//------------------------------//
// Chapter 3 
// Story: Miller 
// by totallynotabrony 
//------------------------------//

	I went to Oven’s café a little earlier than I had the day before. I recognized a few of the customers. Maybe they were regulars. I hoped I would be back home before I could become one of them. There was still the problem of how to approach that problem. I could have grabbed some more reading material about magic from the library, but the book about flying had kept me up pretty late as it was.
The reading had been a little difficult to muddle through because the author assumed that the reader was a pony, and also probably some kind of brainiac doctor. Despite that, I managed to learn a few things.
The main component of pegasus magic was local gravity manipulation. By making themselves or the things around them effectively lighter, flight became easy. That also explained how a cart could fly. The effect was limited to touch, so I couldn’t levitate things like a unicorn, but it helped my hooves to pick things up.
There were other magical effects, but they was mostly limited to interacting with clouds and certain flight movements based on air manipulation. Since I was going to Cloudsdale, I figured it was good to know that I should be able to walk on nothing more than fluffy water vapor. I would believe it when I did it.
A white mare plunked down onto the stool next to me. I looked around. Once again, the café was nearly full.
“Oh, it’s you again,” she said. I could faintly make out her eyes through the sunglasses on her face.
I nodded. “Hello.”
“Do you live around here?” she asked.
“I’m looking for a place.”
She grinned. “It’s your lucky day, dude. Somepony just moved out of my building.”
“Really? Where is it? How much is the rent?”
Her eyebrows rose over the top of her sunglasses. “You don’t what to know what it’s like first?”
I shrugged. “I’m not picky.”
“You’ll totally love it, then.” She laughed. “It’s on the corner of Sixth and Grapevine.”
“I’ll come by when I can,” I promised. “I work late, though. How late is the office open?”
“The manager’s name is Paybooks. I’ll tell him to wait for you.” She extended a hoof. “I’m Vinyl Scratch, by the way.”
“Miller.”  I copied her gesture, although wasn’t sure how we were supposed to shake without fingers to grasp. 
Vinyl bumped my hoof with hers. Well, that was easy. “So what do you do, Miller?”
“I work at the fabrication shop down the block,” I said. She nodded, although I couldn’t tell whether she knew what a fab shop was.
“I’m a musician,” she explained. “Maybe you’ve heard of me? DJ-PON3?”
“Sorry,” I said. “I haven’t been living here very long.”
“Well hey, if you’re going to be my neighbor, I can invite you to a show.” She smiled like a maniac. Perhaps it would have looked less insane if I could see the added expression of her eyes.
I nodded. “Maybe.”
My breakfast arrived just then, and Vinyl was kind enough to leave me alone so I could eat it. I vacated my stool for another customer as soon as I was finished and went down the street to the shop.
I was early, and went to find the scale. It was an old, rough thing that was not very accurate, but could measure heavy objects. I was still getting used to the Equestrian system of units, and had no idea what the conversion of pounds or kilograms was.
With a little bit of concentration, I was able to get noticeable weight variations to show up on the scale as I stood on it. Interestingly, I was also able to make it show more than natural.
I went to get hooked up to the cart. It had two wheels and a yoke in the front for a pony to put around their body. While I had sort of figured out how to get myself to lighten up, it took several minutes of experimentation before I felt confident that I could do the same to the cart.
Bend walked in as I was practicing. He looked at me and asked, “Eager to get started? We still have to load that thing.”
“Yeah, sure,” I said. “I like to get to know an unfamiliar cart before I pull it.”
He nodded, accepting that explanation. There was a pallet of items on the floor beside the door. A couple of them looked like aluminum blanks for something. Perhaps there was a machine shop in Cloudsdale that would make them into something useful. The blanks were cylindrical pieces of metal, with flat ends.
There were a few other odds and ends loaded into the cart. I hoped it wouldn’t get too heavy for me. When the pallet was empty and the cart was full, Bend gave me a dispatch list of destinations.
Nervously, I trotted out the door and Bend closed it behind me. For some reason, I thought a running start might help. More ponies were appearing on the street, but I had a clear path ahead of me.
I leaned forward into a canter and flapped my wings hard. I had to actively will it to happen, but miraculously got the cart airborne with little trouble. After clearing the rooftops, I turned northwest towards Cloudsdale.
A couple of pegasi wearing golden armor hovered around the castle on the mountain. It was pretty clear they were security, and I gave them a wide berth. Concentrating on them made me forget that I was already a couple hundred feet in the air. When I remembered, I had a little panic attack and nearly fell out of the sky.
Don’t look down again! Okay, but then how will I get back from Cloudsdale? That’s a problem for later.
It was lucky that the trip was fairly quick, because I don’t think I could stand talking to myself for much longer. As I reached the Cloudsdale city limits, I slowly drifted down, imagining the clouds were as solid as soil.
They weren’t, but the mental image kept me and the cart from falling through. The clouds felt a little spongy underhoof, and I decided not to think about it too much. Overthinking was sometimes a problem for me.
I checked the streets and managed to find my way to the first delivery. I noticed a large chunk of ice embedded in the clouds out front of the building. I knew that it could easily get cold enough to freeze at higher altitudes, although I didn’t seem to be feeling it. More pegasus magic.
Based on scrape marks, it looked like the ice was a frequently used parking space. I stepped onto it and gingerly unhooked myself. The cart didn’t go tumbling to the ground and I sighed with relief.
Then I was faced with another challenge. How are you supposed to knock on a door made of clouds? Once again, I tried to just imagine it as something solid. My hoof struck it, but it only made a soft pompf sound.
“Hello?” I called. “Delivery.”
The door opened and a stallion stuck his head out. “Do you have my new carbide cutters?”
I nodded and pulled them out of the cart. Sawtooth was apparently well known for his tool making ability. The pony thanked me and went back inside. All the orders had been paid for already. I wasn’t sure if Bend didn’t trust me with money yet, or if every customer just preferred to pay in advance.
As I hooked up again, I saw a few young pegasi with bows and quivers loaded with arrows. They were following an older pony. I wondered if it was some kind of youth archery team.
I started on my way again, keeping an eye on the troop of them. They were flying a couple dozen feet above the street. One of them at the end of the line stopped for a moment and fiddled with his quiver. As I passed under, his friends yelled at him to hurry up.
“Yeah, sure,” he called, turning. The quiver slipped out of his grasp. I saw it start to fall. The arrows—sharp arrows—slid out and sped towards me.
I lunged forwards, tipping my head back to check on the points falling in my direction. It looked like the arrowheads were fashioned out of flint or something. All of the arrows and the quiver safely passed over my head and landed in the cart, striking sparks on the metal blanks.
I came to a halt, my heart hammering. The team leader dropped into the street in front of my. “Oh my gosh! Are you all right, mister?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.” I looked back. “Luckily, I don’t think anything fell through the clouds and caused a problem for anypony on the ground.”
“Thank Celestia. Maybe…maybe we should go back to using field tips. I just wanted that authentic Commander Hurricane feel, you know?”
I stared at him. I had no idea who Commander Hurricane was, but it sounded like a stupid reason to let children have dangerous weapons. He looked away. “Sorry again. No harm, no foul, yeah?”
He grabbed the arrows and quiver from the cart and flew away scolding the youngster. As my heartbeat began to slow down, I started walking again.
I delivered a set of fancy carved wooden bookends to an elderly mare. Luckily, they hadn’t been damaged in the arrow accident. Afterwards, I turned for the last destination. The signature on the receipt for the metal blanks read Gold Duster.
The building I trotted up to was fairly nondescript. I got somepony to help me unload the cart. There was an ice floor inside, so we had a safe place to put the blanks down. I didn’t see any machining equipment around, but maybe they were going to take them somewhere else.
Based on the appearance and weight, I guessed the blanks were aluminum. After transferring them to the building, I put the cart yoke back on and headed back towards Canterlot.  It was easier than I guessed.  All I really had to do was hold my wings steady and glide.
A thought struck me about halfway back. Aluminum didn’t spark. I should know-I’d machined enough of it. Therefore, whatever that metal was had to be something that responded to flint. Steel with a coating to resemble aluminum was the only thing I was able to come up with, but the blanks hadn’t been heavy enough. Perhaps they were hollow?  I shook my head. Who said Equestria didn’t have some other, weird metal? Or, for that matter, some weird flint?
I was back at the shop before lunch. The rest of the day was helping Steelie with some work. He’d decided to pursue his metal wheels idea. I figured out a design for spokes to cut down on weight. I was impressed how he was able to manipulate metal, even to the point that it was hard to tell where there had been a seam.
I also had to act as weight for Bucket again.  I felt undervalued, but I suppose I shouldn't complain about an easy job.
After work, I rushed to the apartment building at the address Vinyl had given me. True to her word, the manager was waiting. While the up-front price of the first month’s rent was steep compared to my available funds, it was cheaper than continuing to pay for a hotel. Since I had few possessions, I moved in right away.
The apartment was small, perhaps only twice the size of the hotel room. It had been cleaned thoroughly, but I saw that it was far from in perfect condition. Also, it wasn’t furnished.
I stretched out on the thin carpet and fashioned a pillow from my clothing. It seemed a shame that I had no other purpose for my possessions anymore. Well, actually the picture of Jenna was still very important to me.
I turned on my cell phone. The battery had about one-quarter charge left. The touchscreen didn’t respond to hooves. My nose covered too much area, so I had to carefully manipulate the screen with the tip of my tongue.
I glanced over the saved pictures. A few brought a sad smile to my face with memories. They reminded me that I had made exactly zero progress on getting home.
Whether I used the phone or not, eventually the battery would drain away. I decided to indulge myself a little with music. Just one song. It would be nice to hear something familiar. Seconds after the first verse started to play, there was a hammering on my door. 
“Hey, what is that?” called a voice. “Who’s in there?”
I quickly hit the stop button, stuffed the phone in my clothes, and put them in the closet beside the door. I pulled back the bolt and opened the door to reveal Vinyl. Her sunglasses were off, magenta eyes widening with surprise as she saw me.
“Whoa, I didn’t expect you to get here so quickly.” She nodded down the hallway. “I live just next door.”
“Oh.” I nodded. “Yeah, I just moved in.”
She leaned to the side, looking over my shoulder into the room. “Hey, was that music you were playing? What kind of setup do you have?”
I stepped back, showing her the empty room. “You must be hearing things. I don’t have anything.”
Vinyl frowned. “I could have sworn there was music. It was nothing I had ever heard before.”
“Something about a yellow submarine?” I asked. “Yeah, I heard it too. Strange.”
She shrugged and then suddenly grinned. “Well anyway, do you want to go to breakfast tomorrow?”
“Do you want to meet there?” I joked.
“It’s a date.” She gave me a smile and walked away to her apartment. I stared after her, trying to figure out exactly what she meant by that.