A Good Turn from Torque Wrench
"Celestia dang it, why didn't he call me over? I could have had a looksee, made it safe while I knocked together somethin' new for him, if only he'd up an' asked! I got all the lumber right there in my yard, y'know!"
"It wasn't his fault," said Kerfuffle, quietly. "I didn't even see it was broken. I just wanted to take a look in the orchard... I figured, y'know, if anywhere had the color I was lookin' for, it might be one of those lovely big fruit trees? An' the next thing I know the sky's spinnin', and then whoa!... bang! Crack! An' whaddaya know, I'm on my back in a pile of busted wood. Quite a fall, I tell ya!"
"It was his fault," snarled Torque Wrench. "He put the danged thing up in the first place. Weren't any kinda call for him to be doin' a thing like that. And now you're facin' a stretch of months in the hospital while you just lie around in bed and wait for that leg to heal up, all because a grumpy old pony couldn't keep his grumpy old spite fence in good order."
"I'm sure it's not gonna be too long," said Kerfuffle, and there was a moment of silence while the two of them pretended that was true.
"...Anyhoo," said Torque, stiffly, changing the subject as she shook herself out of her reverie. "I was only callin' by to say I'm all but finished with fixin' up yer old display case. I was gonna drop it round to the shop when you were around, but when I came to ask, you weren't to be found, and they told me about yer little spill. I'm guessin' I can just go ahead and hold on to that for the time bein', yah?"
"...You can hold on to it," said Kerfuffle. "I wondered if maybe, if I got the display case back up and all, then maybe more ponies might come and have a look at all my stuff, even though..."
She trailed off, and then gestured around the gray, muted room with a foreleg.
"Yeah," said Torque. "Maybe."
"We can save it for the grand re-opening, once I'm outta here, right?" said Kerfuffle, with a half-smile.
"Sure," said Torque, looking intently at the biggest oil stain on her overalls. "Once you're outta here."
"Can I see her?"
The nurse looked surprised. "...Why?"
"...Because I wanna see her," repeated Torque.
"I don't know that she'll be wantin' any visitors," said the nurse. "It's a pretty bad beat all told, dont'cha know."
"Have ya tried askin' her at all maybe?" said Torque, shaking her head.
"It's just, well, nowadays, if somepony gets sick or hurt, there's not much call for visitors any more," said the nurse, looking confused. "I don't remember how things ever got to the way it was before, with all the soup and cuddles and whatnot, but right now other than those two kids with their flyin' an' their tendency to, y'know, crash all the time, I can't recall anypony askin' to see another pony in here just for the sake of doin' it."
"I'm askin'," growled Torque, and the nurse gave a shrug and trotted out from behind the desk, pushing open a heavy gray door and gesturing for Torque to accompany her down the nondescript corridor of the little doctor's office.
"It's so gray here," muttered Torque, as she looked around. "I keep on gettin' to thinkin', dang it, if only the mayor had left the generator well alone! Or if he'd got it into his head to have asked me to just take a looksee at it, sure I don't know if I mighta helped but I know this place wouldn't be so very depressin' as it is now!"
"Oh, um..." said the nurse, shyly, "see now, the thing is, well, this room was actually always gray, so, um, it wouldn't have made any difference..."
"You're lookin' good, though, sure enough," said Torque, trying hard not to look at the uneven shape under the blankets, and trying even harder not to look like she was trying not to look. "And the nurse said they'll be lettin' you out once they're sure it's all healed up nice."
"It's not so bad, I reckon," said Kerfuffle, with a painful shrug as she sat up in bed. "I guess I can still fly, ya know? It's lucky I'm a pegasus, and not..."
The silence descended heavily on the room, and Kerfuffle involuntarily twitched her wings, awkwardly, watching Torque as the earth pony pawed at the ground.
"I guess," said Torque, flatly, looking at the floor.
"I just mean... There are worse things," said Kerfuffle, trying to smile.
The glass of water on her gray bedside table glowed and transformed into glorious full color. Nopony noticed.
"...Anyhoo," said Torque, absent-mindedly tightening the strap of her overalls with a tug of her mouth. "When they let ya out, I need ya to swing by the workshop, yah?"
"To collect the display case?" asked Kerfuffle. "Because I don't know how soon I'll be opening up again, truth be told."
"No," said Torque, turning to leave. "Not for that."
Kerfuffle peered into the gloom of the workshop as she slowly made her way through the doorway. Torque looked up from her workbench, watching Kerfuffle walking upright on her one hind leg, propped up by a makeshift pair of crutches, plain steel poles with austere black cushioning to help support her under her forelegs, flapping her wings for balance.
"Nurse said I should try walking on my leg," said Kerfuffle, answering Torque's unasked question. "Said it wasn't so good for me if I just fly everywhere."
"You'll be glad to know I fixed up ol' Moody Root's rotted old fence," said Torque, apparently ignoring what Kerfuffle said. "Not outta the goodness of my own heart or nothing like that. Mean ol' pony was just complainin' to everypony else about how now there was a big hole in his fence and anypony could just walk in and steal his fruit and blah blah blah, and eventually I got so sick of him flappin' his gums I headed on over there and kicked the rest of it down and built him up a nice borin' sturdy fence that ain't so likely to fall down on anypony. He never asked about you at all, by the way."
"Now hold on there, Torque," interrupted Kerfuffle, "I know that ain't true, he sent me - "
"...An' then I went around just tellin' everypony else who put up one of these stupid fences that I'd be glad to do the job right instead of their own incompetent selves tryin' and makin' a pig's ear of it. As if the town didn't look bad enough already without ponies who don't know the first danged thing about what they're doin' puttin' up fences that look just awful and when I wouldn't trust 'em to stay up in a strong breeze, never mind with somepony climbin' up on 'em like a danged fool, but sure, what do I know about fixin' things..."
Torque shook her head, and then realized she was ranting, and looked up at Kerfuffle, who was looking back fearfully at her.
"Yeah, yeah, sure and I know it, who wants to listen to the repair pony, huh?"
"I do", said Kerfuffle, softly, shifting her weight on her crutches. "I believe in you, Torque."
The magic of hope suffused and transformed her crutches... but even though the steel was brighter and more reflective than ever before, it had nothing to reflect but gray.
Torque rolled her eyes. "Sure, whatever, I didn't ask you to heave your rump over here so you could blow smoke up my chimney. I asked because I wanted to give you this."
She dragged a long wooden case out from behind a pile of junk, and Kerfuffle cocked her head in confusion. The case was gray, obviously, but it was clean, and neat, sanded smooth... it looked like it might even have been painted, or at least varnished, to look smarter than all the other oil-stained bits and pieces lying around Torque's workshop.
"Now it's not like I ever had call to do anythin' like this before, so don't go expectin' miracles out of it," said Torque, speaking around the latch as she popped the case open with her teeth. "But I had a bunch of parts lying around that I couldn't find a use for, so... yeah."
Kerfuffle's eyes went wide as she looked at what was in the case.
"It's..." she started to say, her eyes filling with tears.
"Now, hey, hey, don't go gettin' soft on me," said Torque, waving her hoof dismissively. "It ain't nothin' special, but I figured nopony else was gonna step up an' do it. An' like I said, I had all this stuff lyin' around anyway."
"...Thank you," said Kerfuffle, and leaned forward precariously to hug her, but Torque waved her away and took a step back, looking out the window with determination.
"It's an engineerin' challenge, not a birthday present," she said, as Kerfuffle looked at the prosthetic leg. "I checked it over with the nurse. If you come across any problems with it, usin' it day to day an' such... call me over before you get hurt again, you hear?"
She turned to look at Kerfuffle. "Uh, 'cause it's still kinda what you'd call a prototype, and I reckon I might be able to sell a few of these if yours works okay," she added, hurriedly. "Only reason I'm not chargin' you for it is because you're kinda testin' it out for me, dont'cha know."
"...Mmhm, oh, yah, sure," Kerfuffle nodded in agreement, adopting the same matter-of-fact tone... but Torque could see her smile was still just as big as before.
"So, uh, you just go on back to your place, and try it out - it adjusts just there, ya see? - an' get on back to your, uh, sewin', or sketchin', or whatever it is you do. Could even maybe, I dunno, pretty it up a little, if it's too plain for ya... just don't make it too heavy, now, and for sure don't block that hinge there, or these springs, okay? They gotta be able to move, or the whole thing just won't work..."
Torque paused for a moment, looking over her handiwork with a strange expression on her face, before gently shutting the case lid. "...Now, if ya don't mind, I got real work to be gettin' on with here, so..."
"...I'll get out of your mane, then," said Kerfuffle, picking up the case with her mouth and hoisting it onto her back, awkwardly positioning herself for takeoff.
"Hey, Torque?" she added, as an afterthought, but the repair pony had already gone back to her workbench, hammer in hoof, mouth full of nails.
"...Thanks," she whispered, and flew out of the door.
Torque looked up after her, and waited until she was sure Kerfuffle was safely out of sight. "Don't mention it, ya clumsy doofus," she muttered, and picked up her hammer again.
On the wasteland behind the workshop, a single butterfly landed on a tiny, scruffy patch of green grass.
Author's Note
I absolutely loved Kerfuffle, and more specifically I was super proud of the fact that her having a prosthetic leg wasn't some kind of plot point, or indeed even mentioned, just presented as completely unremarkable. That's the show I love, right there.
So I hope this doesn't seem like I'm trying to fill in a gap that didn't need filling, and it's definitely not my intention to make any kind of statement at all about the life experiences of amputees; more that I thought it was an interesting idea to bring together my two favourites among the many excellent new characters from the special. And I can never resist sharing a bit of headcanon; as with Red/Yellow I know there are bound to be a ton of different theories and stories people have for Kerfuffle's past. This one just happens to be mine, that's all.
