Chapters A mangled cart frame struck the cobblestones of the alley with a heavy crunch, a blue aura fading from around it. A tan, female earth pony with a thick pale blond mane wrinkled her muzzle as she looked it over. The frame was bent and twisted metal, rusted all over, and it was as big as she was. She guessed it may even be bigger. Not that size intimidated her, she'd fought all manner of beasts twice her own size after all, but this was not something to slay. It was something to carry. She glowered up through her curly mane to see her unicorn companion grinning down at her from over the edge of a dumpster.
"If you think," the earth pony started slowly, her voice thick with her northern accent, "I am carrying that all the way back to the loft, then you can go sit on an axe."
The unicorn pouted, one foreleg wiping her sweaty white mane out of her slate-gray eyes. "But Mjolna—!"
"You can go sit on an axe blade side up, Silver Spanner."
Silver Spanner snorted as she leaned her cheek on a dirty hoof. "Well that's not very nice..."
"I am not feeling very nice," Mjolna returned waspishly. "You promised me awesome revelry this night!"
Silver scowled. "But this is awesome!" she exclaimed, gesturing a hoof at the rusty cart frame.
Mjolna tongued her cheek before answering, "This could be flying, wet, and on fire , and still fail to be anywhere near 'awesome'."
Her companion grunted as she hoisted herself up on the edge of the dumpster, then from her place perched on the ledge, dropped to the alley below. Her hooves clopped soundly on the cobblestones. Her body was a rich brown and covered in dirt and grime. Just under the muck, her cutie mark was of a spanner, though some, like the northern pony, called it a wrench. When Mjolna rose up to all four hooves and stepped back to give Silver space, her tail, which had been curled along her side, moved to reveal her cutie mark—that of a hammer and a bolt of lightning streaking behind it.
"Just you wait," Silver Spanner said eagerly to her roommate. "This is just what we needed!"
"It's worthless."
Silver's face lengthened with shock. "Is not!"
Mjolna leveled a dry stare at her roommate. "Is too."
"What if I told you, this cart frame could be the start of a brand new weapon for you to impress the Royal Guard with?"
This earned her a skeptical look. "It would depend on the idea in that skrælling head of yours. What would this so-called weapon be?"
Silver Spanner hopped excitedly from hoof to hoof. "How about a self-swinging axe?"
Mjolna's ears went flat. "Windigo teeth, what a foalish idea!"
Silver paused, her head cocking to the side. "No? What about a self-swinging mace instead?"
"You cannot sever the sacred bond between a warrior and her weapon, and still call it worthwhile!" Mjolna huffed indignantly.
Silver blinked and sat on her haunch. "Not even if you could ride it?"
"Who would ride a self-swinging axe!?" Mjolna snorted and turned to start walking out of the alleyway. "This is almost as bad as your 'mechanized tank' idea!"
"Lots of ponies would love to sit on such a weapon!" Silver Spanner argued. She followed her companion, crowding behind her. "It's innovative! And cool! And—"
"Dangerous." Mjolna sent a sharp look over her shoulder. "I still remember the last time you asked me to sit on one of your 'inventions'..."
Silver slowed, her ears drooping as she let her head drop. "The explosion wasn't that big," she mumbled.
Mjolna stopped and whirled around, her body flushing hot beneath her coat. "I was launched into the air!" she half-yelled.
The unicorn pouted at her. "You didn't even clear two stories! Besides, I broke your fall with my magic, didn't I?"
"How could I forget? The nurses kept telling me that my injuries could have been far more dire had you failed to do so!"
Silver Spanner brightened, her face splitting into a grin. "See? You can trust me! I saved your life!"
Mjolna put a hoof on her face and groaned. Sweet Celestia, how did I find myself living with such a roommate?
Silver whined, her tail flicking anxiously. "Mjolna, come on! Puh-lease? Just help me take the cart frame back to the loft, and I can start making your super awesome weapon!"
The earth pony glowered at her. "Why must you drag me into your lunatic ideas?"
A wince. "Yeeah... Remember how I told you saying the word 'lunatic' is kind of not cool with ponies anymore? Princess Luna is back. They might think you're being treasonous at the Guard."
Mjolna scoffed and started to trot away. "Tartarus take you! I'm through with this farce!"
"What if it was a gauntlet with the weapon attached at the front of the hoof!?" Silver blurted. Her eyes widened and she covered her mouth with a hoof.
Mjolna paused and craned her head around to squint her eyes at the unicorn. "Would it also be able to fire projectiles? I've always wanted a versatile weapon like that."
Silver made a face as she dropped her hoof from her lips. "But that would be pointless! The entire purpose of a hoof weapon is to increase close combat effectiveness without reducing mobility. Adding a firing mechanism would only encumber—"
Mjolna turned around and resumed walking.
Silver chased after her, "Okay, okay, I can make it shoot things! Knives, darts, bullets—whatever! Just help me out!"
The northern pony stopped and grinned over her shoulder. "All right, then. We've got some junk to move!"
Ten minutes later on the main thoroughfare, Mjolna could be heard wheezing from under the cart frame: "Remind me again why you couldn't levitate it to the loft?"
Silver Spanner chuckled as she trotted airily ahead of her roommate. "Are you kidding? I can't focus on your weapon designs if I'm levitating something that heavy!"
"And in that—urgh —big head of yours, you couldn't—argh —think of something to help you—hah —move heavy garbage!?"
The tinker pony shot her a look. "Mjolna, I thought you wanted a fancy-schmancy weapon!"
Mjolna just managed to flick her sweaty bangs out of her eyes, her knees shaking as she fought to take another step forward. "Yes, but—!"
"And look! See? You complained for nothing. We're already here." Silver Spanner announced. 'Here' was a two-story building with a gabled roof, its facade made of various slabs of mountain stone and cement. Their home was sandwiched between a bookstore and a perfume parlor.
Silver grinned as her horn glowed, opening the top-round blue door. Simultaneously, Mjolna felt some of the weight lessen on her throbbing back, and she sighed in relief.
"I guess I can help you the rest of the way," the unicorn said as she entered the entrance hallway, where a staircase led up to their loft. "I'm done brainstorming. Just gotta draw up the plans for your new weapon!"
"My, that was fast! And here I thought you were just an eccentric," Mjolna remarked as she carefully navigated through the doorway. She winced as she heard the cart frame scrape the walls. Their landlord would not be pleased at this latest damage to the property.
"Aw, it's nothing. It's all because you helped me!" Silver squealed as she opened the door to their home. "See? Isn't this the best?"
The northern pony snorted as she started the slow ascent up the stairs. "I, for one, cannot wait for our night of revelry to begin!"
Silver Spanner sat on her haunch and frowned down at her friend from the top of the stairs. "What do you mean?"
Mjolna glared up at her. "What do you mean, 'what do I mean'? You promised me drinking and dancing!"
Silver scrunched her muzzle, scratched her head, and squinted one eye. Then her gaze went wide. "Ohhh! That's what revelry means!"
She received a murderous stare in response.
Silver Spanner was happily drafting designs for a new helicopter toaster when a throwing axe whizzed past her head and embedded itself into the wall. She stared at it, her body stiffening. Then her brow furrowed and she slouched as she looked over her shoulder. "Mjolna, I just repaired that wall! I don't know about you, but I don't want to lose our security deposit! Gold Estate is looking for any excuse to evict us after my last experiment."
"Draw arms, Silver Spanner," Mjolna cried, one hoof stomping the end of another axe, making it flip up into the air where she grabbed it deftly with her mouth. "Faddle smeh!"
"I'm too busy to 'faddle'!" Silver snapped, looking back at her blueprints. Her horn glowed as she drew a line with a white crayon across the page. "I'm barely making ends meet with my repair business, and you haven't had a blacksmith commission in weeks. We still have to pay the rent this month! This invention could keep the roof over our—"
The crayon snapped in half as an axe whizzed so close to her head, a lock of her mane was chopped off.
"Mjolna, you crazy mare—!" Silver whipped around just in time to see Mjolna flying toward her in a hind leg kick.
“Hyaaa! ” her roommate screamed.
Silver ducked, and Mjolna’s hind hoof struck the wall. With practiced ease, she kicked off of it, and swung a fore hoof at the unicorn’s face.
A magical force field went up, and Mjolna's hoof struck against it, sending blue sparks flying. With no way to press forward while the shield was active, the earth pony allowed herself to drop to the floor with a hard stomp of her hooves. Taking advantage of the momentary reprieve, Silver Spanner hopped backward, her brow furrowing under her white bangs. The force field dissipated. “All right, that’s it you ground-stomping jerk! You want a fight? You got a fight!” she barked.
Mjolna flicked her thick mane back, a grin splitting her face wide as her honey-colored eyes took on an electric glint. “Ha! A skrælling like you is no match for a warrior like me! But I need to practice if I ever hope to join the Royal Guard, so I suppose you’ll do as a living dummy.”
Silver smirked at her as her horn started to glow. “Oh yeah?”
The other mare chuckled arrogantly. “Come at me, welp. Let me show you what true strength is!”
From an open crate of spare parts and small devices next to the drafting table, a leather cap with a horn opening and a strange series of circuits and wires floated over to Silver in a blue aura. With her magic, the unicorn placed the cap on her head, the belt fastening under her chin. “Now you’ve asked for it!” she exclaimed.
Mjolna squinted one eye. “Is your plan to defeat me with hideous fashion?”
Silver shot her an annoyed look. “No, mallet-head! This is my UniGun!”
“It’s a hat,” her roommate returned flatly.
The tinker pony blushed. “It’s a weapon. ”
“It’s an ugly hat.”
“That’s it,” Silver snarled, her horn glowing again. This time, however, it burned so bright, the tip turned white, and long shadows were cast across the room.
Mjolna’s eyes widened and she strafed to the side. Within the next instant, a thick beam of magical energy struck the drafting table, scorching it and blasting off a jagged chunk at the bottom edge. The northern pony glanced at the table, then turned back to Silver.
"See?" Silver said smugly. "The UniGun augments my magic, focusing it to devastating levels! Fortunately for you, I have it set on 'STUN'!"
Suddenly, Mjolna's manic smile reappeared with a vengeance. The unicorn balked. That wasn't quite the reaction she was hoping for.
Uh, oh, Silver thought with a hard swallow.
“Finally!" her roommate roared rapturously. "Now I’ve got a real challenge!”
Silver Spanner struck a hoof on the floor, her horn lighting up again. Her mouth set in a grim line. “Let’s go!”
Blinding light flashed repeatedly as the tinker pony fired up her magic over and over again and took aim at her roommate. She tried to fire as fast as she could, but a dull pain was entering into her head, and her UniGun was getting uncomfortably warm. Try as she might, she couldn’t seem to hit Mjolna, whose acrobatic dodges would have made any pegasus jealous. Silver was just barely able to keep her zealous sparring partner at bay. Just as she thought she couldn’t keep up the struggle any longer, an unexpected development occurred.
Mjolna had just cartwheeled to the right in another artful dodge when a standing mirror behind her, turned just to the side, reflected Silver’s beam of magic. The energy struck the earth pony’s back, and she grunted, crashing to the ground in a graceless heap.
Silver cheered, rearing back to her hind hooves. Using her magic, she removed the UniGun from her head and said with a grin, “Wow! And to think I was going to scrap this!”
She levitated the cap closer to examine a switch on the side. “Lemme just see what it was calibrated to for notation purposes, and—” Her face fell and the aura vanished from the UniGun, letting it drop to the floor.
The device had been set on KILL .
Silver’s eyes snapped on Mjolna’s body, which still had yet to so much as twitch.
“Mjolna!” She exclaimed, running to her friend. Placing a hoof on Mjolna’s side, she rolled her over. “Hey, buddy! Hey! You okay!? Speak to me!”
Mjolna’s eyes slowly rolled to Silver, her tongue lolling from her open mouth as she gurgled unintelligibly.
Silver sighed in relief. “Phew!” Then she frowned and looked over her shoulder at her invention. “Rust it! I need to recalibrate that thing.”
Another gurgle.
Silver shot Mjolna an impatient look as she levitated the UniGun to her, along with a screwdriver. “Oh, hush. It serves you right for interrupting me."
The hamlet where Silver Spanner and Mjolna lived was known as Barley's End by locals and cartographers, but any other Equestrian referred to it simply as, "Canterlot's suburb." Its place at the foot of the capital's mountain was given to fog and occasional intense winds. That night, the wind swept through the streets with some insistence, stirring the leaves out of the gutters and forcing ponies to shut their windows. Despite the gusts, the streets were not empty, and as the two mares strolled to their favorite watering hole that evening, they paused now and again to wave to their neighbors.
"We will make our ancestors proud this night!" Mjolna said with gusto.
Silver's muzzle scrunched as she looked at her roommate sidelong. "I dunno about you, but the last thing I wanna do is make my ancestors proud!" Then she looked at her friend full on. "Hold on a second. Aren't you supposed to be trying out for the Royal Guard tomorrow?"
Mjolna threw her head back and laughed. "I am celebrating early! There isn't a doubt in my mind that I shall be accepted. Surely I'll be so busy protecting the kingdom I won't have time to revel afterwards!"
"Yeah, what could possibly go wrong?" Silver rolled her eyes.
The other mare bumped shoulders with her. "Spanner, it is time to lift your spirits! After all, we would not even be drinking tonight had you not sold that contraption of yours!"
Silver blushed. "I'm glad we have rent money this month, but there's nothing exciting about selling a new spatula design. I want to revolutionize the way ponies live, not add to easily forgotten cooking utensils!"
"A boon, is a boon, is a boon," Mjolna said with a frown. "Now cease your grumbling! We have arrived at the tavern."
The tavern, the Foam Head, was run by an ornery gray stallion named Bitter Hops. The building was squat and old, made from crudely cut stone, thick slabs of redwood, and insulated by clay and moss. Inside, a large fireplace crackled as a pony in the corner played a jig on a violin. Silver had once joked that the tavern looked like it had been ripped out of a bad fairy tale. After saying that aloud on a crowded Saturday night, she'd woken up the following morning in a pig pen, dressed in a peasant costume. When she had asked Mjolna if the earth pony had anything to do with the prank, her friend replied sassily that she'd been too busy saving a damsel from a witch's curse to notice.
"Bitter!" Mjolna greeted the tavern owner boisterously as she and Silver approached the bar.
The bartender grunted behind the counter as the two mares took seats, his eyes narrowing. "Mee-yoll-na," he pronounced with effort. He leaned onto his counter. "Didn't I ban your hide?"
The northern pony mirrored his expression. "If our bits aren't welcome, I'm sure we can fatten some other pony's purse!"
Bitter Hops pursed his lips. “What’ll it be?” he asked, casting a withering look in Silver’s direction. "And I better not hear any smart mouthin' tonight!"
“Waste not our time! You know what we seek,” Mjolna said with a shark-like grin.
Bitter actually growled at that, and for a moment Silver stiffened, wondering if she should have perhaps brought her UniGun. The last bar fight Mjolna had started had left her with a sprained leg and a black eye.
The tension dissipated as the bartender laughed gruffly. He slammed a hoof on the counter and chortled, "Tartarus take you, crazy northener. I'll get your poison." He turned, grabbed two tankards, and set about filling them with cider from a tap that was labeled 'Sweet Apple Acres'.
Silver let out a sigh of relief. She cast her chuckling companion a disgruntled look. “I wish you wouldn’t antagonize others so much. It makes me nervous!”
“P’shaw,” Mjolna said, waving away the unicorns complaints. “You’re much too skittish!” Their drinks were placed before them, and the northern pony eagerly took hers. She elbowed Silver before toasting. “Here’s to courage!”
Silver grimaced and took up her own drink. She toasted and mumbled, “Here’s to surviving this outing!”
It usually went that Silver would tell herself, Okay. That’s it. No more . Then before she knew it, Mjolna was ordering another round, and all of a sudden she couldn’t see straight, let alone think straight.
This night was no different. Silver Spanner giggled drunkenly as she twirled around with a stallion she still couldn’t remember the name of. Mjolna was off in a corner, regaling a small crowd with a rambunctious tale about the time she’d cleared a crypt of bloodthirsty draugr in her homeland. By this hour, the tavern had filled with more locals, and there were even a few visitors from Canterlot looking to escape the bustle of the big city. The stallion Silver was dancing with certainly had an aristocratic accent, but he was behaving anything but chivalrous the way he kept nibbling her ears. Every time he did it, she’d titter, her body flushing red under her coat. He was twirling her around quite a bit, though…
“Um,” she squeaked after the umpteenth spin, “This ish ree-ally fun ‘n all, but—”
“Getting tired of the crowd, eh?” The stallion murmured huskily as they twirled yet again. “We can retire to my room at the inn if you’d prefer!”
Silver tried to pull away, a look of panic crossing her face. “No thas not what I—”
“Come, come! Don’t be shy.” Another fast turn of their bodies.
Silver’s blush turned to an unpleasant green as her head swung. “Hurk! ”
Vomit came gushing out in a disastrous stream of frothy gold and orange.
The stallion withdrew in horror. “Egads!”
Without his strong grip to keep her in his orbit, Silver tumbled away her hind legs knocking against a low end table, where she tumbled backward, hooves over head into the first stool at the bar. The pony sitting on it, no more sober than she, toppled over with a yelp into his neighbor. Like a chain reaction, the other patrons knocked into one another, falling off of their seats and crashing onto the floor.
The music screeched to a halt. Everyone stared dumbfounded at the mayhem that had taken place. Slowly, their eyes turned to the pony who had started it all.
Silver blinked at them blearily, her front covered in regurgitated salad and cider. “Oopsies…”
It was about then that things went black.
When Silver Spanner awoke, it was with a tremendous pounding in her head and a horrible taste in her mouth. “Ugh…” she pried her eyes open, then winced when sunlight lanced her vision. “What the…?” With effort, she ignored the pain and opened her eyes again. It took a moment for her to focus, but when she did, her stomach dropped.
Silver was outside. She was outside with her head and fore hooves trapped in a wooden stock. She was outside in a wooden stock and wearing a peasant costume .
“Rust it all! Again!? ” She shouted, struggling to free herself.
When the nausea and discomfort in her head became too much, Silver stopped and let herself sag in her trap. I didn't even know Barley's End had a wooden stock! What is this, the dark ages!?
A few short moments later, Mjolna appeared on the street before her, having rounded a street corner. Her head was hung low, her mane ruffled, and her eyes bloodshot. Her hooves clopped miserably on the cobblestones as Silver hissed at her, “Mjolna! Mjolna! Help me out of here!”
Her roommate looked at her, agony writ across her face. “Silver...?”
“Yes, yes, it’s me! Can you get me out of this thing? I think I made Bitter angry again!”
Mjolna groaned and sat on her haunches. “Já . You did. And many other ponies as well.” She rubbed at her head with one hoof. “They wanted bits to pay for the mess you made. I told them we had none left. They were ready to toss you in jail for a few days. I negotiated this for a day instead, on your behalf.”
“What do you mean, 'on my behalf'? This isn’t better! This is anything but better!” Silver shrieked, wincing at the sound of her own voice. “I’d rather be in jail!”
Mjolna belched, then made a face. “Silv, I beg of you… Stop screaming. I had to cancel my tryouts today.” She stood unsteadily to her hooves, then slowly began to trudge away. “I must rest…” She managed to flash a brief smile over her shoulder. "So from one antagonistic pony to another, good day!"
Silver Spanner tugged at her bonds. “Mjolna! You tell the guards I want to go to jail! Mjolna? Mjolna! Mjolnaaa! ”
Silver Spanner was rummaging through a crate of parts when she heard Mjolna clear her throat behind her. One ear swiveled in the earth pony's direction as the unicorn spared the briefest glance. "Oh, hey," she said. "What's up?"
"Silv," Mjolna said, as if speaking through her teeth. "You know that I am perhaps the only pony capable of tolerating your junk—"
"Treasures," Silver corrected.
"Treasures, " Mjolna said with the barest hint of a growl. "But I must ask... What in the name of Equestria is that thing in the kitchen?"
Silver turned to scrunch her muzzle at her roommate. "Huh? But I told you already!"
The northerner sucked at her teeth before answering, "I think I would remember you mentioning the behemoth hunk of metal currently threatening to break our dining table."
"But I left you a note!"
"A note?" Mjolna scowled as she looked up in thought. Her eyes widened and her lips turned thin. "You aren't referring to that rag that was on my face when I awoke this morning, are you?"
"Yeah!" Silver chirped. "I used up all our paper designing your new hoof-weapon." She nudged her companion. "It's gonna be pretty amazing, by the way!"
Mjolna would not be distracted. "You wrote a message...on a rag."
"I just said we ran out of paper."
"You wrote a message on a rag and left it on my face. While I slept ."
Silver Spanner's withers tightened as she felt a ghost of defensiveness rise up in her. "You are a very difficult mare to wake up, I'll have you know!"
Mjolna stomped a hoof. "How did you even write the message!?"
"The blood of innocent foals."
The earth pony's ears pinned. "What?"
Silver snickered and resumed rummaging through her parts, "Ink, mallet-head. I used ink!"
"Well, as I clearly missed your daft message, can you please just tell me what in Tartarus that contraption is?"
"It's an anti-gremlin machine." When this garnered no response, Silver sighed irritably and turned around to look at her friend. Mjolna was looking at her like she'd just started drooling. "You've never heard of gremlins in your homeland?"
"I'm afraid not. Can you explain to me why you think our loft is apparently in need of gremlin removal? If it's a pest, you know I can take care of it!"
Silver chewed on the inside of her cheek and sat roughly on her haunch. "That's the problem! Gremlins are fast. Sneaky. And they're attracted to technology . They like to make machinery stop working. This place is like a toy store to them." The tinker pony's ears went flat against her head as she ground a hoof angrily into the floorboards. "I've written countless letters to this monster-hunting agency in Canterlot, but they told me that gremlins don't exist!"
"Perhaps because they don't?" Mjolna said flatly.
The other mare snorted. "Shows what you know."
"Well how does this 'anti-gremlin' machine work, anyway?"
Silver brightened at the opportunity to show off her latest creation. With perked ears and a bright smile, she trotted over to the machine in the kitchen area. "Here, it's better to show you!" The large contraption was heavy metal soldered together with lots of bulbs, wires, and buttons in a chaotic spread across its surface. The round wood table sagged under the weight of the thing. Silver's horn lit up and a switch was flipped. The machine whirred to life, lights blinking all over.
The unicorn sat back and grinned. Mjolna flicked an ear as she sat next to her, a bemused frown on her face. They sat there for a long time before the earth pony snapped, "Silver, what the buck does it do?"
Silver shot her an annoyed look. "You're looking at it!"
Mjolna's penetrating stare indicated just how much she appreciated this answer.
The unicorn's tail lashed behind her, and she quipped, "It's a decoy! All it does is whir and blink those lights! I even put snozzberries inside, hoping the scent will attract the gremlins!"
"Very well," Mjolna said. "So what happens once the 'gremlins' come? Is a trap sprung?"
Silver stared at her blankly. "Er... No. I have a camera set up to take a picture once a trigger is activated. I was going to send it to the Canterlot monster agency." Her lips puckered as she glared determinedly at her machine. "I'm going to prove to those glorified jocks that I'm not crazy!" Her glare deepened and she stomped the floor. "I'm not!"
Mjolna, meanwhile, covered her face with a hoof. "Windigo teeth... How is it that I live with such a mare?"
She was dreaming of slaying an undead centaur when a loud bang startled her from her sleep. Mjolna sat up in her bed, her eyes feeling gummed up and her limbs sluggish. The ordinarily dark loft was softly lit by Silver's infernal Gremlin decoy. When the earth pony's vision had adjusted, she glared at the machine and flopped back onto the bed. Damned device probably woke me... Silver's lucky she paid the rent last month, or else I may have ignored her pleas and chucked it out the window!
As Mjolna settled down to rest again, she heard something scratching along the wooden floors. Now she bolted upright, her eyes wide and sleep fleeing her. A low chitter came from the direction of the kitchen.
With lips pursing, the northener slipped out of bed and went to investigate. A quick glance at Silver's end of the loft revealed that her roommate was dead asleep and no closer to waking. Mjolna quietly mimicked Silver from earlier that day, but whinier: "'You are a very difficult mare to wake up, I'll have you know!' Feh!"
She stopped short when she heard a tiny, evil giggle. Her face hardening, she moved toward the source of the sound. It had come from somewhere near the gremlin device.
"Who is there?" She hissed in the dark. No answer. Mjolna bared her teeth and said more firmly, "Show yourself, kujon! Or it will be the worse for you!"
There was a low growl, then the sound of metal scraping.
There! Atop the machine!
"Aha!" Mjolna bellowed. "I have you now!" She leapt up onto the table, which creaked under her weight, then reared up to get a better look at the top of the machine.
She saw a small green beast with batlike ears and red-orange eyes fly at her with a snarl, followed by a flash of white.
It was about then that the table broke.
"What do you mean, you didn't see anything?" Silver grunted as she used her magic to lift the Gremlin decoy off of Mjolna's back.
"It is just as I said," the northerner groaned as her roommate gave her a helping leg up. She winced and cracked her neck, then said, "All I saw was a flash. Nothing more."
"But the gremlin attacked you! Right? Why else did you get out of bed and on top of the table? My camera even snapped a picture!"
"To turn your damned machine off, that's why!" Mjolna snarled. She winced and started limping for the door. "Enough questions. It is just about time that I left for my work at the smithy—"
Silver tilted her head to the side, one ear drooping. "Huh? But Celestia hasn't even risen the sun yet!"
"Yes, well... I have special business to attend to."
"But—"
"Go back to sleep, Silver Spanner! We both know how you get when that skrælling brain of yours doesn't get its rest." Mjolna didn't wait to hear Silver's response. She hurried out the door, down the stairs, and out onto the streets of Barley's End. From there, she did just as she told Silver she would do. She went to work.
Four hours later, when her boss, Risky Axe, appeared at the blacksmith workshop, he was surprised to find her forging what looked like a menacing helmet.
"Mjolna?" The coal gray stallion asked with a quirked eyebrow. "What are you doing here so early? Did we get an order I didn't hear about?"
Mjolna's ear flicked in his direction, but her eyes remained focused on the helmet. "I need new armor," she grunted.
The stallion sat and scratched his white goatee. "Armor? Are you going to war or something?" He chuckled like the idea amused him.
The northern pony looked at Risky, grinning in the hot glow of the forge. His chuckles petered out at the intensity in her eyes. "Risky, I have a new beast to hunt! One that could earn me prestige with the Royal Guard!" Mjolna returned to her work. "I checked the machinery. It's all intact, so do not fear. But now I must hurry. My fjollet roommate may scare away my new quarry!"
Risky came closer, his brow now furrowing. "Mjolna, what are you rambling about? A beast? And why would you need to check our machinery?"
Mjolna's eyes went distant, her hammer freezing mid-air. "Gremlins ..." she breathed with a hungry smile.
The loft was divided into three spaces with a T-boundary. The northern area was the kitchen/dining space, populated by old appliances and furniture that Silver and Mjolna had both put effort into repairing and collecting. This was the allied zone. The Southwestern corner had the bathroom, and a clear avenue to it and the front door, marked with white painted lines, was declared to be neutral ground. This neutral territory differentiated itself from the allied zone in that it was to be largely clear of any single influence. Also part of the neutral zone was a small parlor area with a love seat, floor cushion, and coffee table against the south wall. Aside from that, both mares tended to avoid violating the others space past a certain hour.
This mystical hour had largely been guessed at... until recently. Silver Spanner, for the last day, had been obsessed with determining the "No Contact" limit at its exact time. According to her calculations, that exact time was eleven-thirteen at night on the nose , but Mjolna argued that if they were going to bother declaring times, it ought to be a lucky one.
"Eleven-eleven," the northern pony said firmly. "A time of fortune and good dreams!"
"Mjolna, eleven-thirteen is when we both require complete and utter privacy." Silver stated with weariness. "Do I need to explain the algorithm again?"
"I'll bite your ear off if you do," Mjolna threatened.
"Pushing that up two more minutes would just impede on our bonding!" Silver whined, her brown ears pinned back.
"Bonding?" the other mare scoffed. "Silv, by nine o' clock you are sleeping like a foal in hay!"
The unicorn shuffled her hooves and mumbled. "So? My brain is very active and requires a lot of energy. Sometimes I don't make it too far into the evening before I get tired!"
"My point is, two minutes will make no difference to our relations. Windigo's teeth, I live with you! Share the same dining space! TOILET space! We need no more closeness in our lives!" Mjolna nickered and gave her head a hard shake as if the idea of any further bonding made her want to get saddled and cinched by a gremlin instead.
Silver Spanner visibly wilted, her entire being—from mane to tail—seeming to lose body and volume. "Oh."
Mjolna groaned. "Silv..."
The other mare had started to trudge back to her side of the loft. "No, it's ok Mjolna."
"Silv. "
"I'm fine." A sniffle.
Mjolna stomped a hoof, "Rrgh, fine! Eleven-thirteen shall be the time, and not a second more! "
Silver's ears peaked, her body jolting up as if an electric current had gone through her. (Mjolna suspected she'd learn this behavior because this had happened to her roommate... multiple times.) "Of course not a second more!" the tinker pony chirped with a smile. "The algorithm—"
Mjolna gnashed her teeth, her ears pinning. "That's it! I warned you!"
Silver paled under her coat as she fled the other way, her roommate hot on her hooves. "No, no, no! I ran out of super glue after the last time! Bad touch! BAD TOUCH!"
"My family is visiting," Mjolna intoned one morning at breakfast.
Silver's ears perked as she floated a spoonful of porridge to her mouth. "Oh? Really? When?" she remarked after a hasty swallow.
A despondent sigh. Mjolna nudged the cardamom bun on her plate. "Today..."
Silver choked on her latest mouthful of food. After clearing her windpipe, she managed to sputter, "T-today? As in today today? But I thought we were going to do prototype tests for your new weapon?" A whine slipped into these last words.
"Not anymore." Mjolna lifted her head, mouth turned down at the corners and a glassy look to her eyes. "My six siblings and my parents will demand a tour of Canterlot."
"Six siblings?" Silver gasped. "You said you were the oldest!"
"Ja. I did." Mjolna's eyes drifted up in thought. "Oh. I suppose I actually have seven siblings if you count the foal my mother carries."
The tinker pony whinnied, her skin turning a little green under her brown coat. "Seven!? But—"
"So you see, our testing of the new weapon will have to be for another day."
Silver Spanner slowly pushed her bowl of porridge away just as Mjolna pushed back her plate, haunted expressions on their faces.
"But..." Silver pressed her hooves into her temples, her eyes ticking back and forth. "You said... when you were born, your parents—" she broke off, her hoof drawing small quick tally marks in the air. "That was eighteen years ago when they had you!"
"Ja. " Mjolna slid out of her chair. "Believe me, Silv. I would much rather do something more exciting." She paused and glanced at her friend. "You were an only child, weren't you? I'm jealous." A frustrated snort. "I shall be listening to father's latest struggles repairing broken carts, and mother's woes in the kitchen." She squeezed her eyes shut as she started for the front door. "All whilst trying to keep my siblings from stealing everything in sight." She hummed thoughtfully, a valiant attempt at optimism. "I suppose it will give me a chance to practice my policing skills."
Silver didn't move as she heard the entrance to the stairway open then close, her eyes fixed ahead in a thousand-yard stare.
Minutes later, she croaked to the empty flat, "But your parents were bucking ancient eighteen years ago! How did they manage seven more foals after that!?"
“Mjolna, why do you look at me this way?” Solveig asked with a hard stare. “We are your family! We have come a long way, despite your abandoning our ancestral home! What else could you possibly be doing right now that would be better?”
Crapping swords , Mjolna thought. I would rather be crapping swords in a maid’s outfit and fighting an army of tentacle monsters with a singing teddy bear wand. That would be much better.
She resented how Silver’s neighponese manga managed to infiltrate even her sarcasm these days.
“Of course I am happy you are here, Mama,” Mjolna said instead. “I am only tired.”
“Oh, so your poor pregnant mother tires you, eh?” Solveig’s lip trembled and she turned her head. “Perhaps you’ll show greater care to my grave! ”
Mjolna groaned. “Mama do not mistake me! I only meant I was tired from training. Entering the Royal Guard is a great challenge!”
“Pah! Royal Guard!” Her father snorted. Knut looked at his daughter with nostrils flared. “You are a craftspony! You come from a long line of craftsponies! Be proud of the good work you already do.” He stomped a hoof long after speaking. Knut was never very good with the rhythm of emphasis.
“Yes, Papa,” she droned. “I already am.”
They were just wrapping up a walk through the lower districts of Canterlot. Solveig, for all her haughty northern air, had stuffed her pregnant blonde body into a white tee that read: Unicorn - (n.) A single piece of corn. Knut, on the other hand, passed on a novelty shirt, and instead sported a jean-styled bucket hat that would have been in style over thirty years ago—which was probably how long the hat had been hanging on the vendor’s hook, considering how unevenly faded the stitched in Celestia’s #1 Fan read on the front of it. And Mjolna’s siblings…?
They were everywhere. Ev-ery-where! She sincerely hoped they had purchased the toys they were terrorizing passersby with. Her ears pinned as she whacked her youngest brother on the back of the head. “Put it back, Arne.”
The little brown colt pouted and turned to replace an ashtray on a knick-knack vendor cart they were passing.
“What were you going to do with that anyway?” she muttered with a suspicious squint.
Crash .
Mjolna stopped and closed her eyes with suffering. She honestly didn’t want to look. Her family was simply too much. She was just one mare, after all… How could she be expected to keep them in line, and show them a good time?
“Revna, you had better not be reflecting sunlight into cart drivers eyes again—!” Mjolna turned her head. Her jaw dropped. “S-Silver Spanner?”
Silver waved at her jovially from the driver’s seat of her motorized cart—an invention Mjolna thought her roommate had disposed of after the last time it had crashed. It was large, the wooden frame ladened with a complex series of mechanisms. Smoke trailed from its rear-engine, where coal burned. An early prototype for Silver’s self-driving tractor. Its successor hadn’t just crashed, it exploded , though the unicorn had clearly held onto the hope that she could finish the project given the prototype’s continued existence. Heaven only knew where she’d stored the damn thing.
The cart had crashed into a street sign further down the road, bending it severely. Silver pulled on a lever, and with an aching creak, the vehicle moved in reverse. Stepping on a hoof break, she shifted the lever again and the cart moved forward, turning up the road… toward them.
Mjolna gawked as the big contraption ventured closer, chugging loudly like a train. Other ponies stared as it went.
Windigo’s teeth, is she serious?
“Mjolna! Hey! Fancy seeing you here!” Silver shouted over the racket her cart was making. The unicorn had on a pair of goggles over her eyes.
“What are you doing?!” Mjolna shouted back.
“Oh, you know! I was just in the neighborhood!”
“‘Just in the—’??” Mjolna’s hoof struck her forehead. “Silver, you dumbom! I’m busy!”
Knut turned a narrowed gaze on his eldest daughter. “Is this your ‘crazy’ roommate we’ve heard so much about?” he asked in a growl.
Mjolna gazed at him sidelong and could feel the sweat forming. “Er… yes?”
“You did not mention she makes such…” He gestured with a curl of his lip. “Things .”
Mjolna’s ears drooped and her spine curved. “W-well her contraptions aren’t normally so obnoxious—!”
“It is genius.”
“—They’re usually… uh…” she squinted one eye at her father. “What? ”
Knut nodded his head in approval just as Silver pulled to a squealing stop in front of them and turned off the engine. “The ingenuity! The craftsmanship! This is a rapturous invention!”
Solveig nodded her head with a small smile. “Yes! Quite.”
Mjolna glared at her mother. She knew about as much about craftsmanship as she did the dirty end of a chimera.
Silver pulled her goggles from her face and grinned down at them. “Hiya! My name’s Silver Spanner! It’s nice to meet you, Mjolna’s parents!”
Mjolna said through a tight smile. “Mama, Papa, this is my roommate.”
Knut made a face. “Why are you telling us this again? Honestly, it’s as though you have the memory of a goldfish!”
“I’m sure she forgot her promise to take us to the royal castle as well,” Solveig sniffed.
“I did not forget!” Mjolna snapped. She ground her teeth at her mother’s frigid look. Returning her attention to Silver, she gestured stiffly between her parents. “This is my Mama and Papa, Knut and Solveig.”
Silver hopped down from the driver seat and beamed. She looked around them with an air of expectation. “Aaaaand...your siblings?”
Mjolna gazed at her grumpily. “What about them?”
Silver tilted her head to the side, one ear drooping. “Uh… It doesn’t look like they’re here?”
Mjolna’s eyes popped wide. Her head whipped around one way, then the other. She snarled and pulled at her face with her hooves.
Solveig’s mouth screwed to the side. “Tsk! As if she never vanished on us before…”
Knut nodded. “Royal Guard… Hmph!”
