The space between Tic and Tock
I have told this story a few times in role play but never got around to writing a good enough copy to post. It is a quiet night and I have taken the time. Hopefully it is worth reading. This is set during the time of Discord’s reign. Long before Luna got sent to the moon……
Countdown
By Xamp
Tic
My life has always been about time. I never really had a choice about that. My family has been clockmakers as far back as anyone can remember, of course I would be as well. It really never occurred to me to do anything different. Perhaps it should have. Perhaps.
Tic
The town of Everfree was like any number of tiny towns in the world. My family had moved there before I was born and set up shop. It was really too small a town for a clock maker’s shop, and money was always tight, but we were happy. Well, I was happy, but then it was the only life I knew. It was hard sometimes being the only pegasis foal in the school but it was an earth pony town and we were outsiders. And yes, a pegasis family of clockmakers, I don’t know why everyone assumes only a unicorn can do delicate work. It used to drive me nuts sometimes.
Tic
I am named Manespring by the way, not that it matters anymore. Well, I should say that while my name will not matter to anyone soon, I am still attached to it. I was born a boring brown pegasis with a yellow mane and tail. I miss my colors sometimes, when I think about it. Then there is my cutie mark…. Ah, my cutie mark it was the mark of my destiny in more ways than one. I was so proud the day it appeared, the day I made my first clock and I felt that special tingle as it tic’d for the first time. I still have it of course, even though I have lost so much else.
I pant softly as I continue to try to dig, why I pant I can’t really say. It is a waste of what time I have left and I don’t really need to breath. Habits are hard to break.
Tic
I feel my strength fading. I wish I could see something but the darkness is absolute and the last candle died long ago. Still, I force my hoof forward, scratching at the dirt. I think I am making some progress, but there is no way to know how far I have left to go or even if I am going the right direction. It is hopeless. I will never see the sky again. Still, I cannot just lay down and die. It is not in my heart …. My heart… that is funny. It is not in my heart to give up.
My eyes close, but I keep trying, struggling, foolishly. My thoughts go back to before the change. I was a normal mare, a bit bookish I suppose. Still, I went through school and then apprenticed to my father. I learned my trade and in the fullness of time I took over the shop. I had a few friends, some of the male variety, but I never really had a special somepony. Oh Celestia, I really wanted that! I would have liked to have had a family of my own!
Tic
I led my quiet little life, it was nothing special. I opened my shop every day and every night slept on a cot in the back. I made clocks and sometimes little wind up toys and made a minor name for myself. Looking back, I guess even if nothing had changed, nopony would ever have really noticed as I grew old and then died. One less little shop in a little town on the edge of the world is hardly going to be noticed after all. I guess I was okay with that, even though I dreamed of something more, just like everypony really.
It was quiet and I liked the quiet. I was never really brave enough to actually do anything about my dreams. I suppose some would say I was in a rut and perhaps I was. I doubt I would have broken free of it, but then everything changed.
Tic
HE came. Not that I knew much about that at the time. I was just leading my little life, doing my little thing. I was sitting in my shop, working on a watch, when I looked up and saw….. well, you all know what it was like but it was such a shock… I saw a fish swim by my window. Now I was far from the center of things of course and it took a while for the really big disruptions to come all the way out to our little town. However, nothing that came later ever carried the shock value of that little fish swimming by my window. Not for me anyway. In time the news came that the trickster had come and had taken over. The Great Discord and declared himself an emperor or some such nonsense. His title changed a dozen times in that first week, each time a herald would come to declare it and then another would come right behind and all the things we counted on kept changing with every declaration. The dirt roads became chocolate, the rain turned to lemonade, the trees started to walk around. Well, you all know what he did. Then came the changes as he toyed with ponies. It seemed to be a hobby of his for a while, to change us. He took the feathered wings from dozens of pegasus ponies and put bat wings on them. He made monsters. He turned gentle things into vicious creatures. All the while he laughed and laughed at the misery he was causing.
Tic
We heard stories, even in our distant land, of the rebellion being led by the Alicorn Sisters. The tails of the long and seemingly hopeless fight that they led to bring order back to the land gave us something to cling to. We would talk about it sometimes, my friends and I, all hoping for their success but having no way to help. All we could do is try to survive. And then the day came when we saw the sisters, the princesses, as they came to our town. They were looking for something. I do not know if they ever found it, but I saw them from the distance as they fought their way through streets clogged with marshmallows and battled killer ducks as they searched. We cheered for them. I have wondered if those cheers attracted the trouble that came later but we were so happy to have a little hope.
Days later, he came.
He came and we learned the difference between being on the edge of his insanity and being in the center. My shop was UPSIDE DOWN! All my tools were spilled out of the drawers and my neatly sorted parts were falling out of the window. I had been scared of Discord but when I saw that, I guess I lost my mind. A pegasis pony is never a docile creature by nature and I know my faults but for my kind I am calm and level headed. I am quiet. I am a creature of habits. I am…. I have been called a nerd. Even a nerd has a breaking point.
Tic
I saw my house upside down and I saw my life spilled out over the ceiling and falling out onto the ground. I saw tools that I had inherited from my parents, who were gone by that time, getting lost. Everything was out of place! Can I be blamed for a moment of insanity? Still, I was crazy not dumb, I knew I couldn’t really attack him, but I had to do something. I had to make a token protest. I had always blended into the background but in that moment I needed to be noticed. I was an idiot.
At that moment, a tomato danced by. It was humming a little tune and dancing to his will and it came just a little too close to me at just the wrong moment. I picked it up in my wingtip and threw it at him with all my strength. I laughed as it splattered across his face and dripped down his neck. I turned and spread my wings as he reached for me, his arm stretching to dozens of times its usual length as he plucked me out of the air. He laughed as I struggled, as he pulled me in. I screamed as he looked me over, I tried to kick him, I tried to bite, but he knew how to hold a pony. I guess he had plenty of experience.
His eye ran over my body as I struggled and his grin suddenly got to be very wide. He reached into his ear and pulled out a key. My eyes followed it even as I redoubled my futile efforts to escape. I remember my screams becoming shrill as he poked it into the center of one of the gears that was my cutie mark. I felt it stab into my flesh, though I could no longer see for the tears in my eyes.
Tic
He began to turn the key and everything changed.
How do you describe such a thing? I have tried before and have always failed. It felt like bugs were crawling throughout my body, I could feel things moving. It didn’t hurt but it was the most painful thing that has ever happened. See, I still cannot describe it. In the end he let go of me and giggled as he continued on his way. He set me on the ground, and petted my head and turned away as I lay down and cried.
How does a wind up pony cry? Just like you do, you idiot. Don’t ask stupid questions. Fine, there is no water to come out my eyes, but there is oil that dribbles down my cheeks. It is probably happening right now in fact, not that I can tell for certain, in the dark. My body is covered in plates of steel, the joints covered in chain mail. Some say I look a bit like a very detailed set of pony armor, I don’t know. I am just me.
I can still fly, don’t ask me how, it is complicated and it doesn’t really matter at this point. I will never see my sky again. I didn’t realize that I could at first. Things might have ended differently if I had known I could fly away. Instead I lay on the ground and cried, feeling the gears moving inside my body and the key, that thrice damned key turning in my flank. Hearing the soft ticking in my barrel, the sound that had taken the place of my heartbeat, measuring off the moments of my life.
I do not know how long I lay there, but HE returned. He came back and collected me, saying that it was a shame to abandon such a cute little toy. With a snap of his fingers, he sent me to his castle.
Tic
I was not the only transformed pony in Discord’s toy room. I was not the only transformed creature even. Over time I became friends with some of the stuffed animals and the magically animated train. They would take turns winding me when I started to reach the end of my time. It was upsetting, but they kept me alive, if you can call this a life. I don’t know what will happen if I wind down. Will it be like sleep? Will it be death? I do not know, but it scares me more than I want to admit.
From time to time he would come and take some of us from the toy room and play with us. He was rough on his toys though and quite often we did not survive his ‘play’. We tried, many times, to escape his clutches. We kept trying to get away and find some kind of ‘life’ for ourselves. Maybe some of the others succeeded. I hope they did. I would like to think that some of my friends made it back out into the world and were not simply destroyed by the play of our ‘master’.
The day finally came that I got my chance. Taken from the toy room and mostly ignored as Discord got an update on how Celestia and Luna had found what they were looking for and were on their way. I stayed very quiet, pretending to have wound down, even though my key continued to turn and did my best to be forgotten. Distracted by the approach of the Alicorns, the master left the castle in a flash of light, all play forgotten! I had my chance to get FREE!
Taking to the air, I tried to get back into the toy room. I did my best to free my friends, but it was magically locked. I could do nothing, though I could talk to them through the door. In the end, they told me to run before he returned and caught me. Eventually, I agreed and, diving through a window, I flew as hard and fast as I could.
Tic
This was still Discord’s world and I had no way to know what direction I went. The sun wandered all over the sky, there was no compass and I had no idea where I was. I still do not. Fleeing with growing terror, eyes wide and streaming oil as the wind tore at my body, I sought refuge. I needed to hide. I have hope that the sisters were able to do something with Discord but that really is a poor hope. I mean, what could possibly have the power? They certainly did not on their own, as powerful as they were supposed to be, else they would have done something before now.
I fled as if HE was chomping at my tail
I fled, not knowing if he had returned yet and found me gone.
I fled, not having any idea when or if he would come for me.
I fled until my still sharp pegasis eyes spotted an old mine. I don’t know what I was thinking, or even if I was thinking as I dove for the entrance. All I wanted to do was hide and put just as much between my imagined pursuit and myself as I could. I dove into the ground with all the speed of my kind, bouncing off the walls and ceiling a few times as I tried to fly deeper and deeper into the ground. I flew in the deep darkness, unable to see anything. I couldn’t see and I didn’t care. Only the terror mattered. In the end I flew until I ran into a wall…
Tic
Tic tic
Tic
I do not know how long I lay there. Maybe I was knocked out. I have no way to know. All I know is that I came to my senses half buried in fallen dirt. The darkness was broken by a few candles. I had thought the mine abandoned but it seems somepony was living here. I hope I didn’t bring the ceiling down on them. I could never forgive myself if they lay dead or dying in the fallen rock due to my mistakes. All I know is that nopony has answered my calls for help and I keep hoping they were not here. Maybe they will come back and find me. I cannot find myself. I have been trying to dig my way back out, through the fallen dirt and rock where my carelessness brought the roof down, but now… now the weakness is coming.
There is nopony here to wind me.
I am alone
Tic
Tic tic
I can barely move now, my hoof still drags against the dirt, I think. Maybe I am only imagining that I can still move. I waste a few moments of my spring laughing at the insanity of this. The space is small, if I were my old self I would probably be suffocating in the stifling air, instead I am sure the air is just fine. Instead I am dying for lack of a friend.
How funny is that?
Tic
Tic tic
Tic…..
Tic
End.
Author's Note
There is a lot more to this story, this is really the backstory more than anything else. Let me know if you want to see more and I will see what I can do.
I wrote this up in one go and then read through it for typos. I have probably missed some. Let me know if I have.!
