Thunk, thunk, thunk! Whack, whack!
"Phew!" I wipe my forehead and smile widely. Sawdust and sweat make mess all over my coat, but the reward is glorious, "Tyadaa!"
I raise a thin wooden box up and examine it for any imperfections. There have to be dozens of those, but I'm not a carpenter so as long as it holds shape I'm happy.
The quartermaster's head peeks through the door from the warehouse lobby, one eyebrow raised. It must be a lazy day, because I am here, in the warehouse workroom, completely alone. The middle-aged pony walks over and gives my proud creation a once over.
"A box... without a top," he concludes his exploration, prompting an answer.
"A ree-kvest boks," I beam, "Poneez who need sumtink fixd ken leev ree-kvests een eet."
The weekend is over, and as such I've already been paid my weekly salary. That also means I don't have to sleep that much not to be hungry all the time. I can have a sandwich every day again -yay!- and one full meal twice a week! And since I don't see double from exhaustion and don't wobble anymore while I walk, I can wander around Canterlot again. It's such a beautiful city. Ponies still avoid looking at me, but who can blame them? There are so many wonderful things to see and watching me is a waste of precious time.
"What if somepony steals it?" the quartermaster asks.
A strange question.
"Wai? Eef dey wont too help dey ken just ask."
He snorts and covers his muzzle with a hoof.
"I guess you're right. That... that is exactly why somepony whould take it. To help you with repairing stuff."
I'm glad he understands. There is no reason anypony would want to steal it. It's just a rather shoddy container made from the wooden planks left over from fixing Eclipse's bed. On top of that...
"Noponee ken steel eet aneewey," I knock on the box meaningfully, "Aim going too put eet een d barraks end dere eez a bunch of gards all d taim. Yoo guise ar awsum at yor job! Aiv nevr lost aneetink."
"Do you actually have anything valuable?"
"Ai doo nau!" I wave the box in front of his face.
He just shakes his head and helps me clean the place up. Good to know that if I ever need to do some work again I can just use the warehouse workshop without having to fill any forms. I'm pretty sure sargeant Grey Shrine wouldn't be happy if I bothered her with more paperwork than she already has.
The final thing to do is to nail a piece of cardboard reading "Ree-kvest boks" on the side. I reused my "Undr ree-pear" sign, because I'm smart like that and I didn't have a spare one.
Few freezing minutes of me carrying my creation through castle grounds later, I let it rest by the door to the boiler room in the barracks cellar. Winter has to be just around the corner. There is no snow yet, but it's getting so cold outside it can't be too long before the white city is even whiter. Thankfully, I have an amazing job where I can spend nearly as long as I like in front of the open grate of the furnace heating the water. Sparks flutter around as the fire crackles, giving me something to watch even down here. Some land on my coat still wet from having a shower after my attempt at carpentry and hiss out.
*Knock knock knock*
Huh? Eclipse is the only pony who has ever come here, is anything broken again? Oh my, I can ask her to tell others about my box! If I become even marginally useful then they might stop throwing stuff at me when I walk where I shouldn't. They might only tell me to go away, or even... dare I dream... send me the right way?
"Stoopid Greyscale," I stick out my tongue at my reflection in the shard of broken glass I use to cut my mane. It waves at me and grins, "Yoo bettr lern too doo dis on yor own, cuz poneez kant weist taim wit yoo."
Fiery mane mixing orange with red cut short not to be a handicap during training, neat brown coat with developed muscles underneath, and yellow eyes looking up at me. That all puts together Eclipse's earthpony friend Piercing Hit.
"Helou!" I bow.
"Heyy," she smiles and looks downwards, "What's with the box?"
"Yoo ken rait sumtink yoo wont fixd eef Aim not heer nau."
"Cool," she looks closely at the cardboard with writing, "Umm... no offense, but can you read?"
"Ai ken reed end count too tausend, mem."
"Good for you," she keeps looking at the box. It can't be THAT poorly done. Well, unfortunately, it can. A guard can probably tell the quality is a little... off.
"Wot doo yoo need, mem?"
"Oh?" she jumps as if I startled her, "Right, right. Grey Shrine was asking about you and I needed few brownie points so I looked around instead of her."
"Ai hev no kookeez, mem. Soree."
"Heh, good one," she chuckles, "No, no, just go and see her. She gets pretty annoyed if things don't go her way."
I noticed...
"Okey," I give her a mock salute, "Ken yoo tell poneez about mai boks?"
"Yeah, sure. The guys will be ecstatic if they can save few bits on minor fixes or at least not have to go buy the new parts themselves."
"Tank yoo. Ail bee going nau den."
"Great! No cleaning latrines for me tonight, wohoo!" Piercing Hit jumps and walks up the stairs back to the main building.
Well, better not keep the sargeant waiting. I trot all the way to keep myself warm. The bustle inside the castle never ceases to amaze me. Servants, visitors, guards, everypony meshing into a tapestry of the grand seat of Equestrian power. At least the lower floors, I mean. From my brief visit few days ago I know that the upper ones hosting Guard offices and less frequented storerooms are not so lively.
"Come in!" Grey Shrine's voice answers my knocking.
"Helou, mem. Yoo askd for mee?"
"I did," she waves me closer, chewing a pencil thoughtfully with a stack of papers on her table, "Sit down. I've got good news for you."
I don't like change. It usually means a new way for me to worry about messing something up. Still, pretty admirable that she can talk properly even with her mouth full. No wonder she made it up through the Guard ranks to the post of sargeant.
"Yes, mem?"
"As you may have noticed, the barracks are in pretty abysmal shape."
"Ail trai harder, mem," I give her a guilty look.
"What?" she blinks, "No no, that has nothing to do with you. You're doing a good job. In fact, you're doing such a good job that I had a chat with several residents of the barracks and asked them how they would feel about reinstating some rules from before princess Luna's return."
"Woo eez preenses Loona?"
"Princess Celestia's sister. She came back from her... exile several months ago. As I may or may not have yelled at you before, her return is making me age a year with every new day."
"Soree, Ai forgot," I scratch my head. It always starts hurting when I try to remember stuff, so I just deal with what it shows me when somepony mentions something on the fly, "Yoo ar steel preety, mem."
"Ehm, thank you," she smirks, "Most of us believed it was just an old ponies' tale. Sadly, it wasn't, and now I have my hooves full with all the damn batponies trickling in," she bites through the held pencil, "Aw, crap! Well, in the light of all these new ponies arriving to the castle, the barracks will have to be in a much better shape than now, which is where you come in."
"Aim not det good wit fixing stuff," I have to come clean. My first two repair jobs were more luck than anything else, "Aim not det smart."
"That might be the case, but you have shown you can improvise pretty successfully," she leans towards me and says in a low tone, "Let me be completely honest with you. A real caretaker would cost me about hundred and fifty bits per week, you only fifty. Unless you burn the barracks down you will still be cheaper in the long term than anything I can get on this short notice. I will even overlook that you stay in the cellars for far longer than you are supposed to because I think, correct me if I'm wrong, you have nowhere to return. I don't know where you sleep or what you do in your spare time, and I don't care. You can make home down there through the winter and I doubt anypony will be bothered. Or even if they are, they'll have to voice their concerns to me first."
"Weit, Aim not- FEEFTEE?"
Her smug smile of complete and utter victory when I squeak says it all. I decide to ignore the fact that a skilled pony would be worth three times more than me. I am neither skilled nor smart, so me being worth one third of a real pony is an amazing upgrade, and overestimation. With fifty bits I could even afford to make the necessary repairs AND eat.
"That's not all, actually. The new thestral recruits and the older residents of the barracks will be docked a small portion of their pay to fill the new repair fund to which I will have access and you will be paying for the materials needed for renovations, upgrades, and repairs from. Now, the last thing - the fund will not pay for you to hire helpers when you have no clue what to do with a problem, there just isn't enough money for trained artisans to take care of stuff even on random basis. To remedy that, you will be allowed a limited access to the 'self help' portion of the castle library which is stocked with guides and manuals."
My head is spinning.
"Aignnnghh..."
Something smells fishy. No, something smells like smoke.
"Doo yoo smell sumtink weerd?"
She sniffs the air as well. Come to think of it, if I focus I can hear voices coming from the outside even in this soundproofed office.
"Is something burning?" she jump to the window and opens it. Thick smoke immediately fills the room, "The hay?"
I peek out, resisting the pungent heat in my nostrils. The office faces the Canterlot mountain, which means it overlooks the barracks right next to the castle wall.
The burning barracks. The only place which has ever found a use for me is turning into a ruin in front of my eyes.
"OH HECK NO!" Grey Shrine's voice is a mix of annoynce and despair.
I...
I...
I forgot to close the boiler furnace grate when Piercing Hit came.
For a second I had a dream of a life. But that was all it was, a dream.