A New Friend
Silver Spanner, Journeymare
Admiral Biscuit
For the EFNW Pre-Con writing contest
The house was a complete mess.
That was to be expected: a young couple from Canterlot had bought it, and wanted it modernized before they moved in. While the construction crew was there, they were also to go over it and repair anything that was sub-par.
The only major changes were the addition of two bathrooms—one on each floor. They'd been able to eke out enough space upstairs by converting a bedroom, but there simply hadn't been enough room on the ground floor, so they built a new addition off the kitchen, where it would be close to the plumbing.
All that had been done over the last couple of weeks, and the framing, walls, and roof of the addition were in place. Once the plumber installed the pipes and fixtures, they'd be able to finish the walls and the flooring.
Of course, while that was being done, they couldn't work in either of the bathrooms. Riven Oak, the foremare, had accounted for that when she’d come up with the master plan; the crew was working at the opposite end of the house while the plumber did her business.
Ambrosia and Rough Tumble were both in the living room, standing on rough-cut boards propped up on repurposed flour barrels. A leak in the old thatching had softened and cracked the plaster along the outside wall. Yesterday, they'd been upstairs, repairing floor joists; today, they were plastering. On the other side of the room, Square Cut had a stack of casing boards and rosettes to trim out the windows. Normally, she would have waited until the plasterwork and painting was done, but they were on a tight deadline.
"Last piece of lath," Rough commented, hoofing up a thin board from their own supply.
Ambrosia nodded, fitting it into position. Once she was satisfied, Rough passed her a hammer, and she tacked it in place before going back and driving the nails home. She shook her mane to dislodge the dust and small chunks of plaster which had rained down during the process and stepped back to examine her work. Although lathing wasn't a particularly finicky job, she took pride in having a neat, regular pattern to her work—even if nopony would see it when she was done.
"Get me a bucket of water," she instructed. "Then mix the plaster in. I'll clean up the lath while you’re doing that." She braced herself on the wall as he stepped off the makeshift scaffolding. It wobbled dangerously every time they moved, but it would take too long to erect a proper platform, so they just made do. At least a fall from this height wouldn't be terribly unpleasant. Still, it was times like these she wished she had wings, like their thatcher, Hazel Broach.
She took a wire brush out of her tool pouch and began scraping all the fuzz off the laths, closing her eyes each time she touched brush to wood. She'd tried wearing safety glasses, but it felt like they just channeled crud into her eyes, and hooves weren't very good at getting sawdust out.
“Surprised Tilly hasn’t been down here yet.” Ambrosia said.
“Went back to her shop.” Square stretched a tape along the side of the window and marked a board, continuing to talk around the pencil in his mouth. “She was supposed to get in some crystal lamps from Manehattan on the afternoon train—until she gets them, she’s got nothing to do.”
“Probably just wanted to spend some time with her coltfriend.” Ambrosia turned her head as she heard Rough walk back into the living room.
"Didja see the plumber?" Rough asked as soon as he'd set the water bucket on the floor.
"Nope. Been here since before you arrived. Late."
"I'm sorry! I already told you I fell in the creek on the way here when I had to jump out of the way of a wagon."
"That would only happen to you," Ambrosia muttered, cracking open an eye to check on the laths. "Make the plaster thick." She reached back and tucked the brush in her tool belt. Then she thought about what else he'd said. "What about the plumber?"
"Go see for yourself. It's gonna take me a couple of minutes to mix this stuff, and you wouldn't believe me if I told you."
"Fine." Ambrosia gracefully leapt off the scaffold. "Gotta use the little filly's room anyway." She took her hard hat and set it on Rough's head, on top of his own. "Keep it safe, huh?"
She went through the nearly-finished dining room and into the kitchen—it was the closest way to the outhouse, anyhow, so it wasn't like she was wasting her time heading in this direction.
She looked through the door into the bathroom. At first, all she saw was a mare's hindquarters, with a silvery wrench in her dark brown coat. The tool belt slung across her hips was an unconventional design, but every craftsmare had her own preference. Beside her, a length of iron pipe was propped up on a board. Nothing really remarkable—not until she saw a pipe-cutter enveloped in a silver-grey aura drift up around the pipe, and begin circling the iron.
Ambrosia trotted off to the outhouse before she was noticed, the wheels in her head turning frantically. The plumber was a unicorn. That just wasn’t right.
When she got back to the living room, that was the immediate topic of discussion.
“She’s a unicorn?” Ambrosia muttered. "Unicorns don't know how to build stuff,"
Rough spit out the stirring stick. "Riven's gonna have to check her work extra-hard."
"Yeah." Ambrosia checked the plaster. “Thicker, Roughie. This is just gonna dribble off the ceiling and make stalagmites on the floor.”
"What about Hydro Jet?" asked Square Cut. “How come he isn’t here?”
"I hear he's busy on the other side of town," Rough Tumble said. “Running pipe in the new town hall.”
"You know, Riven didn't say she was a unicorn. I bet she didn't know."
"There ought to be a law that they've gotta say," Square Cut said. "It's Riven’s mark on the job, and she's going to be the one to pay if a unicorn messes the water up."
“I hope the new owners don’t find out.” Rough sprinkled some more plaster in the bucket.
• • •
When the day's work was done, Riven and Ambrosia stayed late. After Silver Spanner had packed up her tools and left, they both went into the bathroom and checked over the unicorn's plumbing.
"It looks okay," Ambrosia grudgingly admitted.
"Yeah, but will it last? A lot of unicorn magic is more for show than durability.” Riven tapped her hoof against the pipes. "Come on, let's get to the tavern. I’m starving."
"Why'd you hire her anyway?" Ambrosia asked as they walked out of the house.
“I kinda got in a bind. I figured Hydro’d be available, but I didn’t ask him early enough, and then the mayor hired him for the town hall. I couldn’t wait, so I had to take his apprentice.”
“And you didn’t know she was a unicorn, did you?”
Riven shook her head. "Unicorns ought to stick to stuff they're good at, like spellwork and gems. Not proper hooves-on work. Next, you'll be seeing unicorn farmers." She sighed. "I'll see if Hydro can come out tomorrow and finish the job. Maybe he’s ahead of schedule on the town hall."
"Yeah." Ambrosia absently kicked a rock off the street before somepony stepped on it. She'd heard that Hydro had had a new apprentice, but it had never come up that the apprentice was a unicorn.
They walked the rest of the way to the tavern in silence.
• • •
When they got to the pub, Ambrosia held the door for Riven and the two of them went to the booth where the rest of the construction crew was waiting.
Tilly spotted her first and slid over to block the booth. Silver Spanner briefly looked at their table as she crossed the room and took a booth all to herself. It was sort of in view of Ambrosia, and she couldn't help but have her eye drawn in that direction.
"Who does she think she is?" Riven muttered, thrusting her hoof around. "Sitting at a booth all by herself—too good for us, I guess."
"Typical unicorn." Square Cut added. “Is there a plan for tomorrow?”
Riven nodded. “Plastering’s done, and the downstairs walls are painted, so Tilly can put sconces and crystal lamps around downstairs. Square, she’ll start in the living room, while you’re putting up the chair rail in the dining room. Ambrosia, you and Rough need to finish the upstairs floor. I want it done by the time Square’s got the chair rail up, so she can start on the baseboard. Hazel, I want the roof finished tomorrow. It’s going to rain in two days, and I can’t have any leaks.”
“There won’t be any from the roof.” Hazel grabbed the first plate of appetizers, beating Rough to the food. When he reached for the plate, she whacked him in the muzzle with a wing. “Now, the plumbing’s a different story. You want me to thatch the void space wherever there’s a plumbing run? Just in case?”
Riven actually considered the idea, before shaking her head. “Pipes leak, it’ll be easier to find if they waterlog the plaster right where the leak is. Rough, stop hogging the cheese.”
Ambrosia tried to focus on the conversation as they passed the food around, but her eye kept being drawn to the lone unicorn.
Before coming to the tavern, Silver Spanner had taken off her tool belt. She hadn't washed—her coat was still matted down where the straps had been. She looked down at her own tool belt, still proudly slung across her hips. It was as much a mark of pride as her cutie mark. More, even: her cutie mark just showed her potential, while her tool belt showed that she was living that potential.
The unicorn’s dinner was a bowl of stew and a slice of bread—the cheapest food the tavern had to offer. It was embarrassingly meager compared to the repast at their table. Of course, the food cost less when split a half-dozen ways. Ambrosia picked at her own plate, not really tasting it. Her appetite had fled, and she finally slid the rest of her dinner across to Rough and excused herself, hoping the outside air might clear her head.
• • •
Ambrosia was halfway home when she saw a flyer in the street. The very top was ripped off, as if the wind had torn it from its mounting. Curious, she picked it up and turned it over. It had a silhouette of a stallion at the top, but the rest of the flyer was covered in printing.
She looked around her. She had no idea where it had come from. Usually, important bulletins had both words and pictures, but aside from the drawing at the top, this one was words-only. Ambrosia squinted at it, trying to see if there were any she recognized. I could take it to the pub and have Riven read it, but if it’s something silly, I’ll feel like such a foal.
Her concentration was so intense, she didn't hear Silver Spanner come up beside her.
"Hey," Silver said. "What have you got there?"
For an instance a rude response crossed her mind, but she bit it back. Just because the unicorn was bucking the trend when it came to a job was no reason to be rude to her out in public. "I found it on the street," she said. "It's a bulletin for something."
She turned it slightly, so that Silver could see it, and see the block of text on it.
"It’s about a pony pull?" Silver looked at Ambrosia. "What's a pony pull?"
"You can read that?"
Silver nodded. "I learned how in school."
“I never went.” Ambrosia frowned at the younger mare. "I suppose you think you're smarter than me."
Silver looked honestly confused. "Why would I think that?"
"Because you can read this dumb flyer, and I can't."
"So?" Silver pointed up the street toward the house they'd been working on. "You can lay plaster, and I can't."
Ambrosia thought about that for a while. She’d formally apprenticed after getting her cutie mark, but even before that she’d been doing all sorts of construction projects on the farm—her parents had encouraged it, in fact. Silver would probably have been at a disadvantage when she got her cutie mark.
Maybe that was why Hydro had taken her on. Maybe he’d felt sorry for her. Ambrosia had felt sorry for Rough Tumble—most construction stallions were bulky, and did things like foundation work and post framing, like Rough’s father. He’d always been runty; she’d seen from the very beginning he was more suited to interior work.
Finally, she looked over at Silver with a friendly smile. "Oh, I never answered your question. A pony pull is where stallion teams try to pull a stone boat with weights on it. Whoever pulls the heaviest one wins. When is it?"
"Tomorrow night." Her eyes flicked over the paper. “It’s behind Spiral Tower.”
"I'll tell you what. Tomorrow, after work, we'll go and watch it together. How does that sound?" Ambrosia held up a hoof.
Silver broke out into a smile and returned the bump. "That sounds great."
Ambrosia set the flier back on the street for another pony to find, and the two mares began walking together. "So how'd you get your cutie mark, anyway?"
"Oh." Silver smiled. "That's a funny story—and let me tell you, my mom was mad, but you can't change destiny."
• • •
Ambrosia whistled cheerfully as she got ready for work. She’d been a filly last time there was a pony pull in Ponyville, and she was looking forward to it. Her younger self hadn’t appreciated watching straining, sweating stallions, but she did now.
She was at Sugarcube Corner just as the town clock chimed the hour. As soon as she walked through the door, Mrs. Cake poured a cup of coffee and marked another tick on Ambrosia’s tally sheet. With a friendly smile, Ambrosia picked the mug off the counter.
She walked over to the table where her team had gathered—including Rough Tumble for once. Square Cut was poking at a crystal lamp Tilly had brought, while Rough and Hazel were fighting over the last cupcake.
Ambrosia sat next to Riven, and leaned over to whisper in her foremare’s ear. "So, did you talk to Hydro last night?"
"I stopped by," Riven said, keeping her voice low as well. "He wasn't home. I'm going to check again this morning before we start work. I ought to get going, if I want to catch him."
"Don't," Ambrosia ordered. "I talked to Silver last night, and I've been thinking. She knows how to do her job—Hydro wouldn’t have offered her if she didn’t. Isn't that enough?"
"She's still a unicorn," Rough muttered. Ambrosia jerked—she hadn’t realized her apprentice was paying attention.
"And you're a stallion. And we get along just fine, don't we?"
Rough opened his mouth, and Ambrosia glared at him. He withered under her stare, and looked back in time to see Hazel finishing the cupcake.
"Tell you what, Riv. You do what you want to. It's your contract. But if she isn't there today, you won't have a plasterer, either. Not me or Rough."
"Fine." She threw her hooves up. "It'll give me more time to enjoy my coffee anyway."
• • •
The workday went smoothly enough. Ambrosia kept her ears perked for any signs of friction between the rest of the crew and Silver. Tilly, who hadn’t been privy to the conversation at Sugarcube Corner, made a snide remark while she was hanging a wall sconce, and was rewarded with a thrown trowel. Finally, when they were cleaning up, she went into the downstairs bathroom where Silver was installing bathtub faucets.
"You ready for tonight?"
Silver jerked around, the field-held screwdriver slipping off the faucet knob. When she saw it was Ambrosia, her ears went back up. "Yeah."
“Maybe we’ll get to meet some of the stallions after.” She swished her tail eagerly. “If we get there early, I bet we can find a spot in the front. Right near the action.”
Silver glanced outside and quickly judged the shadows. "Ooh, it's later than I thought. I have to get home and drop off my tool belt before dinner."
"Why?"
"Um . . . " Silver flattened her ears. "'Cause a lot of ponies here don't like seeing a unicorn construction pony."
"Well, I don't mind, and anypony who does will have to complain to me." Ambrosia said evenly. "Seems to me like a pony ought to be proud of what she is."
"Do you really think so?" Silver asked hopefully.
Ambrosia thought about it for a moment, and then smiled. "Yeah. Yeah, I do. Come on, let's get dinner. My treat."