OCD or why Minuette wants to strangle Flitter

Every handle in the house is pointing to the left, the perfect position for anypony to just bite and use.

Perfect.

Every design and every paper containing the plans for building were neatly stacked on two tables, which were neatly lined along a wall, ready for her to just pull, edit or change in any way at any give time.

Perfect.

Every single piece of equipment. Every screwdriver, every hammer, every nail, rig, chain, weight and whatever tool she might need was placed away in its respective box, placed in its respective shelve, opposing the tables with the designs.

"Absolutely perfect." Minuette whispered. She turned and faced her working table, placed right between the design table and the shelves. It was the only , the only place in the entire workshop that was not organized yet. It was also a mess. Papers, screwdrivers and chains were strewn all over it, along with some models and half finished works. Since she often had to work with large pieces of mechanics, the table was rarely empty. But not today.

Today was spring cleaning.

Fortunately, Minuette's house was small, consisting only of a kitchen, a room for herself along with a bathroom, a main room and a back room, which also served as her working place. Unlike most houses however, the work space was the largest place on the house. Practicality at its best.

"Two hours, forty eight minutes and twenty three seconds." Minuette pressed a button on a timer that hung on the wall. "Right on schedule."

The door knocked. Minuette placed the wrench she lifted back on the table. She glanced at the timer. She had some time, but not much. She would have to make this quick.

"Hi Minuette!" Flitter said.

"Hi!"

Of course, right besides Flitter was Cloudchaser.

"What can I do for you?" Minuette asked. Friends were friends, but work was work. The spring cleaning had to be done today and interruptions like this would only delay things further. She had to make this quick

"We just wanted to see how you were doing. I mean, we have barely seen you since the Mind-over-Matter celebration." Flitter answered. "Besides, since you are probably busy working, we though we could help you!"

"I have it under control." Minuette answered. "I appreciate the thought though."

"But...you haven't left your house in days!" Flitter replied.

"I am almost done anyway." Minuette said.

"Maybe we can keep you company?" Cloudchaser said suddenly. The two other mares looked at her, surprised by her sudden words. Minuette gance backwards at the clock on the wall. She had an awful lot of them all over the place, and they all said the same thing.

She was tight on schedule. But she couldn't leave her friends outside.

"Alright, come in."

Flitter and Cloudchaser entered the house. The first they noticed, or that Flitter noticed, was the amount of clocks that were all over the place. On the wall, on a small table, standing, everywhere! All of them of different size and appearance, but sharing one similarity. They all had a rather mechanical look to them. No cover or wood was added to the design. One could see the chains and the cogs spinning and twirling in each of them.

"Did you made all this clocks?" Flitter asked.

"I build a new one each month. So far I have seventeen. Eight here, five in my workshop, four in my room."

"Why do you need all those clocks?"

"To keep track of time. Isn't it obvious?"

Flitter glanced around. It was actually intimidating to have all these clocks staring down on her, loudly ticking away, as if there was a punishment waiting at the end of a long countdown. She tightened her wings on her sides, not wanting to catch a feather on one of those cogs.

Cloudchaser poked one that was on a table. The clock made a loud cracking noise before going completely silent. Minuette's eye twitched but she hid it.

"Please don't touch them." She pushed Cloudchaser away from the table. "They are rather fragile."

"But I thought they were made with metal. Shouldn't they be more resistant?" Flitter asked.

"I make them with spare materials and magic. They are easy to make, but the results are rather unstable."

As if it was listening, the broken clock suddenly made a loud, metallic noise before the arrows that marked the time broke free, shooting with lethal force, one of them impaling itself on the roof. The other one past right above Cloudchaser's head, cutting the top of one of her mane spikes.

"Wow. It almost went through the roof!" Cloudchaser chuckled. Flitter was a bit less humored, more worried about the fact that the arrow had nearly gotten her head. Minuette pulled the arrow with magic and placed it on the table. She was going to have to throw it to the garbage later. A loud tick tock was heard.

She was out of time. She had to get back to work.

"I appreciate the company, but now I should really go back to work." Minuette said, motioning to the door that led to the workshop.

"We can help! Can we help?" Flitter asked cheerfully.

"Help in what?" Cloudchaser asked, though her question was ignored.

"I have it under control. Besides, this is a complicated work. It needs precision and care." Minuette walked towards the workshop. "Besides, right now I'm cleaning up the workshop, not actually working, and I'm almost done anyways."

Flitter whimpered. Minuette was about to enter her workshop when a soft sniff reached her ears. Her mind briefly argued with itself for a few seconds. She glanced at her work table, then back at her friends. She breathed deeply.

"You can help me." Flitter perked up at the decision. "But you have to do what I say, got it?"

Flitter nodded and followed her inside, herself followed by Cloudchaser. Even with three ponies inside of it, the workshop had enough space to move freely without bumping into each other. Minuette levitated a stack of papers and placed on a large trash bin.

"I need you to move this pieces of equipment to the disassembling shelf."

Flitter grabbed one of the machines with her mouth, while Cloudchaser balanced two on her wings. They were surprisingly light actually. However, as soon as Flitter placed her cargo on the shelf, the piece of equipment broke, falling apart almost completely. Minuette resisted the urge to groan a groan.

"Please be careful." she muttered. Flitter nodded. Work progressed on, although at a much slower rate than Minuette would have liked. What originally would have taken only three quarters of an hour at the most had extended into a full blown two hours. Accidents were not missing, as Flitter, as much enthusiasm and generosity she possessed, had managed to wreck four half finished models, along with spilling an entire stack of designs, twice at that.

Needless to say, Minuette wasn't exactly very happy.

"I'm so sorry!" Flitter begged after wrecking another model.

"Its...okay." Minuette said, hiding the grumbling in her voice, placing the remains of her work back on the shelf. "We are almost done...and it only took us two hours and a half more than I planned."

"We had a schedule?" Cloudchaser asked.

"Just the whole planning of my day, thank you very much." Minuette thought. "No. No we didn't"

However, even with all those mishaps, work was done and the workshop was soon finished. The table was cleaned up, the shelves were organized and the floor was spotless. All in all, it was the perfect working space, though not as organized as Minuette wanted.

"Were done here." she proclaimed.

"So what now?" Flitter asked. Minuette pushed an empty box from underneath the table.

"I have to check half clocks of the house later. Im going to put them in the box with magic. You are going to carry it."

Flitter had to use her wings to balance the box on her back while Minuette placed the pieces of machinery in it, moving from the workshop to the main room and the kitchen. The box got heavier and heavier with each addition, though Flitter didn't say anything, not wanting to seem like she was whining.

"Okay. All we need to do now is get the ones in my room and we are done." Minuette said as she left the kitchen. Flitter followed, though she was trembling from the weight of the box. Her wings and back were tired. Cloudchaser noticed it and did her best to help her sister.

"This one, this one and this one..." Minuette lifted three clocks with magic placing in them box. Flitter was doing her best to try to keep lifting the box.

"Minuette..." she muttered.

"Maybe I should turn this one into an alarm clock." Minuette lifted the fourth clock.

"Minuette." Flitter repeated.

"Maybe I shouldn't. I need at least one clock in here always."

"Minuette!"

"What Flitter?" Minuette turned to Flitter, irritated at the interruption, but stopped when she noticed something. The box was visibly straining to contain all the clocks. Flitter was visibly straining to maintain the box on top of her. And she was about to fail.

"Hey Minuette, you missed this part." Cloudchaser said. Before Minuette could react, Cloudchaser threw the missing arrow, from the clock that she broke before, on top of all the broken clocks. Flitter could no longer take the weight of the box and

instinctively hid her wings, robbing the box of the support, prompting it to fall down and send every piece of engine and clock crashing down on the floor.

Cracking and ticking started to echo in the room with increasing volume. To Flitter and Cloudchaser it was only a weird noise, but to Minuette it meant something else entirely.

"Everybody out!"

As soon as the three mares left the room, all Tartarus was unleashed. The magic inside the clocks went wild, making the pieces break and shot in any direction. Roof, floor, walls, window, bed, desk and bathroom, nothing was spared from the onslaught of small but edgy pieces of metal. A few of them even reached the main room, embedding themselves on the wall and the table. The three friends had to take cover behind the kitchen wall.

It took a whole five minutes for the racked to die down.

"Wow...what a rush!" Cloudchaser said. Minuette Slowly walked out of their hiding place. Horror was edged on her face as she observed the damage done to her living room. That horror only increased when she reached her room.

"My...my bed..."

Said bed had been pretty much shredded beyond recognition along with the pillow. There was a nice hole were the glass of the window used to stand. The bathroom had not been spared either. The mirror had holes all over it and the washer was cracked in many places.

There was only one thing that had had managed to save itself from destruction by a thousand cuts.

It had been the clock that Minuette ignored.

Oh the irony.

Flitter and Cloudchaser peered from the doorstep. They could almost swear that Minuette was struggling with herself to burst into flames.

"Uh...sorry?" Flitter said tentatively. Minuette turned to them, visibly angry.

"You...you wrecked my room!" she shouted.

"It was an accident! I...I didn't mean to!" Flitter replied.

"Where am I supposed to sleep! I don't have the time to fix this and work! And I have a lot of work!"

Cloudchaser looked around the room, ignoring the two mares. She poked one of the arrows that was sticking out of the wall. It fell to the ground with a soft metallic noise. The damage wasn't that bad. Only superficial it seemed.

"Its going to take days to fix all this! Where am I supposed to sleep!?" Minuette berated Flitter, who was trying to make herself as small as possible.

"Eh, eh...with us?" she answered. Minuette stopped berating her. Her room was a mess. She looked back at Flitter, who was smiling nervously. She had no choice.

"Alright...but you better help me fix all this." she growled.

"Yay! Slumber party!" Cloudchaser cheered. Minuette sighed at the display of happiness from the pegasus.

This was not going to be easy.