Okay this has been a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. I couldn't find a model. I didn't have the time to hire a professional and the only other pony I tried to get to pose was Martini and she can't sit still for ten seconds. It's been three days and so far I've painted over the same canvas three times and resigned to try and paint myself. Then something dawned on me. Guards stand still for hours on end. And maybe I can get slow Nexus down a bit. I throw all of my supplies on my back, easel, canvas, paints of the primary colors as well as black and white, brushes and hot water to for the brushes. I find my way to the quarters I'd been working in for a few weeks and knock on the door.
"No visitors." Nexus called from the other side.
"It's Dust, open up you grouch."
The door glowed the same way Nexus' horn did and it opened. He was hunched over his workbench like the night we met. He was out of his armor and not wearing anything but a necklace from the looks of things. At least he had the lights on this time.
"Still not locking it?"
"Anypony that wants to do harm to me has a death wish. Here to concede?"
"Nope." I walk in and shut the door behind me. "You're going to be my model."
He sat up and looked over his shoulder. "Pardon?"
"You heard me. You're going to be my model like it or not. You can keep working but you've got to sit as still as you can."
"Working with circuits is slow work but you'll have to let me move about to actually test it once in awhile." he tells me as I start setting up to the left side of his work bench.
"And that's alright with me, just don't move a lot without telling me. What made you pick me anyways?"
"Well guards are trained to not move for hours. I figured you were a better choice than Swift and I didn't really want to get to know you better. Maybe you get to know me a bit better too."
Nexus shot me an eyebrow and I just roll my eyes back at him. I set up a fresh canvas and grabbed a pencil before he gets back to work. Before he does he notices the 4B pencil I was holding in my teeth.
"I thought you were doing a painting?" he asked.
"I am. I just need to get the pencil lines of your body and some of your bench so I can do some work when I'm not here."
"Alright, don't complain when my hoofs move."
"I'll be doing your hoofs first." I start laying out the first few lines of the table and his hoofs.
Doing the hoofs first was partly an artistic choice but I mostly couldn't stop looking at them. I'd never seen him completely without armor. The metal went all the way up his leg and even covered part of his chest. His hindlegs were lucky by comparison, only going up to the mid thigh. Just past the plates, I saw the ends of a couple of scars.
"So… Never seen you like this… Exposed and all…"
"I don't like to show them off. Ponies always stare. So I either keep my armor on or wear something over it all." He said not looking up from his work.
Still not looking up, he levitated a large green piece of… something stiff, from his shelf. He set it down and used his magic again to slide a box of strange, thin metal sheets. They were thin form how thick they were and how wide they were. At bend points and the ends there were circles with holes in the middles.
"What are you doing anyways?"
"I won't ruin the surprise but this is a circuit board for a computer. It's essential to making mine work."
"What'd you mean make it work?" I ask getting the basic outline of his hoofs down.
"Well let's say the main function of my computer hinges on several of these boards. I need to make sure it won't burst into flames. At least instantly." He said glancing over to a sheet of paper with about ten of those circle parts on a rectangle.
"That's reassuring." I say starting on the table.
"All computers get hot when they're working. They have a lot of electricity going through them so it makes sense they'd get hot. There's normally a whole room dedicated to computers that do what I want and another room to pump cold air into it. What I'm trying to do is make it fit into a closet and let a few fans…. Oh I'm an idiot!" He said sitting up with a wide eyed smile.
"What?"
"Hold what you're doing!"
Nexus shot up and went to the closet next to the room doorway to the other room. He threw open the door. I saw rack upon rack of those circuit boards in the darkness. He threw on a light and I saw fans up along the ceiling next to the light bulb.
"I've been thinking of this all wrong! I've been trying to circulate air hoping it'd keep the boards cooler. But! The one thing nobody's ever actually done is just pump the air out. If I can just get permission to lower the ceiling a few inches…." He started trailing off.
"Um… That's great and all but could you sit back down?"
"Oh… Sorry. It's just how I work." He came back and sat down at the table. "I get an idea and I have to think on it before it flies out of my head. One more second so I can write it down?"
This was incredible. He was as giddy as a school boy. I never thought I'd see him smile so wide and I've only known him for a few weeks. The way he was eagerly awaiting my answer was exactly like little cosine begging me to play some stupid card game with him.
"Hurry up. I can only draw the outline of a desk for so long before it gets excessive." I tell him as I sketch out the closest leg of the work bench.
He hurries to flip the paper with the picture of the circuit board and write something down with gusto. I don't pay attention to it but I make my own little note for later. I keep sketching his basic posture and head shape as he goes back to work.
"So what about you M- Dust." he asked being in a similar position than when we started. "I get what got you here but you're right, I do want to know a bit more."
"You're just trying to slow me down so I don't finish." I say looking over the canvas. "But if you have to know my mom always wanted me to be an artist. It just happened I was kind of good at it. Nothing really interesting with it."
"Funny, my mother always thought I was stubborn enough to be a lawyer."
I giggle, getting half way through sketching the vague features of his face. Something I picked up as an artist, you never really notice something about somepony until you've been forced to stare at them and understand every detail. He's got a minor case of baby face. He looked a bit younger than… actually that's a good question.
"How old are you anyways?" I asked giving my teeth and jaw a minor break.
"What's that got to do with anything?"
"I don't know. You just look younger than you act."
He sat up. "I do eh? Damn. I'm twenty four."
"Twenty four! No way. You're at least twenty nine, thirty at most."
"I'm twenty four."
"Bull shit. Prove it."
He levitated the chain of his neckl- no, dog tags. He was wearing his dog tags. He levitated them to me and I took them in my hoof.
1st Lt. Nexus, Lunarus S.
Unicorn
M.I.D. 452-46-428
D.O.B. June, 24 1039
E.Q.E.G.
My math might not be the best but it was 1063 and sixty three minus thirty nine was twenty four. "Well I'll be damned… you are twenty four."
"Told you." he said taking them back.
"Hang on," I said trying to hold on to them but failing. I still got a good enough look at what I thought I saw. "Your first name is Lunarus?" I ask as he starts putting the chain back around his neck.
"Yes but don't call me that if you value your tongue. And no I won't tell you why. Just drawl while I work please."
"Alright fine…. what do I call you then?"
"If you gotta use my first name then call me Lunar."
"Sounds a bit too much like Luna."
"Technically it's the same just the male variety."
"So your parents gave you a girl's name?"
"No. It's the male version of Luna and that's what I got. The idea isn't around anymore but it wasn't impossible for people to be named after one of the princesses so someone made male versions. Celestia's is Solaris."
"Know anypony with that name?"
"It's my middle name."
"You're joking!"
"Get back to work!" he complained doing as he said.
I smile to myself and get back to putting his horn in the right place. His mane was going to be a challenge. It was thick and scruffy so it'd make it hard to draw well. Paint won't make it much easier but if I use a thin enough brush it should work out… kind of. His mane did suit him though. Messy but I couldn't see a knot or split end in the bunch, I'd have to figure out what he did with it. With the basic figure worked out, I decide to paint the head and mane last and made a note for that in his head line.
"So back to you." I say finishing my note. "You know about my home life what about you?"
"Good I guess. My dad's a former chariot puller and driver for Princess Celestia, my mom's a play reviewer for the Canterlot Gazette and I'm a soldier. Nothing really remarkable. But it's tradition in my family that at least one kid goes into active service for a while. My dad's dad was a radio operator on the east coast, his mother and her brother where guards, she wore the pants in the family so she kept her name I guess, and as far back as nearly a thousand years they were guards of Canterlot."
"Do you know exactly how far back it went?"
"Yeah. Records go to about 10 years after Nightmare Moon but the last name wasn't readable. His daughter's was. Gilded Heart Nexus, she took the name from her husband and she started the tradition I guess. I don't really know but I don't really need to find out. I'm who I am because it's what I wanted to be, not because of tradition."
"Ah. So they fought Nightmare Moon?"
"Nope, the earliest records show Gilded's father fought for Nightmare Moon."
"Oh…"
"Yeah… So how's the painting coming?"
"I've got the outline of you and the table. So I'm just going to start working on colors so hush. I need to concentrate."
"Alright."
He might not have promised anything but he did as I asked. He didn't say a peep as I started trying to get his exact shade of blue. It was darker than pure blue but also a bit under saturated. I only figured that out when pure black and white weren't making the right tint of his coat. Once I mixed small bit of gray into a re-darkened blue it looked just about as close as I could get it. Nexus shook his head and moved his scraggly mane slightly out of his eyes. This brought a question I didn't bother asking.
"How do you have that much hair? Don't guards have to keep their mane's and tails short?"
"Commander Armor has a little bit less than I do. He hated having his mane cut so short so much before he was Captain of the Guard, that he gave the right to the ponies of an officer rank to have longer hair. So long as it can be hidden under the helmet it's fine. That is if you're not going into combat. If you're going into combat you have to have it cut to military standard no matter your rank."
"You ever have to?"
"I was a Corporal when I was deployed. I didn't have much of a choice. What happened to being quiet?"
"I kind of wanted to know. I don't see many guards with longer manes or tails."
"That's because all standing guards are under the rank of Sergeant. Sergeant First Classes are usually patrolling guards. If they're sitting outside of something it's more important. The more important the thing they're guarding, the higher their rank. Archives are guarded by Lieutenants and the Princesses' towers are guarded by Warrant Officers and Captains. Captain of the Guard guards the Princess herself."
"So what about you? Luna said you were a Lieutenant. And aren't there like, Generals or Colonels?"
"First Lieutenant. It's a rank below Captain. I'm the highest ranking guard in Luna's Evening Guard. And there are ranks above Captain of the Guard but nopony for hundreds of years have been that high of a rank. Nopony really knows why. Celestia has to approve all officers and she hasn't done it for a long time. Technically, she is the only General in Equestria. Luna holds the same rank but again, she doesn't have nearly as many ponies under her command for it to matter I suppose. I'm not a politician so I don't know exactly why."
"Oh. Well that was easy to follow."
"Shut up and paint Dust. We've both got work to do." He said impatiently getting back to work.
I chuckle to myself and put down my pallet knife for a thin paintbrush to outline his body. Once the paint hit the canvas I was right about the little bit of gray I mixed in. It was nearly the perfect. It might've just been the lighting but it certainly looked right. I carefully paint right on the line I drew from the back of his head down his back. I sketched only to about his middle back and that's as far as I painted his outline for now. I might not actually be sure how this is going to turn out. I haven't painted a pony in a couple of years. I do still have connections with my art professor but I'm not sure if they'd actually give an opinion. Only time would tell I guess. The rest of our evening was spent in silence.
Around eleven o'clock I called it a night. I'd painted a rough outline of his torso and started his table before I was really starting to push it. I packed up everything, saving my paints and covering the canvas to keep the paints from getting ruined by anything. He kindly bid me goodnight and I left as he started a test. He was begging for it to work as I shut the door behind me. Part of me wanted to see it working out of curiosity and so I could see him get giddy again. It was funny seeing him that happy. But from just looking at him I think he deserves some happiness.
Being a model sucks. I have a compulsion to move around more when I'm working. I know she doesn't know that but it's really making things hard. We're a full week in and I've hardly gotten the first board even done. And half of that closet is taken up by the start up system and an organization matrix. I think half the system accommodating memory is a little low for what I want but for now it'll have to do. I ran a quick test of the startup commands as soon as I got home but without the ventilation system ready it won't be able to run for long. Luna's a little iffy on my idea to lower my ceiling. Considering I deepened my "hall" closet by three feet to try and accommodate more hardware I think it's fair to say I'm pushing my connection with Luna.
I could connect it to the castle's air ducts but it'd be running hot all day and I don't think anypony would like that. I could just take over the vent near my balcony doors but again, pushing my connection with Luna. As of right now I have to plug in the actual digital chips for the memory across most of the board. I really am stretching the capabilities of the tech at my disposal. These chips were meant to really only hold enough data to work a robotic arm at the least. I could charge it with magic but the issue comes up for user friendliness. Not all ponies are unicorns so it has to work for everypony in the factories.
I just started soldering the last chip onto the circuit board there's a knock at my door. I light my horn and open the door without looking over my shoulder.
"Still working in the dark are we?" Swift called from my door.
She flipped the light switch and the whole room lit up. I never really loved the design of this apartment. There was only one bathroom and it was upstairs in my bedroom. The large corbel vault upstairs didn't feel like it was where somepony should be living. That coupled with the marble floor made sound just bounce around up there. I preferred it down here with just the two large columns in both the front "foyer" and the sitting room. But even then I didn't like the whole room in general. The walls, carpet, and ceiling were white. The top and bottom of the columns and the trim around the floor were all yellow. I was going to ask if I could paint the walls and dark blue and make the trim white but it was either that or the expansion of the downstairs closet.
"This room is too white." I say not looking up from the board.
"I like it."Swift said trotting up behind me and looking over my shoulder, just barely in my personal space like she really liked to be. "How's it coming?"
"Well it didn't burst into flames the other night. So I just need to make sure it won't with the chips on it."
"Why can't you just make a bigger chip?"
"I would if I had the budget. I only have so much to use and I need it to be affordable. And I'm on the knife edge of that as it is."
"Well I think it'd be easier if you just ordered them special made."
"These are special made. I've got it down to a closet and a half to hold four machines worth of information."
"In theory."
"And almost in practice. I worked it out. If I can fit six birthdays on a full three hundred and sixty five and a half day calendar in the memory matrix I would have doubled the memory space for a single computer while making the physical space significantly smaller."
"Yeah yeah. But you still need it to not explode."
"To win the bet it just has to not explode through the startup, show the calendar and show the birthdays on a standard calendar."
"That's a long list considering your knowledge of computers."
"I know…" I say leaning back. "And I can't ask for help."
"Why's that?"
"Cause it doesn't take two ponies to make a single painting."
"Sometimes it does."
"Not the size Dust is doing. It's not much bigger than what you'd assume would be the stereotypical artist's canvas. But like I said I have one week to get this working and…" I plug the power source into the port and hook the other end into a sensor.
I run the standard amount of power through it and watched it carefully. The flow was holding at around the right level. The more power that it just hangs onto the more it heats up. With the hopefully added bonus of fans pumping the hot air OUT rather than pumping cold air in. Maybe during the winter I reverse the fan and pump cold air in and try it then but for now I had to make sure it would work. From behind I hear the door come open but I can't risk looking up. It doesn't feel like danger so it must've b-
"Oh hi Swift!" Dust said happily closing the door behind her. "What are you doing here?" She asked as I hear her trotting up to her usual spot.
"Just dropping by to make sure he's not cheating on your little bet."
"You come up here often? I haven't seen you when I come up here."
"Well you're never this early." I interject.
"Early? Oh. Princess Luna's study was cleaner. By her standards anyways. And other than those stains under the table you're pretty clean. So I decided to leave a bit earlier."
Great, two mares constantly trying to talk to me… That was more antisocial than I thought it'd be. But regardless I refuse to look up.
"Mind if I see how it looks?" Swift asks.
"Sure!"
Out of the corner of my eye I see her set down all of her things and uncover the canvas she'd been painting on. Swift stepped out from behind me and took her look at the canvas.
"Where's his head?"
"I'm doing that last. I was never good at painting or drawing heads."
"Well the rest of it looks really good. Especially this part here." she said motioning towards something on the canvas.
Most of it was painted so I couldn't really see exactly what she was talking about.
"Yeah I took a few hours on that last night. I like how it came out."
"You should."
"Alright, back off. I need to work."
"Fine Ms. Pushy."
Dust finished setting up and she had to wave Swift off again. Swift snorted at her and Dust playfully stuck her tongue out at her. I hear her clamp her teeth down on a brush but I kept as ridged as I was when they'd walked in. I kept monitoring the power going out and it had gone down slightly. I need to keep watching it. It goes down another two volts. It goes down another four it'll have a chance of melting. Then again the chips might combust before the board itself.
It goes down another. I light up my horn and try and use some minor wind magic to pull air up to the bottom without blowing on it and bringing moisture into the mix. It worked well enough. My elemental magic wasn't very good but the air moved past it at least. The number didn't move for a full five minutes before it went up another point. That was exactly what I was hoping for. I feel my lips curl in a smile. It was exactly what I was hoping it'd do. It wasn't a big change, it would usually go down two volts in about the same time but with it running just moving air was certainly doing something.
"I assume something good is happening?" Swift asked looking over my shoulder.
"Yes it is. Oh yes yes yes it is!" I say feeling glee starting to well up in my chest. "Right! Now all I have to do is replicate this four more times and I might be able to get the first function to work without bursting into flames!" I sit up and disconnect the memory board from the battery and sensor.
I quickly trot over to the computer and slide the first cabinet of circuit boards to the left. I am beyond I added that sliding rail feature into those. Made for easier access. With A.L.I.S. still inactive for now the room was much cooler than it would be normally, or indeed at all. Once she's up and running she'll be running hot and only be able to stay on for a few hours at a time. Hopefully with that leap forwards I can get actual funding to make it. I won't sell her to anypony but she'll be patented up the ass!
I connect the wires to the right places and carefully make my way out so I don't accidentally knock the first hanging cabinet down in excitement. The ventilation will still be an issue but I know I can make it work with the right amount of persuasive words I'm sure I can get Luna to sign off on letting me close off the vent going to the balcony. I'll reroute it to under the balcony to keep the hot air out. It might be good in winter but it smelled so that was certainly out. Once I put the first cabinet back into place I practically feel myself skip to the workbench to keep working.
"I don't think I've ever seen him this happy." Swift said mockingly leaning on Dust's right shoulder.
"You get use to it. He gets like this every time he hits an idea that could work." Dust said, her teeth still clenching the brush.
"It's kind of cute."
That pit came back once Swift said that. I really don't like being flirted at. At least I think that was flirting? Was it? My knowledge on the subject of anything vaguely in the direction of romance was vastly limited. I had a girlfriend in high school and it did get… kind of serious but even back then I wasn't very good with picking up on her flirting with me or even flirting back. I've mostly avoided the subject and to be honest I'll continue to do it until… Well I don't know, thinking like that wasn't conducive to a good working mindset. I shove the idea of flirting out the fifth story window of my mind and get straight into making another circuit board.