Dye woke up in the middle of the night with pain rapidly building in his eye socket.
He grumbled to himself as he put on his oxygen mask and turned the tank on. He had no clock yet, so he had no idea what time it was. He knew the day of the week, though. It was Tuesday (he could at least tell that it was still before midnight by looking at the moon’s position in the sky).
As the pure oxygen flowed into Dye’s nostrils, he pulled out a small blank covered book that he’d taken to calling his “headache journal”. He flipped through it to the first empty page, pulled out a quill and inkbottle, and started to write.
Tuesday, night.
He didn’t write any more than that for the time being. He’d add the time of night next Tuesday, after getting a watch or wall clock.
Not every headache season had the same pattern for attacks, so Dye kept a journal to jot down the weekly pattern of headaches so he could be more prepared the next time that time of day and day of the week came around.
Unfortunately, he could only prepare so much for the attacks that would wake him in the middle of the night. He went to sleep with his tank nearby every night, so he couldn’t improve on that very much.
Dye closed the book and waited for the pain to fade away. The oxygen was starting to work by this point, and he could feel the horrible sensation get weaker.
After a few minutes, the pain was gone, and after about another minute just to make sure, Dye shut off the tank and removed the mask from his face.
The pain had forced him wide-awake, and it would take a while to get back to sleep again. He considered painting a picture of the night sky, but changed his mind and decided to just wait to get tired again.
The time it took for him to get tired again felt like half an hour, but Dye was only guessing. He pulled the blanket over himself again, curled up, and fell back to sleep.
Dye groaned as he woke up in the morning. The headache in the middle of the night had robbed him of some of his sleep, so he was still a bit tired. However, his house needed to be worked on, so he couldn’t just go back to sleep.
As Dye began rummaging through his food, he realized he’d forgotten to do something with it. He’d learned a “stay-fresh” spell to keep his food from spoiling until he could properly store it, and he’d entirely forgotten to cast it after buying his groceries.
After facehoofing at his own mistake, Dye lit up his horn and cast the spell. None of the food had gone bad, but none of it was entirely fresh anymore, either.
Dye levitated a muffin out of the box and inspected it. It had lost a little moisture, but not that much, since the box had protected it a little bit.
Using his magic, Dye siphoned a small bit of moisture from the cloud ground and added it to the muffin before reheating it with his magic.
Once he was satisfied with restoring the muffin, Dye took a bite out of it, and after a few more bites, the muffin was gone.
He repeated the process with another muffin (leaving four remaining), and then started on the apples. He ate two, and then he finished by downing some milk from the jug he’d bought. It was a little warm, but it hadn’t gone sour yet, so he simply chilled it with his magic.
Now that Dye was full and satisfied, he constructed some shelves out of cloud for the back of the shack and placed the food on it. The stay-fresh spell would have to be renewed once a day, but since he didn’t have an icebox or refrigerator yet, the spell would have to do for the time being.
Dye set out to gather some more clouds for his house, and by the time he got back an hour later, he’d managed to collect what he thought was about a hundred cubic feet of cloud.
Dye got to work reshaping the cloud into usable walls and floors, which took him a while since he was doing the job all by himself. Thestricorn or not, cloud construction wasn’t a quick job, especially solo.
By the time he stopped for lunch, he had finished the whole first floor (still no ceilings yet, though). After taking a few minutes to eat, Dye grabbed his art supplies and set them up in his new art studio. Even without a ceiling, the room looked wonderful just by having everything set up. He almost stopped his construction to paint something, but he forced himself to focus on the house.
By mid-afternoon, Dye had gotten all the first floor ceilings installed and had just started on the second floor walls when he heard a voice call out, “Dye? I’ve got a letter for you! Are you home?”
The voice was that of the mare from yesterday—Derpy.
“I’m a little busy right now, Derpy!” Dye called over his shoulder as he reshaped a portion of cloud into a wall. “Just leave it in the mailbox!”
“But I don’t see a mailbox!” Derpy called back.
Dye sighed and walked over to the front end of the second floor. “What d’you mean, you don’t—“
Dye cut off when he realized Derpy was right. He’d forgotten to put up a mailbox.
Shaking his head at how forgetful he was being lately, Dye glided down to right in front of the mailmare.
“Sorry, Derpy,” Dye said, blushing. “I guess I forgot to put a mailbox on my property.”
“That’s all right,” Derpy said as she hoofed the letter to Dye, who took it in his magic. “Some ponies don’t even bother with a mailbox, so I have to deliver the mail to their doors all the time.”
“Well, I think a mailbox is an important thing to have,” Dye said. “It saves time for the mail carriers such as yourself. I promise I’ll have one up by tomorrow.”
“Thanks, Dye,” Derpy said. “Well, I’ve got to continue my mail route! See you later!”
Dye waved as Derpy flew back down to the houses below to continue delivering mail.
Dye opened the letter and read it:
Dear Mr. Dye Vein,
Nurse Redheart recently informed me of what happened to you Monday night. I would like to schedule an appointment with you so I can learn about your apparently rare condition. The appointment will be free of charge, seeing as I am the one requesting the appointment. The only thing I ask of you is to consider granting me permission to send an order for a duplicate of your medical records from Canterlot.
Please come to the hospital at your earliest convenience to set up a time for your appointment.
Sincerely,
Dr. Stable, M.D.
“Huh,” Dye said to nopony but himself. “He’s not going to charge me for this one. That’s a shock. At least my medical records aren’t confidential like Grandpa’s are.”
He decided to get the appointment scheduled right away, so he set down the letter, put on his saddlebags, and made a beeline for Ponyville Hospital.
Four minutes later, he was speaking to Nurse Redheart across the front counter.
“Hello, Mr. Vein,” the nurse greeted him. “May I help you?”
“Yes, you can,” Dye replied. “I just got a letter from Dr. Stable requesting an appointment about my condition. When will he be available?”
The nurse pulled out a schedule binder and flipped though it for a few seconds before stopping.
“His next available time is this Friday, at 11 AM,” the nurse told him. “Will that time be acceptable to you?”
Dye nodded immediately. “I won’t have a schedule of my own for at least a few more days, so that time works out just fine.”
Nurse Redheart wrote something down in the binder, closed it, and shook Dye’s hoof. “We’ll see you this Friday at eleven, then. Have a good day, Mr. Vein.”
“Thanks,” Dye replied. “You too.”
Dye made his way to a clock shop called the Timepiece Emporium next. He’d need a watch if he was going to guarantee that he wouldn’t miss the appointment.
There was a middle-aged dark green unicorn stallion with a brown mane and tail and a pocket watch Cutie Mark at a workbench in the back, and there was nopony at the counter. However, there was a bell with the words “ring for service” taped onto it, so Dye rang it once and waited.
The stallion at the workbench stopped what he was doing and trotted over to the counter. Dye could now see that he had been working on repairing a cuckoo clock.
“Welcome, Mr. Vein,” the stallion said. “My name is Pendulum Cog. May I help you?”
“Well, Mr. Cog,” Dye said, glancing around at the hundreds of clocks lining the walls. “I need a watch.”
“Do you have any particular style or brand in mind?” Mr. Cog asked as he unlocked a display case full of watches.
“Not really,” Dye said, shaking his head. “It just has to tell time and not cost too much.”
“You’re in luck, then,” Mr. Cog said. “I just struck a deal with Miss Rarity of Carousel Boutique and Mr. Frame of Frame’s Frames. Our three stores are offering a joint deal for the next three days only.” He cleared his throat and added in a very sales-pitchy tone, “For the low price of eighteen bits, you can get a custom outfit consisting of both a stylish watch or pair of frames and a new dress or suit! For just six bits more, you can get all three!”
Mr. Cog finished the pitch with a flourish, looked around to make sure nopony was watching, and then whispered, “the truth is, Rarity kept complaining that my watches and Mr. Frame’s glasses were clashing too much with her clients’ outfits. Our only way to get her to cut it out was to come up with this deal. She actually threatened to run both of us out of town before we told her the idea!”
Dye stared at Mr. Cog in disbelief for a few seconds before getting a hold of himself. He hadn’t spoken to Rarity very much yet, but that just didn’t sound like what he knew about her.
“Well, what watch do you think she’d recommend?” Dye asked.
“How should I know?” Mr. Cog said, shrugging. “That mare’s sense of style is beyond my understanding. I just work in timepieces, not fashion. I usually rely on my customers’ preference.”
“So, I should head over to Rarity first, then, shouldn’t I?” Dye asked.
“If you don’t want her to make you return the watch I’d give you, yes,” Mr. Cog said, nodding.
“Well, I guess I’ll be back later, then,” Dye said as he turned to leave. “I’ll be back once I’m done getting my new suit.”
Mr. Cog waved as Dye left the shop.
Well, at least I’ll be getting the suit I was probably going to buy later anyway, Dye thought. As Grandpa says, ‘might as well kill two birds with one stone’.
Dye flew over to the Carousel Boutique and stepped inside.
“Hello, Dye,” Rarity said when she saw him enter. “How may I help you, darling?”
“Mr. Cog told me about some kind of deal involving your shop and his, so I decided to come to you first,” Dye told her. “I think it’s time I got myself a proper suit, since you never know when you’ll need formal wear, just in case.”
“Oh, right,” Rarity said, frowning slightly for a second before smiling again. “What did you have in mind?”
“When I was a colt, I had a suit jacket that had been specifically tailored to me,” Dye said. “I don’t remember what my parents did with it after I outgrew it, but I actually liked dressing up as long as I got to wear it.”
Dye took a breath before continuing. “It was the same color as my coat, with pinstripes matching my mane and tail. The shirt was just plain white cotton, nothing special, really. But the tie was really nice, too. Purple, to match my eyes.”
Rarity had started sketching while Dye was talking, and she looked up after he stopped.
“Didn’t you mention something about having something for your wings the last time you were here?” she asked.
“Oh, right!” Dye said, smacking himself in the forehead with his hoof. “How could I forget about that?”
“Well, that suit had a part of the back that acted kind of like sleeves for my wings,” Dye told her. “They mainly only covered the forearm and a little bit of the membrane behind it, but they were nice and comfy. I could easily slip them off if it got too hot, too. I guess you could say they were more like hoods than sleeves, but I always called them sleeves.”
“It’s a good thing I know a bit about wing anatomy, Mr. Vein,” Rarity said as she resumed sketching. “Otherwise, I’d have no idea what you’re talking about. What you are referring to are, in fact wing sleeves. They were the height of fashion for Pegasi and Thestrals a few decades ago, but they’ve long since gone out of style.”
“You, on the other hoof just might have the looks to pull off such a style,” she added, setting down the sketchpad. “Now, I’ll need your measurements before I get to work, so please hold still.”
Dye stood as still as a statue as Rarity took his measurements. She measured his shoulder width, his chest, his neck size, the length of his forelegs, and even his wings.
“Please spread your wings, Mr. Vein,” Rarity requested.
Dye complied, spreading them to their full length, which was about two and a half feet per wing.
“It’s been a while since I’ve had to take wing measurements,” Rarity said as she jotted down Dye’s wing measurements. “Wing sleeves are almost never used anymore, whether by mares or stallions.”
As she finished with the measurements, Dye relaxed and folded his wings again.
“For such a rare outfit, I’ll need you to stay here, Dye,” Rarity told him. “I don’t exactly have something I can use in place of your wings for the sleeves.”
“Oh, that’s fine,” Dye assured her. “I didn’t have anything planned today, anyway.”
After over three hours of alternating between waiting and test fitting, the shirt and tie were done, and the jacket was getting there.
“I assure you, Dye, this is the final test fitting,” Rarity said as she had Dye try on the jacket for the fifth time. “I just need to make sure the sleeves fit your wings.”
Rarity shook her head and had Dye return the jacket again.
“Still too loose,” she said. “They won’t grip your wings at all like that. They’ll slip right off as soon as you try to fly in it.”
Dye huffed and sat down again while Rarity got to work adjusting the sleeves again. That was the third “final test fitting”, and the sleeves still weren’t right. Dye looked at the clock on the wall. It was half past six. He wished he’d thought to bring something to eat, but at least he hadn’t been exerting himself very much the last few hours. If he had, he’d have been hungrier than he was.
After a few more minutes, Rarity had him try on the jacket “one last time”. He sighed, slipped the jacket on, and he immediately knew it fit perfectly this time. The wing sleeves were nice and snug, but he still had to wait for Rarity to confirm it.
She inspected them a lot longer than she had the last few times, inspecting every single minor detail.
After what felt like forever and a day, she stepped back and nodded.
“It’s perfect,” she announced. “Remember, though. That jacket is dry clean only. If it shrinks in the wash, you only have yourself to blame.”
Dye nodded and levitated eighteen bits out of his coin pouch and over to Rarity as payment.
Rarity took the coins in her own magical grip and put them away before levitating a slip of paper off of a stack and writing something on it with a quill pen. She then levitated the slip of paper over to Dye, who took it in his own magic and looked at it.
“That voucher will tell Mr. Cog which watch he should give you,” Rarity explained. “He’ll get his cut of the money later, so don’t worry. Just take him that slip of paper and he’ll get you the watch that will best accentuate your new suit.”
Dye Vein nodded and put the slip of paper in his saddlebag before bidding farewell to Rarity and flying back to the Timepiece Emporium to give Mr. Cog the voucher.
At the shop, he rang the bell again, and Mr. Cog trotted up to the counter to meet him.
“Ah, Mr. Vein!” Mr. Cog said. “That new suit sure looks nice on you.”
“Well, I’m going to be sticking it in a closet for quite a while, I think,” Dye said with a chuckle. “Unless some fancy do comes up, I’m probably not wearing this again for quite a while.”
Dye levitated the voucher out of his saddlebag and gave it to Mr. Cog, who read the description on it before folding it up and putting it in a drawer.
“That watch?” Mr. Cog muttered as he started searching through display cases. “Three customers returned it at her request. I thought I’d never sell it to a pony who would keep it.”
“Ah ha!” Mr. Cog said as he levitated a shiny metallic watch out of a display case. “This little beauty is something special, Mr. Vein.” Mr. Cog levitated the watch to the counter and showed it to Dye. “It’s the finest blue gold watch I’ve ever seen, to be honest. The lines of purple gold and pure silver accentuate it into something magnificent.”
Mr. Cog was right. The metal band and face were a brilliant blue with purple and silver highlights running along the edges of the band.
“You say that that blue metal is gold?” Dye asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Eighteen karat, to be precise,” the unicorn told him. “Seveny-five percent gold, twenty-four point four percent iron, and point six percent nickel. After letting it oxidize for a few days, it turns the blue color you now see. Much sturdier than other blue golds, too.”
“And the purple lines are also gold?” Dye asked, now quite interested.
“Once again, eighteen karat,” Mr. Cog replied. “Twenty-five percent aluminum, seventy-five percent gold. It’s normally quite brittle, but the manufacturer magically reinforced it to strengthen it.”
"Normally, it would cost fifteen bits,” Mr. Cog continued. “You’re lucky Miss Rarity requested this watch on your voucher. I admit, I’m quite lucky, too. I’ve sold it three times before, but each time, the customer requested an outfit from her, and she told them the watch clashed too heavily with her outfit ideas. Each one of those ponies returned it, demanding a full refund. I was starting to think I’d never get to sell it to a pony who’d keep it.”
“Well, Mr. Vein, try it on!” the unicorn urged.
Dye levitated the metallic work of art onto his right foreleg, just above the hoof and fastened it on. It fit perfectly.
“Thank you for finally taking that watch off my hooves,” Mr. Cog said, shaking Dye’s hoof. “You have no idea how much finally being allowed to sell it means to me.”
“I may not, but I can guess,” Dye chuckled. “Have a nice evening, Mr. Cog.”
The shop owner waved as Dye left the shop. Dye checked his new watch, which read as seven fifteen. The sun was starting to set, so Dye flew back home to finally get something to eat. He was down to only thirty-six bits now, but he had a feeling that he’d manage somehow.