Cactus Fruit sighed as he closed the blinds, trying to muffle the shouts from outside. The leaf green stallion put a hoof to his head, trying to calm his pounding headache. 'Don't those ponies understand? You need water to grow plants!' He swept back his brown mane as an idea popped into his head. 'Of course! Why didn't I think of that earlier?'

The stallion walked to the back door of his little hut and picked up his cloak, flinging it over his body. He carefully looked around, made sure that no pony saw him, and walked to the post office.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------1 week later---------------------------------------------------------------------

Mirage walked along the street, his good friend Rarity walking with him, as they went to pick up the morning paper. He did this every morning, looking for ads.

"So how much did it pay for?" Rarity questioned, as Mirage had just told her about her recent creation for one of his employer's, a shop keep.

"100 bits. It was an elaborate grandfather clock that showed what each phase of the moon meant. 5 feet tall. Cheapskate." Mirage explained dejectedly.

Rarity put a comforting hoof on his shoulder. "That is a sizable amount, why the long face?"

"It won't be enough to pay my rent, now that the renovations are finished." During the last few weeks, Crane and his build team had been renovating the apartment building, giving it a whole new feel.

They finally reached the newspaper store, and the two started checking papers.

"How about this one? It's a gentleman by the name of Caramel, looking for an inventor to help him make a..... Music box? 50 bits?" Rarity suggested.

"No, I recently ran out of sound boxes, and it'll be another week until my supplier restocks." Mirage turned down. It went this way for a while, Rarity giving suggestions while Mirage gave a reason to turn it down, like "Not enough bits" or "Don't have the right materials." Finally, Rarity found a rather extreme request.

"Mirage! A fellow in Mojavneigh Village is searching for an inventor to make a weather machine, 1000 bits."

Mirage blinked in surprise and took it in his silvery magic. "Wow. This is a great deal." 'A stallion, eh? Good thing Rarity doesn't know, or she would try to get him to marry me as soon as I met him.' The fashonista had no clue that her friend was gay, so she just thought this a great opportunity.

"I'm gonna go, Rarity. You want to come? It will be lonely if I'm the only pony I know there."

"Absolutely! I love learning new cultures so I can introduce them into my designs." The unicorn responded to her orange coated friend. He had always been an odd looking pony. His coat was a bright orange, his mane sky blue, and a white streak in his mane. Even stranger was his Cutie Mark, a fuzzy image of an oasis.

"Well then," The inventor said, walking out the door with magazine in his silver magic. "let's get packing."

Author's Note

Well, this my first chapter in this series, and I'm excited. Let me know if my pacing is too fast, and five points to Gryffondor if you can guess what the title parodies.