Chapter 1
Eager Eye slowly opened his eyes and found the morning light shining into his face. Unable to bring himself to wake up just yet, he closed his eyes once again, praying that sleep comes quickly that he might be able to squeeze in a few winks more. As luck would have it, however, at that moment he heard a rooster in the distance, signaling the arrival of the dawn.
Grudgingly, Eager Eye forced his eyes open again. Ever since he had started working at the new factory, he had learned that this rooster's call marked the time when he must absolutely wake up or risk being late. He had incurred many lateness penalties to gain this knowledge, and he wasn't about to let it go to waste.
Rolling onto his stomach, Eager realized that he has woken up on the floor, having rolled out of bed once again. Thank Celestia, he thinks to himself, that I decided to get a cloud home. Otherwise, I would probably have brain damage by now.
It was likely due to his dreaming, though, that he found himself sprawled on the cloudy carpet on more mornings than not. Eager had always been an overactive dreamer, and his dreams usually involved grand adventures filled with intrigue and excitement. As a young colt, he had constantly skipped out of classes to go flying around Cloudsdale, searching for hidden treasure in the fresh cumulus clouds and pretending that he was being hunted by the birds. Eager smiled fondly as he recalled one particularly blustery winter where he had found a hailstone as big as his hoof in a cloud before it had fallen. He had taken it home as a souvenir of his adventure, treasuring it as if it were an orb of polished gold. Of course, his father, who was a weather Pegasus, scolded him for interfering with the precipitation that day, and though his mother argued in his defense that it was just a single hailstone, Eager was told that he had to put it back.
Eager Eye signed, standing up and stretching out his sleep-weary legs. Those days as a colt were behind him now. He had only just become a full-fledged adult Pegasus, and he had been living on his own for less than a month. He worked at a promising new candy factory, where job openings were in high demand. He had to work hard and ask his father to pull some strings to get his position, and he couldn't risk botching it all up just because of his youthful fantasies.
Eager showered, ate a modest breakfast, and donned his work uniform. It was, for the most part, a plain outfit, consisting only of a vest that clasped in the front. It would be almost completely devoid of mention were it not for the fact that it was colored with the most vivid of pinks and accented with lines of blue and yellow. Eager supposed that it had to do with the eccentric nature of the factory's owner that the colors were so brazenly intense. It was always with a hint of amusement that he wore it every day.
Cleaned and prepared, Eager walked to his front door and opened it wide. The sky was blanketed with a layer of pure white clouds that showed little danger of precipitating, as though the Pegasi on weather duty today couldn't decide whether it was going to be a happy day or a depressing one. The copper-toned trees beneath his house were lit by the diffuse light finding its way through the overcast, and there was little to be seen in terms of shadows. Eager had always loved this weather, where it was cool enough to be refreshing, but not so cold that one had to worry about bundling up. He took a deep breath, and his lungs filled with the fresh autumn air. Feeling rejuvenated, he closed his door, secured his home, and took off into the wind.
It was not a long flight from his house to the factory, but it did give him time to reacquaint himself with his thought processes from the previous days at work. The factory was, in simplified terms, a giant candy and pastry factory. It mass-produced all kinds of exotic cakes, muffins, donuts, gumdrops, lollipops, and a hundred other things that ponies from all around could enjoy. It was headed by a former party pony known as Pinkie Pie. Eager Eye had never actually met her in person, but from rumors and descriptions he had heard – not to mention the bizarre color scheme of his uniform – that she was quite the crazy headcase. Still, she was the president of one of the biggest and most famous factories in the food industry, so Eager figured she had to be doing something right.
The factory's silhouette grew larger and more defined as Eager Eye drew closer, but he could smell the factory long before he recognized it as more than a hazy blot in the distance. The dancing aromas of chocolate and frosting interwove with the scent of baking pumpkin bread. Eager had been working at this factory for several weeks now, but he was no closer to being used to the smell as he was when he had first arrived. It was an overpowering smell, and it filled him heart and soul with a gently spreading warmth. It always took several elated moments before Eager Eye remembered how to exhale.
As he landed in the courtyard before the front gates, he took one last glance up at the factory. There weren't many offices in the building, but what really inspired awe were the production facilities. There were three main facilities, all of which looked as if they could contain all of Canterlot Castle. Eager could see little trails of white vapor trailing out of the many chimney pipes that littered the rooftops. Every once in a while, he thought he could see a little burst of pink light emanating from one of the exhausts. It made him curious as to what could cause that light to appear, but he resisted the urge to fly up and investigate further. The factory, he was told, had some well guarded secrets that were so precious, anyone caught snooping around in unauthorized areas were severely punished.
Instead, Eager walked through the threshold of the large wooden front gates into the reception area. Here, he could see a great number of ponies forming lines in front of distribution stalls. The factory shipped much of its wares to grocers around Equestria, but they always offered a select stock to sell here at the main headquarters. It was an odd decision to Eager, but he couldn't argue with the results, as some of the lines snaked almost out the door. As he continued through to the back of the room toward the employee's gateway, he tried to zone out the rumble of the crowd. Instead, he once again directed his attention toward his thoughts. He remembered his task that he had been given the day before, which was to evaluate the current throughput of the cupcake line and see if they were on track to meet their weekly quota. As it was the middle of the week already, he had to finish his evaluations today, so if he discovered they were behind schedule, there would still be time to make some changes to the workflow and catch back up.
He recalled the observations he had made at the end of his last shift. At first glance, it had appeared that they were well on course for meeting the quota, but he remembered that a deeper inspection revealed a slight pause that surfaced at the frosting machine. Because his department only had a handful of machines to put the frosted toppings on the cupcakes, they had to be reconfigured every time a cupcake called for a different kind of frosting. The reconfiguration didn't take long and it usually wasn't an issue, but the orders for cupcakes this week called for an unusual number of differently topped cupcakes, and the downtime for reconfiguration was beginning to take its toll. Eager had been on the losing end of a brainstorming session for figuring out a solution when his previous work day had ended, but he hoped that, with a fresh mind and a new day, his team would be able to come up with more promising ideas.
He was in the middle of his thoughts when he bumped into a mare in line, knocking the basket she was holding to the floor. Jostled back into reality, he turned to face the bluish-gray, straw-maned Pegasus whom he had collided with. He quickly opened his mouth to offer an apology, but was taken slightly aback when he looked at her eyes. They were bright orange eyes that pointed in different directions, so that Eager couldn't tell if she was looking at him or at the ceiling.
Eager regained his composure. “Sorry, miss,” he said, making careful note to talk professionally. “Are you okay?”
The mare tilted her head and smiled. “I'm fine, thank you,” she said happily. “How about you, mister?”
“I'm... also fine,” Eager replied. He was taken slightly aback at her bubbly response.
“Oh, that's a relief,” the mare said, looking more and more friendly with each passing second. “I bump into ponies a lot, so I need to make sure they're okay, too.”
Eager was not used to being treated with such open happiness by the customers in the reception area. He was usually treated with indifference at the best of times, but sometimes he had the misfortune to run into a disgruntled customer who seemed to want to talk Eager's ears off with their complaints about how the factory had wronged them in some way and how it was somehow Eager's fault. It was because of these interactions that Eager had given up socializing with the customers on the first day, instead just turning his gaze to no one in particular and trying his best to be invisible until he could get through the employee doors.
Eager noticed that the basket was still lying on the ground. He picked it up and offered it back to the mare.
“Oh, thanks, mister,” she said, accepting the basket and placing it at her side, her eyes twinkling as if the basket was woven by Princess Celestia herself.
Eager noticed that the basket was full of fresh crumbs. He looked at the booth where the line was stationed and saw that they were in the muffin line.
“So you're here for the muffins, I take it?” Eager asked, trying not to look awkward under the mare's warm gaze.
“Oh right!” she beamed. “The muffins today are really good, I just had to come back for more.”
“You mean this is your second time in line?” Eager asked.
“Nope,” she responded matter-of-factly. “Sixth.”
Eager tried to wrap his head around someone liking muffins so much that they would get five basket-fulls of muffins and still be coming back for more.
“That's... impressive, miss,” he finally managed to say. “I knew the muffins were good, but I didn't know they were that good.”
“All muffins are that good, mister,” the mare said. “Well, unless they aren't that good, but I've learned to always try one muffin before I get more. You know,” the mare dropped to a whisper and glanced around. “Just in case.”
Eager furrowed his eyebrows in curiosity. “Just in case of what?”
“In case they are... baked bads.” She shuddered as she said those last words, as if she were uttering some kind of forbidden curse.
Eager just stared at the mare in wonder. Could she be for real?
“Anyway,” the mare continued. “You don't need to worry about these muffins, mister. I've checked them out myself, and they are one hundred percent guaranteed to be baked goods.”
“Thank you...” Eager Eye said, still confused at the mare's demeanor. “I will keep that in mind.”
With a glance back at the employee's entrance, Eager remembered that he needed to get to work. “Well, I need to go and clock in. Lot's of... um... baked goods to make today.”
The mare nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, yes,” she said. “There certainly are.”
“Well, nice meeting you, miss.”
Eager turned to leave, but the mare stopped him.
“Wait, mister, you never told me who you were,” she said, looking concerned.
“Oh, um, Eager Eye,” he told her. “My name is Eager Eye.”
“That's a nice name,” the mare said, back to her bubbly self. “My name is -”
The mare's late introductions were cut short by a call from the muffin booth. Apparently, Eager had been talking to the mare for long enough that she was at the front of the line. Looking behind them, Eager noticed some angered expressions from the other ponies; it seems that they had been in front for a while.
“Oh, right, right,” the mare said, grabbing her basket and jumping forward. “Two dozen muffins please!”
Eager stood still as a statue, baffled at the mare. He wanted to say something, to point out that he still didn't know her name. But it seemed she was completely transfixed on the muffins being placed into her basket. It wasn't likely that he would have her attention again any time soon. As she trotted out of the reception area with her basket full of muffins, Eager smiled and shook his head. For an amusing moment, he entertained the possibility that maybe she didn't know her name either.
Some frustrated remarks and a prod to the back reminded Eager that he was still holding up the line. He stepped out of the way of the other ponies and turned toward the employee's entrance once again, allowing the torrent of customers to flow once more. He kept thinking about the mare, and about how unworldly her level of blissful happiness seemed to be. He could hardly believe that such a mare could exist, but in a way, knowing that she did was enough to brighten his day. It was always refreshing to meet a new friendly face, and even the knowledge that he probably wouldn't see her again wasn't enough to dampen his now high spirits.