There was a warmth on her face. Twilight squeezed her eyes shut a little tighter, turning away and groaning softly. Her cheek slid along paper, and her eye cracked open just long enough to realize she had fallen asleep on an open book.

She really had to stop doing that. It was going to hurt her spine.

She lifted her head up, and a blanket fell off of her shoulders. A small smile found her lips as she looked back at it, then shrank as she looked back at the table she sat at and found three books still lying open there. She edged the nearest to one side, examining the parchment its corner had weighted down. Her eyes darted across it, back and forth, increasingly annoyed.

"Spiiiike?” she called over her shoulder.

There was no answer. Twilight looked at the wall clock, surmising that Spike was probably still in bed at this point. She looked up at the ceiling, estimated where his bed was, experimentally pulled on the spot telekinetically, and teleported the bed and occupant to her side. “Good morning, Spike,” she said as he sat bolt upright. “We’ve got important work to do today.”

“Ugh,” said Spike, laying back down. “How can it be a good morning when it starts like that? Wake me up in two hours, then it might be good.”

“Ooohh, no you don’t,” she replied, lifting him out of the basket. “That box won’t research itself. I’ve turned half the library upside down so far, and nopony’s written a word about it! It’s not in The Elements of Harmony: A Reference Guide; it’s not in The End of Entropy; even Equestria: A History Revealed!” She held aloft five pages of ten-foot scrolls, then set them aside. “The conspiracy theorist missed it, Spike!”

“I didn’t know you had a copy of this,” said Spike, picking up the top scroll and reading the title with a raised brow.

Ignoring the comment, Twilight chewed her lip as she looked over the bookshelves. “I think I’m being too specific.” She began pacing, staring at the ground and magically picking up a scroll. “I’ve just been searching for information on the box. Maybe we can find something about the keys! Spike, quick, grab all the history books I haven’t already looked through and organize them by possible usefulness. I need to look up a spell. Come in!”

The door, which had rattled with a series of rapid-fire knocks, clicked and began to creak open. Twilight didn’t wait to see who came in; instead she began magicking books off the shelves, stacking them haphazardly on the table. “There’s a spell I read about once, the Wordfind spell. You cast it on a book and it bookmarks all the pages with a chosen word.”

“Oh, like Control-F?”

It wasn’t that Twilight ignored the interruption as much as she outright failed to notice. “At the time I didn’t see the point of learning it. It lets you take out the information you want without actually learning anything—that’s the kind of spell for underachievers researching an essay! But with the Elements gone, we need to find out what’s in that box quickly. Spike, be careful.”

Spike was teetering under the weight of six feet worth of stacked history books, staggering towards the table. “Which one of—urrgh—of these haven’t you read? I think you should maybe start with—“ he dumped them onto the table, where the pile immediately tipped and the topmost books slid off the other side. “A Brief History of the Castle of the—“

“I’ve already read that,” Twilight said, flipping through a spellbook without much regard to anything but the first letter of each spell’s name. “It covers the architecture more than anything. Set it aside so I’ll remember to read it again, but right now—“

“—Ahem—“

“—we need to focus.” She reached the back of the book, closed it with a snap, and swapped it for a new one. She only got three pages into it before her head rose again and she looked towards Spike. “What are we doing?! Spike, drop everything! We need to send letters to the Canterlot Archives! Maybe there’s something there with information on the box or keys.” She whisked a scroll and quill towards Spike, who scrambled to catch it while also holding an armload of volumes. The topmost book began to fall, but a beige blur caught it just before it hit the ground.

There was a thump from behind the table. Then an earth pony rose to his hooves from behind it, a book in his teeth, and deposited it onto the tabletop.

Twilight paused at this, finally looking across the table at the earth pony who nervously took a step back from the table. She instinctively felt her ears lower as her eyes flickered across his form, taking in the scars half-hidden by beige fur all across his body, the thin face and weathered, exhausted-looking hazel eyes, which blinked. The brow above them furrowed, and the pony broke eye contact with her as he began to walk around the table. “Uh, hi,” he said, his words tainted with a slight Manehattan accent. “Um. I mean, hello, Your Highness.” A slight bow, through which he refused to take his eyes off of her. “Do you have a minute? I just need a few books.”

Twilight blinked back as she realized she had been staring at him for several seconds. “Oh. Sure! Just let me, um…” She turned away a bit too hastily and replaced the book in her magic on the top of its stack. “You caught me in the middle of something. Heh.”

“Yeah, I—I heard. Something about a box and keys.” He chewed his lip slightly, his eyes slowly rising to meet hers. He took an almost measured breath through his mouth and asked, “The box that they talked about in yesterday’s paper?”

Equestria Daily reporters, Twilight had quickly learned, were a regular feature in the life of an Element Bearer, and this annoyance had only become more commonplace since a pair of wings had found her back. Princess Celestia had given her a little bit of advice on the subject that had basically amounted to “be patient and answer their questions politely.” The press was important. She knew that, and that keeping the citizens of Equestria informed of important events required her to divulge everything she could to the reporters that had stepped off the train less than an hour following their defeat of the Plunder vines. But she still sighed in exasperation at the memory; all she had wanted to do at the time was take a hot bath and sleep for three days.

“Yes,” she said. “It appeared after we returned the Elements of Harmony to their source, a crystal tree located under the Castle of the Two Sisters. It’s a hexagonal prism, with six unique keyholes on the upper half.” She turned to the table, although perhaps “threw herself towards” would be a more accurate description. Methodically lifting up a stack of hardbound books through telekinesis, she slid out a piece of slightly wrinkled paper and moved it in front of the stallion’s face. An ink drawing of the box dominated the top half of the paper, and the bottom half was filled with small, neat writing reflecting some initial observations.

“Did you draw this?” the stallion asked, reaching up a hoof and taking the paper. “It’s a really nice piece of work. You even managed to get the little facets in the crystal surfaces.”

“Oh, thanks!” Twilight replied, smiling. “It’s actually not quite complete. There were a few little details that I couldn’t quite record. There’s a metallic edge in each keyhole, but the lines kept bleeding together.”

The stallion looked up at her over the top of the paper. From this viewpoint, all she could really see was a pair of beige ears that wouldn’t stop twitching and those bizarre, hazel eyes that focused on her as he exclaimed, “Right?! There’s gotta be—I know there are better writing utensils than quill pens.” He set the diagram back on the table as Twilight raised a brow. For a second he hesitated; she saw doubt flicker in those disconcerting eyes as he looked back at her from the table. When he started again, it was a slow, measured start. “I’m actually working on t-this idea I had. Sort of a long tube of ink, closed on one end, but the other is sealed off with a tiny ball of—something hard. Probably tungsten. Or sapphire, there seems to be a lot of it lying around.” He bit the corner of his mouth, glancing to the side, but his eyes flickered back to Twilight.

Her other brow had rose to meet the first. She looked less puzzled now, and vaguely intrigued. Spurred on by her interest, he hesitantly continued, “W-well, obviously the ink would have to be pressurized, to ensure consistent flow. But—“

“That’s an interesting idea,” Twilight said slowly, as though mentally running through it again. “Certainly more expensive than a quill—“

“—But way more reliable! And you wouldn’t have to carry around an inkwell all the time—“

“But what happens when the ink runs out? Maybe you could have the ink be stored in a replaceable cartridge inside the body—“

“—Yeah! Exactly! And you wouldn’t have to replace them as much as quills, I mean provided you made them out of the right material—“

“—Not even very expensive material! In quantities big enough for mass-production, bronze or brass or steel—“

Twilight blinked as she and the stallion suddenly realized how close they were standing. Giving an awkward cough, Twilight stepped towards the table as he…flinched…backwards. Somewhere along the way Twilight’s wings had started to rise in excitement, and now she lowered them embarrassedly.

“I sorted through those history books,” Spike piped up from the other side of the table. “I don’t know how many of them you’ve read, but it doesn’t look promising to me.”

“Yes! Thank you, Spike!” Twilight pivoted towards the table sharply, thankful that someone had managed to shatter the moment. Behind her, the stallion had also turned away slightly, a hoof in front of his mouth as though to catch any words that might spill out of their own volition. “I’m sorry, sir, but I have to get back to work. I need to finish my research on that box.”

The stallion nodded. “Right, I actually have stuff to do too.” He began to take a step for the door, then froze. “…Aaaannd one of those things is actually checking out a few books. Could you maybe spare a minute…? I need a library card.”

“Oh?” Twilight looked back up at him, but only for an instant. He wasn’t looking at her either, glancing around at the shelves reaching to the ceiling around them. “Library cards are printed professionally in Canterlot. I can send them your information, but you’d have to wait a few days. In the meantime, do you have a card from another library?”

Without looking at her, the stallion pursed his lips slightly. “Um, no,” he said. “Not on me, I mean. No. But I, ahm…” he sighed, looking embarrassed.

“Well, that’s fine.” Twilight floated a piece of blank parchment and a quill over to him. “Just write down your name and the books you’d like to check out, and I’ll get to it when I have time.”

“A’kay.” The stallion turned away and began trotting around the shelves, leaving Twilight to continue pouring through her research. She worked silently, browsing the index of the first book Spike handed her, a quill absentmindedly rotating in the glow just to her right. Occasionally she jotted down a page number as the stallion pulled his first book off the shelf behind her. As she began flipping through the book, reaching each page she had decided to pursue and scribbling down what she felt needed further research, the stallion glanced at her and Spike to make sure they were absorbed in their work. Then he put one hoof on the shelf and dashed straight up it, snatching a textbook off the top shelf.

Twilight looked behind her as she heard four hooves clatter against the floor, just in time to see the stallion stack two volumes on his back before grabbing a third off the next shelf over. He whistled tunelessly as he trotted back to the table and began to make a short list. Twilight returned to her research as she heard a small cracking noise, a sigh, and then a new quill was pulled out of her periphery by a beige hoof. She glanced up at him a few times as he scribbled and scratched. His brow was furrowed, his shoulders tight as the quill hung against the bottom of his hoof and darted across the parchment. Eventually his brow cleared, he pulled back from the table, and his hoof slid the parchment towards her.

She picked it up curiously as he started for the door. The hoofwriting was cramped, sloppy, and barely legible, with several failed attempts at words crossed out for each title. All three were textbooks, two on alchemy and one on magic’s relationship with mechanics. Above it all, two words had been scrawled and underlined.

“’Peter Parker?’” she read aloud, without really thinking. “That’s an unusual name.”

Spike gave her a surprised and slightly indignant look. The judgement in her comment hit her a few seconds too late and she gasped, looking up at the leaving stallion, but he just snorted and turned back to her a foot from the door.

“I suppose it is,” he said, with a barely-concealed smile. “Especially compared to names like Twilight Sparkle. Your Majesty.” He gave an exaggerated bow before darting out the door and closing it behind him.

Peter was still chuckling to himself as he sauntered down the street; the books on his back shifted slightly and he compensated with ease. Peter supposed that Princess Twilight wouldn’t get the sarcasm in his retort, but nobody had thought he was funny back home, either, so it wasn’t any huge tragedy. He hummed his own theme song as he crossed the street, ambling in the general direction of his hotel.

“Dat da-da, dat da-da...” That street musician had been a gifted composer. He found himself wishing, yet again, that he had had some cash to give to her, but that was over two years ago now and a world away, and he put it out of his mind. “…Does whatever a spi-der can…” Maybe it was cheesy as hell, but that suited him fine. A little bit of levity went a long way in a life like his. He entered into a stupid-looking trot in time with his humming as he crossed the street, walking by an expensive carriage parked on the side of it. Without really paying attention he skipped around a pink Earth filly with a pretentious tiara as she waited outside the carriage for the doors to open. It wasn’t until he had walked around and was now directly behind it that spider-sense sent a sudden chill down his spine, flattening his ears and sending him into a panicked dash for three steps.

He whirled, glancing around with wide eyes, but the chill had already passed and the hair of his coat was lying flat again. He took a deep breath, sliding a foreleg back and forth across the ground, and took a step forward. The chill returned immediately; his hair stood on end as he looked around. The carriage he now stood directly behind was set on a slope that led directly to the creek on the Everfree side of town; he was below it. His eyes travelled up and down its frame, ears unusually still and pointed directly at it, and he leaned to the left and right to examine each side. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, so he layed down on his side and attempted to peer beneath it.

“Ahem. Excuse me, but what are you doing?”

Peter’s neck craned as his head turned upwards. A rather large stallion of a dusty brown color stood above him, his mane combed back in a businesslike style and the red tie poking out of dark blue coat lapels (which…weren’t attached to anything, to Peter’s confusion) bearing a gold-colored dollar sign. Peter opened his mouth an inch, but it took a minute for the words to come.

“I, uh.” He stood up and hastily dusted off his side, although he found it difficult to focus on the pony with spider-sense in the back of his mind sending his nerves jumping. “…I think there’s something wrong with your cart. Sir.”

The stallion’s eyebrows furrowed—Peter looked up at his eyebrows, astonished at their presence and suddenly outraged that he no longer had a pair. “Really? How can you tell?” He looked at the back of the carriage in front of them, searching for any defects. “I don’t see anything wrong.”

“Just a…” Peter waved a hoof in the general direction of the carriage and shrugged. “…Just a feeling. I wouldn’t risk using it, sir. I think it’s dangerous.”

“Daaaaad!” called a high-pitched, annoying voice from inside the carriage. “Hurry up! I want to get good seats on the train!”

“Just a minute, Diamond!” the stallion called back, then turned back to Peter. “…I saw your cutie mark, young colt, so I trust your opinion here. I’ll have it sent in for maintenance while my daughter and I are in Canterlot, but first we’re going to use it to get to the train station.”

“Oh, come on.” Peter started after him as he began to walk towards the carriage door. “Sir, the train station’s, like, three hundred feet away. You could easily walk there! If for nothing else, you can use the exercise to justify an extra dessert later.”

The stallion laughed. “A mechanic and a comedian. Tell you what, how about I have you look at it while we’re in Canterlot. Just give me a list of expenses when I get back, and I’ll see you get paid handsomely. But unfortunately, we’re in a hurry, so if you’ll excuse me…” And without waiting for a reply, he climbed into the carriage and closed the door behind him.

Peter gawked at the closed door. “Thanks, I guess.” He walked around the carriage, giving the two harnesses at the front of it a scrutinizing look. A long metal rod ran between them and beneath the carriage, and he bent down to see it connect to the frame via a simple lever system, keeping padded brakes pressed into the wheels and the carriage exactly where it was. Now that he was out of the path the cart would take if it suddenly plummeted down the hill, spider-sense had gone more or less silent, but as he examined the braking mechanism, a feeling of worry trickled down his spine like ice water. The mechanism was ill-maintained, some pieces nearly ground to nothing by accumulated friction, and looked ready to give way if you sneezed on it wrong. Peter bit his tongue anxiously and found himself holding his breath.

All at once spider-sense began a dull, anticipating tingle, like static electricity lifting the hair on his arms and with the same barely-restrained energy. He gasped at the abrupt but lingering sensation, jumping back from the carriage to give himself room to dodge and whirling to locate the source of the threat. His eyes landed on a well-groomed unicorn that had walked out of the three-story house the carriage was parked in front of and was now looking at him confusedly.

“What are you doing?” said the Earth pony next to the unicorn. Peter had barely noticed him, but the two ponies were impeccably well-groomed and built like they could pull a ton—or a carriage. His eyes flickered from one to the other. The unicorn, he guessed, knew some sort of spell that could be weaponized, hence why spider-sense was focused on him, but both were giving him suspicious looks.

“I’m looking at this carriage’s braking mechanism,” he said awkwardly. “When was the last time this thing was taken in for repairs?”

The two ponies exchanged a glance and a shrug. “I dunno,” said the unicorn. “Why, what’s wrong with it? Who are you?”

“Oh, I’m no one,” Peter replied, automatically evasive. “The brakes are fakakta. Look at it!” He twitched to the side and pointed under the carriage. “It looks like someone left it under a river for a year! You guys pull the carriage? Could you convince the guy to just walk?”

“We’re kinda paid by the trip,” the Earth pony said sheepishly.

The unicorn shot him a glance. “Filthy Rich is an important stallion, kid. He’s got to get to the station before the train, and I, for one, am not about to try and tell him what to do just because some colt asked me to. Now get lost.”

“How am I gonna get lost in a town this small? Listen to me--”

And here Peter cut himself off with a sharp cry and a flinch as the unicorn brushed past him and his spider-sense spasmed. He bumped into the edge of the cart--a seemingly insignificant action, but it carried the force of someone who could lift the thing. There was a small cracking sound within the carriage. The three ponies looked towards it as one, all eyes wide.

“That ain't a good sound,” the Earth pony decided aloud.

The owner of the restaurant wasn’t without thanks, but general repair costs had necessitated that she cut corners where she could. In the end she had asked Time-Turner to cover half the cost of the window he broke. He had deemed this fair enough, and now Vinyl, Lyra, and Octavia were watching a small crew of work ponies install an enormous pane of glass into the front of the building. Well, Vinyl and Lyra were. Octavia was gently banging her head against their table.

“We have. To write. Something,” Octavia muttered between bangs. The cold contents of her coffee mug rippled with each thump.

Vinyl’s eyes moved from the window to her roommate as she noisily slurped her drink. “Is that helping? The banging, I mean.” She bobbed her head in time with the thumps. “…Pretty good beat. Hey Tavi, maybe you’re onto something.”

Octavia lifted her head to glare at Vinyl, a circular bruise already forming on her forehead. “Don’t even joke.”

“I’m not!” Vinyl cried, lifting her forehooves defensively. She leaned over and snatched the harp out of Lyra’s hooves. “Here, do it again.”

“Hey!”

“No. I am not—“ Octavia hesitated, experimentally tapping her hoof on the table at the same pace as she had been hitting her head. “…No!”

“Well then I don’t know what to tell ya!”

“Gimme that back!” Lyra said, swiping the harp back from Vinyl. “I think I had something!”

“You have to—wait, what?” Vinyl paused mid-gesture, her head turning to her mint-green companion. She set her hooves down on the table and cried, “Well why didn’t you say so?! Let’s hear it. Chop chop, Tavi and I’ve got a water bill to pay.”

Lyra shifted her position slightly, resting the harp on her hind leg as she had been before. Her right forehoof rested on the top of the gilded frame and her left draped over the strings—something of a token position, as the strings began to glow in tandem with her horn. Slowly, gently, a few strings were plucked by magic and their notes harmonized perfectly. Then over the top of that a melody began to play—it wasn’t an especially complicated or inspired piece, but Vinyl and Octavia both found themselves nodding in time to it as they listened.

“Hey, not bad,” Vinyl commented eventually.

“Wait, wait,” Lyra cried, waving a hoof excitedly. “I’m just getting to the good part!”

The good part probably would have been absolutely phenomenal—we can assume that based on the fact that a screaming carriage barreled wildly down the street next to them, throwing up clouds of dust and shattering the peaceful atmosphere. Lyra simply opened her eyes, looking confused that her focus was derailed so abruptly, but the other two started violently and watched the cart fly down the sloped path, mouths agape with horror.

“Sweet Celestia!” Octavia cried as Vinyl lifted her sunglasses for a better look. The merest suggestion of a beige blur shot by their table, but they barely noticed.

“What’s going on?!” demanded Lyra, always a little slow on the uptake. Even so, she blinked at her realization that something else had sped by after the carriage. “What was that?”

As Vinyl shifted to a standing position, staring after the cart, her hoof brushed into something hard and square on the tabletop. She looked at it. “…Where’d these books come from?”

Octavia looked down at the books, then further down at the surface they rested on. “…Where’d our tablecloth go?” she squawked. Her cup rocked violently where it stood, but didn’t fall over.

“Look!”

They did. The carriage was headed for the bank of the river, and for thorough destruction upon reaching it. But rapidly drawing up level to it was a shape, indistinct in its speed but a line of pounded hoofprints left in its wake. It was like a comet. A red-and white, cloth comet.

Lyra looked stunned. Vinyl looked baffled. Octavia’s shoulders slumped, somewhere between surprised, relieved and impressed. “Sun in the sky.”

The shape surged forward, easily overtaking the carriage and hitting the front corner with its shoulder as it moved in front of it. The cart’s path shifted left slightly as it sprinted along in front of it for a few paces, before abruptly dropping onto its side and letting it pass over him. There was a sound like splintering wood, both back wheels bounced wildly away, and the cart dropped onto its back edge as the Spider reappeared above it and grabbed the harnesses to stop the whole thing from flipping.

Lyra’s face had broken into a giddy grin. “I like him!”

Holding onto the front of the cart with both front hooves, the Spider planted his back ones on the ground forcefully, the resulting cloud of dust billowing up behind him and staining the improvised costume a dirty brown. But the cart was slowing. The Spider leaned back, his back hooves almost under the carriage, and shunted the whole thing to the right, further turning it away from the river and granting him more time to work. But it wasn’t enough. The musicians suspected from prior observation that he was being careful—he probably could have stopped the cart almost instantly; but then, the carriage’s occupants were far less resilient than he was. But still they knew—and so did he—that at the rate things were going, that cart was smashing itself on the opposite riverbank. He peeked around the edge of the carriage hastily, saw the river less than fifteen feet away, and seemed to make a snap decision. He righted himself, released the cart, jogged a few paces, and ducked under it again.

The entire carriage rose, supported on the back of this slightly short, unusually thin Earth stallion. He kept on trotting at that same speed, matching it even with his enormous load, and when his hooves brushed the point where the ground ended and the water waited a few feet below, he jumped.

He touched down on the opposite side of the river, the carriage still on his back, and was free to spend fifty meters gently cantering to a stop.

“WOO!” Vinyl screamed as the Spider awkwardly set the carriage down on its front wheels, then its back edge. “WELL DONE SPIDEY!”

She wasn’t the only one. From a slightly confused collective mumble grew a chorus of cheering, hooves stamping in applause and voices praising him at the top of their lungs. Lyra had even gone beyond that, practically vibrating with excitement as she bounced and squealed incoherently. The Spider watched his audience cheer as he helped Filthy Rich, his wife, and their daughter out of their damaged carriage. Then, just as Rich made a gesture that suggested the offering of a reward, he hopped back over the creek, leapt easily onto a rooftop, and darted out of sight.

Octavia stopped her polite applause when he vanished, staring confusedly after him. “What was that all about?”

“Waddya mean, ‘what was that all about?’” asked Vinyl, sitting back down as her shades settled back in front of her eyes. “We’ve got a superhero now! Again. And he was doing…” She waved a hoof vaguely. “Superhero stuff. And it was awesome.”

“IT’S SO AWESOME,” Lyra said breathlessly—although how was something of a mystery; it must have been very hard to talk with a grin that wide. “He—He picked up the carriage, did you see that?! And he was just, like, trotting with it on his back and he jumped—right over the river and it was just…so…eeeeee!”

As Lyra leaned back, squeaking and kicking her back hooves in excitement, Octavia pointedly ignored her and turned back to Vinyl. “I meant,” she said, “why did he make himself scarce like he did? We were cheering and applauding and all those other things Ponyville citizens do when something impressive happens, and he just ran away.”

Vinyl shrugged. “Maybe he’s got somewhere to be,” she suggested. “Or maybe he’s just doing that dramatic superhero thing where they mysteriously disappear after their job is done. They do it in the comics.”

Lyra flailed at them. “Maybe,” she ventured wildly, “he’s going to save somepony else! Like, he’s on superhero patrol or something, and—“

“It’s a small town,” muttered a stallion’s voice. “Going on patrol here would take, like, thirty seconds.”

They turned. Standing just to Octavia’s left was Peter, his short brown mane thoroughly ruffled, his dark blue collar halfway unfolded, and a layer of dust coating his lower legs. His left foreleg was raised slightly, and tucked under it was a red-and-white checkered tablecloth: stained mostly brown with dirt, wrinkled to cringeworthy levels, yet by some curious paradox neatly folded.

“I bet he was just embarrassed,” he continued, just loud enough for them to hear. “All those peo—ponies clapping and cheering? For something that was just…y’know, just being a decent person. I mean, I’d—I’d certainly be embarrassed.” He cleared his throat. Then he retrieved the tablecloth from beneath his foreleg and set it on their table. “Sorry,” he added, grabbing the books he had dropped in its place.

“Siddown, you!” Vinyl said, dropping her forehoof on his shoulder and attempting without much success to push him into a sitting position. He obeyed anyway, dusting his forehooves slightly before setting them on the tabletop. “Good to see you! We’re in a rut right now, and a pair of fresh ears is just what we need! Nice job with the cart, by the way.” She magically popped his collar the rest of the way.

“Uh, yeah, thanks.” He leaned back, looking down the hill at the Rich family’s ruined carriage. Turning back to the table and shifting his weight slightly, he looked down at the mostly-blank sheet music. “Um, is this gonna take that long? I have stuff I need to do today. I mean, being the brilliant artists you are, you might not understand this, but I kind of need a job.” He straightened the books in front of him and lifted the topmost volume. “And I have research I need to do! And there’s some stuff I have to design, and—“

“We don’t have very much written,” Octavia interrupted. The quill in her hoof moved carefully above the lined sheet of paper, delicately drawing one empty or filled oval at a time. “Just a ditty Lyra produced. It may have merit, though, and experience tells me—“ She gathered the papers in her hooves and tapped their edges on the table to straighten them. “It’s generally better to ask the opinion of somepony who isn’t a musician. Lyra, would you—what are you doing, Lyra?”

What Lyra was doing was standing at the other side of the table, examining Peter so closely that his ears brushed her horn as they twitched. She scrutinized him, and he scrutinized right back, leaning away a little and gradually raising a brow. He blinked, she blinked, and then she whispered, “This is so weird.”

“It is,” he agreed. “…I can see right up your nose.”

“I thought that maybe there’d be something spidery about you, if I looked close enough.” Lyra reached a hoof up and poked him. “But—there’s nothing! I mean, your eyes are a little weird when you like, really look at them—“

“A little?!”

“—and there’s a whole bunch of scars and stuff, but I thought there’d be, like, extra eyes under your fur or something! Wait, maybe you have venom.” Her hoof moved to his mouth and pulled back his lips to reveal his teeth. “…Hmm, no…”

He slapped her hoof away, pushing her back about two feet. “Stop that! No, I don’t have venom! If I did, I’d probably have chelicerae.” He paused. “…Which would actually be pretty cool. But I don’t, so knock it off!”

“But—“ Lyra’s face wasn’t quite a pout, but it was close. “But you’re so weird! Earth ponies can’t—can’t stick to stuff and jump over houses and do that super-speed-teleporty thing you keep doing!” Her voice was slowly rising in volume. Peter cringed when he realized this, and a beige hoof jumped in front of her mouth as he glanced at the ponies at the nearest two tables. “You’re a scientist, aren’t you?! I mean, your cutie mark says so!” He glanced down at the flask and gear as she rambled. “Investigating cool stuff is, like, what you do! It’s your special talent to, to conduct investigations and experiment with new ideas and—oh, oh! Is that how you got your powers?! Like you were experimenting with spider blood and there was a freak accident or—mmph. Mm mmph!”

Peter’s hoof was pressed to her mouth, sticking to her upper and lower lips simultaneously. His eyes were wide with alarm, and he cautiously glanced around again at neighboring tables. Then he returned his attention to Lyra and pulled her a little closer by the mouth. “Please, Lyra,” he muttered. “Never, ever talk to me in public about this stuff. Don’t—in fact, don’t use the P-word at all when we’re near peo—ponies who don’t know. Please.”

“Yeah,” interjected Vinyl, who was leaning closer to hear Peter’s voice. “Secret identity, Lyra. It’s a staple for su—for ponies like him. Don’t go around blabbing it.”

“If we could please get back on task,” said Octavia, passive-aggressively straightening the sheet music again.

“Mm mm ymm gmnmf ll mph mnmnph.”

Peter unstuck his hoof from Lyra’s mouth and lowered it slightly, brow furrowed. “What?”

“You said you were gonna tell me everything.”

Peter stared at her for a moment, his face completely blank. His mouth opened, then closed again, his eyes flickering back and forth slightly in rapid thought. He lowered his hoof gradually and licked his upper lip. “Well…I—no.” He bit the end of that sentence off and chewed his lip, looking down. He focused back on her as her expectant smile slowly began shrinking. “I said I’d tell you everything,” he began tentatively, “if you left and didn’t come back. And you did, so…”

The pout Lyra’s face was morphing into brought a wince to his own. Peter trailed off, looking away from her, and shuffled his hooves uncomfortably.

“Alright,” he muttered at last. Lyra’s face and posture perked up. “Fine. I’ll tell you—“ His eyes lit up. “…I’ll tell you why I can…do stuff. Basically. Alright?”

“Okay!”

“Lyra,” Octavia said flatly. “Could you please discuss this with him later? We have to get this done. Vinyl, help me. The water bill is already past due—“

Vinyl glanced at her, then back at Peter. “Actually, Tavi, I kinda wanna hear this. You’re on your own.”

“…Gahhh,” Octavia groaned into her hooves. “I need a drink.”

Peter, for his part, stared upward, slowly twiddling his hooves as he gathered his thoughts. “Where to start, where to start, where to start…well, my genome’s been spliced with those of…five or six different species in the order Araneae, I think. Synthesized transfer RNA was integrated into the genomes of several different specimens ofParasteatoda tepidariorum via an engineered lentivirus, which reverse-transcribes its own RNA into DNA and integrates it into the host genome using a retroviral integrase enzyme. Pretty basic genetic engineering on the surface, right, except they were tinkering with the process using the various enzymes, proteins, and chemical agents developed by Dr. Robert Bruce Banner…” He stopped, looking surprised. Looking away briefly, he murmured, “Jesus Christ, that was ten years ago.” He focused on Vinyl, who his gaze had absentmindedly landed on. “I’m getting old.”

“I—“ Octavia looked at the group. “I’m fairly certain we’re all older than you. Except…maybe Lyra.”

Peter looked back at the unicorn in question, who looked utterly lost. Grinning at the sight, he continued. “Well, anyway, those enzymes and the rest, all taken together, can be fueled by gamma radiation to initiate prodigious cellular growth and renewal, in the process repairing any genetic damage done by the radiation itself. This work was, in turn, based on the work of Professor Stanley Lieber, ‘bout forty-five, fifty years ago. He theorized that carefully controlled dosages of high-energy radiation could react with certain engineered amino acids to (short version) enhance a subject’s physical traits.”

“…Wha?”

“You’re right, I’m getting off-track. Anyway, the spiders. The way all that radiation-based stuff works is that it bypasses mitochondria, overrides the genetic governors that keep cellular division in check, and basically causes controlled cancer. The thing is, retroviruses can already do that, kind of. They can shut off the safeguards cells have and cause them to replicate uncontrollably. That’s how they were discovered, the Avian sarcoma leukosis virus was giving chickens cancer. So, anyway, it was sort of a twofold experiment, I think: try to reprogram the genome of the living specimens and see if infected cells can be controlled to not form sarcomas. Both worked just fine—I mean, exhibit A—but what they didn’t think to consider was the possibility of one of their specimens infecting another organism—also exhibit A, I guess. So the lentivirus was introduced into my bloodstream inside the spider’s venom, along with Dr. Banner’s magnum opus and a large dosage of radioactive particles to fuel it. The venom temporarily shut down my immune system, allowing the lentivirus to spread through my system in only a couple hours, reprogramming about a hundred trillion copies of the same genome in one night, and since of course the infected cells renewed themselves once the proviruses took hold, development of my…altered abilities…took only a few hours more. My throat’s gone dry. Vinyl, are you drinking this?”

“Wha—yes!” Vinyl snapped, snatching her cup away from Peter’s hoof. “Am I drinking this. No, no, it’s only my OJ. Why would I be?” She paused, considering the pony in front of her. “…Also, ha! Nerd.” She sipped her drink noisily.

Peter snorted at the remark, giving a short nod of acknowledgement. Then he turned back to Lyra. “So, that’s…basically it. That’s how I got my…” he waved his hooves a little, miming a jump. “things.” He coughed. “So, any questions?”

Lyra almost appeared to be cringing, one eye shut and her brow furrowed, her mouth slightly agape. She said nothing for a moment, and then she cried, “I didn’t understand any of that!”

“Yeah. Well, I’d love to stick around and explain some more, buuuut…” Peter stood, gathering his books. “I gotta go.”

“Bu—“ Lyra watched him turn away. “But that’s not fair! You can’t just drop sciencey stuff on me and pretend that was good enough!”

“You wanted me to tell you how it happened!”

“I meant, like, ‘I drank a potion for a dare,’ or something! You just went on a ramble about…engineering and…banners and cancer.”

“For a dare?!” Peter turned around to look at her properly. “Nobody does—actually, wait. I used to know people who would do that for even less reason. The point is, I didn’t even have friends back then! Nobody gave me dares. Nonono, freak accident. Listen, though, I mean it. I have so much I need to—to do.”

“You don’t need to do it all now, though!” Lyra’s brow had lowered in growing frustration. “What’s going on? You haven’t told us anything about you so far! This isn’t fair! What’s so craaazy important that you can’t sit down for like five minutes and tell me about iiiiit?!” The end of that sentence was practically a whine.

If Peter looked uncomfortable, it was because he was. He looked down and shuffled his front hooves—something that rapidly seemed to be becoming a nervous tic of his. “I…” He swallowed. “I don’t like talking about my life. It’s not a fun conversation, y’know? And I just—“ He hesitantly looked up to meet her eyes. “I’ve got to keep moving. That’s all there is to it. I have to stay busy right now, okay? Please.”

“Your uncle Ben used to call it water skiing…” Aunt May paused to set her pen aside and lower her reading glasses. “You keep moving as fast as you can because you know what you’re standing on won’t support you if you slow down. What I’m standing on right now won’t support me if I slow down and start thinking about this too much. So I have to keep moving.” She fixed him with one of her stares. “You can understand that, can’t you, Peter?”

Six weeks. She had known for six weeks. It had scared them both so badly at first, and she had done so much in the time since to help him in his endeavors. She must have been so scared whenever she saw him on the news, but she had still supported him. And then, just as she was beginning to grow used to it, he brought it right to her door and then—

“I’ve gotta go,” Peter said quickly. “I have so much work to do.” He turned on his hooves (leaving a wide half-circle drawn into the dust beneath them) and cantered away, leaving Lyra standing there with a look on her face like she wasn’t sure whether to be frustrated or worried. She settled on frustrated, trudging back to the table and sitting down dejectedly, her chin resting on the sanded wood and her lower lip sticking out a little. After a second, the sound of magic reached her ears and her eyes flickered up to look at her companion. Vinyl was leaning one hoof on the table in a poor imitation of nonchalance, her eyes focused on Lyra behind her shades and her horn emitting its telltale fog-like glow—a glow matched by the golden harp that drifted down into her view pointedly. She grunted and looked away.

“Lyra.”

She grunted again.

“Lyra, come on,” Octavia said, attempting to sound gentle yet firm and instead simply sounding firm. “You can talk to him about it more later. But we need to try and make some music now.” A grey hoof reached out and ruffled Lyra’s mane halfheartedly, and she glanced up at the cellist. “What was that piece you came up with earlier?”

Lyra stared at her for a few seconds before lifting her head up from the table, her brow furrowed a little in concentration. She inhaled through her nose and slowly blew it out. “I forget,” she said glumly. “It’s gone now.”

Octavia sighed, nodded to herself, and took a long sip of her coffee. Wordlessly, she slid the sheet music over to the lyrist, who took it in her magic and looked it over. Gradually the unicorn started nodding, her pout disappearing, and then the quill and inkwell glowed and were yanked over to her spot.

“See?” Octavia said, smiling, as Lyra began adding notes to the end of the piece and humming the tune as she went. “Music always makes one feel better. Now do you think we can turn this into something long enough to—oh? You’re back.”

“Y-yeah,” Peter said awkwardly, his head ducked as though to hide himself. He rested a forehoof on the table without sitting down. “I, uh, this is kind of a weird question, but do you guys know anywhere where I can maybe get a job?”

“That’s not very weird at all,” said Octavia, folding her hooves. “I only wish I could provide a decent answer, because then I might have a consistent salary. Vinyl?”

“Um.” Vinyl stretched her neck, chewing her lip. “…Maybe try one of the market booths? I mean, that gear on your butt says you’ve got a pretty marketable skill. Everypony needs something fixed once in awhile, and I…don’t think we have a mechanic in Ponyville? You could do that.”

Peter’s face had been frozen in a wince since she had mentioned his cutie mark, and now he opened his mouth, closed it again, and glanced away for a second. “I don’t really think I’m ready for that,” he said. “I mean, I’m good at mechanics—really good—but I’ve ran into a bit of a setback there.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.” The lie assembled on his tongue as he went. “I’ve got a bit of a twitch when I’m using fine motor skills. I mean, not when I write—I’ve got the pen on the paper there, kinda helps me stay steady-ish—but it’s hard to, like, operate a screwdriver or line up a set of gears. Besides, I don’t know how to run a business.”

“Hmm. Yeah, that’s probably pretty important. Maybe you could ask one of those guys, like Carrot Top or Applejack or—“

“Applejack.”

“What?”

Peter stepped away from the table, a smile inching its way up his face. “I just remembered. On the train, when I was on my way here, Applejack mentioned—thank you, Vinyl! You’re brilliant!”

A snappy remark was immediately in Vinyl’s head and on her tongue, but Peter had already vanished.

The bark rippled outwards from Applejack’s hooves and the entire tree shuddered; the deep red apples shook hard enough on their stems to snap off and fall into the baskets she had placed around the tree. She bucked again, clearing the last of the apples from the tree, before taking the nearest basket in her mouth and trotting to the wagon several feet away. The sun was hot on her back; she adjusted her Stetson so that the brim shaded her eyes. The Summer Sun Celebration had been a nice day off and the trip to Canterlot had been fun, but that was nearly three days ago now, and now sweat dripped from her chin and burned her eyes as he summer sun blazed overhead.

Not that she minded particularly. It was part of the job, and she wouldn’t trade it for all the bits in Equestria.

Applejack took her time moving the baskets to the wagon. She had no need to hurry; the species of apple she was harvesting now was a small grove. She could easily get them all on her own before they grew overripe. It was for this reason that, just as she had loaded the last basket onto the cart and Winona went streaking by her, yipping, she set off after the dog at an easy pace, letting her get out of sight and following her by ear.

She followed the sound of barking towards the driveway and to the beginning of the rows of trees on the other side. Winona was at the base of one tree, her front paws on its trunk as she cheerfully barked up into the obscurity of the branches. Applejack eased to a canter as she neared the border collie, looking up into the leaves as she came to a stop.

“Oh, howdy, Peter!” she called up, smiling. “What brings ya here this mornin’?”

Peter, who had bridged his legs between two particularly strong branches and was peering down nervously at the yipping dog, spoke around a manila folder clamped between his teeth. “T’ th’ frm ‘r up th’ tree? Cuz th’ secnd ‘ne’s prtty obvious. Mornin’, Applejck.”

She laughed at the remark. “Why don’t ya come down here? Winona here don’t bite. It’s just ‘er way of sayin’ hello.”

“Wll thn smebdy needs t’ teach ‘er how t’ shake.” Nevertheless, Peter carefully stepped off his branches, one leg at a time, and dropped from the tree, his hooves crushing grass as they hit the ground. Taking the folder from between his teeth, he held it with a reared foreleg as he cautiously watched Winona dash around him, barking cheerfully and sniffing at this new pony.

“So,” Applejack said, “what can Ah do ya for?”

“I was hoping for a job.” Peter sat on the ground, using his other forehoof to extract a sheet of paper from the folder and offer it to Applejack. “You mentioned that help was always welcome on your farm before Pinkie interrupted you, so I was wondering if I could maybe take you up on that.”

Applejack took the paper from the offering hoof and glanced over it. It was a résumé, painstakingly hoofwritten with only the occasional stray drop of ink or barely-legible word betraying its nature as the work of someone besides a unicorn. She lowered it, looking at its author as he leaned away from the dog’s tongue. He glanced at her, clearly not trusting Winona enough to keep his eyes off of her for more than a second.

“Course, I can wait for a few days for you to mull it over,” he said, gently pushing Winona back a little. “You know that hotel near the train station? If you wanna give me an interview—“

“We’d be glad to have ya,” Applejack interrupted, smiling.

Peter stopped for a second, his mouth still open to speak. “…Y’know, I put a lot of work into that résumé,” he said finally, ignoring the dog. “It took me four tries to get the handwriting as good as it is. The least you could do is at least look it over before hiring me, give my work some validatio—gah. Also, can you make your dog leave my legs alone?” He gave the dog in question a look that wasn’t quite a glare as Applejack laughed.

“Winona, come’ere,” she said, patting the ground by her left forehoof. Winona obeyed, ducking her head under Applejack’s raised hoof and inviting her to pet behind her ears. As Applejack did so, she looked at the résumé in more detail: “…Says here yer good with machines an’ can be on call at any hour.” Peter smiled and nodded. “That’s nice. Mebbie you could take a look at our wagon. Are ya punctual?”

Peter’s smile evaporated. After a few seconds of trying to find a positive spin, he said, “Nnnnot as such.” He bit back the shorter, more straightforward answer, hastily adding elaboration. “I can guarantee that if you ask me to do something, it’ll get done. And it’ll be done efficiently, ergonomically…just not necessarily… immediately.” He gave something resembling an awkward shrug.

Applejack set the paper down. “An’ how are ya at applebuckin’?”

Peter’s brow furrowed for a second. He glanced away from her and by chance his eyes landed on the hoofprints decorating the tree trunks. “Oh! Oh, yeah. I’m…pretty good with that. Pretty strong, actually. Can’t you tell?” He flexed a skinny foreleg in a lampooned impression of a braggart. In point of fact, even if the bicep bulge wasn’t particularly large, it had the definition of one who had spent a lot of time working their ass off for years. Setting it down hastily, he said, “But seriously, I can buck apples. I think.”

Applejack, who had briefly snorted at Peter’s sarcastic brag, gave an amused smile at his half-baked affirmation. “Well, gimme an example,” she invited. Gesturing at the tree immediately behind him, she said, “Give it a kick.”

Peter looked over his shoulder at the tree trunk, suddenly a little nervous. “What? Just like that?” He paused, thinking about the knee-jerk reaction. “Never mind. Alright; so I just…kick it? Is there a form or something?”

Applejack shrugged. “Not really. Everypony has their own way of doin’ it. Ah don’t really pay attention to how Ah do it, but mah pa planted his front hooves and clenched his stomach. Mac used to do about the same when he was ‘bout your size, except Ah think with more follow-through. When Dash pitches in, she just flies inta the branches—“

BRAACK!

…Crrriissshh.

“…But mebbie ya could try only kickin’ with one hoof.”

Peter withdrew his back hooves from the air, staring horrified at the felled tree. “Oh, crap! I’m so so sorry!” He looked from the shattered stump and grounded cluster of branches and leaves, to the farmer, his face a mask of guilt and anxiousness. As Winona ran to what was now only the treetop in the academic sense and sniffed at it, he looked down at his hooves and shuffled them. Then he glanced at Applejack for an instant before turning to face the former tree and nervously trotted over to it. He looked from it to Applejack a few times, not daring to meet her eyes for more than a second at a time. “I…oy, gevalt. I can’t believe...” He trailed off to nothing, staring defeated at the trunk.

Orange entered his periphery as Applejack joined him next to the tree. “T’ain’t nothin’ to worry ‘bout,” she reassured, giving his shoulder a pat. “It happens sometimes. You should’ve seen how many Mac knocked down when he was growin’ up. Just be mindful of it an’ try not ta do it too often.”

Peter exhaled slowly as she spoke, obviously relieved. “…And hey,” he said, “I got the apples off.”

She snorted. “Ya did at that. We’ll take ya aboard, but there ain’t much for ya to do ‘til Applebuckin’ Season in a few months.” When Peter looked at her questioningly, she added, “Course, we might have an odd job or two for ya, but we usually do most’a that ourselves. Ah’ll have ya see to our wagon after lunch. Speakin’ of—“ she began to trot back towards the house. “Why don’t ya come in an’ have lunch with us, meet mah siblings an’ Granny.”

“No thanks. I had a big breakfast.” Applejack glanced back at him for a moment. His expression was a cross between jovial and apologetic, a forehoof raised and shaking back and forth gently. He looked as though he sincerely did regret already eating, and Applejack opened her mouth to invite him in anyway—which made things that much less comfortable when his stomach announced its skepticism of his claim. Loudly.

Peter froze in place, his forehoof still raised. Applejack’s smile shrank to almost nothing, and he looked away guiltily. “Coffee. I had coffee. I was just going to make do on that…I…I’m sorry, I just didn’t wanna intrude—“

“Ah, tosh. We’d love ta have ya.”

Peter had been expecting that, which is why he had attempted to brush the invitation off with an excuse, but now it seemed kind of token. Until two days ago, Applejack had been the Bearer of Honesty; it was amazing that she had reacted to his white lie as civilly as had. Even now, she was giving him a look of quiet confusion and disappointment, as though he had fallen short of an expectation she had considered a given. Looking away, he adjusted his shirt collar slightly.

“Listen,” he began, steadfastly refusing to meet her eyes, “I’m…sorry I tried to do that. Should I just go? I wouldn’t wanna waste too much of your time.” He raised a hoof, giving a small cough.

“What, an’ miss lunch?” Peter’s eyes and nothing else flicked towards Applejack, surprised. “Ya can’t call a few cups’a coffee a meal, Pete. ‘Sides, you’re gonna need ta meet mah family if ya wanna work here.”

“What? Really?” Peter tilted his head, baffled. “…So I’ve…still got the job…? I’m confused.” All at once his eyes lit up with understanding. “Oh, you’re just being polite. I get you. There’s really no need—“

“Yer not fired, Pete,” she replied earnestly. “As long as yer a hard worker, you’ve got a job on Sweet Apple Acres. Come on in. Ah insist.”

The lady insisted. Peter took a deep breath, exhaling through the corner of his mouth. “…Alright,” he said. His stomach growled its approval and he shot a glance at it before beginning to follow a ways behind Applejack. Winona took the opportunity to dart about him, sniffing at him and playfully pawing or growling.

“But if ya are workin’ here,” Applejack called over her shoulder, “ya gotta at least try ta be honest. This lyin’s gotta stop.”

“This lion? Call a zoo. I’m sure they’ll be happy to have it.”

Ri-i-ingg.

Peter glanced up at the bell on the corner of the door as he closed it. It was an odd thing to have; not only were there no shelves to obscure the view of the front door, but the bell could almost be missed among the simultaneous ticking of clocks. He hummed at it thoughtfully before he looked down, just in time to see a brown, bug-eyed creature look up at him from the counter.

“GAH!” He recoiled violently, almost rearing up like a spooked horse. Which made sense.

Time-Turner lifted a pair of reading glasses to his forehead, taking with them the clip-on lenses that had magnified his bright blue eyes. “Oh!” he said, smiling. “‘Ello, Peter! Come in, and please don’t mind that hole in the wall. We had an insect problem a few days ago.”

Peter looked at the large hole in the wall right next to the door, which had a white sheet taped over it. He winced as he turned back towards Turner, taking another step forward. “Ehhh...I’m sorry about that, Turner. There weren’t as many vines there—”

“Don’t you apologise for that,” Turner cut him off, shaking his head slightly. “I can more than pay for it. I’m just teasing.” He stood up from behind the counter, pulling a band like a watchstrap off each fetlock. The left strap had a set of tweezers clipped to it, and the right had a tiny screwdriver. “In truth, I should be thanking you. I don’t want to think about what might have happened to Dinky if you weren’t there.”

Peter shrugged. “No need. It’s what I do.”

“Then you do great work.” Turner met him halfway across the room and took his hoof, shaking it. “Thank you, Peter. What’s wrong?” he added, noting Peter’s uncomfortably lopsided smile.

“...This feels weird,” Peter confessed, looking down at their hooves. “I’m...not used to being thanked. Usually when I save a kid it’s more like, ‘get your hands off my daughter! How dare you yadda yadda yadda, I usually stop listening by then. I mean, sure, some of them thank me, but not like this.” He looked up at the taller stallion’s puzzled expression. “It’s...refreshing. Thanks for the thanks.”

“Where in Equestria was this?” Turner blurted. “Where could you have possibly lived before that had citizens so utterly callous? Even Trottingham ponies aren’t that bad!”

Peter opened his mouth, then froze. “Ahm. Um. You know, here and there.” His eyes flickered away for a moment, then returned to Turner. “Mostly—mostly the Manehattan area. I used to live a little ways outside the city, so.” He shrugged.

Turner blinked at the roundabout answer. “Well,” he said, bringing himself to his full height and forcing Peter to look up at him, “maybe it’s just Hooves family sensibilities that I haven’t outgrown, but I fail to see why you would stick your neck out for such ponies.”

Peter tilted his head a little, looking baffled. “You think I should’ve let kids die?”

That seemed to punch a hole in Turner’s slightly puffed-up demeanor. He deflated, his expression melting from one of righteous indignation to mingled embarrassment and contemplation. “...That...that’s a good point. I failed to think of it that way, I’m sorry. But still, I’m perplexed you’d risk your life in the face of such scorn—”

Peter looked down for minute, shrugging slightly. “It’s...not my place to care about that. I can’t just let people get hurt. No matter what they think of me.” He took a breath. His eyes flickered up to Turner, who looked like he was about to ask another question. “But,” Peter continued hastily, turning away and very deliberately looking at a random clock on the wall, “I didn’t come here to preach. I was actually hoping to buy a few parts off you.”

Turner’s brow furrowed as he glanced at the clock Peter stared at. “...Parts? Like, clock parts?”

“Yeah, exactly!” Peter said instantly, standing up straight. “I, uh, know you don’t usually sell gears and stuff on their own, but I need to build something in a hurry. Two somethings.” He looked down again, fumbling in the bag he had at one shoulder and producing a crumpled sheet of paper. Smoothing it out slightly revealed a crude drawing of a clockwork mechanism with a narrow valve at the bottom.

Turner lowered his reading glasses and looked at the drawing, turning it every which way. “...What is this, a water gun?”

A chuckle. “No. No. I call them web-shooters. I know the drawing’s kinda bad, because quills are the devil, but if you had a drawer of parts or whatever, I can figure out what I need.” He gave Turner a forced-looking smile. “I-is that alright?”

“I sort of need the cogs I have,” Turner said uncertainly, not looking up from the picture. “I don’t get shipments that often, Peter, and these look insanely complicated.”

“I have money. Not a lot, but—”

“Money’s not the issue,” Turner interrupted. “I should get another order of cogs next month, if you'd like to wait, but—”

He broke off as the sound of hoofsteps on the stairs reached both their ears. They turned towards the counter, and the stairs behind them, as quick, easy trotting was cut off by a small cry and the sound of an entire body hitting the stairs. Derpy tumbled into view, landing bodily on the floor behind the counter with a crash and a small puff of grey feathers.

Both stallions started forward, Peter by automatic worry but Turner with a more familiar gait. “You alright, luv?” Turner called.

Derpy lifted her head quickly. Half a muffin was sticking out of her mouth, and a feather was nestled in her mane as her right eye drifted in a slow circle. She blinked, her eye returning to its standard place observing something above her, and nodded with an attempt at a smile. “M akay,” she mumbled around the muffin, then took most of it out and swallowed what was still in her mouth. “Oh, hi, Peter!” she said cheerfully, standing up and cantering around the counter. “I didn’t know you were visiting. How are you?”

“I’m—ah—” he interrupted himself, leaning back as Derpy gave him a quick hug, hesitating before returning it gratefully. “I’m great, Derpy. And I’m not exactly visiting. I just wanted to ask Turner if I could buy a few cogs and stuff from him.”

“Oh!” Derpy replied brightly, her ears standing up straight and her wings ruffling. “Well of course you can! Timey, where do you keep all that stuff?”

“What? In my drawers, but—” Turner automatically moved out of her way as his wife trotted behind the counter again, pulling out the first of a few drawers in its back with her mouth. “Derpy, we don’t have spare cogs to give him.”

“Sure we do!” she replied, looking up at him. “You over-prepare, Timey. Pete, come over here and let’s see what you need.”

“I do not over-prepare,” Turner retorted as Peter glanced at him questioningly. “Ponies need clocks. I can’t just delay their orders until my next shipment arrives, I have to make my supplies last.”

“Timey.” Derpy gave him a look, pursing her lips. “You have like a bajillion gears in here.”

“And very few of them are compatible with each other!” Turner replied. He started trotting towards the counter, Peter close behind him. “Look, these are Minute Gears Size 6, and I’ve only got four of them left! They don’t fit with any other gear sizes! This is a Second Gear Size 2. My last one! I can’t just give out gears willy-nilly.”

Peter cleared his throat hesitantly. “I, uh, I’m not building watches here, Turner. I don’t need gears of the same sizes.” He leaned over the counter, peering at the sections the drawer was divided into. “...How is this organized? Oh, I see.” As he walked around the counter, eyes flicking from section to section, he muttered, “...I think I need...four of those gears—wait, one sec—” He darted back to Turner, taking the drawing back, and laid it flat on the tabletop. “Okay, yeah, four of those, two of these, about six of these small ones, and—hmm. Where can I buy a pair of these?”

Turner looked past the watchstrap Peter held up, a flathead screwdriver still clipped to it, and at the stallion himself quizzically. “The Smithstraps? You...can find them in almost any hardware store. At least, I think so. Did they not sell them where you used to live, or—?”

“Well,” Peter interrupted hastily, releasing the strap from his adhesive grip. “I-I really don't wanna take parts when you might need them, Turner, but I kinda need the web-shooters. I can pay for them, if you want!” He dug through his bag, the sounds of coins rattling against each other drowning out the room of clocks before Derpy put one hoof on Peter's shoulder.

“It’s fine, Petey,” she smiled, even as he twitched away from her touch. “You don’t need to pay us for a few gears. We owe you this much.”

“Don’t,” Peter replied, shaking his head. “Don’t. It's not about paying a debt. I mean, thank you for this, Derpy, but it can't be a reward. It can't.” He reached for the cogs and springs he had set on the drawing, but paused halfway there and glanced up at Turner. When the taller pony eventually rolled his eyes and shrugged out a gesture of if you must, Peter winced but slid the gears into his bag anyway. “Sorry,” he muttered to Turner.

“Don’t be,” he muttered back, eyes still staring skyward. “It’s my own fault for marrying such an incredibly nice pony.”

Peter chortled as he stuffed the drawing into the bag. “Hear that, Mrs. Hooves? Your husband wishes he married someone meaner.” He gave Derpy a smile. “Really, though, thank you.”

“You're welcome,” Derpy said, but her brow was furrowed and her eye seemed to stare at him without quite focusing. He tilted his head at this expression, giving Turner a questioning look, but he shrugged and started around the counter.

Peter's path crossed his as he started for the door, a little awkwardly. He turned back at the door to see Turner lean over in front of his wife and wave a hoof in front of her face with a quiet “yoo-hoo.” She blinked, focusing on him, and Turner gave her a quick smile and said, “What’s up, luv?”

“Can't?” Derpy said confusedly. She looked this way and that before focusing on Peter. “What did you mean, can't?”

“What?”

Derpy stood up, turning to face him properly. A quizzical expression sat oddly on her face. “I—I'm glad you don't save ponies because you want a reward!” she said hastily, her wings twitching and almost bopping Turner on the nose. “(Sorry, Timey.) It’s great of you to do that. But...what do you mean you can't take all that stuff as one? I don't understand.”

Peter shrugged. “I start accepting rewards, I lose sight of why I do this to begin with. It's better this way.”

“Oh...and why do you do it?”

Peter hesitated for a fraction of a second. “...A-and anyway, I've already got one! Action is my reward!” He gave the couple a cheesy smile before turning and almost sprinting out the door. The ring of the bell didn't echo through the shop room above the ticking of clocks, but it should've.

Derpy scrunched her nose as she stared at the closed door. “That was weird.”

“Luv, I did legitimately need those parts.”

She looked at Turner, her head tilted as he frowned at her. “Come on, Timey! Half the ponies in Ponyville use your clocks. They're not gonna break before your next shipment comes!”

“Well, yes,” her husband admitted. “But it's the other half I'm worried about.”

“Oh.” Derpy pondered this for a second. “...Well, they can wait. What're they gonna do, go all the way to Canterlot for another clockmaker? You'll be fine.”

“Well!” Turner said, his brow rising as his lips twitched up an inch. “There’s a surprise. Sounds like I did marry a meaner pony.”

“Maybe,” Derpy grinned. She stuck out her tongue at him. “I'm so mean I'm gonna steal something from you.” And with no further warning, she leaned in for a kiss.

The sun, low as it was, shone orange across the Ponyville rooftops. The top off the house across the street cut it off, so although the top of Carousel Boutique was bathed in the light of Celestia’s sun and shone as if it had been set ablaze, the ground floor was swathed in deepening shadow. Rarity watched from the front door, admiring how the colors deepened and flushed ever darker, before turning her gaze upwards.

She had tried multiple times to find fabric that was the exact shade of orange she saw painted across her upper floor. Not once had she found anything like it. Some part of her maybe preferred it that way.

As the sun continued to fall, the deep shadow crept up the wall like a rising wave and drowned the brilliant hue. Rarity watched it for a few seconds more, but she stepped inside and closed the door behind her before a chill could set in. The lock clicked over the sound of her magic moving it, and she didn’t bother looking as she flipped the sign in the window to CLOSED.

She hummed an improvised tune as she walked into her workroom. Pausing only for a moment to light the room, she began to roll up the fabric spread across the nearest table before scooping up the scissors. Organized chaos was one thing, but she was not about to leave her supplies just anywhere when she was done. Organized chaos meant that she knew where everything was.

It was as she was putting away the scissors that she noticed to her delight the faint whispered of steam still rising from her half-full mug on the next table. She took a sip, smiling at the smell and taste of chamomile. Setting it where she’d remember it later, Rarity pushed back her mannequin—

Tap-tap-tap

—before continuing to clear her tables. Holding a hoof in front of her mouth as she yawned, she rubbed her eye—

Tap. Tap. Tap.

…She had dismissed the first set of raps, thinking them the work of a leaf or twig in the breeze, or the flexing of the glass panes in their plus-shaped wooden frames; or perhaps she had missed them entirely, wrapped up in a soft blanket of a world made from idle businesses and chamomile tea. But the sound of staccato, deliberate rapping at her window disturbed her from the relaxed trance she had eased herself into, and her head rose of its own accord as her eyes found focus on the wall. A dozen romance novels in her mind simultaneously opened to the scene wherein the protagonist courts his (or her) love interest from a window. She disregarded all of them on the grounds that she hadn’t felt herself drawn to any mysterious strangers recently, and turned around.

The edge of the sun hadn’t completely vanished from the world, even if it was hidden by the house across the street. A dim light spilled around it and revealed to her the shape of a stallion filling up the window, hooves pressed to the glass and supporting him as though with glue.

Rarity took a step back, only stopping at one because her hindquarters bumped into the table now behind her. Then the memories of her few instances with the Spider illuminated her mind like a candle, and although she didn’t quite relax,her automatic horror at the sight faded. A tense few seconds passed as they stared at each other; one forehoof detached from the sheer glass and waved awkwardly. Untensing ever so slightly, more out of amusement than anything, Rarity’s horn began to glow and the window unlatched. The Spider detached one hoof at a time as it opened, and the instant the opening was wide enough he leaned through, perching on the sill like it was the most natural thing in the world.

“Hello,” Rarity said. The word vanished into the alien stillness the Spider’s presence seemed to exude. Her practiced manners had come to a screeching halt as she continued to stare, baffled. “…It’s you.”

“Yeah.” She couldn’t see an inch of his face, but the Spider’s tone of voice made it clear that he was perfectly aware of how odd this was. “Hi.” He glanced down, presumably at his own hooves. “Can I come in?”

The manners were back: Of course, Darling immediately jumped to her lips, but Rarity bit them back warily. “This is most unusual,” she said. “What is it you want, may I ask?”

She could already make a guess—the bedsheet was a starched white this time, but it was still a bedsheet—but the Spider confirmed it after a moment’s nervous hesitation. “I need a costume,” he said. “I-I mean, I can’t keep wearing a sheet every time I need to go out. I’m trying to establish a reputation here, and besides, the detergent’s gonna get expensive fast.”

She hadn’t expected a joke. Rarity put a hoof to her mouth and looked away, suppressing the chuckle easily but unable to keep down the smile. “I’d love to help you,” she said, “but it would be far more convenient—for both of us, I imagine—if you were here during daylight hours. I just closed the Boutique for the day.”

“I know. I watched you flip the sign around.” Silence filled the room as Rarity fixed him with a stare, and he glanced slightly to the side. “…Which sounded…way creepier…than I thought it would, but I can’t have anyone, like, walking in while this is going on. I’d like to keep everything as secret as possible. So this thing where I’m sticking out of a bright window…isn’t really helping me. Can I come in, please?”

She hesitated, but eventually released the words. “Of course, Darling. Close the window behind you.”

Author's Note

Well, today you've seen a rare occurrence indeed: a dead fic has risen from the grave. Those who read the previous chapters when they came out, the last one something like a year and a half ago, I bet you were never expecting to see this chapter.

I have no decent excuses for taking so long. 2016 was a shit year, and I'm glad it's almost over; I'm in college now and eternally busy; my physical and mental health both seem to have taken something of a dive; etcetera, etcetera, none of this can justify why this chapter took a year and a friggin' half. Just know that I am sorry, and I will try hard to make sure that never happens again. Especially now that I think I know the general shape of the plot.