Time

19 Hours

By the glow of the hourglass, he worked.

Clearing off a place on the desk, he levitated a sizable lump of clay from the shelf and sat it down in front of him. It was block-shaped, with strange runes etched into the malleable material. He studied it with a critical eye, trying to see any imperfections that might tarnish the finished product. Seeing none, he picked up a wire tool and began to carefully carve off chunks of clay, forming the main mass into a ball-like shape. The clay was cold beneath his hooves; no warmth was present in the soft sediment.

He continued to work on the clay for several more minutes until he had the general shape he needed. Placing aside the carving tool, he glanced up at the anatomy charts tacked to the wall behind the desk, studying them closely. His eyes narrowed and he frowned. None of them held the information he needed. Fear starting to rise in his chest, he searched around the desk, desperately shifting through the dozens of books and notebooks. Pushing a stack of papers off of the desk and onto the floor, he breathed a sigh of relief as an anatomy book was suddenly revealed. It was beat-up, the cover stained and chipped. The pages were dog-eared, and several old ribbons were scattered throughout the pages, acting as bookmarks. Placing a hoof on the foremost ribbon, he cracked the book open to the marked page.

A smile crossed his lips as he released that it was the page he needed.

Placing the book beside him, he returned to molding the clay, shaping it into a more defined form, glancing back at the book every few seconds. Holding the clay tool in his steady magic, he worked methodically. Sweat beaded upon his brow, trickling down his neck. He ignored it, concentrating instead on the task at hand. A little more on the top, take some from the bottom, two recesses on the front. Slowly, under his careful ministrations, the clay began to take shape. Before long, a rudimentary skull sat upon the desk.

He lit up his horn and the bone he had selected earlier floated over to the skull. Lining it up carefully, he pressed the base of the horn bone into the forehead of the skull. In sunk easily into the soft clay, yet held firm when he released it. Adding the finishing touches to the sculpture, he leaned back and wiped the sweat from his brow before eyeing his work, a small smile on his face. The smile slowly faded, though, replaced instead by a frown. The sculpture was finished, but it wasn't perfect. The eye sockets were too small and spaced too far apart. The mandible's shape and position were creating a bad case of underbite. The nasal bone was crooked, and the hole was too large. The forehead was too big, causing the horn to jut out farther than it should.

Glaring at the clay skull in front of him, he scratched at his patchy coat with a hoof. This would never work. With a huff, he leaned forward and began to try and fix the imperfections. Using the tip of his hoof, he tried to carve out the eye holes and make them bigger, but ended up giving the skull a bug-eyed look. In trying to fix the jaw, he ended up smushing the jaw bone too much. His glare turning into a silent snarl, he lifted his hoof up and smashed the skull flat, pancaking it completely. The horn bone clattered across the desk, nearly falling off onto the floor before he stopped it. Holding the horn gingerly, he stared down at the destroyed skull with remorse. His temper had gotten the better of him, and it had just cost him time he didn't have. Horn glowing softly, he scooped the clay up and began to pack it together.

Slowly, tenderly, he began to mold the clay again. He was more careful this time around, leaning back every few minutes to eye the skull from a distance. He used a nearby caliper to measure out the proper proportions, comparing them to the details written in the book. It took him a little longer than his first attempt, but he eventually finished resculpting the skull. Affixing the horn bone upon the forehead, he leaned back to examine his work. A quick glance at the book confirmed what his eyes were telling him: the skull was finished.

He smiled.

He eyed the clay skull for a few more seconds before pulling one of the nearby magnifying glass stands closer. Careful to not disturb the skull, he adjusted the view lens until it was positioned in front of the jaw. Lighting up his horn, he pulled one of the containers off of a shelf and placed it beside the sculpture. Through the plastic material, he could see the contents of the container. It was full of dozens of teeth of different types: molars, incisors, stepped molars. Flipping the top open, he back to pick carefully through the teeth, discarding cracked or chipped ones. The ones that were in the best condition were placed aside for later.

It took him three containers before he was able to find enough teeth for his skull. Flipping the anatomy book open to the next bookmarked page, he eyed the diagrams of mouths carefully, studying the position of the teeth. Amber eyes narrowing in concentration, he picked up the first tooth in his magic and—looking through the magnifying lens—pushed it carefully into the clay mandible. Then the second tooth. And the third.

He worked slowly, making sure that the teeth were positioned at the same height, and were straight and even with one another. Brushing his mane out of his eyes, he hunched over the skull, staring intently through the magnified lens as he continued to place teeth in their proper locations. He used his magic, not trusting his hoof to be precise enough for this task. Even then, he had to remove teeth several times to adjust them, using small pieces of leftover clay to fill in the holes. One of the molars was too small, and he was forced to sift through the containers again to find a bigger one. Every so often he would pause, poring over the anatomy book in order to make sure that everything was where it needed to be. He had to get out the caliper again in order to make sure the gap between the incisors and the molars was the right size. His wings fluttered by his side, his entire body tense.

It had to be perfect.

He owed her that much...