It was an usual day in Ponyville; the skies were clear with a few clouds here and there, the birds were chirping, the fillies and colts were either in school or playing outside, stallions and mares were busy going about their regular day lives.
The only thing that was amiss throughout the town was the town’s clock tower. Unlike most days, it wasn’t running at all. None of the ponies in town really looked or paid much attention to it unless they really have to, so it wasn’t really noticed by any pony, except for maybe a few.
“Come on. Just a bit more.”
“That’s it. Keep going.”
“Easy for you to say. You’re stronger than me.”
“And you have a bigger reach.”
“Sure, sure.”
“Oh, stop chatting and lets finish this!”
“On the count of three. One…”
“…two…”
“…THREE!”
The two stallions pushed the last gear into place, finally finishing the “easy” job of theirs. With their task over, both of them collapsed onto the floor.
“Seriously, Turner,” the younger pony said while panting, “how was…that an easy…job…Oh Celestia, you’re lucky…I’m too tired to hurt you.”
The older pony, Time Turner, looked at his young assistant with a smirk. “Where’s that youthful energy and strength you talked about when we started?”
“It flew out the window…three ridiculously big gears ago.”
Turner placed a hoof over his mouth to stifle a laugh, but it failed.
“I find it funny that I’m older than you by quite a few years, yet you’re the one who’s tired.”
Giz glared at his mentor, “Not all of us have earth pony resilience, you know.”
Turner sighed. “Leave it to a Pegasus to complain about hard work.”
In a blink of an eye, Giz was inches away from Turner’s muzzle. “Since when is playing around in the dirt hard work?” he snarled.
Turner glared back. “Since as long as lounging on a cloud has been considered ‘working’.”
“Hey! If it wasn’t for us Pegasi ‘lounging on a cloud’,” Giz remarked, “you earth ponies wouldn’t have any reliable rain for your crops!”
Turner pressed his muzzle against Giz’s. “And if it wasn’t for our crops, you Pegasi would starve!”
“Take that back!”
“You first!”
Both stallions were locked in a heated gaze for what felt like hours, that was actually a few minutes. The tension in the room was so thick; it was as if a fog bank was settling in.
Giz slowed moved his right foreleg, causing Turner to flinch a little bit but keeping his whole body rooted to the spot. Giz raises his hoof above both of them, holds it there for a second, lowers it quickly, and then…runs it through his short, messy dark brown mane.
“Looks like you win this time Turner.”
“You nearly won yourself, my boy,” Turner replied with a smile.
“Anyways,” Giz said while looking at the mass of gears that made up most of the clock tower’s machinery. “Are we done yet?”
“Not just yet. All that’s left is to spin the last gear and that’s that.” Turner replied in a matter of fact tone.
Giz looked upon his mentor with a quizzical look. “Uh, Turner, last I checked, the largest gear weighs a whole lot. It isn’t going to be easy to move.”
A grin started to slowly crawl its way across Turner’s face. “Oh, we aren’t going to move it ourselves. It’s going to move soon enough.”
Giz looked from the machinery, to Turner, and back.
“Okay, I give up. How the buck are we go-“
CLICK CLACK VOOSH crankcrankcrankcrankcrank…
In a blink of an eye, the quiet room was filled with the clanks of the clock’s gears slowly moving and the mechanism coming to life that Giz was baffled by the instantaneous change. He looked among all the pieces to see any indication of how the machinery started up.
Feeling something on his shoulder, Giz turned his head and saw Turner’s hoof.
“Come on. Let’s tell the mayor that the job’s done,” he said sing-song.
“But...but…how-“
“Oh, that? I started it back up.”
Giz gave the elder stallion a wide-eyed expression. “You!? But…but how!?”
A goofy grin came upon Turner’s face as a small snicker escaped his lips. “Don’t try to over-think it, my boy. All I did was use this.”
Taking a step to the side, Turner revealed a small lever sticking out of the floor.
Letting out a groan, Giz smacked his forehead.
“Yeah…let’s…let’s just go already,” he said with a sigh.
“Now, now. There’s no reason to get your saddle in a twist Gear Sprocket,” Turner said as he neared the exit. “I know, why don’t I treat you to lunch at the restaurant not too far from here?”
After not getting a reply as quickly as he had hoped, Turner turned, no pun intended, around and saw Giz putting a few of his tools back into his saddlebags.
With the last of his tools away, Giz gave Turner a quick “Sure” on his way towards his mentor and the exit.
Turner smiled and clapped his hooves together. “Splendid! Let’s report to the mayor first. Then, we’ll go and eat. Hopefully Sparkler is working right now. It’s been a while since we’ve last talked and I’d like to catch up.”
“S-S-Spark-k-kler w-works th-ther-re?”
“I think so. Ditzy mentioned something about her sister getting a job as a waitress at a restaurant near town hall. Why? Is it a bad thing if she works there?”
“W-what!? N-no. It’s a good thing she works there. It seems like a good place. They’re lucky to have such an incredible mare working there.”
Turner looked at Giz with a raised eyebrow.
“I know she’s incredible, but I don’t see what that has to do wi-“
It was then that Turner noticed something was Giz’s appearance. There seemed to be a fain twinkle in his eyes since their most recent conversation, his cheeks seemed a little bit more red than their usual reddish-brown, and he seemed to be lost in some sort of pleasing trance, evident by his blank stare and goofy smile.
Turner was lost for a couple of seconds until he pieced all of Giz’s reactions together and letting out a chuckle.
“What’s so funny?” Giz asked.
“Oh, nothing nothing.” Turner said as he opened the exit door. “Come on Giz.”
“Uh, sure thing Turner.”
Right on his way out of the exit, Giz abruptly stopped halfway through.
“Turner…”
“Yes Giz?” Turner asked, tilting his head a bit.
“I just thought I should let you know…”
“Know what?” Turner asked while showing signs of both intrigue and worry.
Don’t tell me he’s going to say what I think he’ll say.
Giz let out a sigh. “The thing is,” he said before turning around and revealing a sheepish smile, “that I really didn’t eat breakfast this morning; so, I’m starving.” He then gave a nervous laugh while rubbing his mane.
Turner didn’t react at all for a few moments, causing Giz to get nervous.
I should have guessed he might react this way since he knows how much I eat when I’m starving.
Not being able to stand the silence any longer, Giz opened his mouth to apologize but Turner cut him off with a sigh of relief.
“Oh, is that all? I thought it would be something serious.”
“But you know how-“
“Yes yes. I know you’re worried about me spending too much, but it’s alright.”
“You sure?”
Turner placed his hoof on Giz’s shoulder and gave him a reassuring smile. “Yes, since the amount spent on you will come out of your cut for this job.”
Giz opened his mouth to protest, but closed it soon after and sighed.
“Seems fair enough.”
Turner’s smile grew as he removed his hoof.
“Well, let’s get going. The sooner we report in, the sooner we get lunch.”
“And the sooner we get to see Amey!” Giz said a little too quickly as he galloped straight for the Mayor’s office.
Turner shook his head a little and looked at the young stallion.
“Is this what ponies look like when they’re in love? Or is it just him?”
Turner shrugged and raced off after his assistant, letting the door close by itself.
I like it! I am glad you finally made a story. But maybe the public would like it if it had a cover picture for it. There is a game called Pony Creator that you can create your own pony. When you do, save it to your file and upload it to your story cover.
NO!! Don't listen to Applejacklps321! On this site, stories with cover images made with Pony Creator are considered either a sign of laziness and low quality, or a trollfic. The thinking is that if the author couldn't be bothered to obtain a quality image, then that probably means he or she would also be too lazy to make sure his or her story was even presentable before posting it.
It's better to have no image at all than to have a Pony Creator image. The thinking regarding pictureless stories is that they simply haven't found one that's both relevant and good yet.
It doesn't even have to be anything special, as long as it isn't Pony Creator. For example, take a look at the cover image of my story, The Covenant. It took me less than five minutes to make that-- faster than it would've taken to make a Pony Creator image.
2892117 Shame on you for suggesting using Pony Creator. Are you TRYING to get this story swamped with downvotes?!
2893749 Excuse me, but this stallion is my friend! Besides, a lot of people have ponies and that is fine. What are YOU trying to do? Make me look bad? Because fan made is awesome. And, how the heck can you make your own fan art? What kinda time do you have?
2894865 Okay, judging by your reaction, I probably should've been a little less dramatic with my statement. I really need to keep my inner Rarity in check more...
As I explained to your friend, Pony Creator images are very unpopular on FiMFiction, and most people have a tendency to judge books by their covers instead of their content.
2895067 I know. But I am a terrible artist, so I had no other choice but to use Pony Creator for my Swords and Sprinkles: A Love Story. If you can see.
2895073 It's not on your list of stories.
2895082 Oh. I forgot. It is not quite 1000 words. Let me work on it. hang on.
2893735>>2892117since i'm lazy and would like to respond to both of you, i'll do this. i'd like to let you both know that i'm not thinking of giving this story of mine, or quite possibly any story of mine that i might or might not submit onto this site, any kind of story cover. the reason behind this is because of the whole "judging a book by it's cover" thing. i'd rather have readers like and find my stories because of the ideas/characters behind them than just the cover art. that doesn't mean that i wouldn't like any cover art at all. just too lazy.
2895543 ok, whatever you want to do Mush. Great story so far! Are you planning on having Ditzy in this story?
2895569alright. thanks for the words. to answer your question, let's just say...i have no idea of what i'm doing at all. this idea just randomly came to me. i know the main "cast" for it but not sure if ditzy will be included in more than just being mentioned or not.
I forgot to warn you; I'm a hard reviewer, so I'm very sorry if I'm too offensively truthful. There are many things I want to talk about here, but I don't want to overdo it. I'll just say the most important thing you'll want to address. You're story is suffering greatly from talking head syndrome. This is a situation where the writing is comprised mostly of dialogue and less of descriptions. The result hinders readers' ability to grasp the scene fully. Or causing them to see something else that wasn't intended.
For instance here:
Two unknown voices are speaking and they are in the clock tower, but I don't know that because in the last paragraph the setting was somewhere in outdoors Ponyville. Since the clock tower is described second, I can only assume it is an object and not a place, so that means that these two ponies are somewhere outdoors. Then there is the dialogue. I understand what really happened... They're fixing gears in a clock... But... I see two stallions preforming anal sex.
Mmmm... Haven't read yaoi in a while... Anyways, I think you'll want to fix with using more descriptions. K, bye, hope I helped.