checklist at the clearly cluttered and disorganised bundle of mess.
Winters quickly motioned to Twilight and reached out his hoof towards the top drawer of his desk. He pulled out a rolled up scroll, tied with a dark blue velvet ribbon.
“I’m guessing this is the one you-”
“FINALLY!” Twilight shouted out as she quickly took the scroll from hooves and quickly unrolled it.
Spike walked over to the duo, “How do you know if it's the princess’ scroll?” he asked. Twilight ignored Spike, and instead used her magic to pick him up again and placed him on her back. “Woah, Twilight seriously?” he asked, semi-sarcastically and incredulously.
“No time for answers, Spike. We have a celebration to supervise,” Twilight said determinedly as she began walking towards the workshop exit.
Winters turned to look at Twilight, who now is walking towards the stairs, “Wait Twilight!” with a nervous look on his face.
Twilight stopped in her tracks and turned to Winters with a mix of frustration and exhaustion , “Ugh.. what is it, Winters? I have an assignment to do!” she exclaimed, her voice laced with annoyance.
“Uh.. do you want to hang out for a while in Ponyville after the celebrations? There’s a lot of interesting stuff to check out here, especially the library.” he asked with a nervous tone in his voice. “You know, for old time’s sake!” he said, trying to inject some excitement into his voice.
Twilight rolled her eyes, “I’m already gonna go to the library anyways, besides I’m not planning to spend the entire day there... maybe, just for one book.” she said. “But I don’t think there’s enough time for us to waste together, it’s best if I do it alone with just Spike.” she said.
“Oh uh.. no worries! Have a good morning today!” he said, still trying to keep a cheerful outlook. “And you’re welcome!” Winters shouted out as Twilight and Spike left his shop, with Twilight too happy to finally leave.