A Tale of Clockwork

Chapter three Part one - Brass and Granite.

Brass glided over the frozen land in Granite’s wake, the team’s CSARS –Crystalline Surveying and Ranging System- on his back.

The CSARS was a relatively new invention of Princess Twilight Sparkle. By using magic Maregardum crystals, suddenly common following the reappearance of the Crystal Empire, she was able to imbed a cartographical –map making- spell into a pony-friendly case the size of a large saddle bag. The system was a huge hit with the Royal Equestrian Explorers Guild, seeing Twilight having enough money to literally swim in. The only notable disadvantage of the system was due to the material it was made out of. Crystal is, by its very nature, incredibly dense, so a block easily the size of the crystal heart weighs a fair bit.

And a certain Thestrial was starting to really feel that weight.

“Hey, Granite, can we land soonish? Mah back is killing me” he said ‘over’ the crystal head set he had been given earlier that morning. A soft, crackly sigh alighted on his ears, followed by Granite’s overly patient reply,

“Yes Brass, we’ll put down on that ridge just halfway down the valley wall. We should probably start taking measurements now, anyway”

The duo banked towards the valleys eastern wall, lazily spiralling down to a small outcrop which had a brilliant view of the odd mountain-like formation at the centre of the valley bowl.

As he alighted on the icy rock, Brass wondered what the valley must have looked like before the Hearth’s warming tale – before the Windigoes made the north frozen and lifeless, driving the tribes south, towards what is now Equestria.

At a nod from Granite, Brass undid the straps to his pack, placing the armoured box against the cliff face, before unclipping his saddle bag and removing a sturdy metal tripod. He glanced around, finding a relatively flat section of rock to set up the rangefinder.

He carefully levelled the tripod on the stone floor and pointed the pivot to face vaguely north to south, like the instructions has suggested. As he went to retrieve the main focus crystal, he never noticed Granite re-aligning the matrix using her pocket compass.

Brass hefted out the weighty main crystal, grunting with the effort as his cold wings complained at the strain. “Lucky Pegasi,” he muttered as he flew the lump of stone to its mounting place, “having feathered wings. And they complain about being cold. Hmph”

“Well, at least you don’t have to preen every morning” Granite said, looking up from the camping stove she was lighting, “because if you did, you too would be stuck with the taste of lanolin in your mouth for nearly two hours every day.”

Brass felt his face scrunch up as he imagined having the taste of natural grease in his mouth for hours on end. Yuck. But at least his wings would be warm.

“Yeah, but instead, Ah’m cold mosta the time, and –” he clipped the crystal into place on its stand “-Ah have to worry about frostbite in mah wing membranes”

“Membranes? Why, Brass, did you just say a big word?”

“Ah’m not stupid! Just cause Ah’m from a ‘burb of Manehattan, don’t mean I’m dumb!” Brass scowled at Granite, who was wearing a grin that stretched thrice around her face. “And don’t smile that broad. It looks real creepy” he added, picking up the three attenuator shards that activated the device.

“Yes, boss-” she laughed, sending crystalline echoes down the valley for miles in every direction “-I’ll do my best to kiss your plot and polish your hooves in future, sir”

“Good. Now, ATTEN-CHUN!” To Brass’s glee, Granite’s guard training kicked in, having her on her hooves and at the ready before she knew what hit her. “Captain Dancer, make me some coffee at once!” Brass barked, doing his best impression of a sergeant major he’d seen once at the Canterlot drill grounds “Move it! On the double!”

“Yessir! At once, sir!” Granite barked, leaping to comply, before realising that she was not, in fact, a royal guard on parade. Screeching to a halt, she glared at Brass who, job forgotten, was rolling around in the snow laughing himself hoarse. “Oh, very funny. I bet you’re so proud of yourself for that one” she snapped, embarrassed.

“Oh, mah sides!” Brass gasped between breaths “that was amazing!”

“Yeah, how hilarious. Now. Get that array set up, will you?” She opened her saddle bags, getting out the Globe-Trotter 3000 magic positioning system, powering up the hoof-held device, “There’s no lunch until we’ve got the sweep done for here.”

The half-hearted threat did the trick. Within moments, Brass had finished setting up the rangefinder and was initialising the scanning routine. As his hoof touched the button, a wave of light erupted from the mainframe, passing through him and everything organic, gliding through the air to bounce off the stone walls. As Brass recoiled, the mainframe started beeping and flashing, as it processed the incoming telemetry data, creating a 3d map of the surrounding area.

After a few minutes, Granite’s MPS lit up, displaying a wire-frame model of the surrounding valley from their current location. Naturally, the areas obstructed by any objects were blank, as the light beams were reflected by the surfaces in the way. Unfortunately, this was a rather large amount of the valley.

“Hmm. Looks like we’ll have to do at least three more readings from the other corners of the valley wall” Granite said, as she turned to face Brass, who was sat with coffee in hoof, warming his bat-like wings with the stove. “Are your wings okay? The air temperature is quite low, even to me”

Brass looked up from his contemplation of various mechanical-thingies, shivering slightly. “Um, yeah. Just gimme a few to get ‘em good an warm before we set off again”

Granite nodded and started disassembling the CSARS, packing each part of the fragile array into the foam packaging with infinite care. “I’ll take the array for this stretch” –she smiled at the grateful sigh from Brass- “so you just need to carry the light stuff. Don’t want to strain your wings while they’re cold, do we?”

Brass frowned, remembering the last time he did that. It had been a painful experience, leading to nearly two months in the flight academy’s medical wing. He had been on cold weather-front manipulation exercises, and had got severe frost bite in his wings, nearly bad enough to warrant amputation. He had learnt his lesson that day, and never let his wings get numb, for fear of a repeat event, but with darker results.

He looked up at the sound of Granite trotting over, packed array on her back. “You good?” she asked, concern plain on her face.

“Yeah. Ah’m ready. Lemme just pack the stuff up an we can get going” He chugged the rest of the coffee, enjoying the sensation of the warm liquid flowing down his gullet. Standing, he folded his now warm wings against his body, and started to pack the camping stove.

When he was finished, he slipped the much smaller saddle-pack onto his back, clipping the flight harness into place. “Right. Ah’m done. Where to now?” He said, as he watched Granite survey the valley.

She stood silent for several moments before answering with an outstretched hoof “Over there, on top of that outcrop on the eastern face of the central formation. Looks nice and flat” at Brasses nod, Granite took to the sky, leaving brass on the outcrop.

After glancing over the site, Brass spread his wings, taking a deep breath before hurling himself off of the edge. He pulled up out of the dive, already feeling the chilly air leaching the heat out of his flight surfaces. Supressing a shiver, he banked to follow Granite, who was over a kilometre ahead, confident that the Thestrial would follow.

Brass flew lazily across the valley floor, letting the wind carry him across towards his destination, all the while looking at the series of regularly spaced, similarly sized mounds that surrounded the base of the mountain. The ruins of houses, maybe? He filed the thought away for later. Realizing he was reaching his destination, he descended in a broad spiral, flaring his wings and landing on the cold stone with a hollow clack next to Granite, who being the productive mare she was, had already started the next scan.

“Nice of you to join me.” She murmured, consumed by her task of re-calibrating the device using her hoof-held… thing.

Brass doffed the pack, trotting over to the larger set of saddlebags. After a little rummage, he pulled out a light-weight padded jacket, which he had been given by Golden Swatch, his housemate during his studies at Manehattan West University. He donned the charcoal garment, slipping his wings into the custom-made wing-sleeves. He glanced up at a quiet shuffle to find Granite watching him, right eyebrow arched. “What? It’s warm, okay?” he sputtered, only to be silenced by an upraised hoof.

Granite walked over and started tightening the straps that held the jacket in place around Brasses mid-section. “Nothing. I was just wondering why you hadn’t put it on earlier” she between straps.

Brass blushed slightly and answered somewhat shakily, “It’s, uh, rather restricting. Makes it harder to fly” Granite just grunted and set about tightening the straps along the inner back thigh, setting the Thestrial into embarrassed twitching fits.

“Hold still. You’re making it difficult” she mumbled around a strap. I’ll eat my helmet if this get up is restricting. Granite had seen Brass out-manoeuvre Wonderbolts in full guard armour. Of course, he hadn’t been able to outrun them, though, but his ability to turn on a dime had certainly earned him their respect, and a subsequent round of Sweet Apple Acres dark cider. Not to mention that autograph from Spitfire. Although he would never admit it, he went over the moon with joy that day.

She finished the lower straps and pulled the front cover around Brass’s neck as he shifted uncomfortably at their proximity.  He probably just thinks he looks silly in it. Once she had finished the last strap, she stepped back to look at Brass, who now looked like a lunar guard, albeit dressed in felts as opposed to plate-mail. “Is that better?” she asked with a small smile, enjoying the sight in front of her.

“Um, yeah. It’s much warmer now. Thanks, Granite”

“No problem”

The bleep of the CSARS pulled Granite away from Brass, who was feeling slightly uncomfortable under her evaluating gaze. He grabbed his pack and clipped it on, adjusting the straps to fit over his now padded form.  He flapped his wings experimentally, feeling no discernable difference in his mobility. Between Golden Swatch’s cunning design and Granite’s armour-dressing experience, the suit felt almost like a part of him. He could even feel the air brushing against his wing membranes, as if there was no fabric coating them at all.

“Right. Onto the next position. Follow me” Granite said, as she finished clipping her pack on. Brass nodded and followed her into the air, wondering at the feeling of the air through the fabric, which he could feel all of, barring the cold of the far north. Yet oddly, he somehow felt that the air was cold, a ghost of a sensation, even though he was completely isolated from the external temperature.

He wondered just how Golden Swatch had managed it. Probably using a spell. That mare was truly a wonder with magic. In fact, if he didn’t know her unique talent was in fabric making, he’d swear her cutie mark was in magic. I gotta get in touch with her when I get back from this job. The last he’d heard, Golden Swatch had started a little business supplying her fabrics to some up-and-coming dress maker in Ponyville. I have to pay her a visit sometime. See how her little shop is doing.

He did a little aileron roll, just because he felt like it. He felt a grin split his face as he broke off from Granite’s wing to perform some stunts in the frigid air. He dipped and dived and twisted and turned in rolls that pulled his gut and set his heart racing. Feeling fully warmed up, he shot up into the sky as fast as his wings would carry him, before letting himself stall and plummet towards the icy ground, twisting in a corkscrew. That had always been his highest scoring physical subject: stunt flying. He wasn’t as good as the best, but he could give the standard pros a run for their bits.

Granite, landed on the next site, assembling and engaging the CSARS. After a few moments, she noticed Brass’s absence. She turned and looked at the sky just in time to see him plummeting from the sky in a semi-controlled dive. She sat and watched the impromptu air show with a smile, task forgotten for the moment. She sat there for nearly an hour, watching her friend let off some steam, pulling off stunts, the nature of which was performed by the Wonderbolts in scheduled events. As the scan finished, Brass pulled off his signature finishing move, a loop-de-loop 720 so small and tight that his tail brushed his nose.

As he landed next to her, still riding the stunt-flyer’s adrenalin rush, she shook her head and added to latest set of data to the MPS tablet. “One day, you’re going to kill yourself, Brass” she said as the data transferred.

Brass turned to face Granite with a smug smile, “Aye, that may be true, but Ah’m gunna die happy if that’s the case”

Granite grinned, and threw the MPS at him. Brass caught it in a wing, and plopped it back into the dedicated pouch in pack he was wearing. “Anyway, stunt ace, it’s your turn to lug the Survey unit for a while” that earned a small groan, as Brass contemplated carrying the heavy load again. “And before you argue, we have to return to base with you carrying it. I’m not meant to use the thing, remember? The uneducated ex-guard?”

They shared a moment of humour, both remembering the scene that Pumice had made, specifically stating that under no circumstances was Granite to handle the CSARS, as she didn’t have the training. On paper, that was true. In practice, however, winged guard-ponies were trained to use all varieties of mapping and recording instruments, so they could perform advanced intelligence collection duties if necessary.

Granite glanced up at the sun, now kissing the horizon. Whoa, dusk already. “Alright. Let’s do this. We’ve only got one more stop to do, and we should have a complete image of the valley, and then we can get back to base and have a nice hot mug of cocoa before midnight.” They quickly switched packs, and took to the skies again, crossing the great expanse of icy dirt again for the fifth, and hopefully last time that day.