A Week In The Life Of Wing Nut

Wednesday

1. The sun is shining directly into my face from outside the window against my bed. I can feel Aerodrome breathing and lying against me with her warm wing spread and wrapped around me. The train is rattling and bumping around, and I wonder how I fell asleep in the first place. Oh, yeah. I was drunk. I'm glad I stopped at three drinks, because I can tell that I narrowly avoided a bad hangover. I can't get out of bed because of how Aero has me comfortably trapped under her wing, but that's ok. I look out the window at the passing scenery. Based on the all of the trees and cliffs, we're probably somewhere around Galloping Gorge.

About 10 minutes after I wake up, I feel Aero begin to stir. Her wing folds in slowly and she yawns contentedly. Rolling over to face her, I see that her eyes are opening and she's scanning me already.

"You woke up swiftly." I say to her. She has a look of suprise in her eyes as she realises that she woke up next somepony. Then she closes them and laughs, obviously remembering why she was here. "Did you sleep well?"

"I kinda crashed last night, so I slept like a filly." She answers enthusiastically.

"Good. So did I."

"Nine fifteen. I should probably get out of this bed now." I say after a period of silence. I crawl over Aero and out of the bed, and I stand in front of the small mirror. My wings are puffed up and scruffy looking and my mane is completely unrecognizeable as my own. The front is folded up on top of my head, the top is bent out sideways randomly, and the back is puffed up and sticking out at every angle.

"Wow." I turn to Aero. "What did you do to my mane?" She rolls over and looks at me.

"I didn't do anything to your mane." She says. "I never touched it." She begins preening her feathers with her nose. Then a knock comes from the door. I turn and look through the peephole to see Vertigo standing outside the room.

"Wing Nut, I can't find Aero anywhere." She says through the door. I open it a crack and she pokes her head in before I can poke mine out. "Wing Nut- Oh." She sees Aero lying on my bed, looking disheveled. Aero turns embarassedly to look at Vertigo as soon as she hears her voice, and their eyes meet. Vertigo backs out of the room slowly without another word. Aero's face is red.

"Aren't we supposed to meet the stallion that sold us drinks last night?" I ask after a minute of awkward silence.

"Cheap Treat?" Aero asks, forgetting about Vertigo for a moment.

"Yeah. aren't we supposed to meet him at ten?"

"I think so." Aerodrome says as she crawls out of the bed and stands next to me.

"Well, let's go then."

"Give me a minute, I want to fix my mane."

1. Aero and I are sitting in the food car. Out the window I can see that we are descending down a hill from the top of a cliff, and entering the barren, empty field that is the last stretch before the Crystal Empire. Aero is looking out the window too, appearing to be deep in thought. A series of rattles at the door break her concentration. Cheap Treat enters slowly, walks over, and sits down next to Aerodrome.

"Hey, pegasi."

"Hi."

"Hey, Treat."

"I'm going to call you two 'pegasi' from now on. Anyway, correct me if I'm wrong." He begins excitedly.

"Go on." I reply.

"From what I remember, The plan we made last night is, I'm going to get off at the Crystal Empire with you, then I'm going to go watch the games, and when you two leave on Saturday, I'm coming with you to Manehattan, where there is an empty building up for sale that you know of, and then I can build my bake shop. Right?"

"Exactly."

"Ok. I couldn't stop thinking about it last night and I couldn't wait to ask." He says happily. "So... Would you pegasi like some breakfast?" Aero and I look at each other, and we don't even need to think about the question to know the answer.

"Yup."

1. The train just pulled up to the Crystal Empire station. Aerodrome, Cheap Treat, Vertigo, and I all step off of the train and form a small bunch on the platform. There is an impressive crystal train station in front of us. Vertigo leads our group in, and I'm amazed by the beauty of the building's interior. The building has glowing magenta walls, with a dark royal blue floor, and light blue windows that almost match my mane. Hanging all around us, there are banners displaying beautiful depictions of crystals, advertisements for the crystal fair, and banners with some fancy design with a blue heart in the middle. It looks oddly familiar. Is it somepony's cutie mark?

"Aero, do you recognize that?" I ask, pointing my hoof at the banner.

"Yeah. That's Princess Cadence's cutie mark. She kind of rules this place." She answers.

"That's why I recognize it." I say with comprehension. The station is surprisingly empty, and we realise how few other ponies were on the train with us.

"Aren't ponies from all over coming to visit the crystal fair?" I ask Vertigo.

"I don't know. I've never been."

"I've been to the crystal fair before." Treat interjects with a high level of energy. "I had a food stand here once. The fair is mostly crystal ponies, with a few non-crystal ponies mixed in. Most of the very few outsiders are famous, or athletes, or performers like you. But everyone else is a crystal pony."

"Oh." Aerodrome says. "I would have expected more tourists to be coming."

"Well, we'll still have a huge crowd, I think." Vertigo states.

"I hope so." Aero replies. "So where are we headed first?"

"Well, the reservations I made for the hotel were for tomorrow night, but maybe the room will be empty, and they'll let us in anyway." Vertigo answers. "Let's head there. Follow me."

Vertigo leads us towards the massive tower in the center of the city. About two-thirds of the way there, we turn and enter a large building called the 'Quartz Quarters'. After a brief argument with the front desk pony, we get the room key and enter. Since we only made reservations for the three of us originally, Cheap Treat rents a room down the hall from ours.

"Here we are." she says as we enter the beautifully furnished room. Everything is made of crystal here, and a lot of them are translucent, so they project pretty colored light onto other pretty colored light emitting objects. The walls are a deep magenta, and the floor is a glistening blue. Scanning the room, I see it has two beds, a TV, a single armchair, and a balcony ovelooking the massive avenues, and more colorful buildings.

"Is every building here magenta?" I ask anypony that wants to answer.

"I hope not. That would spoil a large portion of the beauty this place has to offer." Aero says.

"Let's get unpacked, ponies." Vertigo orders us.

"1500" I say in response to Aero's asking the time. We've been up in the air for a while, finishing learning the routine. Memorizing the maneuvers hasn't been hard. After all, Aero and I were the ones that designed it. What has been hard is getting the maneuvers to look good. The later parts of the routine are a long string of difficult timing and tough tricks. At least there's nothing to crash into out here, We're practicing in one of the empty fields just outside the city. Thoughout the day some small groups of crystal ponies have come to watch us for a bit, giving us a reference point to use as the audience.

"Hey! Wing Nut!" Vertigo yells. "Are you listening?"

"Uh, yeah." I respond.

"Then head over there with Aero and do the maneuver!" She commands me.

"The cirrus break?" I ask, though I'm not sure what I'm actually supposed to be doing.

"No! I just said that we were ironing out the outside loops into passes!" she yells.

"Oh. I wasn't listening, I was thinking about something else." I say as I look down at some of the crystal ponies sitting and watching us.

"Wing Nut, Let's go! I'm tired, and I want to go back to the hotel, or eat, or sleep, or do whatever I find relaxing at the moment in time I'm done!" Aero adds to the yelling.

"ALRIGHT!" I finally yell back, beginning to fly slowly towards Aerodrome. "Geez, I haven't married you yet, Aero." I mutter to myself.

We begin with the downward archs, Aero and I flying towards each other, pull into the outside loops where I crashed yesterday, and we finish them this time, passing each other head on.

"Good!" Vertigo calls enthusiastically to us. "Now do it, and the maneuvers around it again until they're perfect!" Aero and I let out a collective sigh as we return to our starting positions.

1. The sun has set, the ponies have all gone home, and everyone is hungry. I can see the crystal heart glowing underneath the palace, far away at the end of the road.

"My wings hurt." I complain to vertigo as we trot down the road towards the hotel.

"It's not my fault you have such abnormally large wings. And that it takes so much effort to flap them." She responds.

"My wings hurt too." Aero says to Vertigo, bringing out massive sad puppy eyes.

"I'm not going to let you two deliberately annoy me this time, so you can manipulate me and get what you want." Vertigo responds smartly, stopping, looking at me, then looking at Aerodrome.

"Buck." Both Aero and I say.

We reach the hotel and enter swiftly, only to grab some bits and leave. But as we're grabbing our money, Cheap Treat shows up at the door to our room.

"Hey, pegasi." he greets us as his face lights up with hopefulness.

"Hi Treat." I say back.

"So, I'm just going to be completely honest here..." He responds nervously. "My day has been nothing but sleeping and sitting in my room alone, and I was wondering if maybe I could join you ponies in whatever you're doing? I don't want to be bored anymore." The three of us look at each other.

"Sure, you can come to dinner with us." Aero tells him.

"Oh, Thank you. I'll pay for myself so you don't have to."

"YES. You will." I state extremely angrily as I glare at him menacingly, opening my wings fully. He looks absolutely terrified of me as I do. "Relax. I'm only joking." I say after a few seconds, losing the expression.

"Oh." he says back, staring straight ahead. Then without another word, he turns and leaves quickly to go get his money.

"Was that wrong?" I turn and ask Aero.

"Just a little."

A few minutes later we have found a restaraunt. We walk in quietly and sit down in a booth together. This particular building has a high, arched ceiling. The walls are a deep, emerald green, lit at regular intervals by white crystal wall lamps. At the far end is a small stage with a thin, evenly lit waterfall running behind it, acting as a backdrop.

"This place is beautiful." I declare happily.

"You've got that right. I could sit and look around this building all night." Vertigo agrees.

"What do you think the stage is for?" Aero asks.

"I don't know, but I seriously hope it's something good. I had some loud pony 'playing' guitar in the hotel halls today, while simultaneously yelling song lyrics and stumbling around." Cheap Treat adds. "He was there for almost two hours, and I can't take any more bad music today."

I wave the waiter pony over once we've all decided what we want. He is a short maroon crystal unicorn with a red and pink mane.
"Hello, my name is Swift Quill, and I'll be your server tonight." He tells us in a usual waitery tone, looking over at Aero. "Are you ready to order?"

"Yes." I answer him.

"What would you ponies like tonight?"

"I'd like a salad." Cheap treat says to the waiter, who magically writes it down on a notepad.

"I'll have a plain cheese pizza." Vertigo says. Swift scribbles it down.

"Make it a 16-inch. I want some too." I add. More scribbling.

"I'm going to try the traditional crystal soup." Aero tells the waiter.

"Oh, excellent choice, for an excellent looking mare." He says to her, writing her order down extremely slowly as he leans in awkwardly close. The table is silent and Aero glances at me, then back at the waiter.

"Um... thanks." She says back, leaning away from him and into me.

"I'll be right back with your order, mare."

"What about OUR food?" I call to him as he prances away towards the kitchen.

"Oh, god." Aero sighs.

"Another one of these." I finish.

"Does this kind of thing happen a lot?" Treat asks me.

"Not a LOT, but certainly more often than it should." Vertigo says back to Treat.

"I belong to Wing Nut, and nopony else." Aero announces to the table.

"Belong?" I ask her. "I don't know. 'Belong' sounds kind of... well, possessive. I thought we were just best friends."

"Oh, please." Vertigo says sarcastically to me. "I saw Aero in your bed on the train this morning. I saw your ruffled feathers. Your disheveled manes. It doesn't take a genius to figure it out." Aero blushes, I flush, Vertigo smirks at me, and Treat says nothing and pretends he didn't hear any of what was said.

Ten minutes later, the food comes. Swift takes extra time to make sure Aerodrome knows that he got her an extra large bowl of soup. For no charge of course.

"So, are you ponies here for the crystal fair?" Swift asks Aero, and only Aero.

"Yes, we're performing an airshow in the stadium on Friday for the fair." She answers.

"Well, then you must be a pretty good flyer than, eh?" He nudges her, to her disgust.

"Yes, we're some of the best." She says matter-of-factly, obviously in an attempt to get rid of him.

"Hey! get out of here!" Vertigo yells at him. He's gone in half a second.

As we begin to eat our meals, an orange crystal pony walks onto the stage on the other side of the restaraunt with an announcement.

"Tonight, we have a very special event." He says. "After some hoop jumping through, and a lot of planning and asking, we have a very important pony, here to read one of his favorite books for you... This is Dr. Whooves, reading 'A Night In The Sunny Fields of Day'." A brown earth pony with a black mane, a tie, and carrying a book in his mouth walks onto the stage.

"Hello." He begins, placing the book on a small stand in front of him. "I don't like speeches, so I'm just going to jump right in to this book that I never realised is 'one of my favorites'." He looks angrily over at the orange pony for a moment, then begins reading.

"This starry night,"

"Aaaannd... I'm bored." I say to Aero. After she doesn't respond, I turn my head back over at the reader and listen.

"Where the flowers grow, and the sun takes flight from the sky. There you will find me at night. Crying. Weeping. Waiting for the night to come."

"...What?" I mouth silently to myself.

"The dead flowers that grow here, but don't, but do..." He trails off for a moment, squinting at the pages confusedly. "...Grow so slowly as I wait for you here, during the day, and there during the night."

"Why is my plate not covered in food?" I wonder. There's a deep philosophical question. Deeper thatn this story at least.

I stack up a few slices of pizza on to my plate, as the FASCINATING paradox of a story continues on.

"The black is not black at night. It is green. And during the day, it is blue." I let out a loud, stressed out sigh as the Dr. reads this part. I can tell by his radiating enthusiasm for this story, that it makes about as much sense to him as it does to me.

"Lest. Rest. Nest. Crest. Wrong. Pest."

"Could I make a million bits if I wrote a story like this, and published it?" I ask Aero.

"Anyone with writing skill of this caliber DESERVES a million bits. Now be quiet. I'm trying to hear the story." She says, shushing me.

I let out another sigh and rest my head down on the table.

2035.

"But, no. You may. But don't, as I don't want you to."

2040.

"The green is not green, but blue. don't you see?"

2045.

"Yes, I do not."

1. I am woken up by Aero.

"You missed the last section of the book!" Aero says.

"That's ok. I think I'll be fine." I reply.

"I think we should go soon. It's late, and since the book is over, we have no reason to stay here." Vertigo says. "Everyone, give me some bits, I'll pay for the food, and then we can leave."

"THANK CELESTIA!" I exclaim.