Pinkie Pie Finds a Projector
A Match Made in Movie Heaven
It's official name on the records was the Friendship Rainbow Kingdom Castle, but most knew it as Twilight Sparkle's new home, and it also functioned as the new library for Ponyville since the Golden Oaks library and it's contents had been destroyed during Tirek's rampage. Since there had been no loss of life due to the destruction of the library, Twilight herself had been alright with finding a new space for what she had dubbed to be the New Municipal Ponyville Library. The new castle provided thrice the space the old library had easily, and this meant a lot more books, artifacts and sections could be crammed into the space.
With blessings from her fellow Princesses, Twilight Sparkle began the selection process. That was to say that she ordered every book she could find in the Canterlot Royal Printers' Association catalog, and being that they printed the great majority of texts, scrolls and other items of a printed or written nature, this was no small amount to be sure. Further than that however, she finally had the room to dedicate to other sections, giving science, mathematics, and medicines their own sections respectively. The new library would not hold just books and texts, it would hold many different other items including film reels, electrical equipment, as well as various examples of medical equipment.
Twilight had marveled at the creation of the castle, given that it had all been done by the chest at the base of the Tree of Harmony. It was hard not to stop and study it, but she knew that there was work to be done, and like all forms of science; what was observed was therefore also inherently changed. The first item on her list that had to be done, was to add new electric lighting to the place, this wasn't for her own benefit, but rather it was to the benefit of the ponies who would be visiting her new library. For this, she tasked a local earth pony that she had known since a few months after moving to Ponyville.
His name was Trace Voltiere and he was just about the only pony in a hundred mile radius that Twilight herself would trust to get the job done correctly since there were to be many electrical devices plugged in and running constantly throughout the new castle. In truth it was the biggest job he'd ever undertaken! Trace never thought in a million years that he would be doing work for a Princess. To him, she was just Twilight Sparkle, the same purple mare he'd come to call a friend, and the same mare that had become an integral part of the weekly Ponyville tabletop gaming club; which met every Wednesday night.
The steel gray gentlecolt with a dark green mane and sharp predatory blue eyes had dove right into the challenge of acquiring the objects and materials to complete this monumental task. It had taken upwards of six months alone to just get the materials together; copper, aluminum, gold, glass, and steel just to complete the renovation. For sure, he was thankful he wasn't paying for any of this. In truth he didn't know where the money was coming from and he didn't really want to know. Princess Twilight Sparkle had been the student of their goddess of the sun, Princess Celestia for many years, but further than that she had also been the head librarian of the Golden Oaks library in Ponyville.
Both were admirable positions in not just unicorn society, but also in Equestrian society as well. Still, the stipend from the Princess as her student and her title as head librarian should not have guaranteed the amount of bits that had thus far been invested in the project to update and renovate the new castle. It seemed to him, and he figured rightly so that perhaps Madame Sun-Butt, that name had been one he'd picked up for Princess Celestia when he'd been at the Royal University of Canterlot some years ago, had given her precious student and potential pet project successor, the golden key to the treasury.
Either way, it wasn't for him to question what the Princesses did with their personal treasury, as long as it wasn't padded with his taxes. Trace had donated a lot of scientific items and tools coinciding with his trade and the sciences to the new library. Twilight herself was content and happy with this, but there was still a lot more she wanted to find for the new library and it's many patrons. One could easily say that gathering not only books, but every significant scientific, medical, and at the very least an example of every magical item she could get her hooves on was quite the large obsession of Ms. Sparkle.
In truth, that was how the whole debacle had come to pass, among the items Trace had donated to the new library, and consequently one of the items that had been destroyed with the old library, was a brand new Olaf-ReelTime projector. This was one of the newest models in the twelve millimeter line, and as a consequence, one of the most expensive. He had paid nothing for it though, it had been a gift from ReelTime himself since they had been close friends with one another from the time when they had attended school as foals. Trace knew that when he told ReelTime what he'd done, the male would likely thank him and actually send him another projector; which was no matter considering he had several examples from six millimeter view port models, those being the kind somepony would see in a blue light adult club or a mares' house if ill repute, to an example of a fifty millimeter amphitheater color projector.
Point of fact, he was in the new film exhibit setting up the projector he'd donated. It wasn't difficult, at least not for somepony as well practiced at it as he was, but still it took time, attention to detail, and most importantly care to do it properly. Film and moving pictures as they were known had only bee around in Equestria for some twenty years. In fact he could still very easily remember going to the exhibitions of the new technology as a foal with ReelTime. ReelTime being a Trottingham born and bred unicorn of high society and Trace himself being a member of a lower class earth pony family notwithstanding.
Trace's father Stehl had been a a blacksmith, a good one too, the stallion had been known in Trottingham as one of the best armorers in the district. This had made his family a decent amount of bits; which tended to run away fast when one considered the fact that Trace had been born into a family of eight foals, most of whom unfortunately he no longer spoke to. Trace just happened to end up as the runt of the family and while now he was an example of a fine earth pony stallion, it had not always been that way. In truth, he didn't start growing into his own until he was beyond the age of foalhood and into that of a colt. Nevertheless, he did owe his father Stehl for the unflinching work ethic and the knowledge of metallurgy that he had instilled in all of his offspring.
It wasn't that his rearing had been bad, he'd always had food and proper attire when he needed them, he attended a local school in Trottingham his father paid for, and he always had proper medicine and care when he got sick or hurt. Being the runt of the group often meant being ignored, but he understood that his parents couldn't deal with every one of their offspring for long periods of time. That's not to say that it didn't take him a long time to come to terms with it, he'd had a lot of problems with being bullied by his siblings growing up, and his parents always seemed to find a way to ignore it when he needed them the most; whether it be through lack of care or inability to keep up with it all, he didn't know. He knew that they tried and that was the important part right?
“HI! Whatcha doin'”
The sound had brought Trace out of his nostalgic daydream, it was loud and just on the edge of obnoxiously high pitched. That could only be one pony in particular, one of Twilight's close friends, Pinkie Pie. He turned his head just enough to see the bubble gum pink mare with the puffy pink mane and tail trying to look over his shoulder. He wasn't quite sure how she'd been able to sneak up on him, but it really didn't matter, she wasn't a bad pony after all. It took him a moment to gather his thoughts as he watched the hyper pink earth pony bounce up and down and actually around to the other side of the projector stand stopping only to examine the stand and what sat atop it.
“Ooh what is this?! I've never seen anything like this before!”
To be perfectly honest, Trace wasn't surprised by that statement, Ponyville was a backwater earth pony settlement almost in the middle of nowhere. It also made sense from what he knew of the pink mare's foalhood; that was to say that everyone knew she'd grown up on a rock farm and rock farming ponies tended to be a little backward. Trace would never tell that to somepony else though, as that would be very rude. Clearing his throat to get the pink mare's attention he had finally formulated a response.
“It's a film projector Ms. Pie. Please do not touch it.”
“Oh so you mean it projects pictures on to something using light?”
“Precisely and it's very delicate, hence why I asked you not to touch it, you might break it.”
“What kind of pictures does it project?”
“Moving ones of course. This is the kind of projector one might have in their home if they can afford it. In this case though, this one has been donated to the new library by a very generous pony.”
“I've never actually seen one of those before! I mean the Cakes have a slide projector at Sugarcube Corner but I'm not allowed to touch that, or be anywhere near it when it's on...”
“That is a shame to be sure.”
Pinkie Pie was undeterred by the stallion's dismissal of her curiosity and continued to examine the projector closely. The Olaf-ReelTime projector was a large model featuring a complicated internal mechanism. This mechanism was complicated because it was designed to be hidden mostly from the user unless otherwise required for maintenance or loading and unloading of film. Despite this, it was as small as it could possibly be. Standing about 24 inches tall, not including the reels when loaded, the Olaf-ReelTime twelve millimeter projector was finished in brown leather and brass trim.
As far as lenses went this particular projector had a really nice lens on it meant to magnify the image more than the stock version of the projector. This had been an experiment on Trace's part, with a design he'd been working on for an adjustable lens. Said lens consisted of the main lens inside a brass body, that was affixed to a floating ring that could be turned, this ring pushed the glass lens slightly further out from the secondary lens which flipped the image over as the design had the film coming through the film gate upside down. There were engraved increment markings on the rotational lens housing that indicated the degree of magnification that the lens was capable of producing and these engraved markings had been painted blue. This was a special formulation of paint, which glowed slightly in darkness allowing the user to make adjustments in the dark.
The pink mare undeterred, continued to examine the device, noting that there were three cables that came out of the back of it. She did not know it, but two of these cables were for power connections and the third was a grounding connection. So many questions burned in the back of Pinkie Pie's mind she absolutely didn't know where to begin. Staring at the projector intently she tried to think of a way to bring those questions into cohesive form.
“So let me see if I get this right, this part up here is the lens? What is this thing that turns for?”
“That's correct, it's the lens of the projector. The ring you see there is designed to magnify the images being displayed on the screen. Unlike other models of projectors, this modification allows the viewer to determine where they would like the projector to be placed with relation to the screen.”
“Cool! What about these three cords here at the back? I've not really seen that before. Well I mean I have, the large industrial mixer we have at Sugarcube Corner uses three cords, one for the mixing motor, one for the cooling fans and the vessel motor, and the other for ground.”
“Very observant, that's basically the layout used here, one powers the motor that moves the film, one powers the high intensity electric lamp, and the last is ground. Though, this projector is designed to be wired into mains power, wherever it is set up. I suppose you could run it off of a set of batteries as well if you wished.”
“Ooh! Okay... So is it ready? Can I see it run?”
“Yes actually, I just finished wiring it up. I just have to calibrate it and then it will be ready to be used by the general public.”
“Okie Dokie Loki!”
Pinkie Pie plopped down on her rump watching the steel gray furred stallion retrieve a pair of reels from the box that he'd brought from storage. The date on the film canisters was easily about ten or so years past, and it was evident that it hadn't necessarily been stored properly on top of that. As to the title of the film, it was written in fine unicorn made ink, which had not faded; the title read “The Feasting.” Trace took out the reel and put it on the load reel and then put a second empty reel on the take-up reel.
“It's very important to get this right because if I don't then the film could be damaged or destroyed. You must take your time when doing something like this.”
“It doesn't look too complicated, but I would be so nervous about doing it because this stuff looks expensive!”
“Believe me, it is. This Olaf-ReelTime projector is about as expensive as a small cottage would be today.”
“WHAT?! That's outrageous! Why would anypony want something like this then?”
“You would be surprised Ms. Pie. Now let me adjust the projector's settings and then we can watch a segment of this film.”
It took Trace a few moments to get everything adjusted using the test pattern at the beginning of the reel. He first had to get everything aligned properly and then he had to bring it into the proper focus for the projector's relation to the eight foot by eight foot screen used for demonstration purposes. Having finished that he began rolling the film and out of the small speakers on each side of the projector music began to play, a very dramatic sort of darkly toned melody.
However, the opening credits were quite long. A stallion named Fire Heart had directed it, and it was produced by Vandercolt Productions. That wasn't what made Pinkie Pie gasp and about fall over where she sat, but rather it was one of the names on the screen before her. The pink mare could hardly believe her own eyes at what she was seeing, it took her a moment to pick her mouth up off the floor in an overly emphasized, but still proper reactionary expression. The name in the credits, “Starring, as 'The Mare',” and below that, “Fluttershy.”
Author's Note
Okay so this is my first story on here. it features one of my two main OCs Trace Voltiere. Feedback and comments are appreciated.