A Cog in the Machine

by Zoom zoom


Luna dang it Featherweight

“So she still isn’t back yet huh?” asked Truffle as his sipped his soup. You knew the result would not be pretty. He looked down into his pale and you could hear the sounds of him regurgitating the broth as he dunked his head into it. He then took another ladle full and offered you some. It smelled like an old sock Snips found out behind a dumpster behind the school’s playground. Cheerilee was rather upset by it when Snips brought it up and had prompted her to call a Sabbatical from work.

“Yep,” you replied taking a sip yourself. It tasted like rotten eggs. You twitched trying to hold it in as you passed it to Featherweight and swallowed. Your voice came out a lot more horse from it. “Applejack said she was due back today, but they got a letter saying she still wanted to stay. Needless to say that ended up with them questioning me for so long I looked like…“ You couldn’t take it anymore and tossed your own into the pail. It looked like a giant grey soup with yellow lumps. Oddly more edible looking than the first thing Truffle Shuffle had you try today. “…yeah basically that by the end.”

Featherweight sniffed at the broth left in the ladle and winced. “I’m not eating this.” Saw Truffle do his best ‘oh yes you are’ face. You copied it down to the muscle and gave Featherweight the same look. “Oh come on. It’s so stupid. You guys already tried it out. And it’s going to make my breath stink. I got a date with Sweetie Belle in like two hours.”

Truffle pulled out a bottle of mouthwash and turned his attention to you. “What about Scootaloo? Is she still not talking to you?” He slid the bottle near Featherweight while you kept the face going. The pegasus looked like he was about to cry for a moment, but finally shrugged and choked back the remaining broth in the ladle. Didn’t even last as long as Truffle. You found yourself smiling at your little victory.

Finally turning your attention to Truffle you answer. “Actually the other day I finally got her to agree to meet me and tried to ease into becoming friends with her again.”

Featherweight looked up from the pail, his eyes going bloodshot from the sheer force of what came out of his thin frame. Even his voce came out more horse than yours, “I take it from the fact you are not at that meeting with Sweetie Belle that it didn’t go well?”

“Well,” you admitted, “I didn’t really think it all through. I’m not too good at just standing on my hind legs so Scootaloo tried to help. But then I ended up falling on top of her and she freaked out and ran away because I gave her a bruise by accident.”

Your friends exchanged a look of confusion. Feather finally piped out, “That doesn’t sound like Scootaloo.” Truffle nodded. “You sure you’re not leaving something out on this?” He immediately went back to barfing while Truffle emptied the rest of his crappy soup in the sink and checked off something on his list for his review on this latest recipe he got from Diamond Tiara.

Being the resident food critic for the Foal Free Press, Truffle Shuffle had sworn to take all recommendations seriously. He used to use Snips and Snails for his work on tasting things, but they caught on to the con recently so it meant until he could get somepony else he was playing his friend cards on you and Featherweight since he needed to see if it tasted different to a unicorn or pegasus anyway.

You thought about telling them about your little accident with Scootaloo while they finished up. You didn’t really talk about it with Pinkie. She was so focused on catching up with all the fun she was missing out on lately because of work she only stopped by to check in and asked the Cakes to sleep over last night. It was able to get your mind off both fillies. But now with your friends reminding you, it was best to just run it by them since maybe you missed something since they knew Scootaloo longer.

“Yeah,” agreed Truffle when you were done, “I really can’t see what the big deal is. She gets bruised all the time. There is probably something else to this.” Featherweight on the other hand stayed very quiet and licked his lips every now and then. You caught on to this very quickly but had no idea what it was about. He had not really done that before, but the sudden movement of his eyes not being able to meet yours. He was hiding something.

“What do you know?” you asked slowly as you stepped to tower over your lanky friend. It was really that much but your size age wise still made you look imposing to a Pegasus two years your junior in respects, especially one who had trained himself to avoid a one on one confrontation for his reporting. He twitched a bit before galloping out of the house as fast has his wings would take him.

You and Truffle watched him go into the distance and your portly friend shrugged. “Well you’re never going to catch him now.” Looking at his list again with a smile he said, “You know Diamond Tiara really does make a lot of suggestions lately. Think she likes me?”

You considered smacking him upside the head for that thought. But the other option was that Diamond was trying to get revenge on you embarrassing her. So you let him keep his little fantasy as you said a proper goodbye and went on the hunt for Featherweight.


It became obvious that even if you couldn’t get Featherweight to say what he knew you’d likely be able to figure it out with more information anyway. And he did have his date to keep so meeting up with Sweetie Belle would allow you to cross his path again when he calmed down.

Finding the clubhouse was easy enough. There wasn’t much outside town that was foal safe that wasn’t somepony else’s property so a deeper part of Sweet Apple Acres was the likely candidate. One asking of Applejack politely later and you were standing outside in only a few minutes.

“Y’all go on in Sugarcube,” the older mare had stated, “Ah gotta get back to work on the farm anyway. Member to stop when Applebloom does come back, Granny still wants ta see the look on Applebloom’s face when yer at dinner.” She laughed a bit as you got embarrassed and a little mad so many thought you two were like that. “Reminds me of the time she invited mah first special somepony over. I was a nervous wreck for weeks, but it did help me see it wasn’t going to work out. Maybe it’ll help you and Applebloom sort things out too. So don’t chicken out on that when the time comes, alright?” You nodded nervously as she trotted off, Applejack was not somepony to mess with.

Walking up the ramp wasn’t that hard, but what caught you off guard was how quiet it was. Had the fillies gone and finished their meeting already? Sweetie Belle lived too far from here to go and double back now and there was no way you’d convince Scootaloo to get out of her house long enough to apologize until school started back up again when whatever holiday Cheerilee celebrated was finished. Personally you thought she was just taking a sabbatical from working with kids and wanted to have two weeks off to find somepony for Hearts and Hooves day which was coming up, but when you asked her about it both her and your classmates all seemed to not wanna talk about it.

Putting your ear to the door you were finally able to hear voices. They were small, but it was indeed the fillies Scootaloo, Sweetie, and Dinky Doo. Dinky had only recently been included in the club but she didn’t have as much time on her hooves as most of your other classmates and had her own friends so she didn’t hang out with them much. You were glad Scootaloo had at least one other member to bring in, even if it was a off and on one.

You were about to open the door, keeping your usual face that seemed to show little interest since you still couldn’t smile easily. You were stopped however by Sweetie Belle’s voice yelling suddenly, “HE DID WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAT!” Fear suddenly struck you and you couldn’t move your limbs for a moment as the voices continued.

“He didn’t mean too,” defended Scootaloo in an uncharacteristically smaller voice than her friend. “It was kinda my fault and he did try to warn me. It was an accident.”

In a flash however Sweetie had burst from the doorway, the force of which sent you flying against the railing. You made a audible cry of discomfort which caught Sweetie Belle’s attention. Pure fiery anger erupted from those dead eyes as she rushed up to you. “How could you do that? I thought we were friends! But then you go and mess with my two best friends like this?”

“I d-don’t know what you’re talking about,” you stated feeling your flank against the railing. You were going to fall off if you were pushed anymore but Sweetie Belle didn’t seem to realize this as she pressed her horn to meet yours. You thought you hear some wood splinter as you tried to back up more.

“I mean,” she said is a voice that you swear would make lesser colts pee a little. Yeah lesser colts, that tingle in your bladder was nothing. “I thought you liked Applebloom. Now you go and kiss Scootaloo?!”

“Ki-kiss?” the words felt foreign to you. As if you didn’t even know what that word was. It sounded familiar, but something in that memory hurt you and you winced. Sweetie sees this and suddenly snaps back to her old self as Scootaloo pulls her back to say something. It just sounds like a bunch of buzzing however. It took you a bit to realize Waspinator had been buzzing in your ear and that snapped you back as well. He angrily zips away from being woken up from his sleep in your head, it was a rather lazy bug. What was the big deal about a kiss? Besides you didn’t kiss Scootaloo, you only landed on her lips…with your own.

The facehoof you gave yourself was going to hurt for a long time. It caught the two’s attention as you scratched the back of your head trying to work out what to say. You were also confused why you were so close to a panic attack just from finding this out. It was gone now but it worried you a bit, it wasn’t important now however so you put it out of your mind and considered how to apologize.

“Look,” you say slowly still not sure what to say since this was a hard to string a decent sentence for this. So you just said, “Sorry.”

Scootaloo blushes a bit at what you guess is the memory of it and accepts. She stayed quiet for a bit before answering you, “I know, I tried to explain to Sweetie Belle it wasn’t a big deal and that I didn’t want to talk about it. But she insisted.” Then her eyes got wide. “Oh I almost forgot, you agreed to be our newest member right? Well Applebloom may not be here but Dinky is so maybe you could…” She starts to trail off looking behind you.

You follow her gaze and see Featherweight dressed in a little suit. You had time to question if his family was rich or if he had borrowed money because it a really good fabric. In one of his wings he held a set of flowers all of different shades that looked hastily put together and badly wrapped. However you doubted that the pony he was going to give it to was going to be unhappy with them.

Sure enough the squeal of Sweetie Belle was ear piercing as she rushed down to her boyfriend’s side, snaching the flowers from his wing and thanking him with a rain of kisses on his cheek. “Well,” you found yourself commenting to Scootaloo. “At least she’s easy to win over if they ever have a fight.”

Scootaloo chuckles and agrees as Dinky came out to watch them as Featherweight finally got up with Sweetie stopping her barrage. He was a bit dizzy but a stupid grin plastered his face. He spotted you still a little wobbly and shouts up to you. “Wow Scootaloo, I thought you were going to avoid Cog until you got over your crush on him.”

Everypony could hear a pin drop after that came out. Sweetie Belle quickly grabbed her boyfriend when coherence was re-achieved by her and rushed away with a, “Well better go bye.” You didn’t turn to see anything until you noticed Dinky trotting slowly back into the treehouse and mumbling something. When you did finally turn, Scootaloo twitched and bucked you in a panic as a dust cloud trail fly down the ramps and into the Everfree Forest. The last thing you hear was the snap of that wood you leaned against giving way.

It wasn’t as bad of a fall this time since the Treehouse wasn’t too high. But as you rolled to your hooves you took a few deep breaths and decided to chase after the orange filly. Then when you got back you were going to think of a way to screw Featherweight over. Yeah, that would work.