Gear Clank threw her experimental glasses on her workbench in slight anger. She walked over to a wall with unfinished designs plastered all over them, she used her horn to pick up a pencil and start writing on the paper that had the title 'Super Glasses'. The pencil's aura that showed the magic was very faint and wavering. She finished writing down a few equations and set down the pencil with a sigh. She always spoke to herself out loud, her thoughts were already crowded with images and left no room for talking to herself in her mind.
"I remember when my horn wasn't broken..." She teared up a bit at the memory.
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Gear Clank was excitingly working on a new experiment, her horn was intact and she was using it heavily to put together a small box component that was to power her new machine. She was smiling at how much she knew her new invention was going to help the town's people and was hastily connecting the wires in the battery. She had finished connecting the wire and turned it on to test it, her eyes noticed a mistake but only after she had pressed the 'on' button, a wire was crossed in a place where it wasn't supposed to be connected. The component exploded and Gear Clank turned her head and looked downward without thinking. The explosion had left her with half of her horn and diminished most of her sight in her right eye.
Gear Clank took several days to recover and when she finally came back to her senses she was depressed about losing her horn over losing sight in her right eye. She spent weeks trying to invent something to replace her horn but could find no replacement. Gear Clank decided instead of replacing her horn, she would design wings that would allow her to fly to replace her need for a horn. After weeks of constant work and tweaks she had created a pair of metallic wings that would allow her to fly almost 10 feet into the air. She was satisfied about the exchange and continued her work, most of her work leading to repairing her sight.
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Gear Clank wiped her left eye and didn't bother with her right eye that was covered in her long hair.
"Still daylight outside.. I wonder what Fire Dancer is doing..." She went back to her Bench and replaced the lenses on her glasses while tightening the hinges and placed them on her forehead before heading out of her door.
Gear Clank rose up into the sky using her fake wings and started flying from her house that was almost smack dab in the center of Trottingham and flew a few blocks before landing in front of a plain home that was spaced between another home and the Hobby Stable.
Gear Clank knocked at the door and after a few seconds a faint yell came from inside.
"Come in!"
Gear Clank walked into the home and heard twirling with a faint sound of flames in the room down the hall. She walked down the hall and found Fire Dancer in a fireproof room practicing her fire twirls.
Fire Dancer said in between her twirls that swished in the air while doing some jumping tricks. "Hey!... Gear...Clank... whatsup?" She ended the performance by throwing her two torches into the air and grabbing both in the same hoof in a twist and pushed the torches into the ground to extinguish the fires. Her crimson coat and light red mane had stayed in their place even after such a performance, she walked over to a table and put on her black headband. Fire Dancer's tribal marks on her coat had always made her stand out in the crowd.
Gear Clank handed her a small towel that hung on the wall. "Hi Fire, your performance is getting better each time I see it!" she smiled as she complimented Fire Dancer.
Fire Dancer threw the towel on the ground after using it. "Thanks, but it still needs work. So whats up?"
"Oh I was bored so I came to see what you were doing."
"Well nothing now, I was going to go to the bookstore to buy a book on poetry."
"I didn't know you liked poetry." Gear Clank said as she pushed her long hair away from her good eye.
"I'm not a fan, I was going to buy it for Raven." She said as she went to go hang her torch battons on the wall.
Gear Clank smiled. "Has she finally started talking to you?"
Fire Dancer frowned at the question. "No, but I thought maybe buying her a gift would make her feel more comfortable around us."
"Sounds like a good idea, I'll help pitch in." Gear Clank said as they walked out of the room.
"Alright, lets get going." Fire Dancer and Gear Clank left the house and Fire Dancer locked the door behind them.
Gear Clank hovered above the ground as Fire Dancer lead the way to the bookstore.
They entered the small store and the walls were covered with shelves with books of all sizes.
"Good afternoon ladies! Feel free to browse." The store owner said cheerfully as he looked up from a book he was reading.
"Where do you keep your books on poetry?" Fire Dancer asked.
The store owner pointed to a shelf in the back. "I recommend a book from Edgar Allen Pony, his poetry works are my personnel favorites."
"Thank you sir." Fire and Gear walked to the back and started scanning the books.
"How about this one?" Gear Clank held up a book with Edgar Allen Pony written in large words on front.
"No, Raven has that one, I've seen her read it."
Gear put the book back and strained her eye through her glasses to look for another book. She took off her glasses again and placed them up on her forehead once more. 'Piece of junk..'
"I haven't seen Raven with this book." She raised a book that the cover was still shining from the freshly made cover.
"Alright, looks good!" They turned back to the counter to pay for the book.
"I see you picked out one of our new editions, good choice, that will be 15 bits."
Gear Clank placed 15 bit on the counter. "Don't worry fire, I got this, a company bought one of my inventions for a good price."
They left the bookstore and started walking out of town where there was a tree next to the road in a shady spot where people that usually passed by saw Raven's mane from behind the tree. They saw the familiar Jet Black mane with Red highlights from behind the large tree, they also saw the pony getting up from her spot, the sun was setting. The pony stood up and froze at the sight of two mares walking in her direction.
"Hi Raven, we bought you a new book to read." Fire Dancer smiled as she handed the book she was carrying on her back towards Raven.
Raven kept her normal emotionless face until she noticed what the book was. Her small smile showed through her charcoal coat and her eyes lit up.
"Is that the new edition of Edgar Allen Pony's book? I had no idea that it was out yet!" She took the book and opened it to read the front page in anticipation, but stopped and frowned at her own rudeness. "Sorry, I have just been looking forward to this book for a long time." Raven looked down at her hooves. "Thanks."
Fire Dancer smiled that Raven had spoken a whole sentence to her, Raven normally just replied 'hi' when Fire Dancer greeted her. "That's alright, we knew you would like the book."
Raven looked up and spoke in a light voice. "Nobody ever bought my anything, this means alot."
Gear Clank put her hoof on Raven's shoulder that made her jump a bit. "That's what friends do!" She said through a smile.
Raven's smile returned. "Thanks again but.. I didn't know we were friends, people normally ignore me."
Gear Clank kept smiling. "Well, we're your friends, hey want to have a slumber party at my place? It would be a good chance to get to know each other better."
Raven wasn't used to talking to people for this long, but didn't want to miss out on a chance to get to know her new friends. "That sounds..nice."
"I can't wait to show you the inventions I have been working on, want to join us Fire Dancer?"
"Sure!" Fire Dancer smiled as she went to the other side of Raven.
Raven stopped for a moment in thought and then asked Gear Clank. "Inventions?"
"Yeah, I'm a pony of science, I use my intelligence to create things that nopony thought possible." She said taking pride in her fake wings flexing them out slightly.
Raven smirked a bit and said. "Science has not yet taught us if madness is or is not the sublimity of the intelligence."
"Errr... what?" Gear Clank rubbed her head with a hoof.
Raven smiled a bit and just said. "Never mind, shall we go now? It's getting dark."
They all went to Gear Clanks house, the moon had beat them to the top of the sky before they had made it. They arrived at her house all laughing at a joke Gear had just told. Gear Clank led them inside and laid her glasses on the workbench again and wrote a bit on her piece of paper next to them. Gear looked at her glasses again and shuddered.
Raven saw her shudder and came next to her and said. "The true genius shudders at incompleteness - and usually prefers silence to saying something which is not everything it should be." Raven smiled at Gear Clank.
Gear Clank smiled back at Raven. "Thanks, I've been working on these things for awhile now. Well lets see what should we do now.. I know! Lets watch a movie, I have one that's a classic, your going to love it Raven."
The three ponies went to another room and started the movie while having idle conversations, enjoying the time with their new-found friendship.