A Broken Chariot and a Meeting
Obsidian Sunrider sighed, looking up from the note on the table. He’d come over to the apartment of a friend of his, Moonlight Dancer, because she’d asked him for some help a few days back. She had a tour coming up right away with the Royal Equestrian Ballet, for which she was the Skydancer Prima, but unfortunately her sky chariot had a broken axle.
The tiny chariot was usually what she used when she was going on tour to bring her luggage with her, since said luggage wouldn’t fit in saddlebags and trains made her edgy, so she’d asked Sun to take it to the chariot down to be repaired by the the pony she’d originally bought it from. Which was now the reason for the note he was holding that had been on the kitchen table.
Hey Sunny,
The big Prima extended practices for this last week. Won’t be there until late. My chariot is in the garage, and the wheel is secure enough for you to pull it to Ponyville. Thanks again for doing this for me, you’re a lifesaver and I owe you big.
Your friend,
Moony.
The paper also had the address of the mechanic scrawled on it, as well as a basic aerial map of the location, clearly a hurried afterthought. Sun chuckled at the fact that one of the more important pieces of information for taking her chariot down to the small town had nearly been neglected.
He shook his head, tucking the paper into a set of saddlebags he wore and turned to head out the door. He paused long enough to lock Moonlight’s door before heading to the basement of the building where there was a sort of garage for chariots and carriages. He sighed as he looked at this month’s colour scheme. It seemed specifically designed to clash against his coat as much as possible.
The wheels were a sunny yellow, something that actually matched his coat quite well, while the hitch and trim were a sunset orange. Another colour that matched him, this time his mane. Unfortunately, the body of the small sky chariot was a drab, olive brown that, while not nearly as eye searing as some of the other colour schemes it had been, was just as deserving of a horrible wince from how badly it went together.
He sighed, walking over to the monstrosity to hook himself up to it, and carefully pulled it out to the pegasus door of the carriage storage area. He hit a button on the wall, and a curtain-like door lifted, revealing the sky beyond.
He smiled, closing his eyes and spreading his wings. Then, with a single downstroke, he was in the sky. He circled just long enough to ensure that the pegasus door in Canterlot’s cliff face closed behind him before he turned towards Ponyville for the flight.
The flight between Canterlot and Ponyville took about three and a half hours. Sun would have gone much faster, but he couldn’t risk damaging the chariot he was pulling any more than it already was. While he had to reduce his pace, Sun still grinned as he glided. The sky was his home, where he felt the most alive.
During the entire flight to Ponyville, Sun had hardly needed to flap, taking the majority of the flight in one prolonged glide. The elevation difference between the two cities, as well as the relatively small linear distance, made for easy flying. As he got close, he angled towards the area of town the address was located.
Once he had the general area, it was easy enough to find the place. The sign above the door and garage-style door on the side were the big giveaways. Axel’s Wheels and Wagons was a relatively small shop in comparison to many other similar businesses Sun had seen. It sat on the outskirts of Ponyville and was still a larger building than most of the surrounding homes, owing to the fact there was a work building attached to it. Sun steepened his descent a little more now that he’d found his destination.
The landing was… slightly unpleasant. While most pegasi could and did come to a complete stop in the air just above the ground, before they dropped a couple inches to the ground, pulling a sky chariot, carriage or wagon required a slightly different approach. The pony had to take a short run or trot on landing to bleed off the momentum of the extra weight of the chariot and whatever load being pulled behind them as well as to transition the enchantments on the chariot from holding itself in the air via tapping Sun’s pegasus magic to rolling on the ground without any magical assistance.
The reason for the less than pleasant landing was that whatever temporary fix Moonlight had used to keep the chariot airworthy enough for empty flight to Ponyville broke on landing, dropping the chariot on its side and causing it to yank Sun to a stop as the straps hooking him up to it dug into his chest and barrel. With his slow speed, it hadn’t actually hurt, at least.
Shaking off the jarring, if not particularly painful, stop, he quickly got himself out of the harness and began to look for the entrance that customers used for the shop, not really wanting to go around to the front door and bother whoever might be in the house.
It wasn’t all that hard to find a pony-sized door, as it was just around the corner, on the side of the workshop that would be seen from the path. Above the door was another sign with the shop's name, though this one had an additional line below that that had the name of the proprietor, Axel, and his trade.
He tested the door, only to find it locked. Beside the door was a hanging rope, and on the other side, a wooden sign that Sun had missed previously with the hours of business on it. He frowned, taking a quick look at the hours. The shop really should have been open. He sighed, stepping back and looking around to see if there was any sort of note to explain the absence or locked door.
His eyes quickly zeroed in on a small piece of parchment hanging from the rope. Picking it up, he read it quick. Ring bell for service. Shrugging once more, Sun rang the bell. A short burst of a Sapphire Shores song could be heard through the door, causing Sun to raise an eyebrow.
While doorbells of various types weren’t uncommon in any city or town, usually anything more than a magical two tone was either not worth the effort just seen as sort of superfluous. He smiled, glad that somepony, at least, seemed to enjoy the little things in life.
It only took a couple of minutes for the door to be answered, but when it was, Sun was rather suddenly struck dumb. The mare was larger than average, though this was due to a more muscular build, and her coat was a ruby red. Her mane, which hung down to her knees, was a bit messy and a dirty white in colour. “Hello. Can I help you with anything?” she asked.
Sun stood, then, right as the silence was about to become awkward, he shook his head hard, as if to clear it. “Oh… yeah. A friend of mine asked me to bring you her sky chariot to get repaired,” he said quickly, taking a couple deep breaths. “I… I left it around by your garage door.”
“Okay, just give me a second,” she said, ducking in behind the door and out of sight for a couple of seconds. When she came out, her mane was done up in a tight bun. Sun led the way and kept his eyes very firmly forwards, blush still firmly in place. About halfway around, the mare spoke once more. “I’m Axel Rose, by the way. Just Axel or Rose works though.”
“Sunrider,” the stallion replied quickly. Perhaps a little too quickly. “I usually just go by Sun.” Internally, what little space wasn’t taken up by the awkwardness of being around such a pretty mare was spent wondering if Moonlight did this on purpose. It was a perfectly valid concern, too, for anypony that knew anything about the mare.
When they got around the building far enough to see the chariot, Sun could practically feel Rose’s wince. “Oh, you’re Moonlight’s friend?” she asked, a small amount of amusement in her tone.
Sun glanced back. “You can tell that easily?” he asked in surprise, momentarily forgetting his awkwardness.
“I don’t sell that many lightweight cargo chariots, and there’s only one mare I’ve ever known to paint hers up in colours that are painful to look at,” Rose explained, trotting ahead to go take a proper look at the chariot. “Do you know how it was broken?”
Sun shook his head. “No. I have no idea.” He then shook his head again for different reasons as Rose bend over to take a look at the detached wheel and broken axle. Some oddly lucid part of his brain noted that her tail was done up in an extremely tight braid. A braid that had the side effect of bringing attention to just how toned her flanks were… Once again, Sun shook his head hard to get his mind off that track right that instant! It was only mostly successful.
“Are you okay?” Rose asked in concern, standing up and half turning to look over at Sun.
Sun swallowed hard, before answering in a small voice, “Just fine. I’m fine.” He needed to get his mind back in line fast, or he was going to risk seriously embarrassing himself. The task once more became all the more difficult as Rose went back to inspecting the underside of the chariot and leaving Sun with a view that was exceptionally hard to ignore.
Sun spent the next five minutes or so as Rose went over the chariot keeping his eyes trained firmly on his hooves and working very hard to keep his mind out of the gutter and get a hold of himself. So what if she was a really pretty mare with a firm, toned body that looked like she liked to get her hooves dirty!
Sun once more shook his head, wishing he could slap his overactive imagination into submission. Those were not thoughts he needed right now!
“…of the bolts.” Rose’s voice into Sun’s mental war with himself, causing him to look up, blinking a bit.
“Pardon?” Sun asked, perhaps a bit dumbly, blushing in embarrassment.
“It looks like it’s just a broken sheer bolt. An easy fix,” Rose repeated with a giggle.
“Oh… uh… I know absolutely nothing about sky chariots besides how to fly with one.” Sun blushed harder at the admittance. He didn’t even know enough to properly take care of a sky chariot, having never actually needed to own one. He could usually just borrow Moonlight’s, as horrifying as the colours usually were. “So, that means very little to me.”
Rose sighed lightly. “Basically, normal wear and tear caused a weird, though not exactly uncommon, failing in the chariot. The sheer bolts on the wheels, designed to protect the frame and cargo in case of rough landings, were broken, but there’s none of the other damage to indicate that they were sheered as per their standard use. It was probably either just a bad bolt, or something that slipped by in regular maintenance.”
Sun scuffed his hoof lightly at her tone. While she hid it well enough, he could still hear a slight leaking of ‘explained this far too many times’ into her voice. “Sorry,” he said sheepishly.
Rose shook her head. “It’s fine. Wasn’t your fault.”
Sun wasn’t sure whether she was misinterpreting his apology or purposefully answering it the wrong way. He didn’t really want to ask, either. “How long will it take?” he asked instead.
“Half an hour, but would you mind helping me get it into my shop? I have a sledge that we can load it onto, but it would be a little easier if you could help,” she requested.
Sun nodded. “Sure.” He gave her a nervous smile as she led the way over to the big garage door. He followed behind as she opened a small pony-sized door in the corner of it, nearly hidden by the way it fit into the bigger door.
Once inside, it was easy to see the sledge. At first, it just looked like four wheels standing upright far too well on their own, but closer inspection showed that the bed was suspended with barely five centimetres of clearance from the ground on rigid columns about ten centimetres in diameter.
Sun looked over it, a slightly quizzical look on his face. It didn’t seem practical in the least. It actually seemed like a ridiculously circumstantial piece of equipment to have.
Catching Sun’s look at the sledge, Rose laughed. “It’s usually for cases like this, a crashed chariot or broken wagon that can’t be transported on its own wheels or with a quick repair. It’s also helpful getting things to and from the train yards without me needing to worry about story a full-sized cargo wagon.”
“Oh,” Sun said rather dumbly as Rose walked over and hitched herself up to it.
“Can you get the door?” she asked, motioning over to a rope pulley system on one side of it. Sun nodded quickly, moving over to lift it up. The door was fairly heavy, but Sun managed to lift it without too much trouble. He did wonder just how strong Rose was if she found it light enough that she could just ask him to lift it like it was nothing. Then again, she was an earther.
Loading the chariot onto the sledge was easy enough. Sun just had to help stabilize it while Rose did all the heavy lifting, though the ease with which she did it gave Sun an idea of just how strong she was in comparison to him. It was kind of scary a scary thought to realize just how powerful she was.
She smiled over at Sun as she got herself hitched back up to the low-riding wagon. “Thanks. It’ll only take a little bit. Just come back in a couple hours and it should be finished.”
Sun nodded. “I’ll see you then,” he said softly. Now he just needed to find something to do for the next two hours. A quick mental debate later, he shot into the sky. He really needed to fly out his stress and nerves before he embarrassed himself any worse.
First thing, though, was to find a good, secluded place to practice. A place where nopony would see him. Firing straight up until he was high enough to see a good chunk of the surrounds, he quickly found a place.
A few miles out was what looked to be an old quarry. Even though it was fairly close to the town, the dip in the land would let him hide well enough if he kept low. Especially since he was already far higher than most pegasi flew outside of inter-city travel.
A single powerful flap and change in angle very suddenly accelerated Sunrider to a quick pace he could keep up pretty well for long periods of time. A pace that was a fair bit faster than the average pegasus’ cruising speed. It took mere minutes for Sun to reach the quarry, and upon reaching it, he immediately dove down into the basin offered. It might not have been the free and open air on the side of Mount Alicorn opposite the city, but he was hidden from casual sight.
Now that he was out of view of anypony else, he could cut loose, too. And cut loose he did, as he almost immediately accelerated to almost double his current speed, and then pulled a hairpin turn tight enough that the forces involved had the effect of causing him to almost ‘drift’ sideways through the air before his forwards momentum fully took hold again.
And that was just the start. Over the next forty-five minutes, he gradually began to build and work his way up to more and more complex maneuvers, keeping his mind on his flight. Working to keep his mind from wandering. And with how often and how hard he flew as stress relief. And to kill time. And just in general, it took some serious flying before he no longer had enough spare thought not focused on flying for him to no longer need to worry about wandering thoughts.
About forty-five minutes in, however, he was interrupted. When he was entirely focused on flying like he was, he also, seemingly in contradiction, entered a sort of thoughtless state. At the speeds he was going, if something went wrong, a pony didn’t have time to think in the same manner as one might go over most problems.
So, despite all his thought and focus being on his flight, it was without the delay of thought that when the trail of light cut across his path, he went into evasive maneuvering. He tilted one wing up then the other down. Immediately after he began to roll, the downwards wing fired up into a hard upwards angle, while the upwards wing tilted further, so that it was as if bringing him out of a dive fast and hard, though instead of up, it was a ninety degree turn with an insanely tight radius for his speed on a level plane.
He didn’t think to slow down to figure out what that was, only continuing his flight somewhere where he wouldn’t disturb anypony or be disturbed. The blur cut in front of Sun again, and this time, instead of a sharp turn on the level, he pulled into an ascent hard and fast.
He would just leave whatever it was and get out of there. Find a new place to practice and kill the rest of the time there. He glanced to the side, only to see somepony keeping up with him, a smirk on her face and a rainbow trail following behind her.
Sun sped up, not wanting to deal with anypony at the moment, just wanting to fly. The mare matched him, smirk becoming challenging. Sun didn’t want any sort of challenge, and cut away hard, taking an almost full one hundred degrees practically on a bit. Through the turn he lost almost no speed, and quickly gained back what little speed he lost within seconds. Not even a minute later, the mare blew past him, and gave him another cocky grin. Sun just frowned.
From one blink to the next, Sun twisted his wings, sending him into into a corkscrewing dive towards the trees, intending to use one of the stream or nature trails to lose the mare, accelerating even more, pushing himself harder than he otherwise would have since he had somewhere he still had to be later, and would be flying back to Canterlot after. Still, all he wanted was to get some peace.
On entering the trees and the path, Sun was forced to once more focus all his attention on his flight and his path, rather than his annoyance with the mare that just wouldn’t leave him be. He forced himself harder, taking the turns fast and hard as they came. He could practically feel the mare on his tail. Wasn’t it obvious he just wanted some peace!
The next blind corner nearly put an end to Sun’s flight, in both senses of the word, as he just barely managed to angle his wings and change his curve just enough to avoid an oncoming jogger. She squeaked in surprise as Sun passed. There was the sound of a pair of extremely surprised yells behind Sun that let him know the mare hadn’t been so lucky. He didn’t turn around, merely kept going as neither of the yells had sounded like they contained any sort of pain. Sun had no desire to speak to them, or deal with the mare recovering in time to give chase once more. So he kept going down the trails, though he did raise high enough that he was no longer in danger of running into anypony, a bit of self-annoyance shot through him on not thinking of that previously.
He spent the rest of the time he needed to kill before he had to go back to Rose’s flying through the trails at speed, a smile working its way onto his face. When the time arrived to head back, he lifted above the trees enough to get his bearings, then zoomed back towards the town, not slowing down, and, in fact, speeding up as he had an open path once more where he didn’t need to worry about rapid changes in direction or running into anypony, the smile on his face growing.
The trees below him blurred and the line from trees to fields on the outskirts of Ponyville passed in the blink of an eye, one second flying over trees, and the next over the small hills and fields as he made his way back towards Axel’s Wheels and Wagons, not even beginning to slow down until he was about a hundred metres from the building. And even then, it was a very slight slowdown until about he was nearly at the door, at which point he flared his wings out and came to a near instant stop from what was still a very high speed. He set down on the ground lightly, barely showing any strain from his extended flight.
He walked around to the big shop door, wondering if it was open, as his approach hadn’t given him a proper angle to check. As he rounded the building, he saw the door wide open, and caught site of Rose sticking out from beneath a much larger carriage, while the chariot was over by the side, sitting all ready to go.
He smiled at that, before heading over to where he could see Rose’s legs. “Um, hi,” he said softly. Despite his soft voice, it still produced a bit of a jump from Rose, followed by a clatter of something under the carriage. “Oh! Sorry,” Sun pre-empted, eyes going wide as he wondered what had just happened.
Rose giggled. “It’s fine,” she said, coming out from under the carriage. Her mane, face and shoulder were spattered with oil down the left side, and it looked fresh enough that Sun was fairly certain he knew what the clattering was beneath. She was also fairly dirty overall now, some not as fresh, though still not old, spots of grease and grime dotting her coat. “These are the times it’s nice to have work attached to my home. Easy access to a shower.”
The wording, combined with her state, put the image of Rose in the shower, coat slicked and mane heavy into Sun’s mind, where it stayed for all of three seconds as his face burst into a sudden, flaming blush, and his mind locked up. Those three seconds passed, and Sun fainted dead away, falling to the ground with a thud.
Sun awoke slowly, feeling rather warm, cocooned in something soft. He felt like he’d either had an amazing dream, or horrible nightmare. A cute mare speaking to him, and then something about a shower…
He groaned, slowly opening his eyes to a dark room. A room he could almost immediately tell was not his own. That was not cause for alarm yet. Not for him, at least. It was kind of surprising how often he woke up in rooms not his own when he could barely talk to a mare. Usually from one of his friends toting him somewhere to wake up after a fainting episode.
He sighed, pulling himself out of… the… bed? He looked around. Now was the time to become wary, in his experience, as he knew most of the bedrooms he might be waking up in after a fainting episode. He sighed, looking around to see if he could get any clue about where he was from the surroundings.
Unfortunately, the room was fairly Spartan in appearance, with only a bed, night table with small clock, wardrobe, and a piece of art on the wall. Sun sighed at the lack of identifying features, heading for the door to the room.
On opening it, he heard the soft sound of singing coming from down the hall of an unfamiliar home. Now was the time to begin to panic. While Sun was not panicked about possible foalnapping (the idea was laughable with how badly the room was secured), the panic stemmed from the possibility of his ‘dream’ being a little more reality than he was comfortable with. At all. Following the sound of the singing, he quickly began to hear the shower as a sort of background effect to it.
While his blush and nerves began to increase with how much closer to the door he got, he found that he was still approaching it. The singing was beautiful, and it was a song Sun knew well. An old Zebrican Hymn, though he had no idea how Rose might know it.
Within a minute, Sun found himself humming along softly to the tune, smiling. The tune relaxed him, gave him the ability to just not think for a while. Whether it was singing it himself, or listening to it. This situation almost seemed to work better, as she had such a beautiful voice.
An unknown amount of time later, Sun was rather jarringly jolted out of his state of bliss by the sounds of the shower turning off and Rose’s singing turning to humming. Before conscious thought could set in, he was down the hall and back in the room he had woken up in. He wasn’t going to be seen as the creep listening outside the washroom door, no matter how beautiful her voice was.
He shook his head to try and clear the blush at the thought of not only listening to, but seeing her sing. He began to pace, pushing his mind onto another topic, while his wings twitched with the need to get into the air. To just fly. Outfly the stress, the nerves, and fear. He needed to just get back into his comfort zone. The one place he found peace, and could quiet his mind.
His thoughts were, once more, derailed violently as the door to the room he was currently opened. Sun spun to see who it was, eyes wide, in spite of the fact there was really only one pony it could possibly be.
“Oh!” Rose squeaked at Sun’s sudden movement. “Oh, you’re awake. Good… are you okay?” Her voice was filled with concern.
Sun sighed, relaxing and wilting a bit. “Yeah, I’m fine,” he said softly, embarrassedly. “Sorry about that.”
Rose smiled, shaking her head with a giggle. “It’s fine,” she assured him softly. “You’re going to be okay, now though? No risk of fainting on your flight?”
Sun shook his head. “No chance at all. The cause of it... isn’t a danger when I’m in flight,” he explained, trying to be as vague as possible, while still giving her all the information she might need to ensure she wasn’t worried about him anymore.
Rose nodded, looking a little confused, but she appeared to be willing to just accept it. “If you’re sure,” she said, her tone uncertain. She took a breath. “Um… Moonlight’s chariot is finished. All that’s left is the matter of payment. Do I mail the bill to her?”
Sun shook his head. “No, I’m good for payment,” he said instantly, not willing to make the mare wait, nor wanting to just leave that on Moonlight like that. He’d prefer to just get it back from Moonlight later.
Rose nodded. “If you’ll just follow me please?” she requested. Stepping out into the hall, Sun got a proper look at what she looked like now. Her long, white mane was thick and cascaded down to her knees, and her tail was out of the braid, and fell to her back knees in a similar waterfall to her mane. Her coat was still slightly damp, and Sun was quickly forced to look away and train his eyes on the floor lest he suffer a repeat incident. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to keep what caused his fainting episodes from Rose if it happened again, and that would be far more than a little embarrassing if she found out.
She led the way into a room just off from the shop in which there was several filing cabinets, a desk, and chairs on either side, along with a drafting table and tools off to one side. Everything needed for the Business side of her business. She went in behind the desk and pulled out some papers.
It didn’t take long to get the payment and signoff out of the way. Sun had more than enough bits on him, and Rose already had everything ready to go and organized. In only a few minutes, Sun was hitching himself back up to the sky chariot. He smiled over at Rose. “Thanks,” he said softly.
She nodded in return. “If you’re ever in Ponyville in the future, maybe we can have lunch,” she suggested softly, with a smile. “It was a pleasure.”
Sun blushed as his smile widened a bit. “Yeah, I’d like that. Bye Rose.”
“See you, Sunrider.”
With that, Sun took off into the sky and began to head for Canterlot, smiling softly to himself. She really had been nice. He just might have to find an excuse to come back down to Ponyville and take her up on that lunch offer.
