Tech support

by IronHoofes

The Beginning

The peace of the night was always ending too quickly. All those silly little mares and stallions rushing about their work paying no attention to the past. Even the little school ponies didn't spare a second thought for what their teachers had to say. Thankfully there are a few that take time out of their lives to learn from the past so as not to make the same mistakes. Usually my only company out here in the royal gardens is the gardener but this evening I had a guest of a different caliber. My old friend was walking these grounds with eyes both wide and filled to the brim. It hurt to see her like this so I decided to do something about it.

Luna was sitting in front of the Starswirl the bearded statue as I quietly approached. I could hear her crying and sobbing out, "Why did it have to be like this? Why did I have to give in? Why..."

I reached out and put my hoof upon her shoulder as I said, "We aren't all gone Lu. I still have your back just like I did 1000 years ago."

A cloud covered the moon as she turned to me. "Vic? Is it really you? How could it be? Oh what does it matter! You're here and you remember me," she put her legs around my neck in a tight embrace which I merrily reciprocated.

The cloud moved out allowing the moon to shine brightly once more. Luna pulled back from me, asking, "Why are you so cold? What..." She trailed off now that she could see me better. Though the masons had done a masterful job, I was still just a block of stone with the memories of Victoria Fyrefly.

I smiled and replied, "Well Luna, the reason I am made of stone is so that I could live long enough to see you again. So I had Waldi animate this statue with my memories in it. Unfortunately he was only able to perform the spell once." Luna looked like some pony had kicked her in the gut. I could not blame her. After nearly 1000 years of this reception, I was used to it and frankly this is how I would have reacted if I hadn't met Diamond Shield during the War for the Crystal Empire.

The moon was already waning and our time was short. I looked Luna in the eye and said, "I know I'm not the same mare you knew a thousand years ago but if you have any questions please feel free to ask me. Unfortunately, I must be going. I can only be off my pedestal and moving for a couple minutes each day or I'll break the spell and we can't have that. I'll see you around Luna." I walked back to the pedestal taking a hold of my flag.

I turned back to Luna, "Oh by the way, Happy Birthday." With that I froze up. I could rest well knowing I had made Luna's day a little better.

"Vic, are you awake in there?" Some pony asked while knocking on my stone skull. They were making my head ring. I must have been off of my pedestal for way too long yesterday. I blinked trying to clear the haze from my eyes while stretching. I blinked a few more times and then looked for my noisy little head knocker.

Luna was sitting in front of my pedestal waiting for me. "Wow, you must have been really tired Vic."

"Well, yea, normally I don't go walking like that. It always puts a huge strain on the spell," I continued to stretch.

"Why don't we just stay here at your pedestal then. I have a couple of questions for you and only a couple minutes to ask them." Luna smiled as she pulled out what looked suspiciously like a notebook.

"I hope I have all of the answers for you." I knelt down so that I wouldn't be standing above my dear friend.

"Well first off, what the hay is a train for and how does it work?" Luna held up a picture of one of those fancy shmancy new locomotives. This was going to be a hard session if this was only her first question.

"Well ponies now a days need to travel farther faster, so they built a machine that would run for them."

"What is a 'machine' and how does it work?"

"Well, " I stopped to think for a couple moments, "a machine is a tool containing one or more parts that require energy to perform a specific action. Locomotives or trains use coal to heat water which steams and pushes the gears causing the train to move faster than a pony can run.”

“Oh, thank you Vic. Now I’ll sleep easier knowing how that machine works.”

“Glad that I could help, Lu.”

I smiled as she hurried away with the sun rising over the mountainside. I must have slept most of the night away. That’s when I heard something behind me. I spun to find a unicorn stallion sitting behind me intently watching. He was a little short for a stallion with a deep blue coat over which he was wearing a black cloak that covered him from the neck down. He also had curly black hair that wrapped underneath a Bowler hat that shaded his eyes so that you could only see their glimmer.

I asked, “Can I help you?”

He responded with a calm and cool tone, “Perhaps you can, perhaps you cannot, either one works fine for me. I just wanted to thank you for helping Luna. She is still adapting to this new world and needs all the support she can get.”

“Your, welcome?” I said not sure what this young stallion was trying to do.

He bowed his head and then turned to walk away. I called after him, “Who are you?”

“I’m nothing but an acquaintance, General," he said before disappearing in a flash leaving only a leather tome where he had stood just moments ago. I reached down lifting the heavy brown leather book to eye level. The title was "Mechanical devices of the 1000th year of the Celestial rule by Professor Twilight Velvet". Luna would probably be back tomorrow night with more questions but for every question she had I would have an answer, at least in a mechanical sense.

The hallway was dark except for a lone window rising high towards the vast ceiling. A cool breeze pushed through the hall rustling the cloak of the halls single occupant. A tall hooded equestrian watching out of the window. A flash of light pronounced the arrival of a second pony. The cloaked pony turned to the Bowler Hat stallion.

"Is she ready?" the figure in the shadows asked.

"It is hard to say, but I have done what I can to help her be ready. I worry about the spell though. It will not last much longer," the Bowler hat stallion said.

"Seek Twilight Velvet and acquire her help in preparing the spell," the cloaked figure commanded.

"As you command," the stallion responded and with a flash he disappeared.

Author's Note:

This is the first section of this story and I'm looking for a little bit of Peer review. Thank you.

Comments

[poisonflame616]

an interesting story, I quite like how you're using one of the garden statues to help Luna

my only problem is the two stallions at the end, what their talking about seems, in the best way I could put it, like a soft echo
it's hard to tell if what they're planning is good or bad and hold no character development beside wearing hoods and a bowler hat

even the stallion who spoke to Victoria Fyrefly had more character development, he recognised Victorias rank and left something that might help Luna

all-in-all, I do hope to see more well written pages like this one and hopefully something about those two at the window

[IronHoofes]

5571115

Thank you. I will keep in mind exactly how ambiguous I make my mystery characters.

[Xanni]

A tomb and a tome are very different! :)