The Elements Of Love

by Patience

Of Pegasi and Planes

Steam Wing galloped along the length of the Canterlot walls. A strange contraption on his back rattled as he picked up speed. Periodically he would do a little hop, grunting as he went. Two guards were tailing him shouting at him to halt and the like, but he wasn't having any of that. Two guards were on the path ahead of him, barring his path, if he didn't do something soon he was going to crash right into them.

"Sir, he doesn't look like he's gonna stop." An armor clad stallion shuffled nervously next to his superior. A lone, cyan and midnight blue, assailant was sprinting at them with something odd on his back.

"Hold yer ground."

Moments passed in silence.

"Sir."

"I said hold yer ground!"

"But he might knock us off the wall." The guard gulped and peered over the edge, 50 or more hooves of solid stone wall leading to a abrupt met with the stone pathways, spelling sure death.

"Then so be it!" His superior spat.

The strange trespasser was only yards away and showing no sign of slowing.

"Sorry boys!" Steam shouted to the awaiting guards, "But not today!"

Steam suddenly changed direction and leaped off the wall, towards the city.

The guards sprung forward to watch him fall to his death, only to witness the strange device on his back spring open, revealing a glider. He swooped low over the city street, gentlecolts and mares gasped as he swept past them. The drama of his escape was short lived though. The tip of one of the glider's wings snagged the corner of a stand and sent him careening out of control and into the city wall.

"Serves ye right!" The gruff guard on the wall began to guffaw at his misfortune.

---

---

Steam Wing plopped the contraption strapped onto his back onto the concrete floor. Across the floor were past reminders of tests gone wrong. Oil stains and scorch marks were scars from battles, battles between Storm Wing and his creations. He would fight by creating contraptions and machines and they would fight by exploding, leaking or otherwise failing. On one such occasion his machina almost outright won bringing a bitter end to its master.

Storm Wing grimaced as he thought about the time he had almost died. Black smoke billowed from the machine situated in the center of the room.

"No, no, no!" Steam shouted in vain. "Work damn you!" He bucked the machine.

The Machine's response was to belch out more smoke.

Holding a foreleg to his mouth Steam trotted behind the machine. All he had to do was kick loose the fuel line and it would stop. He started coughing and his eyes began to water profusely. He couldn't see the fuel line through the smog. In fact his vision was starting to blur, he could barely see at all. He swatted at the smog, ushering it, to where he did not know, but he wanted it gone. His cough worsened. He turned around and started bucking the machine. His heart was racing. Why was it doing that? He coughed more, lights danced in front of his eyes with each spasm. He went to buck once more. He missed his mark and his legs flailed away from him. He fell onto his stomach and couldn't find the strength to stand.

He was tired... Oh so tired.

Darkness.

Steam lurched awake. He was outside the front of his house. An old stallion stood over him.

"Are you listening to me boy!?" The old stallion shouted at him. Steam was dazed and unable to grasp at his senses, he couldn't understand the old stallion.

"I said, " The old stallion boxed Steam upside the head with his hoof. Steam's senses came into sharp focus. "Are you listening to me"

"Yah, yah you old codger." Steam waved him off. "What makes you think it's ok to hit me upside the head like that?" Steam consciously rubbed the new and sore lump on the back of his head.

"What makes you think it's ok to run a gas engine without proper ventilation. If I came home minutes later you would have been dead."

Steam sighed.

"Yah, yah, 'Cooper', I get it, you old softie, without me around you'd die, whatever." Steam waved him off once more.

Copernicus was flabbergasted.

"You listen here you rascal. I'm about as soft as a brick wall! I'm sorry if I don't want to drag your lifeless corpse to the morgue one day!"

Steam stood before the machine that had almost killed him. Since that day he never ran it without opening the large bay door.

Copernicus was an old railway engineer. He knew quite a lot about engineering and locomotives and lived in the building used to service the locomotives. Steam had abandoned Cloudsdale Flight School, and came to live in the streets of Canterlot. 'Cooper' Copernicus had found him scrounging and after seeing his cutie mark, offered him a place to stay.

Steam looked back at the mark that occupied his flank. A simple brass gear with a pair of brass wings jutting out of it. He got it while doing a project for school. He wanted to make a way for earth and unicorn ponies to fly. He was just a colt then. He thought if you could just strap wings onto the back of a unicorn and make them flap the unicorn could fly, but his class partner was an earth pony and didn't have access to magic so they went to the library and found numerous books about flying, one in particular was about the concept of flying machines to carry earth ponies and unicorns. The concepts contained in it were abandoned long ago but by the end of the three weeks they were given they had a very amusing contraption and Steam had a cutie mark.

A radio flyer (Steam thought the wagon's name was very endearing to the project.) with wings on its side fixed up with gears and springs and the like that made the wings flap when it rolled forward. Him and his friend never achieved flight with the contraption but they still got A's and Steam picked up a love for making machines.

Steam dragged the glider to the corner of the room, where he leaned it against the wall. He sat down in the nearby bench and picked up a fountain pen with his hooves. He began to scrawl onto the parchment. He needed to refine the controls for the glider.

---

Twilight Sparkle and Luna came into existence in the center of Canterlot Square. The ponies around them gasped and shuffled away nervously while simultaneously trying to bow to the sudden appearance of Royalty.

It had only been moments since Twilight suggested they started looking for someone studious that might be 'Excited to know' at Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns. It had only been moments less since Luna decided to spontaneous teleport them both to Canterlot.

"Princess, a warning was in order." Twilight grumbled as she picked herself up off the ground. She was not expecting to be thrown across time and space to Canterlot and did not get the chance to brace for their landing.

"I apologize Twilight! It is just that I am so eager!" The night princess bore a smile so wide that Twilight dismissed her grumpiness.

"Right. Uh but," Twilight look around. "This isn't the school."

Luna looked around. Shuffling her wings.

"W- I mean, I must have misjudged the landing. Ok, I'll get us there this time!" Her horn lit up but then cries of fear came from the market place. Luna let go of her magic and she looked to Twilight.

"What does thou think that was about?" Luna pondered aloud.

"Lets go see, Princess."

Twilight and Luna made their way toward the disturbance in time to see a disgruntled cyan and midnight blue Pegasus sprinting off scene. Something crumpled under his wing and the crowd dissipating.

"Odd." Twilight mused, then waved down a shopper. "Miss! Um, yes, what was that screaming just now about?"

"That young stallion there leaped off the wall and some strange thing on his back opened up and made him fly a bit, but then he crashed. Strange stallion that one," The woman continued when she saw Twilight's confused look, why does a healthy looking Pegasus need a device to fly. "He can fly just as well as any Pegasus but he insisted on using that thing. Why if he just flapped his wings he would not have crashed." She pointed a hoof towards the wall, "He hit right there." and departed.

Twilight went to investigate the crash site. A guard stood over a something the Pegasus had left behind.

"I think we should return whatever this is to the stallion, Princess." Twilight turned to Luna. "It is just odd. We teleport and end up here just in time to witness this."

"I agree Twilight! There has to be some kind of guiding passion behind this stallion. He knew he was going down but he didn't lift a wing to avoid it. He must be determined to achieve his goal," Luna looked at the broken scrap on the ground. "Even if I don't quite understand it."

A few words later and Luna and Twilight made off with the liberated scrap and some indication behind who the stallion was. The guards suspected the lad to be Steam Wing and informed the Princess that Steam lived in the train yards with an old train mechanic.

---

Steam stood over the glider. He had made most of the repairs needed after his crash landing but a critical piece was missing. The central housing had snapped clean off. The part of the glider that held the wings enclosed when they were not needed.

How irritating, he thought, he had just masterminded it and finished its design only days ago. It had taken him a whole day to punch and grind all of it pieces out of metal, and another day to put it all together. For it to just snap off when he wrestled his way out of the harness. He sighed but his irritation was to be short lived. From behind him came the sound of someone deliberately clearing their throat.

"Who's there!" Steam shouted as he turned abruptly, startling a mulberry colored unicorn and Princess Luna! "I didn't mean to scare you your highness!" He bowed low. What in Equestria was Princess Luna doing here?!

"Thou hast left this behind." Luna levitated the glider's housing to Steam.

Steam smiled wide as he saw the piece that has irked him appear before him. He pulled it out of the air and began looking over the extent of the damage.

Twilight had began to circle the engine in the middle of the room. To her it was interesting, she had never studied how the trains in Equestria had worked. She had always assumed magic, but looking the engine over she thought it was much too complex for a single unicorn to operate.

Steam watched Twilight as she stared down his engine. Steam snickered and flipped a switch on the wall. The engine roared to life, sending Twilight sprawling, shocked by the machines sudden animation, and it rumbled from its suspension. Smoke came from it in regular amounts and, from a learned lesson, it was beckoned from the room by fans.

After Twilight realized she was in no danger began the torrent of questions.

Instead of answering Twilight in the typical 'ask, answer, ask' Steam held up foreleg to stop Twilight and described his machine in detail.

"This engine does not use the same technology of the steam engines that run the trains." He pointed at a train that could be seen from the garage doors. "It instead burns combustible substances inside of cylinders fitted with airtight pistons. The heat from combustion expands the air in the cylinder and push the piston up, which rotates the crankshaft, the piston next to the first would repeats the motion, offset from the first to provide counter-movement to the first piston, resetting its positing in the cylinder and the process begins again. As long as there was fuel the pistons will rotate the crankshaft, and anything can be attached to the crankshaft. In fact the fans ventilating the room are connected to the engine." He folded his arms, proud of his work and his description of his engine.

Luna noted how this Pegasus doted on his work and his confidence. She also noted how the engine burned fuel.

"Why did you choose to not fly when you leapt off the wall with you contraption?" Luna asked him.

His eyes lost their focus and he fell into his thoughts. Why didn't he open his wings? He could have easily avoided the accident. Yet, using his wings would have skewed what he had learned. He saw the corner of the stand before he hit it. He knew opening his wings would have negated the crash and resulting damage. If he had though he would have never learned the design flaws in the glider's housing and he wouldn't have sat down to take the time to refine the glider's controls. He summed up his opinion and turned to the Lunar Princess.

"Passion," He said simply. "Passion, if I used my wings it would mess up what I learned from doing it. Certainty I could be safe and cautious, but how would I ever learn anything doing things the easy way?"

"Twilight I believe we have found the first." Luna said abruptly, turning to look at the Unicorn seriously.

"I think you are right Princess." Twilight looked back and forth from the Princess and Steam critically.

Steam backed away a fair bit, what did these strangers want with him?

"Could one of you perhaps clue me in?" Twilight stopped her advance.

"Uh, Princess, how are we going to expla-" Twilight was cut off by the Royal Canterlot Voice

"Thou must agree to speak of this to none other than myself and miss Twilight Sparkle! Dost thou swear!" Luna bellowed

Steam backed himself into a corner, eyes wide in fear.

Luna realized she might had gone a bit too far and toned down her voice.

"We, err, I, apologize, but this is a situation of utmost importance!" Luna continued.

"I won't tell a soul I swear! Just don't shout like that again!" Steam went on to grumble about perforated ear drums.

Satisfied Luna allowed Twilight to take her position before Steam to explain.

"Well the situation is this: the world is going to end and Luna thinks you have the power to stop it." Twilight said quickly. To Steam it sounded she believed in her own words as much as Steam did. He scoffed.

"Look ladies, it has been a wonderful evening, really, but I don't have time for this." He said turning his back to them, waving them off dismissively. What a sham. He didn't want to feed her ego, but he knew who Twilight Sparkle was, element of magic and all. To think she and the Princess would prance about acting like this.

He opened his sketch book and began to sketch down an idea that he had come to him after he hit the wall.

Twilight's mouth hung open. It was true she and Luna had barged in on him but for him to be so disrespectful to Princess Luna. She walked up behind him, intending to speak her mind, but then saw what he was sketching.

His ear twitched and he grumbled.

"Do you mind, I'm sure you don't appreciate it when others read over your shoulder." He said, ear flicking again.

"What is that?" Twilight, ignoring his less amicable response to her intrusion.

"I call it an aeroplane but most will tell you its hogwash." He waved a hoof dismissively. "It's only my life dream."

"It looks like a bird," Twilight replied, turning her head one way, and then another. "Is it supposed to fly?"

"That's the plan." Steam sighed, pushing the bench he was sitting on back away from the drawing desk. "I want to make it possible for Earth Ponies and Unicorns to fly, without magic. I read about similar attempts to create something flight capable while doing a project in school. Trying to create one for a school project got me my cutie mark. Ever since then getting the grounded into the sky has always been on my mind." He turned to look at Twilight and Luna. The looked a bit forlorn, Twilight not nearly as much as Luna. He scratched at the floor.

"Well I guess there won't be much call for an aeroplane if the world ends." He sighed submitting himself to what ever their crazy notions are.

Luna's eyes lit up and Twilight perked up a bit in response to Luna. It was clear to Steam that Luna was the mastermind of the world ending prophecy, Twilight was along for the ride, support or what have you. He turned to Luna.

"So what is going to happen and where do I come in?"

"I do not know. All I know is that I must find five others and assemble them. I ask that for now you move to Ponyville so that you are within quick contact by Twilight Sparkle and the other elements." Luna looked at Steam expectantly.

He shrugged, but Twilight quipped in.

"Princess isn't it asking much to make him move?"

"No worries," Steam butted in before Luna could respond. "Cooper knows the mechanic at the Ponyville station. A few words and I'll have a place to stay."

"You are willing to just get up and go?" Twilight asked Steam, surprised at his willingness.

"Sure," He replied. "As long as I can work on my projects it don't bother me any. Only person I'd be leaving behind is ol' Cooper but he'd scold me something fierce for turning away a Princess. I can work as a mechanic in Ponyville. Cooper has taught me enough and I can use the garage there to work on my plane."

With that Princess Luna and Twilight excused themselves as Steam Wing began to prepare.

Comments

[Patience]

I'm gonna make mention of one of my major pet peeves at this point.
COLOR!
Rainbow Dash is not cyan (click 'more info' under the portrait to see list of official colors)
Twilight Sparkle is not Lavender
That is all; not really
Once again, during this chapter I accidentally perspective swapped multiple times, I think I caught them all but probably not so please point out any errors =D.
i.imgur.com/AEsox.png
^Steam Wing
Due to a mistake this was posted early; (it was supposed to be only visible in the 2nd chapter comments) but I though 'what the hey' from now on I will drop A picture and name of the next in line before their chapter.

[werebrony]

Nice who and what is next for the M6?

[TwilightFox]

I'm liking this more than I thought i would... lol

One thing I noticed about chapter one that seemed a little "weak" was just *how* did Luna surmise that she had to find six ponies who were *not* the Mane 6? That first description sounded an awful lot like Twilight Sparkle, if you hadn't been told outright "it's not the Mane 6". If you clarified the reasoning behind that, I missed it.

[Patience]

I didn't really depict exactly what the prophecy entailed or how it was communicated to Luna; everything I have thought of so far have felt weak or out of character and I'm trying to avoid Deus Ex Machina so I can't really just make Luna 'see' a vision. I definitely need to revise both of my chapters so far, I haven't written much at all, ever, so this is going to be a slow and shaky climb.

So far I know for sure
Luna needs to be the patron of the Elements of Love; for her own development and because her Sister is the patron of the Elements of Harmony. The whole prophecy thing is just an attempt to rationalize her becoming their patron. Luna doesn't have much foreknowledge, unlike her sister when it came to the Elements of Harmony, nor does she have a faithful student she can just send out to tango with fate. Also I feel that Luna wouldn't be so trustworthy in the flow of fate as he sister seems to be, and would want to have more control or at least front row tickets to what is happening.

Steam Wing is the element of Passion and I know who hes getting shipped with.
I have most of the finer details of my next element ironed out but I'm trying to determine what element he directly represents; trust or respect and how either of those could be represented in the story.

[Moak]

1368664
Ooohh pick me :3 I finished year 12 last year and have been gaming, reading, ponying, and generally chillaxin for like 2 and a half months
Tis' awesome but I've not been doing much. If I can help someone whilst being a lazy ass then I will.
1403984
Psh, screw around with it. You think Luna won't do well because of some-reason or another. Just go with what feels good and if necessary, redo it later or ask the fan's what sort of a direction they would like to see it go in.
The more you write and the more you practice etc, the better you become (Cliche/cheesy I know but it works )

[Patience]

1920099
Oh my lol.
your welcome to help out but this story is kind of on a hiatus. I haven't really written anything new for it in a bit, but I'll probably pick back up on it once I release a big story I'm working on now: Patience Everlasting
The password is: "Patience is a virtue"
spaces but no quotes. Just be careful what you read because if it's not one of the chapters labeled "Scene 'x'" then it probably has heavy spoilers.

[Moak]

1921776
Yeah... I gathered just after I posted and looked up and saw that the last comment from anyone was like 13 weeks ago :3