Ms. Minuette and her Work
The day of the grand reopening, like the days before it, began with the worst possible wake-up call: a shop full of clocks simultaneously activating their alarms. "I'll never get used to this,” a groggy Colgate said into her pillow. Eventually, she was forced to surrender to the will of bells, chimes, and buzzers, and arose to start the day.
She carefully descended the stairs as she ate an apple, and walked to the wall of alarm clocks, her bronze magic aura surrounding the clocks one by one, switching off the ones functioning properly, and moving the dysfunctional clocks to the side as she walked towards the entrance, until, all clocks inspected and deactivated, she flipped the sign to “Open” and unlocked the door. She stifled a yawn as she went to get some coffee cake she had in the kitchen, then took a seat behind the sales counter, the fork methodically transporting bites from plate to mouth.
The silver bell signaled the arrival of the mailmare. “Mmm mph mm, mm-mph!”
“Morning, Ditzy.” Colgate greeted.
“Derpy.” The mailmare corrected automatically after she deposited the pile of letters, “Say, where’s the Doctor?”
Colgate shrugged, “Oh, he’s probably out wandering Equestria, doing what he does.”
“That’s nice of him!” Derpy said with a beaming smile, “Well, have a good day, Colgate!”
“Wait!” Colgate said. It had been a lonely few days, filling out paperwork to take over the business and perform minor renovations. Trixie had been present, sure, but you can’t really talk with Trixie. “Would you like a muffin?” The unicorn offered.
Derpy considered, “Nah, I’m not really in a muffin mood today, and I’m falling behind. See you later!” With that, the mailmare left, leaving behind only the gently tinkle of the bell. Colgate finished her breakfast,turned to look at one of the many clocks, and began to count under her breath. “Three… Two… One…”
“Have no fear! Trixie, your Great and Powerful assistant, is here!”
Trixie was certainly punctual if nothing else. “Good morning, Trixie.” Colgate replied softly, “You don’t need to say that every time you come in, you know.”
“Bah, you’re just jealous of the copious amount of style Trixie puts into even the most boring of actions.”
Colgate merely rolled her eyes. “Could you please move the broken clocks down to the workshop while you boast?”
“Trixie does not boast!” the mage said as she took up the three clocks that had failed the alarm test, trotting past Colgate, “She merely explains herself in the best possible terms.”
Colgate listened as the hoofsteps faded downward. “While you’re down there, mind sweeping up around the eggshell bags?” she called downwards. Trixie replied in the affirmative, and Colgate continued to stare at the door.
“So, I figured, what better way to cut down on the chatter than to give a time limit?” Merry May explained as she entered the shop with Blossomforth.
“But I like the chatter.” Blossomforth replied, “Airheart’s jokes are what make combat bearable!”
“Yes, but when you each take half-an-hour, on average, to declare your actions, it gets kind of annoying.” Merry May answered.
“It doesn’t take us half-an-hour,” said Blossomforth, defensively, “And I’m playing a unicorn sorceress! It takes a while to look up spells!”
“Hello, girls!” Colgate greeted the two, waving her hoof.
The two pegasi froze, and stared at her in wonder.
Colgate kept her friendly smile.
The two kept staring.
Colgate’s smile slowly turned from genuine to awkwardly forced.
“By Celestia’s cake kitchens, the doctor regenerated.” Blossomforth whispered to her friend.
Colgate was taken aback, “I’m sorry, what?”
“Into a filly? That can’t be right,” Merry May answered.
“I-I’m not the Doctor,” Colgate said with bafflement.
“What’s wrong with the Doctor regenerating into a mare?” Blossomforth gave the Game Master pony a suspicious look.
“Honestly, I’m just a unicorn.” Colgate continued, unheeded.
“I don’t know,” Merry May moved her head vaguely, “it just doesn’t seem quite right. Other Time Ponies, sure, but not the Doctor.”
“That’s sexist!”
“No, it’s reasonable!”
“Girls?” Colgate asked.
“Then what’s the reason?”
“Girls.” Colgate pleaded
Merry May shrugged, “Beyond me! It’s ineffable!”
“Oh, you don’t want the Doctor to be a filly because than you wouldn’t be able to-”
“Excuse me!” shouted Colgate, who knew she was neither now nor ever was The Doctor, “Look, first off, I am not Doctor Whoof, he’s just moved away. Second off, who you thought was the Doctor wasn’t actually the Doctor. Now, what can I help you with?”
The two fillies, argument interrupted, glanced between each other. “Uh, I was wondering if you made an hourglass that only does five minutes at a time?”
Colgate nodded. “Indeed I do. We also have ten-minute and half-hour increments, if you’re interested.”
Merry May considered these options, “Yes, those would be nice.”
Colgate helped pick out the products, and rang up the bill, accepted the bits, and sent the two on their way.
“So, what do you think her new code name is?” Blossomforth asked as they began to leave, “I mean, it was Colt Smith before, right?”
“No, it was Time Turner before,” Merry May answered, “Colt Smith just sounds dumb.”
Then Colgate was left to her bewilderment. She’d known them both for years! Tartarus, she once even sat in on one of their Courseseeker sessions! How could they confuse her for… Colgate shook it off. It was just one incident. It didn’t necessarily mean anything worrying. It was just two random ponies after all.
It wasn’t like it would spread.
The phone rang.
“Trixie, can you get that?” Colgate asked the unicorn as she came up from the workshop.
Trixie, grumbling slightly, went to do as she was told. “It’s the mayor,” she said after taking the call and hanging up, “She broke her clock, and wants somepony to fix it.”
“Can you handle the store while I’m out?” Colgate asked as she took up a saddlebag with tools, “Just charge what’s on the tag, and don’t haggle.”
“What sort of foal do you take me for?”
Colgate pointed at the magician as she backed out the door, “No haggling.”
“Fine,” sighed Trixie.
Ponies shuffled aside as she walked forth, whispering amongst themselves.
“Is that who I think it is?”
“What’s she up to?”
“Can’t be too important, she’s not running-”
“Good grief! Lyra and I are just good friends.”
“Does she have her screwdriver?”
“Where’s her box?”
Some stole glances, some subtler than others, while others pointedly kept their eyes away. Here and there, stories of Doctor Whoof began to slide from the tongues of ponies to the ears of their friends. This was all rather peculiar to Colgate as she made her way to town hall. From the corner of her eye, she saw a young filly get pushed to her side.
“Uh… excuse me?” The small yellow filly said once she found her nerve.
“Yes?’ Colgate asked with a kind a smile.
“I… was just wondering…” The filly began, tapping her hooves together slowly, “If you need a companion, Doctor, ma’am.”
No. Colgate thought. This is not happening. Not to me. Colgate backed away from the prospective Companion as she said, “Sorry, Sunny Daze, but you’re far too young for such things.” Then, realizing it might be important to note, “Also, I am not Doctor Whoof. Now if you don’t mind, I’m late, and I really need to run.”
As she fled, Colgate could hear Sunny Daze return to her friends cheering, “She knew my name! The Doctor knew my name!”
“Oooh!” The two other foals oohed. “You must be important!” one of them said.
“For goodness sakes, I helped with your talent show act!” Colgate gave one last attempt to invoke reason before she finally galloped off.
“Madam Mayor, Doctor Whoof to see you.”
“No!” Colgate, twitching eye keeping perfect time, said as she entered, “I am not the Doctor.”
“Oh, right, Time Turner.” The secretary said with a wink, and left.
Colgate looked to the Mayor. “You remember me, right? Minuette? Colgate? Lived here for years?”
“Yes, yes, come in, Colgate.” The Mayor said, confused at the need for recognition, “You’re the Doctor’s companion, right?”
“Sepia’s apprentice,” Colgate corrected, then re-corrected, “Former apprentice. I own the clock store now.”
“Oh, good for you, dear!” The mayor said cheerily, “About time the Doc stopped pretending he was the talent there, eh?”
“Yes, sure. Now, about your clock?” The Mayor pointed, and Colgate set to work, placing the clock on a nearby table and opening the back. She donned her magnifier lens and checked the intricate mechanizations. “So, what’s the problem?” she asked.
“It’s been running slow again,” answered the mayor as she poured over the Winter Wrap-up preparation files, “It’s been losing a minute a day.”
Colgate examined the inner designs, “Ah, yes, looks like the spring’s been over stretched,” she observed, “it’ll need to be replaced.”
“So, another month without a clock then?” the mayor asked with complete sincerity.
Colgate opened her saddle bag and pulled out a new spring, “No, it’ll just take a moment. I suspected this’d be the case. I suggest you instruct your secretary to stop winding it as often so the spring lasts longer,” she instructed as her magic made quick work of the repair.
The mayor made a note and tapped it to the clock, “How much do I owe you this time, dear?”
“Eight bits,” Colgate answered, and then accepted her payment with a nod, and began to leave.
The secretary waved as Colgate left, “See you around, Doctor!”
Colgate tried her best not to hear.
“Come one, come all, to Minuette’s Timepiece Shoppe! Home to the greatest clocks money can buy!” Trixie shilled as Colgate returned, “We have wall clocks, mantelpieces, watches, and more! All your time telling needs all under one roof!”
“Trixie, what’re you doing?” Colgate asked.
“Trixie merely is trying her best to distinguish our great store from our humdrum competitors,” Trixie answered and preached to passersby at once.
“Trixie,” Colgate said in a reasonable tone, “this is the only clock shop in town. Our nearest competitor is in Canterlot.”
“Yes, and wouldn’t it be a shame if some foolish pony decided to go all the way there for a dull, sub-quality hack job?”
“Yes, considering they’d have to pay train fare just to get to Synchronome’s,” Colgate replied, “Also, where did you get that stage you’re standing on?”
Trixie automatically looked down at the platform she was standing on, set up in front of her workplace. “A performer is always prepared,” she answered simply.
“Trixie, will you please go inside before you scare off any more customers?”
“Scare off customers, you say? Please, while I, Trixie, have been standing here, ponies have purchased more than half your current stock. Trixie was afraid she’d have the entire store emptied before you returned, and would be forced to find other purposes for this stage.”
Colgate froze at the front door. “Trixie, you didn’t haggle, did you?”
“Well, of course I did!” Trixie replied, “How could Trixie not exploit her amazing charisma to our mutual benefit?”
Colgate didn’t even bother to get angry and instead rushed inside to cheat the economic damage. “Did you at least have the decency to write down the transactions?”
“Of course I did, I’m not stupid,” Trixie replied, following in after Colgate, “Though, I must say, the ledger is a mess of loose pages, wayward tabs, and what appears to be notes on some sort of odd lamp and clock crossbreed.”
“It’s an oil-lamp clock,” Colgate said offhoofedly as she examined the ledger, “Sepia designed it one night when he was supposed to be balancing this thing.”
“Anyways, Trixie was forced to give up on it, so she just wrote the item number and its final sale price down on this sheet of paper,” the magician said as she levitated the mentioned record to Colgate, who cross examined it with the production records to find, to her amazement, that Trixie had managed to double the overall profits.
“Of course!” Trixie said with her chest puffed up when Colgate mentioned it, “Trixie is nothing if not manipulative and devious!”
“Yet she finds herself working here…” Colgate murmured to herself as she attempted to translate Trixie’s record into the ledger, then gave up and just stuffed the paper between the appropriate pages. “Right,” Colgate said as she put the ledger into the counter safe, “since you managed to devastate the amount of inventory, I suppose somepony will have to make more!”
“Must you refer to yourself indirectly? It’s quite tacky,” scolded Trixie.
Colgate ignored the criticism as she entered the workshop, and examined the available materials. She was almost out of gears, had only three pounds of unused tin, and was entirely out of rods. The bag of ground eggshells was overflowing, while the marble and silica sands were barely worth mentioning. “Hey, Trixie, we need more materials!”
“Alright, where do we get them?”
Colgate froze, face examining the silica. A shiver slithered up her spine. Where does one get gears? Sand probably could be ordered from a rock farm, but she hadn’t an idea where the nearest one of those was. Would rock farms also have the metal needed for casings? Colgate began to search for clues. The bags were unlabeled, so that was unhelpful, and the boxes that hold the gears and rods currently were a meticulously organized series of drawers, with the shipment cardboard having been recycled long ago. There were no receipts, and she dreaded having to delve deeper into the eldritch tome of store finance that was the ledger. “Hey, Trixie, I think we may have a problem…” Colgate said as she made her way to the main floor.
“Well, I hope this special order from a,” Trixie squinted at the newly arrived letter, “Zecora cheers you up then!” Trixie said with a forced smile as she presented the letter to her boss, who took it and read.
Heaving a light sigh, Colgate took an appropriate clock off the shelf and placed it in a saddlebag. “Do me a favor while I’m out: see if you can figure out where the nearest rock farm is, and who produces gears and stuff.”
Trixie gave an earnest salute as her boss left.
Hours later, the front door slowly swung open and Colgate limped into the store. Her mane was a mess and entwined with blue flowers, her eyes staring miles away.
“Uh… you okay there, boss?” Trixie asked, looking up from her magazine.
“You know what I hate about the Everfree Forest, Trixie?” Colgate asked, as she deposited her saddlebag on the counter, the remains of the clock spilling out, “Everything. I hate everything about the Everfree Forest. Nothing good comes from there.”
“Well, you look like you survived,” Trixie commented as she returned her attention to the magazine.
“I was chased by Timberwolves into a dragon’s lair, who took offense and ran me out,” Colgate told her story as she absent-mindedly began to repair the broken clock, “the dragon was stopped by a cockatrice. Then, while trying to find the path, I met an Ursa Major.”
“You sure it wasn’t an Ursa Minor?” Trixie asked, “They’re easy to confuse.”
Colgate just shook her head, “I can’t remember anything between then and getting back to town. So, what did you find out while I was gone?”
“Uh…” Trixie began, scratching her ear and avoiding Colgate’s eye, “I tried my best, but I kind of chickened out before I got to the library, and spent my time at a newsstand.”
Colgate nodded slowly, still dazed, “Good, good, amazing job.” Then the unicorn limped back towards the door, “I’m going to go see a doctor now.”
“Do you need me to go with you?”
“Uh… no, I can make it by myself, but thank you, Trixie.”
The door shut carefully behind Colgate.
The door carefully opened as Colgate peeked back in.
“Say, Trixie?”
“Yes, boss?”
“I can’t remember which way is up,” admitted the clocksmith, “Also, I’ve seemed to have misplaced my wings.”
“Do you need me to help you to the doctor’s?”
“Yes please.”
Colgate sat behind the sales counter, deep in thought, hooves held steeped before her. She’d got her leg bandaged, and took some medicine for the concussion. She shouldn’t have been as deep in thought as she was, but she had decided to temporarily ignore doctor’s orders for the good of her and the Clock shop’s mutual futures. Trixie busied herself dusting the shelves.
Colgate really didn’t want to admit it, but she’d gotten in over her head. She could fabricate the gears and rods, but that would take time, and she would still need to figure out where to purchase the metals. Further, she feared she would never be capable of deciphering the ledger, which she had slid carefully out of sight where it couldn’t cause anypony harm. Further, a certain name now taunted her where ever she went. The doctor’s comment about how great it was to treat such a respected compatriot especially worried her. She came to three conclusions: One, she was not remotely prepared for small business ownership; Two, she was not prepared to find herself suddenly catapulted into the central role of local mythology; and finally, deep down she missed her dearest friend and teacher.
She slammed her hooves down onto the counter, “Trixie! Bring me paper and quill!”
“You already have them in front of you,” commented the magician as she attacked the box of outdated watches with her feather duster.
Colgate peered downward, and took the objects, and began drafting her letter, expressing her frustrations, her worries, and forgiving the future recipient for his faux pas.
“Trixie, I have come to a decision,” Colgate said, placing the letter into an envelope, “if things keep going the way they are, I’ll be bankrupted in a week.”
Trixie just gave the apprentice clockmaker a look of worry, “You probably should be sleeping that concussion off, Colgate.”
“No, this is more important,” Colgate said as began to head to the post office, “I am not remotely fit to be Doctor Whoof. We need to get Sepia back.”
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Interesting. One wonders if the clock shop is cursed or something, that ponies who've known Colgate all their lives are getting a bit silly around her. Does that mean, perhaps, that Sepia Tock isn't being called Doctor Whooves?
Sepia could stop people from calling him the Doctor by saying he loves Daleks
1077570
yet his dad never got called doctor whoof
1077584
i'm not sure he's that aware of the mythos.
1077604
So... is this just for the authorial lulz, or is there any sort of reason behind the ponies acting like this?
1077616
the way i see it, the old doctor (sepia) vanished, and a new pony is suddenly running his shop. i doubt the ponies of ponyville really pay that close attention to the actual buisness ends of the clockshop, and assumed the multifaced time lord got a new face.
also, i need a way to get to end of the chapter, and colgate suddenly being thrown into the role seemed appropriate.
also, i thought it'd be funny.
This chapter was hilarious.
Derpy not wanting a muffin!
I smell changeling. 
Braggy but relatively good intentioned Trixie is best Trixie! I loved pretty much every scene with her. Especially...
“You sure it wasn’t an Ursa Minor?” Trixie asked, “They’re easy to confuse.”
“I tried my best, but I kind of chickened out before I got to the library, and spent my time at a newsstand.”
and
“Must you refer to yourself indirectly? It’s quite tacky,”
As for Colgate. Poor, poor Colgate. Bad enough she doesn't know where to get more supplies or her disastrous journey through the Everfree. But nearly every pony in town thinking she's the Doctor. Despite the fact that she's been his assistant for how long now?
Twilight is right. Every pony in the town IS crazy.
1077605
well his friends who don't confuse him with the Doctor could know
1077670 Yeah, you've pretty much covered it.
Yeesh, poor Colgate.
Whee! here's to updates moustaches for all!
Ahem.
Okay, under control now. i'm really liking how this story is shaping up. From the characters and the callbacks to previous chapters (The Mayor's clock) and to the inner workings of the clock shop. Definitely looking forward to more.
Glad to see Trixie being presented well, here. :) Also... I think the clock shop's got a curse on it. Yeah, curse.
Colgate... HA-HA!
How does she not know where she can get parts? She worked there for a long time, I can understand if Sepia did all of the orders, but still, how come he never taught his apprentice how to order more supplies? 
Keep up the good work. 
1112867
we're talking about a pony who never noticed colgate's actual name is minuette. he has his habits, and he fails to notice the little things.
1325657
i knew i kept you around for a reason. that's thing's perfect!
"but you can’t really talk with Trixie"
Haha! Too true xD
“Have no fear! Trixie, your Great and Powerful assistant, is here!”
Underdog!
“Must you refer to yourself indirectly? It’s quite tacky”
I laughed so hard at this xD
"Her mane was a mess and entwined with blue flowers"
Wait. She has Poison Joke... currently... sitting in her mane?
Sooo she's The Doctor now. Ouch. Hello, "Romana"
Not much to correct on this one, but I'll nitpick on it anyway.
> “Girls.” Colgate pleaded
Forgot a period at the end behind "pleaded".