Clockwork Precision: Canonical Side Story Shorts

Chapters

Greatest Treasure (Mother's Day 2020)
The One Who’s There (Father’s day 2020)
In the Spirit of Hearth’s Warming (Holidays 2020)
The Radiance of Gearing’s First Nightmare Night

Greatest Treasure (Mother's Day 2020)

Mom,

I know it’s kind of early, but I’m about to head out on a job that’s going to take a while. I don’t know if I’ll get back in time for you to receive this when you should, so, yeah, that’s why I’m sending this out when I am. Yes, I know what day is coming up next Sunday, and I’ll bring your present with me when I stop by.

Take care, see you next Sunday

-Gearing

Gearing’s mother carefully folds up the letter and replaces it back into it’s envelope before she sets it on their small kitchen table. She may be a full grown mare, and a mother at that, but she can’t help but feel foalishly giddy at the thought of it. He’s been so busy, and practically a ghost lately. Nearly impossible to get a hold of even.

But her little buck is coming home. Today. Just to see her.

Knowing he hasn’t forgotten her has helped ease the pain of him abandoning the nest so quickly. Eased it, but not erased it entirely. Why he’d want to jump into the workforce so quickly is beyond her. But, she’s come to terms with it. It was an opportunity he just couldn’t miss.

And then there’s the grudgingly acknowledged reality that big companies like that don’t knock with opportunity on just anypony’s door. And a second knock is unheard of. They won’t waste their time on those who don’t act the first time.

She sits at their humble kitchen table for a bit, with a smile on her face, as she fidgets with the envelope on the table by turning it this way and that with one of her crystalline wingtips. He didn’t say when he’d be here, and it’s already mid day. But, that’s normal. She didn’t expect him to show up at dawn’s early light.

Although she was certainly hoping that to be the case so they could have the entire day to be together.

Her eyes get directed to the window nearby, as she watches the clear skies through the gap of their cloud home, and the wild clouds beyond going about their own business of being adorable fluffy cotton balls. Her mind wanders around, like the clouds, aimlessly, as she tries to figure out what she should be doing at the moment.

Other mothers in her situation would probably be baking and cooking up a storm. To have a huge table of sweets and food ready for when he gets home. If nothing else to help pass the time. But the appreciation such work would bring also brings out a bit of happiness. There’s just one problem with that…

Gearing’s pragmatic shiny ass doesn’t eat. At all, and would ask why we’re wasting things. She thinks with a frown as she stares out at nothing in particular.

She gets up and starts walking circles around the table as her mind hops from one mental thought cloud to the next as she’s trying to brainstorm out an idea. It’s a good thing their floor is solid cloud, as well, otherwise her metallic hooves would quickly wear a hole in any other material. She needs something to pass the time until he gets here, and she just doesn’t have the heart to pull out any actual work. There’s plenty of fabric to work on, and commissions to finish.

But this is supposed to be her day, Gearing said so, Gearing’s planned on it, he’s actually taking off to be here. So she’s not going to throw dirt in the face of his intentions by doing something like that.

Besides, she wouldn’t be able to focus on it with the knowledge he could be trotting through the front door at any moment.

She slowly trails her focus around the room, until her eyes settle on a picture frame hanging on the wall near the cabinets where she stores her craft supplies. Ever so slowly a warm smile forms across her glistening silver muzzle. She walks over to the picture frame and gently rubs a hoof over the glass as she drinks in the sight and it triggers a swarm of memories for her. She tilts her head, and rests her cheek on one of her hoofs as she mindlessly plays with her golden mane with one of her silvery yellow wingtips.

She mutters along quietly to herself as she reads the document that started this entire whirlwind for her, “Dear Mister Gearing Green Wing… It is our pleasure to inform you that your application to Stable-Tec University has been approved for the upcoming semester…” She lets out a sigh of contentment as she remembers when the packet came with the letter in it. She’d thought he was simply making things up to try and get out of trouble for going off to do whatever it is young foalish bucks do these days in the middle of the night.

But, no, the entire thing was pretty clear. And then there was the hurricane of activity afterwards and, just like any powerful storm, their lives have never been the same since then.

Not in a bad way. Not necessarily. But still irrevocably changed nonetheless.

She’s proud of him. Truly. He’d always been bookish and smart. But now he’s practically being treated as the next Twilight Sparkle of technology. She’s well known for her prodigal knowledge and talents with magic. And, apparently, he’s being recognized as a prodigy for technology. Being able to learn and master nearly any mechanical device and repair it in short order, with little to no exposure to the item previously. They’ve been throwing him at one task after another, traveling all over to learn more and, apparently, try to find his limits.

Only to fail at that task, or, and she can’t help but hope as a mother, only to find that he has no limits in that regard.

That’s the route she chooses to take. And the stance she has. But, then again, she’s his mother, and she knows that comes with at least a bit of bias.

But it’s so hard not to be proud and so excited for him, when he’s getting so many opportunities. So far she’s heard of him working not only for Stable-Tec, but several government agencies as well. Ministries included.

And it was hardly a surprise to her when the Ministry of Technology was brought up, given his talents, and the ministry mare’s familial ties with Stable-Tec.

It has left her a bit adrift though. With her son stampeding across Equestria fixing one thing or another, and learning how to tackle the next problem. She doesn’t have to worry about his diet or exercise, like other parents might, but she can’t help worrying if he’s getting enough sleep. He hasn’t learned that part yet, she’s sure, especially with his tendency to throw himself at everything he tries. Completely.

She mindlessly turns and walks away from the picture frame as she heads over to another room. Moving entirely on autopilot as her mind plays one picture after another before her mind’s eye. She pauses, right at the threshold of where he had his little workshop and room, and takes in the sights.

She’d left his room just the way he’d left it. Nothing’s been moved. So, if he ever wants to come back, he knows he’s welcome. And there’s plenty of room for him. A model hanging from the ceiling catches her eye and draws a smile from her lips as she quickly places it.

It was some kind of gadget that Gearing had been wanting to work on. A model of a water turbine. But this one isn’t designed for water. It’s designed for air and clouds. And it’s a scale model of an electrical generator. Made from scrap parts and trash that he’d got from some junkyard. It’s not very powerful, and has no real applications for a variety of reasons. But she can clearly remember his beaming smile when he showed her. How he could get it to turn by blowing on it. And, once they went outside, he held it up proudly as the blades inside spun and, after a little while, the small light bulb next to it began to glow. It was a weak light. That much even he admitted. But it was a start.

But neither of them could have figured out the start of what. Nor how far it would take them.

From each other.

She turns around and opens up a cabinet door under where she normally keeps her crafting supplies, and quickly pulls out a thick photo album.

Right on the cover is a delicately embroidered picture of a golden gear with a pair of green wings daintily fluttering up and at an angle from it.

She opens it and, right there dead center, is the earliest picture she’d managed of Gearing. His oversized brassy head, and ridiculously large brushed copper eyes, looking up at her with a smile that just melted her heart. She’d managed to catch a picture just in time to catch him trying to flutter his wings. At the time they were so small and fragile looking, that it appeared someone had made fake wings of some yellowish fabric, and then they went crazy with green and blue sequins all over it. His wings have always been of the glittery variety. He’s always shined, from the very first day of his birth.

She turns the page and sees a picture of her holding her precious infantile Gearing in her forehooves as she nuzzles him and holds him to her chest. He still has that massive smile on his face, and nuzzles her back enthusiastically. Though, now she can’t remember who took the picture. Maybe it was one of the nurses from the hospital. Or a friend. She doesn’t recall. All she remembers, is like this picture. Because in this moment, the rest of the world simply didn’t matter. She had her little buck in her limbs, and that’s all that mattered.

All she ever wanted was to be a mother. Others couldn’t understand. They probably never would. Lives aren’t based on such a ‘small’ part of their life. But, given how she’d been so thoroughly denied such a thing. A thing that others take for granted. It meant a lot to her. She turns her head and lifts her wing, looking at her cutie mark and smiling even more as she sees the mark on her rear that almost carbon copies the scene of her holding Gearing in this photo. As corny and cliché as it sounds, she didn’t truly feel like a complete pony until she had Gearing. Like she wasn’t truly a mare. That the curse had robbed her of even the most basic fundamentals of equinity.

Gearing gave it all back to her, in spades, by simply existing. And, as such, he’ll always be her greatest treasure.

She trails her eyes up and to the window after going through several more pictures and trailing down memory lane. It doesn’t happen often, not for a clockwork, but she’s blissfully lost track of time. And it’s getting quite dark outside. By this point it’s Luna’s time, and Celestia has already bedded down. As with the majority of the rest of Equestria.

But she frowns as she realizes, losing track of time may have skipped her ahead, but it didn’t do what she truly yearned for.

Her baby buck still hasn’t arrived home.

She goes back to the picture album and continues going through one picture after another. But, unlike before, she doesn’t allow herself to delve in too much. A nagging in the back of her head keeps rearing its ugly head to remind her that he’s still not here. That she’s left here, alone, and her one and only foal is nowhere in sight.

Despite the photo album being almost entirely of Gearing, and Gearing related memorabilia, it’s quite thick, even though it doesn’t cover a large segment of chronology. He’s not exactly a full grown stallion. But, still, there have been many great memories for her to cherish with her little buck.

And one by one, she trots down memory lane as time continues to tick by.

Late in the night she finally closes the book, and stares at the cover, having gone through each and every single photo and scrap in it. Each one conjuring up a memory. Something to hold onto. Something to smile about.

But it still hasn’t conjured up Gearing.

She gets up and quietly turns around as she puts the photo album in its cabinet. She sits there staring at it in it’s cubbyhole before she lets out a biologically unnecessary sigh. She closes the cabinet door as she simultaneously looks over out the window, and sees nothing but the vast darkness of the deep night, with stars twinkling here and there in the vastness beyond. But, as beautiful as that is, it’s not the sight she wants. What she yearns for.

Gearing, still isn’t back.

She walks over to the doorway of his room as she runs things through her mind. He’s been busy. She knows this. He was so busy he’d sent the letter nearly two weeks in advance because he wasn’t sure he’d be back in time for her to get it. Meaning, he wasn’t even sure he’d be able to send a simple letter in those two weeks. She spins around, grabs the letter, envelope and all, and walks into his room as she reads over it again. She holds it up to her nose and takes in a slow steady sniff as she tries to find some trace of her little buck.

She lets out a soft click as her shoulders sag and she stares at the letter. A few more follow shortly after before she says quietly, “He’s… not coming…” She snorts a few times softly, with interrupting ticks and clicks as she trails her drooping eyes over to his bed. It’s still there. Unused. And abandoned.

Like her.

She walks over to the bed slowly, holding the letter to herself, and climbs up into the small bed built and designed for her little buck in mind. She curls up on the bed, on her side, and holds the letter to her chest as she curls up on the cloud bed and ticks and clicks a few times. “He’s… he’s not coming… is he?” She holds the paper up to her face, and presses it over her muzzle, smashing it into her face, as she ticks and clicks and tries in vain to keep her disappointment and emotions in check.

* * *

A vertibuck zips across the night sky over Equestria, tunneling through the cloud layer and staying hidden within it, as the pilots fly as quickly as they can to their destination.

“Gearing, we should really be stopping by the green ward, not flying off to the middle of nowhere!” Jitterbug yells over her headset to the passengers in the transport section of the craft.

“I’ll be fine! I don’t have time for this shit!” Gearing bellows as he grabs hold of a set of brackets with his forehooves and buries his face in the bulkhead.

“But-“ Jitterbug’s voice replies, but gets cut off by Gearing’s pained scream.

“It’s my fucking choice! So just get there!” He looks over at Cross and asks, “Right?!”

Cross nods as she looks him over and sighs. “Yeah, Nitro… it’s your call… I promised I’d help get you there.”

Gearing nods his head and bangs it on the bulkhead a few more times. “Good! Now hurry up and get that fucking thing out of me!”

Cross steps closer as her horn glows and a couple medical tools float in between them. “Gearing, really, I’m not that good at this kind of thing. We’d be better off with an actual surgical pony taking a look at-“

“Get it the fuck out!” Gearing bellows.

“Well what the fuck do you want me to do?! This is going to hurt!” Cross spits back as she stares at his back near where his wings connect to his sides. And, more specifically, where it looks like several gears have been fused together.

“It already hurts! Just break the one off, and shove some potions down my throat, that’ll do me good enough for now.”

“Whoa! You want me to what?!” Cross asks as she actually takes a step back from him.

Gearing waves at his back with a forehoof. “I’ll heal it back. But if she sees this, I’m going to have a sibling because she’s going to have a fucking cow! So just do it!” He looks at Cross over his shoulder as he asks through pants, “Please, Cross… I can’t let her see this…”

Cross nods as she glances over at the maintenance stowage compartment and quickly opens it up. Several tools float out and she looks them over as she asks, “Just as quick as possible, right?”

“Yeah…” Gearing grunts as he turns sideways. “Faster is better… like ripping off a bandaid.”

“Okay, here goes,” Cross says with a wince of her own as she places the tip of a screwdriver at the offending fused point and readies a mini sledge hammer.

Gearing tenses up and holds onto the rails of the bulkhead as he closes his eyes and growls through his gritted teeth, “Fucking enchanted bullets…”

The sledge swings down and the clank of the metal snapping away is quickly drowned out by the shrill cry that escapes Gearing’s lips as a part of his anatomy is violently broken off from himself.

“Touch down in two,” Jitterbug announces dryly through the overhead.

Cross bends over and uses her horn to start administering direct magical healing aid to his wound, that’s now freely seeping that strange oily lubricant substance that she’s been made aware is, for all intents and purposes, Gearing’s blood. At the same time she floats potion after potion from both her satchel and the emergency medical kit inside of the vertibuck and starts pouring them down Gearing’s throat.

“At target location,” Jitterbug announces as the door opens to the outside.

Cross quickly casts a spell on herself, making her hooves tingle, before she jumps out of the vertibuck, and starts walking on the cloud’s surface.

Gearing climbs out, and starts walking away, as the vertibuck hovers there.

Jitterbug announces through the loudspeaker, “Cross, what are you doing? We gotta go?”

“Go ahead and hide in the next cloud over, I’m going to help him get there. I’ll teleport back and call for you when I’m ready for pickup.”

“You’re the boss,” Jitterbug replies as the vertibuck turns and quickly disappears into another cloud bank not far away.

Gearing limps towards the house in the distance as he asks, “Why’d you stick behind?”

“I got to make sure you’re patched up completely before you get to the door,” Cross answers as she continuously passes him one potion after another.

“Fair,” Gearing mutters as he keeps sucking down one potion after another. The cost of this is ridiculous. He really needs a dedicated autodoc at minimum. But they’re out of options. And he’s out of time.

As he’s healing he starts running, and she keeps up with him, until they get close to his house. He turns around and looks at her as he asks, “How do I look?” He spins around in a circle, and starts manipulating his wings around so she can see clearly.

“Like you’ve just had a nice long bath, and not like you’ve been fighting for your life for the past week,” Cross says with a smirk.

Gearing nods as he smiles back. “Good, that was the plan!” He turns and starts walking away as he says, “I got a day pass, right?”

“Two, Gearing. You get two…” She smirks as she says, “After what we’ve just got out of, I don’t want to see you back on post for at least twenty-four hours, understood?”

Gearing spins and gives her a quick salute before he says quietly, “Yes, ma’am!” Then he hops in the air and quickly flies the rest of the way to the house.

He lets out a groan as he sees most of the lights have already been turned off, and as he walks in, he sees the time on the clock reading close to midnight.

He walks through the house, listening carefully, as he calls out softly, “Mom? You home? Hey, Mooooom?”

“G-Gearing?” a startled voice calls from the next room over.

He quickly zips over, flying over the furniture, and hops through the door to see where the voice came from.

In bed, in his bed, he finds his mother curled up, with a piece of paper held tightly to her chest. She blinks at him a few times before she asks quietly, “Am… am I dreaming?”

Gearing trots towards her as he rubs a hoof through his mane. “Sorry, Mom. I kinda got held up… pinned down even… Was a real hot mess, I’ll tell ya.” He gives her a wide smile as he says, “But, I made it!” He looks over at the clock next to his bed and gives her a sheepish smile as his ears droop. “T-technically… right?”

“My little buck’s home?” she asks with a click catching at the end of her question.

Gearing walks closer to her, taking in the sight as he nods. “Yeah, Mom, I’m home.” He rears up and puts his forehooves on the cloud bed as he says, “Sorry I’m late… and… I know I said I’d bring a gift, but, you’re so hard to shop for I could only really think of one thing that you’d like…”

She pushes herself up a bit as she looks him over, and watches as he slowly climbs up into bed with her. “W-what’s that, Gearing?”

Gearing looks her in the eyes, and his crooked smile glints at her as he says, “Well… ummm…” They stare at each other for a few moments, before he climbs the rest of the way into bed with her, and snuggles in under her foreleg.

Instantly she wraps him up with her forelegs and wings, curving her head around to even smother him with her neck as she practically squeals, “My little buck’s home!” They nuzzle each other tenderly for a few moments before she ticks and clicks, “Thank you, Gearing…. This is the greatest gift you could have given me. It’s all I’ve wanted all day!”

“So… you don’t think it’s too cheesy?” Gearing asks with a smirk as he tries not to pay attention too much to how she’s scooping him into a very foalish position.

“Mmm mmm… nope!” She leans down and kisses his cheek repeatedly before she rests her head on his and says quietly, “Exactly what I wanted.”

Gearing smiles as he nuzzles her. “Well…. You always said I was your greatest treasure… so… I just thought- URK!” He gets cut off as she squeals with joy and pulls him into her embrace even more.

“MmmHMM! And don’t you ever forget it!” She nuzzles him a few more times as she says, “My baby buck’s home.”

“Awww, Mom…. You’re always so embarrassing…” Gearing objects, weakly, but, at the same time, actually snuggles into her more.

“How long do I get to keep you?” she asks with more than a hint of disappointment in her voice.

“Oh I got-“ Gearing starts, then his eyes go wide as he sees a bit of a glow in the window of his bedroom behind his mother.

Cross smiles at him from outside through the window, then holds up her empty bag of medical supplies, and on the side it has ‘Two days’ emblazoned with glowing letters across its surface.

“A couple days… Two days… at least,” Gearing finishes. “Apparently I’ve earned it.”

Cross nods at him and smiles through the window, before turning and taking off. A moment later there’s a soft wumph with a faint increase of light as she teleports away.

“What was that?” his mother asks as she turns her head towards the window.

“I said I have two days to spend at home before I’m expected back.”

She squeals with joy as she rolls side to side with him in her forelegs. “Ouuu! Best Mother’s Day, ever!”

Gearing gently pats her shoulder as he nuzzles into her neck. “Happy Mother’s Day, Mom.”

Footnote: For all of the mother’s out there, biological, adoptive, and even those that are simply filling the role for those without: thank you for who you are and all you do.

Happy Mother’s day everyone.

Author's Note

For all of the mother’s out there, biological, adoptive, and even those that are simply filling the role for those without: thank you for who you are and all you do.

Happy Mother’s day everyone.

The One Who’s There (Father’s day 2020)

Squeaka.

The mass produced Stable-Tec standard bed frame’s squeak echoes off the prefab walls off the reclaimed Stable 68 bedroom as the little unicorn filly bounds up and down on the mattress upon it. The little violet filly rhythmically jumps up into the air, with a giant smile on her face, as she kicks all of her legs simultaneously outward as wide as they’ll go with each cycle before bringing them back down to land on the bed to jump again.

Squeaka.

“See? See? It’s all squeaka squeaka squeaky squeak!”

Squeaka.

“Why’s it squeaky?”

Squeaka.

“It’s so noisy!”

Squeaka. Squeaka. Squeaka.

“Can you fix it?”

Squeaka.

Gearing lays stretched out on the floor next to the bed, with his head under the bed and a small flashlight in his mouth, as he looks the bed frame over and the excitable filly continuously bounces on the mattress above. After a few more seconds of the soft whumphs of the bounding filly being overtaken by the loud squeaking, Gearing pulls the flashlight out of his mouth and calls out to her. “Hey! I think I found where the noise is coming from!”

“Yaay!” The little filly kicks her legs in midair in excitement on the next bounce.

Squeaka.

“What is it? Huh? Huh?”

Squeaka.

“Can ya stop it?”

Squeaka.

“Oh, for sure. And it won’t take me long either,” Gearing replies cheerfully as he stands up next to the bed and watches the bright eyed filly bounce repeatedly.

Squeaka.

“How?” she asks as she bounces again.

“Like this,” Gearing grins as his wings jump out and catches her mid air. She giggles and flails her legs around as he pulls her close to him and holds her aloft. He tilts his head as he looks at her with one eye and gives her a quick wink. “See. No more squeaky squeak.”

She giggles a bit, but lets out a long moan as she’s set down on the floor. “Noooo it’ll still squeaky!” She hops up in the air a few times, kicking her feet repeatedly, before landing again. “All noisy and squeaky. All. The. Time!”

“Even if you’re not jumping on it?” Gearing asks with a smirk as he uses a forehoof and ruffles the little filly’s floofy mane.

“Yeah!” she replies with a grin. “See!” She hops closer to the bed and jumps up into the bed again.

Squeaka.

“See!?”

Gearing smirks. “You just jumped into it though…”

She lets out a huffing sigh of annoyance before she puffs up her cheeks in irritation in response. She throws herself down onto the mattress as she glares at him.

Squeaka.

She rolls over to her other side and the bed lets out another squeak, but far more subdued.

Squeaka.

She rolls over onto her other side.

Squeaka.

She rolls back and forth as she flops around and acts likes she’s getting under the sheets.

Squeaka. Squeaka. Squeaka.

She rolls over onto her back and closes her eyes tightly as she kicks her legs in the air above her, like she’s trying to stampede across the ceiling, and screams, “See! It’s soooooo noisy! Geeaaaariiiiing! Heeellp meeeee! It keeps waking me up! Plleeaassseeee?!”

Gearing leans close to her and smiles as he says, “Well, don’t jump on it-”

“But I’m noooooot!” she cuts him off with a whine as she lets her legs go limp and they sprawl out around her as she looks up at him.

He gently brushes her floofy dark purple mane out of her face as he finishes in the same even tone he’d begun, “- and I’ll see about getting it fixed so it won’t be so noisy.”

“Awwww,” she moans as she flops her head to the side.

“Here, I have an idea to help you get some sleep,” Gearing says as he turns sideways and heads over to the small dresser next to the bed. He clicks on the radio, then slowly turns down the volume until the music coming out of it is pretty negligible and can just barely be heard and understood.

She rolls over onto her side and looks at him as she asks, “Why the radio?”

Gearing steps back by the bed and starts gently rubbing her mane. “It’ll be a bit of background noise. So if you roll over in your sleep, the squeak won’t be as noticeable and you can sleep through it.”

She closes her eyes and lets out a soft moan as he gently rubs her head. “Aww… that won’t work… too noisy…”

“Mmm hmm,” Gearing replies with a smile as he continues to rhythmically rub her mane and back of her head. “Just try it.”

She mumbles and mutters a few times, but none of it is really understandable. A few times she hums along with the song on the radio, with her tone variances generally matching the flow of a Sweetie Bell song, but not for all of them. And, a few moments later, even that bit of sound from her silences as her breathing slows even further.

The entire time Gearing continues the exact same motions, gently rubbing and caressing her mane and head. After a while of staying still and not doing anything else otherwise, he finally removes his hoof from her head slowly. With there being no reaction whatsoever, he gently uses his wing and lifts the sheets up and over the little violet filly, tucking her in carefully, before turning and slowly walking away.

And, once again, proving his penchant for walking as quietly as possible testifies to its utilitarian ability as he stealthily withdraws from the sleeping filly’s room. As he’s closing the door behind himself he whispers, “Good night, Plum Pie.”

* * *

In Stable 68’s refurbished cafeteria, a group of foals sit around a table chattering among themselves as they sort through a few things scattered across its surface as Apple Armor withdraws more from a cardboard box he’d brought.

“What’d he bring us this time?” Plum Pie asks excitedly as her midnight blue eyes dart from one item removed from the box by Apple Armor to the next.

Apple Armor grins as he holds up a completely intact, full, box of Fancy Buck Cakes. Cherry filled. “I don’t know how. I don’t know where from. But he brought an army’s worth of food!”

The tan colt about Plum Pie’s age sitting next to her looks over the growing cache as a glint of drool appears across his lips. “There’s enough here for all of us for a couple days!”

A light blue filly next to Apple Armor giggles as she says, “We’re gonna be eating good!”

“Children,” a chuckling voice from behind them catches their attention and causes them all to turn and look at its source. “That’s not food for the next couple days.”

The tan colt’s ears fall down as he groans. “Awww man… We gotta stretch it out?”

“We gotta sell it?” asks the light blue filly.

“Knew it was too good to be true,” the tan colt moans sullenly.

Gearing walks by the table, and ruffles the tan colt’s mane, as he chuckles,” No, sillies… Those are just snacks.” He raises his other wing, and extends out a pinion from it for emphasis as he says, “So don’t go filling up on them. Think of them as just the desserts. Share them with your friends, but for your actual meal, we have plenty of chips.” As he’s walking away he adds, “And as soon as I can get this kitchen equipment fixed and cleaned we can do some proper cooking too, so you’ll have a bit of variety besides just green chips.”

The tan colt looks after him and asks, “Sooo, we can really eat what we want?”

Gearing looks over at him and grins as he says, “Yeah. How long have you been here, and you haven’t figured that out yet?”

The tan colt looks down as he mumbles, “I didn’t want to be greedy…”

Gearing turns around, then looks at them one at a time, in the eye, before he asks, “Are you kids hungry?” They simply stare at him so he narrows his eyes and asks, “I want the truth. Are you hungry?”

“Yes,” comes a snap reply from all. All but Apple Armor.

Although his stomach tries to speak up for him.

Gearing turns around and starts towards the back of the cafeteria kitchen as he says, “Okay.”

The others stare at him as he’s walking away, and try to decrypt the short reply.

After he’s been gone for a few moments they go back to looking at and sorting through the box of treats that’d been brought.

Apple Armor grabs the unopened box of Fancy Buck cakes and says, “Well, there’s enough for everyone.” He grins widely as he adds, “Won’t hurt none if we eat our share now, right?”

The others grin and nod enthusiastically, and Apple Armor starts doling out the individually packaged snacks from the box until each pony at the table has one, and he sets the meager remainder back into the delivery box.

The tan colt keeps biting and pulling and tugging at the plastic surrounding his Fancy Buck cake. But it doesn’t yield. He makes no headway. And his treat remains locked behind the impenetrable wall of plastic. He slowly looks over and glares at Plum Pie as she munches happily and takes dainty little bites out of her miniature cake that is floating in front of her muzzle with her levitation field.

The tan colt scowls as he says, “I bet it was a unicorn that made this stuff.” He stares at Plum Pie as she obliviously looks around at the world around her and stays lost in her own thoughts and happiness as she nibbles on the cherry filled goodness. After a few moments of staring at her, and practically turning green with envy, he asks, “Plum… could you like… counter spelly thingy this thingy so I can eat mine? Please?”

Plum Pie looks at him as she has a mouth full of cake. She blankly stares at him for a few moments before giggling and saying, with a mouth full of the same cake, “I dunno how ta do that!”

The tan colt narrows his eyes, then trails his glare from her midnight blue eyes to the cake floating in front of her muzzle. “Uh huh… suuuure you don’t.”

Plum Pie shrugs. “I don’t know much magic. Miss Nettlekiss promised to help talk some of us through it, but we’re still trying to find a few of the books in the schools computers first.”

The tan colt turns to stare at his buck cake trapped in it’s plastic prison, and a scowl forms on his muzzle. He goes back at it, chomping and trying to pull the plastic away with his teeth as he fights to hold onto it with his forehooves. “Come outta der!” He tugs and pulls and starts wiggling with his entire body as he tries to get it open.

All in vain.

He starts grumbling and growling and screaming into the unyielding packaging as he seems to start becoming quite feral.

Apple Armor narrows his eyes at him and, while still holding half of his own with a forehoof, lets out a groan. “Oh come on, it ain’t that hard!” He stretches out his neck towards the tan colt as he says, “Yer maken’ the rest of us look bad!” He closes the distance and chomps on the nearest bit of plastic towards himself, and twists and pulls it back and away.

The tan colt's eyes go wide as he jerks backwards. “No! It’s mahn!” He mumbles around the plastic as he jerks backwards away from Apple Armor. But, between the two of them, the end of the plastic stays with Apple Armor’s teeth as the tan colt falls backwards and off of the stool he was sitting on with the rest of it.

The buck cake is finally free of its plastic prison. Just like the young colt had wanted.

However, like a monkey paw’s wish gone awry, instead of getting to feast on the delicious cherry filled goodness, the cake gets flung up and into the air behind the young colt as he tumbles to the ground.

As he’s laying there on the ground, bent unnaturally backwards with his head almost on the ground, and his mouth full of plastic, he stares and watches as the cake soars through the air. Time seems to slow down as the cake continues up and towards the ceiling, and then starts falling back down in an arc, a distance away. As the cake is coming back down, his eyes follow its trajectory, and notices where it’s going to land.

Right into a pile of filth that had been gathered up to be disposed of, but hasn’t quite gotten that far yet.

His eyes start bugging out as he spits the plastic out and starts struggling to turn over and roll away from the table. “Nooo!!! No no no!” He starts flopping around and trying to get himself free as the cake gets ever closer to the pile of trash. The young colt finally gets onto his hooves, and starts kicking and scampering in its direction as he tries his best to get under the treat. He might end up covered in disgust. Filthy beyond measure. He doesn’t care. If it’ll save the cake, he’ll be happy. But, to his horror, he watches as the cake gets even closer and he realizes the sad, cold, merciless truth of it all.

He’s not going to make it in time.

With tears forming in his eyes he kicks with all his might, with his forehooves out stretched in a plea to the universe not to take this from him.

But, just before he crashes into the pile of filth, a bit of gold slams down in front of him, keeping him from going any further, as he’s caught and flicked up into the air by something. He lands, on his haunches, sitting on an oversized metallic cylinder as he tries to figure out what just happened.

Then the cake of his desires is brought up to his face, sitting on a gold and emerald green platter.

“Nice catch, ya wanker,” Apple Armor says with a smirk before casually going back to munching on his own little cakey treat.

The tan colt looks around then up at his rescuer as the cake is held aloft for him. “I’ve heard of playing with your food, but don’t you think this is taking it a bit too far?” Gearing asks with a smirk.

The tan colt’s eyes jump over to the cake, as it’s brought even closer for him, and he squeals with joy as he says, “You saved it!” And, before the universe can do anything else to try and ruin his day, he crams the entire thing into his mouth in one go. Chomping and chewing on it excessively as he snorts and has to breathe through his nose since his mouth is so full.

Gearing sets the colt back onto the ground on his own hooves as he asks with a chuckle, “If you’re that hungry, you should have said something, really.” He walks over to the table and sets down a large stainless steel bowl in the center as he adds, “I told you that was just dessert… here’s lunch.” As he’s walking away from them he says, “If you're hungry, just say something. If nothing else Nettlekiss can have one of the bots bring you something to eat.” As he’s walking back behind the counter and towards the kitchen he adds, “Now I just gotta figure out why these heating elements aren’t working… if you want anything else, just let me know.” Then he disappears behind the swinging door to the back kitchen.

The light blue filly lets out a gasp as she stretches up and looks into the large metal bowl. “There’s so much food here!”

They all look in and see the mounding pile of piping hot algae chips that apparently have some kind of seasonings scattered among them.

Apple Armor is the first to grab some out, and he quickly shoves a few of the flakes in his mouth to munch on.

As Apple Armor is sampling it, the tan colt finally clears his own muzzle and asks, “Well, how is it?”

Apple Armor shrugs as he says, “It’s not bad, really. And if it’ll get rid of the rumbles, that’s good enough for me.” And he grabs another scoopful out using a tin can nearby and starts munching on the chips one at a time. The others quickly dig in as soon as his hooves are out of the way enough to do so.

The light blue filly looks around at the others as she mechanically munches one chip after another. “So, like, Gearing can cook too?”

“Apparently,” Plum Pie and Apple Armor reply in unison as they all start focusing more on the green chips than anything else going on in the rest of the stable, or the world for that matter.

* * *

As Plum Pie and Apple Armor are walking down the corridor in the residential block of Stable 68, Plum grumbles regularly about some injustice in the world.

“They makiiiing suuuuuch a meeeeess…” Plum groans.

“It can’t be that bad,” Apple Armor replies.

Plum puffs up her cheeks as she looks at Apple Armor and delivers a devastating rebuttal, “Is too!”

Apple Armor chuckles and shakes his head. “Well, I’m sure they aren’t doing it to be mean…”

Plum’s horn glows as she opens the door to her left and leads the way into her room. “Well mean or not, they still making a mess, and I don’t even know why.”

Apple Armor stops following Plum Pie as she gets closer to her bed and asks, “Well, did Swift say anything?”

Plum Pie nods as she says, “Yeah… she said they’re making something for Handy…. Uhg!” She hops over and throws herself up in the air, onto the bed, with her legs thrown out to the side limply. A soft whumph later signals her heavy landing on her bed before she lets out a long groaning moan, “And, it’s another mess I’m gonna have to clean.”

Apple Armor shakes his head. “I doubt it. When her kids make messes, she normally makes them clean it up afterwards. Or she does it.”

“I hope so,” Plum Pie moans as she pulls herself up into a seated position on the bed. “I just don’t get the big deal. What’s Handy done to deserve whatever they’re putting all that time into?”

Apple Armor sits on his haunches as he rubs his chin. “Well… I remember my mom helping me get a gift together for my dad one time… it wasn’t Hearth’s Warming, or his birthday or nuthin like that.”

Plum Pie starts bouncing up and down on the bed as she asks, “Well, what was that about?” Each bounding leap in the air is accompanied by a soft whumph from the mattress.

Whumph.

“Huh?”

Whumph.

Apple Armor shrugs before he replies quietly, as if he’s trying to actually think about it while simultaneously speaking about it, “Well… My mom had said Father’s Day was for the stallion in our life. To thank them for being there and for… like… everything they do for us.” He shrugs again as he shakes his head. “It’s just a way to thank them… and give them something so they know we like having them around.”

“Ah, ok,” Plum Pie nods as she bounces.

Whumph.

“Didn’ know. I don’t remember anything like that.”

Whumph.

“But, what’s Handy doin?”

Whumph. Whumph. Whumph.

“All he seems to do is be grumpy,” Plum Pie says with a giggle.

Apple Armor chuckles as he nods. “Well, I’m sure his kids would know more about it than us. So if they getting him something, he must be doing something for them, right?”

“I guess.”

Whumph.

“What about Gearing?”

Whumph.

“What’re they doing for him?”

Apple Armor shakes his head. “I doubt anything. They aren’t his kids.” He shrugs as he replies softly, “Gearing doesn’t have any kids. So I doubt he’s getting anything.”

Whumph. Plum Pie pauses bouncing as she tilts her head. “That doesn’t seem fair…”

Apple Armor shrugs and replies flatly, “What is?”

Plum Pie bounces again, but her eyes go wide as the noise catches her notice for once. Whumph. She pauses and looks around at her hooves before her eyes jump open to their max. “Oh! Lookie!” She starts bouncing repeatedly as she says, “He fixed it, he fixed it, he fixed it!”

Whumph. Whumph. Whumph.

She jumps one last time, and flops down on her belly excitedly. Laughing even more as she impacts with another soft whumph from the mattress. She rolls side to side on her bed with a massive grin across her muzzle as she giggles. “No more squeaka squeaka squeak!” She grabs her pillow and nuzzles into it as she says with wonder in her voice, “When he do this?”

Apple Armor smirks as he looks the bed over. “No telling… the sneaky wanker always seems to be doing one thing or another to make sure we have what we need or that things get fixed for us…” Apple Armor looks over at the small dresser nearby where Plum Pie has a few toys on display. Toys and possessions that she’s only accrued while living here, given that she came in with nothing but her coat to her name. Most of which have been made or acquired by Gearing himself. He lets out a sigh as he says, “At first I thought they were going to try something. Just being sneaky or whatever. But, nothing’s off. They haven’t tried anything… and he expects far less from us than I would have figured he would to let us stay here and be fair trade…” He shrugs as he looks up at the ceiling and continues, “He’s crazy to be doing all of this for this long…we’re not even his…”

Plum Pie peeks over the edge of her pillow at him for a moment before she asks softly, “Why’s that matter?”

* * *

As Gearing walks down the corridor towards Stable 68’s classroom, he double checks the message that was sent to him by Sable. It’s rather short, and vague, and, again, he can’t help but wonder what could need his attention in the classroom. He runs a few things through his head, trying to figure out what could have broken down or which system needs tweaking, as he’s walking there. There isn’t really much in there that could go wrong. Maybe a light went out. Or a computer locking up. Or, maybe, the projector is on the fritz. Maybe there’s funny noises from the ventilation again, and it’s weirding out the kids. He’s not sure, and he decides he’ll figure out the problem once he gets there.

But the thought of the foals takes him off on another tangent.

“Come to think of it I haven’t really seen them much the last couple days. I wonder what they’ve all been doing?” He starts chuckling before he says with a sigh, “I’m glad they’re keeping themselves occupied at least… They must be happy with whatever they’ve been doing… Haven’t heard any complaints, and no news is good news right?” Gearing talks quietly to himself as he keeps looking over his PipBuck.

He stops a couple paces short of the classroom door, and looks behind himself, back down the corridor, as he says, “Speaking of oddities… Handy’s been in a rather good mood too. I wonder what managed to put a smile on that sourpuss’s muzzle.” Gearing shrugs as he chuckles and starts walking the rest of the way to the classroom. “Eh, whatever floats his boat. If he’s happy, that should mean less complaining and less headaches for me. So, good for him!”

Gearing trots into the classroom looking at his PipBuck, but something catches his eye in the peripheral of his vision causing him to look up once inside. There in the middle of the classroom, is the thing that’d drawn his attention. A pallet of colors as all sixteen of the foals that are part of Apple Armor’s group stand with their back to the door as they chatter among themselves in a semicircle lineup.

All sixteen of them have done amazingly well since they’d been taken in by the Stable 68 residents. Each and every one of them has grown. And not simply a case of getting older. Their health is plain to see in the shine of their hair. In their muscle tone. In their rampant growth. The kids standing in the classroom are, unmistakably, physically and mentally far better off than the day they were rescued from the group of mercenaries. A fact that is no accident, as it’s been the designs of several ponies to see them grow up healthy and happy. Notably Gearing and Nettlekiss.

Gearing looks at them and arcs his brow in worry as he wonders what could have happened to cause them all to give their undivided attention to whatever is in the center of the room. He starts trotting towards them as he asks, “Hey kids, what’s going on? Are you all alright? No one’s hurt are they?”

The quiet chattering among the group picks up quickly in hushed tones. A couple look back at him, and a colt shakes their head quickly as they reply, “Nopony’s hurt.”

Gearing looks over the group again as he asks, “Well… what’s up?”

The group dips down, almost simultaneously, before they spin around and invert their little semicircle, so that now Gearing’s in the middle of it as something hovers up from behind them with the collective focus of the unicorns among the group.

Gearing’s eyes go wide, and he flops down onto his haunches as he takes in the sight.

Above the group is a banner made out of paper and cardboard taped and glued together that’s been decorated with various art supplies to be covered with sparkly glitter and paint. Stars, smiley faces, hoof prints, hearts, and letters decorate the large banner hovering over them that declares their intentions quite clearly.

Happy Father’s Day, Gearing!

Most of the fillies and colts sit around staring at him with massive grins on their face as they hold up one sign or another. They seem to have organized themselves by height, with the shortest ones closest to Gearing. And, of those, a few of the smaller ones holding up their signs are doing so by adorably holding them with their mouths.

Gearing’s eyes dart over them quickly and take in the various messages. Some simply state “Thanks”. Others saying “Thanks for being here”. One filly with a particularly glittery piece of paper in her mouth has a sign that declares, “#1 Repar Pony!”

Plum Pie, with her horn glowing and helping hold up the banner above everyone else, walks up to Gearing with a piece of paper in her mouth. “Fer yew.”

Gearing gently takes it from her, which just causes her to sit down and look up at him with a beaming smile as he looks it over.

The paper is covered, like the other signs and banner, with various paints, inks, and glittery material. In the center of the page is a stylized golden yellow pegasus, with bright green wings, standing like a statute. He knows the pose well. It’s practically his trademark. And all around the yellow pegasus is beams of light shining off of it with more yellow crayon that he thought even existed inside the stable. And all around it stars twinkle in various colors of glitter. A smile crosses his muzzle as he notices a beam of light coming from above, but that they had switched to green and blue beams once they got to his wings to do a pretty good job of illustrating his penchant for colored light bending.

Gearing brings his eyes up from the paper to look at Plum Pie as he says, “Well, thank you… but what’s this?”

Plum Pie reaches up and taps the paper with a forehoof as she says, “It’s the day you rescued us from those baddies…” She runs her hoof over the paper as she says, “See… remember? You were all shiny and stuff after we cleaned you up.”

Gearing reaches over with his own forehoof and rustles her floofy mane as he smiles widely. “Yeah, munchkin, I remember.”

“Actually…” Apple Armor starts, as he looks off to the side and draw’s Gearings attention. Apple Armor swallows before he says, “It’s more than that… They wanted…” He stops and looks around at all of his friends before he looks over at Gearing and frowns lightly. “Okay, we… We wanted to let you know- We wanted to thank you for taking us in. For being there when no one else was. For being there when ya didn’t have to.”

“Uh huh, and for taking care of us!” Plum Pie chimes in.

“And for the food!” a tan colt with a massive grin on his muzzle adds.

“And a warm place to sleep,” a little light blue filly adds.

“And keeping us safe from the baddies,” a little gray colt adds.

“So, yeah… thanks for everything, Gearing” Apple Armor says as he looks off to the side. He keeps daring sideways glances at Gearing. And the wider Gearing’s smile gets, the bigger the scowl on Apple Armor’s face gets. Until he eventually flushes and yells, “Alright, ya wanker, no need ta get all mushy ‘n’ stuff! So ya can ditch the goofy grin!”

Gearing holds the piece of paper with the drawing from Plum Pie to his chest as he smiles. “Well, thank you guys.” He looks them over and smiles even wider as he says, “You guys didn’t have to do this.”

Plum Pie tilts her head as she says flatly, “Well, you didn’t have to take care of us, but you did anyway too… fair’s fair right?”

Gearing reaches out and ruffles her mane gently as he nods. “Yeah, got me there, munchkin.”

A quick chatter rises up among the foals as they try to sort something out with their back to him again, but Gearing can’t make out most of what’s said nor comprehend the context.

“Where is it?”

“I don’t know, he had it.”

“Did not.”

“Here it is!”

“Well give it to him!”

“You give it to him!”

“Oh for pete’s sake! I’ll give it to him!” Apple Armor finally yells with an annoyed groan.

After turning around from the group, he walks up to Gearing and holds out a manila folder tied with twine with a forehoof as he doesn’t even look at Gearing. “Here… this is for you, ya wanker…”

Gearing smirks, but accepts the awkwardly offered gift. “Thanks.” He quickly unties the bow and lets it fall away before he flips it open to look inside. Gearing’s smirk falls off his face as he drops the manila folder, removing its contents with the same motion, and stares at the treasure that was inside. He holds it up with a wing as he closely examines it, and the excitement starts growing plainly on his face. For this is the most well preserved comic book he’s seen this side of the apocalypse.

“I think it’s missing a couple pages…” Plum Pie says with a crooked smile. “But… it’s still good… right?”

Gearing nods rapidly as he turns the comic book over repeatedly and carefully flips through it with a pinion. “Yeah… it’s great…Thank you for this!” He closes it and looks the children over as he says, “I remember it pretty well.”

Plum Pie’s ears flop down as she asks sullenly, “Oh… you already read it?”

Gearing nods again as he ruffles her mane. “Well, yeah, but it’s a good story and worth another read!” He sweeps his gaze over the group and asks, “Do you guys wanna read it with me?” He looks them over again as he says, “I can fill in the missing parts, no problem.”

“Yeah!” Plum Pie squeals with delight as she bounds up in the air and kicks her legs excitedly before jumping towards him. As she’s bounding over, to claim a spot between Gearing’s forehooves, the others run over as well as they bunch up around him and watch as he sets the comic on the floor and carefully opens it up. The banner slowly flops down to the ground as the unicorns that had been holding it up with their magic get too distracted by the possibility of missing a story time with Gearing to maintain the hold. Even Apple Armor scampers over, and nuzzles in with the other kids as they all get cozy and Gearing starts slowly reading the comic aloud to them. But, unlike simply reading the comic as is, Gearing fills in various information and background references that the story brings up along the way. And, as promised, he uses the images on the pages that are there, and explains not only what all had happened on the couple missing pages, but quotes, nearly verbatim, what the missing dialog on those missing pages was as well. The entire time the kids lean in, hanging onto every word, as Gearing enthusiastically recounts it all to them.

Outside of the classroom, in the hallway, Nahlah and Sable peek in around the door frame and watch how things progress inside. Nahlah smirks as she asks, “I wonder where they got the comic book from…”

“I got it while we were out, I was saving it for a special occasion to give it to him,” Sable replies, but, Nahlah notes, the voice sounds a bit flatter than normal. Nahlah looks over at Sable and her eyes bug out as she actually gets a good look at her metallic friend. Sable stands there at the door, with one forehoof holding onto the door frame, heavily panting and breathing hard as she leers at Gearing sitting with the kids.

Nahlah half laughs as she says, “No! Down girl!” She grabs Sable around her chest and neck with her paws and starts pulling her away from the classroom door frame as she seals the door again. “You’re drooling!”

“But… But… But…” Sable moans in reply.

“Yes, I know you want some of that stallion booty, but the kids worked hard, let them have this!”

“Foals! I want foals! I want his foals!” Sable flails her forelegs in Gearing’s direction as she seems to try to grab him from a distance and through the door. “See! See! He can handle sixteen! That’s a good starting point!” She flails again as she’s held back by her neck while she’s reared up on her hindlegs. “That’s doable! That’s doable! We needa get started! Time’s wasting!”

Nahlah drags her away from the classroom as she giggles, “I’ve heard of baby fever, but this is ridiculous!”

Footnote: For all of the fathers out there. The REAL fathers. The ones who were always there, as much as they could, whether anyone else expected them to be or not. Biological, adoptive, and especially those that didn’t create the position, but stepped up and filled the empty shoes anyway.

Thank you for who you are and all you do.

Happy Father’s Day.

Author's Note

For all of the fathers out there. The REAL fathers. The ones who were always there, as much as they could, whether anyone else expected them to be or not. Biological, adoptive, and especially those that didn’t create the position, but stepped up and filled the empty shoes anyway.

Thank you for who you are and all you do.

Happy Father’s Day.

In the Spirit of Hearth’s Warming (Holidays 2020)

Gearing’s mother closes the front door to their modest cloud home and pays careful attention to the piece of paper she’s holding up with her wing as she’s coming in from checking the mail. While she’s still reading it she pauses walking and calls out, “Gearing?”

“Yeah, ma?” a meek voice answers from a side room before an especially small Gearing peeks his head out around the door frame and looks over at her. But, having just heard the door close, his eyes jump back and forth rapidly between her, the paper she’s holding, and the closed front door. Repeatedly. With a lot of attention being paid to the door.

She holds the paper up towards him, and waves it lightly, with one of her glittering wings as she looks over at him and smiles. “We’ve been invited to a Hearth’s Warming party by one of my clients.”

“Oh?” Gearing asks flatly.

She nods and looks at the paper as she continues smiling. “Yes. It’s on Hearth’s Warming Eve.”

Gearing stares at her for a few moments before very slowly pulling back behind the door frame. “Have fun…”

She shakes her head as a slight smirk crosses her muzzle. “You’re invited too. She’s been really eager to meet you.”

“No thank you,” Gearing replies from the comfort of his chosen place of concealment.

She sets the paper on the small kitchen table as she’s passing it, and heads towards where she’s sure he’s retreated to, as she says sweetly, “There’ll be lots of kids your aaaaage theeeere.”

“No thank you,” comes the same meek reply.

She walks to the doorway of his room before she asks, “It’ll be fuuuuuun?”

“Says you,” Gearing’s voice grumbles back.

She walks over and sits down on the floor next to his bed as she looks down at it. “You really don’t want to go? But you always loved Hearth’s Warming.”

“Yeah… before,” Gearing’s voice grumbles from under the bed.

The smile slowly melts off of Heartly’s face before she says quietly, “Oh, honey…” She closes her eyes and hangs her head. After a few moments of absolute silence she takes in a deep breath and says softly, “I know you’re worried about going out. But you won’t be alone. I’ll be there. You’ll be safe, I promise.”

“No thank you. It’s too pony-ey out there,” Gearing replies flatly as he sticks a foreleg out and waves it away dismissively with a limp hoof.

“You can’t stay inside forever, Gearing,” she says softly as she looks down at the gap under the bed where his leg just disappeared to again.

“Yes I can,” Gearing obstinately replies back.

She lets out a long sigh before she says with concern coloring her tone, “You haven’t left the house since you got back from the hospital…”

A bit of shuffling noise later and Gearing just barely pokes his tiny head out from under the bed, with just enough clearance for his eyes to look at her. She has just enough time to recognize the sullen look on his face before Gearing says, “Yeah… and the last time I left here , I ended up there.” He scoots back under the bed as he mumbles, “For, like, ever…”

Heartly winces at the declaration. It hurts. Even more so because there’s nothing she can say, beyond outright lying to her own child, to deny it and try to erase their history. She lies down on the floor and sticks her nose under the bed as she looks at him, and in doing so sees how he’s tightly pulled in towards himself. And, how he’s avoiding looking at her as he stays stone cold still. “I know, baby… I know…” She reaches in slowly and starts rubbing on his mane as she says, “But nothing like that will ever happen again.”

“Not if I stay inside,” Gearing mutters.

She gently rubs on his cheek with a forehoof as she gives him a warm smile, “You can’t spend your entire life avoiding ponies.” She shakes her head slowly. “You can’t stay in forever; you’ll have to come out sooner or later.”

Gearing looks off to the side and lowers himself as much as he can against the cloud floor without actually pushing through it. “Nuh uh… I don’t have to leave… Ever!”

She smirks as she tilts her head and asks, “How do you figure that?”

Gearing looks around quickly before his copper eyes glance at her sideways and he puffs up his cheeks in irritation. “Because I dun needa eat… and I dun needa poop… So I dun needa leave… Ever!”

Heartly lets out a sigh as she looks around and continuously rubs on his mane as she tries to think of something to convince him otherwise. She glances over at his bookshelf, and a smile starts growing across her muzzle before she glances at him sideways and asks, “Well… what about comics? Those are worth leaving for, right?”

“Nuh uh… I ain’t gotta leave for comics… Mailmare brings them…” Gearing retorts just a bit too quickly for Heartly’s liking.

Which lets her know he’s been thinking about this far too much for her to take this lightly anymore.

She narrows her eyes as she asks flatly, “And just how are you going to earn money to pay for those comics to be delivered?”

“Well… uh…” Gearing says as his eyes go wide. He looks around and looks over at her as he gives her a wide smile and tilts his head adorably. “Eh?” He gives her a sheepish shrug.

She nickers and rolls her eyes. “Oh uh uh, young buck. You’re gonna grow up eventually. And you’re going to have to buy your own comics.”

“Nuts,” Gearing mutters as he looks off to the side.

“So, you gotta come out sometime to be able to make money, to buy your comics, so you might as well start getting used to it now before you start missing new releases,” Heartly says with a smile as she gives a prim nod and is sure she’s breaking through to him.

Gearing looks over at her and smiles as he says, “I’ll just.. do like you do, Mom!”

Her eyes go wide as she asks, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Mail order work… Ya know?” He waves over towards the kitchen table as he says, “I can just work from home… Never have to leave.” He brings a wing around and starts counting on his tiny pinions as he rattles off, “Find jobs through the mail... Apply to mail jobs through the mail... Do the work, like you do. Send out stuff through the mail… Get paid through the mail… Order comics through the mail… Pay for them through the mail… Get them through the mail…” He nods as he grins at her. “See, never have to leave!”

She narrows her eyes as she asks, “And you’re going to live where for the rest of your life? Here?”

“Porca Porca,” Gearing replies quickly.

“What? Where? Where’s that?” Heartly asks with a quick shake of her head.

Gearing points over to his book shelf as he says, “I read about it in an in-psych-lo-peddle. Iz a small swine country. Not many ponies. So I just gotta make a cloud cave above it, and just use a big ole fishing line to pick up mail from below.”

She groans as she looks at him and can’t help but feel conflicted about having such a smart son. It’s usually something of immense pride for her, but at times like this it just makes life extremely difficult. As harebrained as the plan sounds at first, she’s sure he’d simply find a way to make it work. She knows this isn’t something she can try and force him to do. It’s too delicate. It’ll just cause too many problems. She has to convince him to do it of his own will; otherwise there could be even more long term consequences to what had happened. Right now she’s the only one he trusts. And if she were to violate that, it would only serve to reinforce his fears.

Heartly lets out a sigh as she closes her eyes. “You’ll still have to meet them face to face to set everything up.”

“Iz fine… they swine…. Not ponies…” Gearing replies as he looks at her.

“You’d rather live with swine, than ponies?” Heartly asks with a pained frown on her face.

“I’d rather live with greedy dragons than ponies,” Gearing snaps back. “At least then I could bribe them into not being mean.”

“Gearing, that was one bad pony-” Heartly starts, but instantly gets cut off.

“But he’s not the only bad pony, and you know it!”

Heartly tilts her head as she scoots in closer to him, sticks her head under the bed, and whispers, “No… you’re right, Gearing… He’s not the only bad pony out there.” She gently starts caressing the side of his face with a hoof as she says, “But there is far more good in the world than bad. And that more than makes up for it.” She leans in and nuzzles him gently with her muzzle as she says, “You can’t hide away, and deprive yourself of the good in life, just because something bad might happen. That’d be like letting that bad pony win. Like he’s the one in control of your life, and not you…”

“But I don’t wanna get hurt again…” Gearing mumbles as he avoids looking at her and actually stops reacting to her loving affections.

“I can’t promise you won’t get hurt again, eventually…. But it won’t be as bad as that, and … It’s just a fact that getting hurt along the way is just a part of life. It’s the risk we take for enjoying life and it’s never as bad as it seems at the time.”

Gearing looks her right in the eye and says flatly, “Historical evidence contradicts your statement.”

She narrows her eyes at the atypical-for-his-age phrasing and sighs. “Gearing, Hearth’s Warming is all about coming together for mutual benefit and joy. If you come along, I promise you’ll see that not everypony’s bad, and who knows, you might actually have fun.”

Gearing lowers his head to the ground and doesn’t even look at her as he asks, “Do I have to, mom?”

Heartly stretches over and nuzzles him gently. “No, honey. You don’t. I’m not going to make you… But I want you there with me. I don’t like you staying home alone all the time.” She lets out a sigh. “And I’m not leaving you home alone on Hearth’s Warming Eve. So if you really don’t want to go, I won’t go either.”

“That’s not fair to you, mom. You should go have fun with your friends,” Gearing replies softly.

“You should too,” she replies quickly.

“Dun have any,” Gearing replies as he keeps his gaze on the floor.

“You won’t make any hiding inside,” she comments reasonably.

Gearing tightens up to himself as he mutters, “But what if something happens… Again…”

Heartly looks around as she tries to think of something to say to convince him. She slowly closes her eyes and silently prays to the universe to not make her a bad mother and make what she’s about to say a self-fulfilling prophecy. She nuzzles him tenderly as she says, “Gearing… if you go with me this time… and something happens… I’ll never ask you to go anywhere again.”

He slowly lifts up his head and looks at her with an eyebrow raised. “What?”

She smiles warmly as she says, “Think of it as a scientific experiment… you’ve had good experiences before… and you’ve had a bad experience before… This one will be the tie breaker and if it seems like the bad really is out weighing the good, I won’t argue about wanting to stay inside anymore. Deal?”

Gearing frowns as he looks around, but avoids looking at her. “Promise? Promise that if something happens you won’t make me go anywhere anymore?”

She gives him a wide beaming smile, though her heart is aching on the inside as she constantly begs the universe not to be cruel to such a young colt. “I promise, Gearing.”

Gearing lets out a long sigh as he practically melts into the floor. “Uhhhggg… okay. Fine…. But can we at least get there early?”

Heartly tilts her head as she asks, “You don’t wanna go, but you wanna get there early?”

Gearing frowns as he says, “That way I can see if any trouble shows up and we can leave when it does before it gets too bad…”

Heartly pulls back and out from under the bed as she slowly nods her head. “Yeah, Gearing, we can. But, please, give it, and others, a chance. You won’t be disappointed if you do.”

Gearing pokes his head out from under the bed and looks up at her as he frowns. “We’ll see…”

* * *

Heartly drops down from the sky and into the orchard section that makes up the backend of this family run farm. Given it’s winter, all of the trees are bare and practically appear dead. But that will change once spring arrives. At the center of the farm, and not far from the orchard, is a collection of large buildings. There’s the family home, that’s practically a mansion by some standards, but then there are large barns where their equipment is stored when it’s not in use. Although, unlike the typical care that would be shown to the various wagons and farming equipment, it’s all parked out in the fresh snow for a change.

Heartly flutters along, zipping around as she makes her way to the largest pole barn on the entire farm. When she spots a long trail that’s actually had the snow plowed off of it for easier travel, she finally lands and starts walking towards the building surrounded by farm equipment.

But not before she sets down the most precious cargo that she’d been carrying the entire time with her forehooves.

Gearing stays under her, completely hidden by the large winter cloak Heartly is wearing, as he asks, “We’re not going in the house, are we?”

Heartly smiles and shakes her head as she says, “No, Gearing, the party’s in the barn. There’s not enough space in the house for everycreature to mingle anyway.”

“It doesn’t have a basement, does it?” Gearing asks worriedly.

Heartly giggles as she replies, “No, Gearing, there’s no basement. So don’t worry, the floors good old solid dirt.”

“I’d prefer solid cloud,” Gearing mutters sullenly.

“Well, this is an earth pony farm, Gearing. There’s not many clouds down here,” Heartly says with a grin.

“I could go get one,” Gearing replies quickly.

“But with how long that’d take you, we wouldn’t get here as early as we are, now would we?” Heartly asks as she looks down under herself where her little colt is huddled and trotting in time with her to stay under her and hidden from the world.

Gearing puffs up his cheeks in irritation before he looks off to the side and says, “You win… this time…”

Heartly rolls her eyes and continues on into the large pole barn that’s bigger than most ponies’ houses, by magnitudes. Once through the small pony sized door set into the large double doors that make up the majority of the end of the pole barn, it becomes clear on why there is so much equipment parked out and exposed to the elements.

The entire inside of the pole barn, that almost seems more like a small hoofball stadium, has been converted over to celebrate Hearth’s Warming. Decorative strands of lights hang from hoops, are wrapped around the support pillars, and are mingled with multiple colored strands of garland. Though, by the look and smell, the natural freshly made pine tree branch garland seems to be the biggest representative of the decorations. Then there’s the ribbons galore that seem to be hanging from or attached to nearly everything. Ceiling included.

And as Heartly is politely closing the door behind her, to keep the warmth from the various braziers and space heaters inside, it’s clear that the preparations are still being finalized.

There are tables set up at regular intervals, and some have the beginnings of a buffet being set up. With carefully arranged foodstuffs and drinks covering the surface, but not quite ready for the herd of hungry ponies the owners are expecting to be raiding it today. But then there are also a couple tables around that seem to be set up for other things. The table with the multiple rolls of wrapping paper, tape, staplers, spools of ribbon, glitter, and other crafting supplies almost seems to be out of place. But, then again, not really as a mare quickly scurries in from outside, uses the supplies in a mind boggling blur, and happily trots away with a freshly wrapped present towards a pile stacked against the wall.

Heartly, after looking around and taking in the sights, looks under herself and asks, “Well, we’re here… What did you have in mind?”

Gearing peeks out from under the cloak just enough to see who and what is around. He spots the gift wrapping station set away from everything else, with its festive table cloth that goes all the way to the ground, and points towards it as he says, “Over there.”

Heartly looks over, smiles as she sees where he’s pointing, and then dutifully trots over. After she gets to the table, she looks around at the supplies covering the surface and asks, “Yeah? What about it? Need something?”

Gearing jets out from under her cloak, and slips in under the craft station table. He gently separates the overlapping cloth near the table leg and looks out at her through the sliver of a gap. “This’ll work.”

Heartly’s jaw drops as she sees him peeking out at her. She frowns as she asks, “Were you just intending to hide here all night?”

Gearing narrows his eyes at her for a few long seconds before he says, “It’s an experiment… I’ll observe from here… If it seems safe, I’ll come out later… I wanna see who’s coming first.”

Heartly hangs her head for a moment as she sighs. She bobs her head around a bit before she says, “Okay… okay… that’s fair…” She kneels down and looks at him face to face as she slips a hoof around the fabric and rubs on his cheek tenderly. “You’re here. And that was the deal… but try to enjoy yourself… And if anything happens, anything at all you don’t like, just call for me, or come and find me, and I’ll take care of it and we’ll leave. I won’t be far away, I promise.”

“Kay,” Gearing says flatly as he keeps his covert position.

She slowly pulls back and looks around as she says, “Well, since we’re here early, I might as well go and see if I can help with anything.”

“Kay,” Gearing replies back with the exact same tone as before, drawing a sigh from his mother before she turns and trots off.

And while his mother is meeting, greeting, and schmoozing with her client’s extended family, and helping them get the place ready for the party, Gearing stays in the exact same location.

As wooden kegs of cider are rolled in and set up, and the tables are excessively laden with more food and treats, Gearing watches. His eyes look out through the small gap in the tablecloth as the various ponies go about their business. Most of them seem rather excited and giddy at the tasks they are performing. And the ones that use the supplies on the table he’s hiding under do so with the joy of some kind of dance that he’s never participated in.

They never notice him, as they are too busy trying to focus on their own tasks, but even so, Gearing always pulls back further under the table whenever anyone approaches to avoid being seen. The table he’s chosen is particularly well placed to keep an eye on the surroundings. Its near central location for ease of access and use provides Gearing with a wide view range from the safety of the concealment provided by the festive tablecloth. True, he can’t really look up. But considering the vast majority of the ponies he’s been seeing are earth bound, he’s not worried about it.

He suspiciously stares at everyone as they go about the large pole barn working, greeting, and talking with each other. The pony population density just keeps growing as time goes on. And the age range increases as well, as he starts seeing some older mares and stallions walk through the far door. And then there are the younger ponies. Foals and other youth, colts and fillies, zipping around and talking excitedly in a chattering language that amounts to garbled nonsense to Gearing. Somewhere along the line someone turns on some holiday music that starts playing through cleverly hidden speakers throughout the barn. If it were anything other than the Sweetie Bell Hearth’s Warming song that’s so popular that even he knows what it is from the first few soft tones, it would have startled him into further hiding. But as her melodious voice fills the pole barn with festive joy, Gearing can’t help settling in more within his chosen fortress.

And it doesn’t take long after the official start time for the pole barn to get pretty crowded with ponies of all ages as they celebrate the season. One corner of the barn gets dedicated to hanging up jackets and clothes to give them a chance to dry and warm up again after their owners’ trip through the fresh snow storm that’s closing in. Another section, where a terminal sitting on an old workbench is located, has been converted over to a karaoke kiosk where even the completely sober feel comfortable singing along to one holiday song or another. And the ones that have been delving into the cider apparently seem to feel obligated to join in.

Somewhere along the line, as Gearing is watching from the relative safety of the gift wrapping table, a chiming noise signals the time for the passing of presents. And boxes start getting passed around quickly from the communal pile against the one wall. The excitement is palpable as ponies as far as he can see tear into brightly wrapped packages and uncover the surprise hidden within. Usually accompanied by excessive cheering and hopping around.

And that behavior is not limited to the foals.

Although while the majority of the adults seem to stow their gifts in order to resume focusing on the party’s festivities, the youth in the barn take exception to such carelessness. All around the kids show off their gifts to each other, and start playing with what they had been given.

And as the evening picks up and carries on, Gearing keeps his watchful position. Although, despite his wary vigilance, nothing of note has happened. At least, nothing to cause him any real concern. And, in actuality, the ongoing festivities give way to another emotion. Because he doesn’t feel nearly as frightful as he had been when he first came here. And, because of that, he starts feeling another unpleasant emotion. Bored. A type of boredom so thorough it’s actually draining. He doesn’t even bother stepping away from the cloth anymore when somepony comes near and, in truth, he just wonders when his mom is going to be finished so they can finally go.

While he’s laying on the dirt floor of the barn, sullenly regretting not at least bringing a book with him to read, a couple of fillies come running over to the table he’s hiding under. The older, and bigger, filly looks the decorating supplies over and squeals, “We can use the ribbons for our hair!”

The youngest filly, carrying the toy she’d just got this very night in her mouth, happily puts it on the table as she looks over the supplies. “Ouuuu I bet this red ribbon would look super cute in your tail!”

They start rummaging through the supplies, and gluing some glitter onto bows that they make from the ribbon. And as they are excitedly chatting with each other, the older filly abruptly swings around, to try and put the ribbon bow she’d made on her tail, and she bumps the table rather hard with her rear.

Gearing startles and hops up and back away from the point of impact as the table suddenly jerks and shakes and creaks from the hip check.

And a second later there’s a crack as the younger filly’s toy hits the ground and can be heard even over the chatter and music.

The younger filly screeches, “You broke it! I’m telling moooooom!” Then starts stampeding away as she begins crying.

The older filly chases after her as she yells apologetically, “I’m sorry! It was an accident! Maybe we can fix it! Please don’t tell mom, she’ll ground me for eternity!”

Gearing pokes his snoot out around the fabric and watches the fleeing fillies stampede off through the crowd. He glances down and over at the offended toy and scrunches up his nose as he looks it over. He quickly grabs it with a hoof, and then hides with it under the tablecloth. As he’s looking it over, it’s clear to see why the young filly was so distraught without even touching it.

The toy in question is of a floofy-maned pink mare that’s standing vertically on a cannon and seems to be juggling boxes with her forehooves as she balances one box on the tip of her nose. Gearing’s pretty sure it’s supposed to be the ministry mare from the Ministry of Morale, judging by the color scheme and the balloons on the mare’s flank. The gizmo that makes it look like she’s juggling the presents is in fact nothing more than a metallic hoop with the brightly colored gifts attached. He gently twists the hoop and watches as the hoofs of the mare go up and down in time with the packages. He listens carefully as the mechanisms whirl with his manual manipulations. Above and behind her is a giant arc covered in lights. It looks like something that would be set up for a stage somewhere at some point with a lattice of metal to support the lights. But, in fact, the entire ‘lattice’ is only held up by two points, with one of which being the wire that the power cable travels through. And considering it’s bent at nearly ninety degrees away from the pink juggling mare, and the wire had been pulled up and out of the toy’s base before breaking in half, the lights and such are probably never going to work in this condition.

Gearing gently rubs a hoof over it and, when his hoof makes contact with the bare wires, the lights on the toy instantly pop on and the miniature mare begins her juggling act for a few seconds as an electric arc sparks to Gearing’s hoof from one side of the wire, then across to the other wire. Causing his hoof to complete the circuit accidentally and painfully. Gearing drops it and jerks away from the toy as he shakes his hoof. “Ow… It was still on… Ow.” He shakes his hoof and looks at it as he frowns. He reaches over with his wing, knocks the toy over onto its side, and looks at the underside. As he’s flipping the little switch on the bottom to the ‘off’ position, he can’t help but notice the label on the bottom. “Flim Flam Brothers Toys of Joy… yeah, right…”

He rolls his eyes as he grabs the toy and sets it back upright again. He quickly taps the wire, with the same hoof, and confirms that it’s off. He sits there staring at it for a few seconds before a slight smile crosses his muzzle. “No books… but this’ll keep me busy until we’re ready to go…” He scrunches up his nose one way then the other as he tries to figure out what he should do.

* * *

Heartly, wearing a festive Hearth’s Warming robe that’s covered in images of various decorations made of sparkling beadwork and a delicately made tiara made to look like a hoop of decorated garland on her head, casually sips from a tankard as her eyes slowly drift around. As much as she naturally sparkled before, the pair of new gifts make her doubly so as the colored lights all over the pole barn seem dead set on twinkling off of the various sequins stitched along their entire surface with each and every movement she makes. Though the robe is highly decorative in its appearance, it’s also quite warm and functional. Given that the fluffy trim along the edges would keep the lucky pony wearing it especially warm.

A soft pale green unicorn mare with her green mane put up into a beehive shape, but decorated like a Hearth’s Warming tree and complete with dangling ornaments, walks up next to Heartly and asks, “How’s it going? You seem a bit more pensive…”

Heartly keeps her gaze locked in a single direction as she replies with a sigh, “He’s coming this way. I’m not sure what happened. But… it looks like he’s finally wanting to go home.” She frowns as she mutters, “It’d been hours, I’d hoped he’d started enjoying himself… instead of staying hidden.”

“I’m sorry, dear. I know he’s had a rough year,” the walking ponification of a Hearth’s Warming tree replies. “You both have…”

Heartly looks over at her and gives a slight bow of her head before she says, “Well, thanks for the invite, Madam Garland. It was worth a try.”

The green unicorn mare waves at her dismissively as she says, “Oh, posh! Call me ‘Piney’, we’ve known each other too long for that… or, at worst, Pine Garland.” She looks over at Heartly and gives her a warm smile as she says, “And you’re welcome here anytime you please. Both of you.”

Heartly closes her eyes and sets her tankard down on a barrel nearby as she says, “I doubt he’ll ever be back… I made a deal with him, that if things went bad I wouldn’t push him out anymore.”

“Really?” Piney asks as her eyes go wide. After Heartly gives her a sad nod she asks, “But why, dear?”

Heartly shakes her head as she says, “It’s a last ditch effort. He wasn’t going to come otherwise so… I had to do something. I don’t want him stuck in the house, afraid to leave or interact with anypony else for the rest of his life.” She looks over at Piney and asks with a hitch to her voice, “What k-kinda life is t-that for a f-“ *click* “foal?”

“Oh, honey… I’m so sorry,” Piney says with a sigh as she steps over and wraps a foreleg around Heartly’s shoulders and gives her a gentle squeeze. After a few moments she whispers, “Kinda… taking his sweet time on it… ain’t he?”

Heartly looks up and watches as the tiny green winged pony zips from table to table. All the while coming her way. But, when he’s getting closer she notices something that simultaneously confuses her, but gives her a bit of hope. He’s taking detours. Intentional detours.

From trash can to trash can.

She walks over to a table not far away as she sees him zipping through the crowd, under all of the adults without them even noticing, and disappearing behind the table. She stands there, on the side of the table facing everyone else, and simply stares at the underside of the table expecting Gearing to say something from the comfort of the hidden space below.

Instead she’s surprised by a bit of shining brass slowly rising on the other side of the table.

She looks up, and stares at Gearing as he looks right at her. She looks his face over, but it’s kind of hard for her to read at the moment. But, he’s not saying anything as he peeks over at her. After they share hard eye contact for a while, she asks, “Did something bad happen, Gearing?”

“No,” Gearing replies flatly.

“Is everything okay? Why’d you come over here?”

Gearing maintains hard eye contact as he straightens up just a bit and uses his wing to grab the end of a plastic straw from the group that’s sticking out of the mason jar that’s being used to keep them ready for use and clean but near the drinks covering the rest of the table. He slowly lifts his wing, ever so slowly lifting the straw until it’s out of the jar. Then starts retracting it towards himself as he says, “I need this…” And then, after pulling it back to himself, he slowly starts sinking back behind the table.

All the while maintaining hard eye contact with Heartly as he seems to ride a slow elevator back down into hiding.

Piney walks over from the side and asks Heartly, “Are you okay? You look perplexed… I figured you’d already be making your way out.”

Heartly looks at her and gives her a sheepish grin as she says, “I don’t know. I don’t know what’s going on. And, frankly, I don’t care… He didn’t say anything about going home, so... he’s obviously found something he likes.” She shrugs. “If he’s got a reason to stay, I’m not trampling over it.”

Piney’s grin practically explodes across her muzzle as she asks, “Really?! Well then how about we pay the karaoke kiosk a visit to celebrate?”

While they are walking towards where a large group of ponies are sitting around singing along, mostly badly, to one song or another, Gearing makes good on his return trip. Although, along the way, he grabs one final item, a low burning candle in an old brass chamberstick, and scurries back to his hiding place as quickly and carefully as he can. Along the whole way he protects the flame of the candle by wrapping his wing around it like a wind shield as he makes good on getting back into hiding.

Once back under the present wrapping table, he quickly gets to work with his supplies.

He’s pretty sure it’s a simple fix. That the bent metal isn’t really a problem, that it’s the exposed severed wire that’s made it stop working. So he quickly puts the bits back together as carefully as he can. After reconnecting the severed wire, by nibbling off some of the insulation and twisting the exposed copper back together, he uses the scissors from the packaging table to cut the plastic straw into a few pieces. He cuts slits into a piece that’s a bit bigger than the exposed copper, and slips it over the damaged section of wire. Then, while carefully holding it in place, he runs the candle flame under it back and forth quickly. It gets covered in soot, and he’s not exactly sure how much it’d take. But, after a few tries, and him poking at it after each pass, he figures out how much is needed to soften it. A few moments after that revelation, he quickly starts melting and shaping the straw so it seals in around and over the broken wire. After using a couple more pieces of straw, and having to nibble off some plastic that accidentally got melted onto his own hoof, he threads the wire back into the base. And after that’s done, he starts tweaking the metal hoop supports and lattice until he’s pretty sure they are where they are supposed to be. And the smile on his muzzle just grows by the second, along with how far his eyes open, as he switches it on.

Because Pinkie Pie starts juggling the packages right before his eyes as the stage lights blink and flash above and behind her.

After watching it for a few moments, he quickly turns it back off again. It’s not his. He knows this. And now he has to figure out how to give it back to the pony that it belongs to.

He pokes his snoot out, looks around to see who’s around, and then quickly slides the little juggling toy back to the location where it was originally. After getting it to the spot where it had gotten broken, he sets it upright, tilts it just enough to get a wing under, and flips the switch. As soon as it clicks on, he jerks his limbs back into hiding and pulls back away from the sides as the toy goes about its business of blinking, flashing, and juggling.

It doesn’t take long before a familiar filly’s voice cries out, “I found it!” and a moment later several sets of small hooves some stampeding over.

“I thought somepony threw it away cuz it was all brokey,” the young filly comments as she walks over and plops down right in front of her cherished toy.

The older filly grins widely as she says, “See, it’s not broke though! It’s fine! No need to tell mom, right?”

The little filly puffs up her cheeks as she says, “It was though… I saw it.”

A young colt about her age looks it over as he says, “Well, it works now.”

“But how? And it was gone. Now it’s back…” the young filly says as she tries to comprehend the turn of events. And the other children around her likewise seem to be at a loss for an explanation.

The younger colt asks, “Maybe it was like a Hearth’s Warming spirit or something? My mom’s always talking about a spirit of the season spreading joy to everypony…”

The older filly sniffs the air a bit, then starts leaning towards the present wrapping table. “What’s that smell?” She suddenly pokes her head under the tablecloth as she says, “Smells like something burning under-”

She comes face to face with Gearing, as he’s huddled under the table, and he instantly recoils from her as he huddles in close to himself and stares at her with wide-eyed fright.

She perks up and says cheerfully, “Oh, hello! Did you fix my sister’s toy?” She looks around and the grin on her face just gets wider as she excitedly sways and swishes her tail. “You had to of with all this stuff under here!”

Suddenly Gearing gets surrounded, on all sides, by a collection of foalish faces as they all poke in under the table cloth to see what she’s talking about from every direction.

The young filly pushes her toy in front of her as she asks, “You fix this? Thank you!” then gives him a smile so large that it’s hard for him to comprehend how it actually fits on her head. Because it doesn’t look like it does.

The younger colt asks, “How you do it? You a Hearth’s Warming Spirit? I never met one before!”

Gearing keeps looking around as he’s huddled in tightly to himself, and warily stares at them as he stammers, “N-no... I… I just seen… I mean…” He looks over at the younger filly swaying as she looks at the toy and replies, “I just read the Marechanist and… they did it… and it worked… so I just… I just tried to see if it would in real life… and… it did…”

The young colt perks up as he asks, “You read the Marechanist?!”

Gearing looks over at him and nods slowly.

“You read any other comics?” the older filly asks as she looks him over.

Gearing stares at her for a few moments before he nods. “Yeah… any I can find.”

Another younger filly crawls in under the table with Gearing and gets right next to him as she says, “It’s like a secret hideout under here!”

The young colt climbs in under it too and squats down on Gearing’s other side as he says, “This is so kool! He’s got like a fort under here!” He starts practically prancing as he giggles, “It’s like a secret superhero lair!”

“Uhm… I guess…” Gearing meekly mutters as he quickly looks from pony to pony to try and see if and when anyone is going to try anything. But, of course, none of them do.

Except trying to get closer to him and learn more about him. Which makes him uncomfortable enough as it is.

After a lot of chattering among the group the older filly finally asks, “Do you like Power Ponies?”

Gearing nods as he says, “Yeah…”

The younger filly waves at her older sister and says, “She just got a new Power Ponies board game, wanna play?!”

The older filly looks at her and raises an eyebrow as she says, “Heeey… you said you didn’t want to play it?”

The younger filly pointedly looks away and says matter-of-factly, “I didn’t want to play with you because you broke my toy… but it’s fixed now so… that’s different.”

The older filly shrugs before she looks over at Gearing and asks, “Well?”

* * *

While Heartly is helping move a fresh keg into place to replace an empty one, the young filly with the juggling Pinkie Pie trots up next to her and asks, “Are you Gearing’s momma?”

Heartly looks down, and quickly sets down the keg as Piney walks around to see what’s going on. Heartly nods as she says, “Yes, I am. Why? Is something wrong?” She starts looking around over the crowd for some kind of disturbance before the little filly even has a chance to respond.

“I thought so, pretty wings too…” she mutters as she looks Heartly over before looking her in the eye again. “He wants to know when you’re going home,” the little filly asks plainly.

Heartly lets out a sigh as she hangs her head. “I guess he’s done and wants to go home.”

“Uh uh,” the little filly says as she quickly shakes her head. “He just wants to know if he has time to play a game, and said we had to ask you.”

“A game?” Piney and Heartly ask at the same time.

The little filly nods quickly as she says, “Uh huh… He’s reading the rules and it says the game can be short, like half an hour, but said it says it could take up to four and he don’t know if we have enough time before you all have to leave…” She leans in and says quietly, “You know how much four hours is? That’s a lot!”

Heartly’s eyes go wide as she stares at her with the edge of her lip curling into just the hint of a smile as she asks, “He wants to stay longer?”

“Uh huh, can we? Just for one game?” the little filly asks with a near whine.

Heartly looks over at Piney and says flatly, “Well... that’s not really up to me… The party normally ends around ten and it’s already getting close to nine…”

Piney raises an eyebrow as she says, “You kids just want to play a game?”

“Uh huh! Can we?!” the little filly asks excitedly.

Piney waves her on as she says, “Well, let’s see what’s so attention grabbing and we’ll figure it out from there.”

The little filly squeals with delight as she jumps up in the air, spins around, and her hooves are already motoring to run back the way she’d come before she even touches down.

Heartly and Piney share glances before they likewise hurry after the excitable filly before they lose sight of her. It doesn’t take long before they find the group of kids set up behind the package wrapping table and sitting around a large colorful board that’s covered in comic book characters.

Gearing has the rule sheet held up in front of him, unfolded almost to its max, and is practically hiding behind the massive sheet of paper as he reads over it carefully.

“Find a game you wanted to play?” Heartly asks as she swings around to look at him from the side with a warm smile on her face.

“Uh huh,” Gearing replies before looking over at her. “But it might take a while… we don’t know the rules yet so… probably will… is that okay?”

Heartly looks over to the side, behind Gearing and at Piney, as she says, “Well it’d be okay with me, but I’m not really the one to ask…You have to make sure it’s okay with Pine Garland, it’s her party after all.”

Gearing follows her gaze and spins around to look behind himself. And instantly brings the paper up like a shield to hide behind as he peeks over it with just his eyes, as his ears lay back flat against his head, and lets out a soft ‘eep’ as he sees the soft pale green unicorn behind him.

“Just call me ‘Piney’.” Piney smiles at him warmly and asks, “You enjoying yourself over here?”

Gearing squats down a bit as he says softly, “Umm… I guess?”

“Well, your friend said you all want to play a game but we normally end the party in about an hour,” Piney comments as she taps on her muzzle.

“Awww…” Gearing moans as he hides his head behind the paper. And his voice is accompanied by foalish groans from the rest of the youth as well.

“What to do… what to do,” Piney says as she looks over at Heartly, and then gets a mischievous smile on her muzzle. “You know what, I think I have an idea…”

Gearing cautiously pokes his head over the paper and his ears perk up as they focus on her, and obviously give her his undivided attention.

Piney tilts her head as she gives him a grin. “I know you don’t really remember me, and haven’t seen me, but I know a lot about you…So I’ll make you a deal, okay?”

Gearing looks around at the other kids, at his mom, and at Piney as he tries to figure out what to do before he asks suspiciously, “What kinda deal?”

“Well… it’s my party, and we always end at ten, so everypony that needs to can get back to work tomorrow… but if you wanna play the superhero tonight… you can play your game, as long as you do one thing for me… just one… and it can only be you. Okay, Gearing?”

Gearing looks over at his mom, who only shrugs and waves towards Piney, before he asks, “Like what?”

Piney’s horn glows as she turns to the side, and a moment later a small box wrapped in golden paper with a green ribbon binding it floats over in her levitation field. She holds it up in front of him as she smiles widely. “If you finally open your present!” The box tilts top side towards him so he can clearly read the label on top. The one with his name on it. “It’s the last one left; you’re the only one who hasn’t opened their present and it’s gotten kinda lonely over there… And I really wanna see you open it.”

Gearing’s eyes go wide as he looks at it and he asks, “For me?”

Piney nods and carefully sets the box down in front of him as she says, “Happy Hearth’s Warming, Gearing.”

Gearing quickly folds up the rules again, and sets them back on the game board, as he looks the box over. He glances over at his mom for some kind of guidance, and she simply nods and waves towards it. “Well… okay…” Gearing sheepishly replies as he gently grabs the box and starts pulling it to himself.

As he’s carefully undoing the ribbon holding the lid on, Piney gets a sheepish smile on her face as she says quickly, “I’m sorry if it’s a bit weird. I wasn’t sure what to get you, but your mom said you’d like this so I hope it’s okay. I don’t get it myself, but she said you would… so…”

Gearing unties the ribbon and lets it flop to the side before he grabs the thick cardboard lid and lifts it straight up with both of his forehooves. As he’s lifting it up, he’s surrounded on three sides by the other kids who crowd around and look in with him to see what he’s got.

“What is that?” the younger colt asks as he tilts his head.

“Kinda looks like … junk…” the older filly replies as she likewise tilts her head in confusion.

“Is… is that a piece of a Saddle Rager figurine? And that one looks like Radiance’s costume!” the younger filly says excitedly as she points a hoof at different pieces. She looks up at Piney and raises an eyebrow as she asks, “Why are they brokey? They get dropped like my sister dropped my toy?”

The older filly balks as she says, “It’s fixed! Quit tattlin’!”

“Well… uh…” Piney starts with a sheepish smile as she tries to figure out how to justify the pile of crap she just gave the young brass foal.

“No! It’s not!” Gearing says as the grin on his face just starts getting bigger by the second. He starts rummaging around inside the box as he says, “These are pieces of the model kits. You always had to put them together yourself… and… and there’s a spring wound pocket watch in here… and other parts and… what’s this?” At the bottom of the box is a stack of papers and he carefully fishes them out from under everything else. And once out of the box he realizes they aren’t papers at all, but a few well used magazines. He tilts the worn cover a bit and then reads out loud, “Tee El See… Squared… Tender Loving Care for Totally Lost Causes…”

The younger colt to his side comments with his tongue hanging out, “Sounds like mushy stuff…”

“Nuh uh… it’s a repair manual with tips and tricks…” He shuffles it around so he can read the next one’s title. “And this one is more for electronics… Equestrian Robotics: From Circuits to Sentinels…” He looks in the box, and then goes back and forth between the pile of parts and the magazine before he waves his hoof at Heartly. “Mom! Mom, mom, mom! Can you get me a solder gun? I need one… see, see… They show you how to practice with it on page fifteen!”

“Sounds boring,” the younger filly says as she rolls her eyes and goes back to her seat on the opposite side of the game board.

“Uh… I don’t think that’d be such a good idea… at your age… might burn yourself or the house,” Piney says before looking over at Heartly and asking quietly, “Did I make a mistake with this?”

Gearing waves a hoof at Piney as he says, “Nuh uh! Clouds don’t burn and neither do I!”

Heartly grins widely as she looks at Piney and says, “No, I think it’s a perfect gift.” She looks at Gearing and nods as she says, “Sure, Gearing, I’ll get you a practice set if you want.”

Gearing bounds up straight into the air and starts kicking his legs in various directions as he flaps his wings to stay aloft. But, despite his struggles, and furious flapping, he’s barely able to stay aloft because of his relative mass and tiny wings. But, he’s just excited enough to manage to hover for a few seconds before he starts sinking back down to the ground. “Yes! Wooohooo! Best. Hearth’s Warming. Ever!”

Piney grins as she watches him soar up into the air, and her eyes go wide as she sees him hover there for a few seconds, completely recognizing that he’s managing it under his own power. “Well now, I can see you’re excited! So you enjoy your gift? I did good?”

Gearing hops over and wraps his forelegs and wings around her right foreleg as he nuzzles it and looks up at her with a massive grin on his muzzle. “Yes! It’s the greatest thing ever in the history of ever!”

For a change Piney is startled as she most certainly wasn’t expecting that reaction. And by the sudden placement of Heartly’s jaw on the floor she wasn’t either. Piney gingerly reaches over with her other foreleg, and gently wraps Gearing in a hug as she leans down. But she does so in such a way to make sure she’s not moving too fast or can stop if he gets uncomfortable. And, to her further surprise, he actually nuzzles into the sign of affection as he happily sways side to side. “I’m glad you’re happy, Gearing. That’s the whole point of Hearth’s Warming, to come together and enjoy each other’s company and mutual happiness.”

“Well count me in!” Gearing cheerfully replies as he looks up at her with a toothy grin.

Piney looks from him to Heartly, and notices that she’s not only speechless, but has completely stopped moving as she stares at Gearing wide-eyed. Piney looks down at Gearing and replies, “Well… it’d be a shame to make the fun end prematurely… so… how about this… You all can stay here and play, and have fun with each other, as long as you want.” She looks over at the other children and adds, “As long as your parents will allow it, that is.” Then looks over at Heartly and comments, “And I’ll just keep the party going… And I bet Heartly won’t mind watching you kids overnight while you play, so your parents will be able to enjoy themselves to the fullest as well. Isn’t that right, Heartly?”

Heartly looks over at her, and locks eyes for a few seconds before she squeaks out with a wide smile, “It’d be my pleasure.” All of the kids start bounding around and chattering as they blurt and scream out their thanks to both Heartly and Piney in such a ruckus that it’s hard to really make out anything any single one of them is saying.

Except Gearing.

He simply nuzzles Piney’s foreleg a bit more and looks up at her as he says, “Thank you, Miss Piney!”

“My pleasure, Gearing.” She looks them all over as she starts pulling back and away from them as she says, “Now you kids have fun, Heartly and I will go spread the word around, but you probably want to go check in with your parents real quick just to make sure.”

The foalish congregation says in unison, “Okay!” before they run off in various directions to find their parents.

Piney motions Heartly to follow her, which she does silently, as Piney makes her way to the karaoke area. She marches right up to the kiosk, stops the music dead, and grabs a microphone from the table next to it that functions as an override for the entire speaker system. She floats it in front of her mouth as she rears up and yells out, “Alright everypony, as you know my family’s Hearth’s Warming Eve parties normally end at ten… well it’s currently about nine thirty…”

There’s groans from the group as a whole as, like the kids, the adults were obviously having fun and hate to see it end.

Piney hops around on her hind hooves as she yells out, “Well it’s been brought to my attention that the kids really don’t want to see the night end, and have apparently just got started having fun… And I’m in no hurry to see that end… So, in the spirit of togetherness, and Hearth’s Warming… there is no curfew this year!” She starts hopping around as she says excitedly, “If you wanna party all night long, then so be it! With it being winter the farm helpers have all gone home, so there’s plenty of room for everypony when you want to crash if you decide to stay!”

She hops up onto the workbench next to the karaoke table and sways her hips side to side as she yells into the microphone floating in front of her. “To use an old family phrase… ‘We’ve got a barn burner here tonight folks!’ There’s no going down until the sun’s coming up so let’s get this party started for real!”

An old stallion off to the side yells up at her, “Did you get into my stash of cider reserve?!”

She grins at him as she says, “Nope! I’m just feeling the excitement of the foals enjoying Hearth’s Warming, and it’s infectious! So let’s take their example, and forget about the rest of the world for one night!” She looks around as she says, “My ponies, no work for a few days. Shop’s closed until further notice! Enjoy your time off with your friends and family!”

A laughing cackling sound comes from the side and draws her attention. She sees the old stallion heading for the door so she yells after him, “Hey! You’re the one always complaining about the party ending too soon, why you going to bed now when I finally say okay?”

He looks over at her and cackles some more. “I’m not! I’m gonna go get a cask from my stash. If we’re throwing a proper barn burner of a party, we need the good stuff!”

Piney drops the mic and hangs her jaw as her eyes go wide. “Oh have mercy! What have I done?!” She shakes her head then yells after him, “Just one, you hear me, dad?! Just one cask! No more!”

The same cackling comes from the side door before the old stallion’s gruff voice calls back, “One for me, one for everypony else, got it!”

Piney nickers off to the side as she rolls her eyes. Then she looks around at the giggling crowd and shrugs as she says, “Hey, it’s only once a year, right?”

She quickly kicks the music back on and hops back down to the side as she says, “Have fun everypony!”

And as if all they were waiting for was permission, the party ramps up to full swing in an instant as Piney walks back over to where Heartly is standing.

Piney looks at her and arcs her brows worriedly as she asks, “Are you okay, dear? You look like you’re about to cry?”

Heartly looks at her and the pained expression on her face can’t be hidden, even with the forced smile on her face. “It’s… it’s just…” *click* “I’ve been so-” *tick* “so afraid…” She turns around and looks over past all of the adults to where the kids are bounding around and chattering about the game and the party. “But… look…” She limply waves a forehoof towards them as she says, “I got my b-” *tick click* “Baby back… He’s been so miserable… and afraid…” She looks over at Piney and gives her a warm but pained smile as she says quietly, “You’re the best at gifts, Garland… You found a way to give me my baby back… to help him find joy again… Gearing was right… this is the best Hearth’s Warming ever.” She reaches over, wraps a foreleg around Piney, and jerks her over with her ridiculous strength. As she starts abrasively nuzzling Piney she mumbles in her mane, “Thank you for making this the best Hearth’s Warming ever… And making my greatest treasure shine again…”

Piney nuzzles in with her and replies softly, “That’s what Hearth’s Warming’s all about… Ponies coming together to help each other out and for mutual joy…”

“Happy Hearth’s Warming, Piney.”

“Happy Hearth’s Warming, Heartly.”

Footnote: Happy Hearth’s Warming, everyone.

Author's Note

As a reminder, this is a canonical side story for the story Fallout Equestria: Clockwork Precision. And, like others, this one introduces more lore to the story. Although this one has some particularly strong connections to a particular incident that’s referenced in this one. It’ll be talked about in the main story in the future, but that won’t be for quite a while (referencing the most recent release being chapter 75). So, in case you were wondering, ‘what happened’ WILL actually be brought up in the main story.

Happy Holidays everyone. Wherever you are and whatever you celebrate. May the season bring much joy and happiness into your heart.

The Radiance of Gearing’s First Nightmare Night

A very young brassy Gearing flutters through the air as he holds a small satchel to himself. He’s grown only a little since his last major outing -to Pine Garland's Hearth’s Warming party last year- so his small body still has trouble holding him aloft as he’s flying. He’s grown enough that he can manage short trips and such, but he’s not going to be traveling across the continent under his own power anytime soon. So his mother brought him to the correct neighborhood and let him loose.

This is another experiment for the both of them. Since his time at the Hearth’s Warming party, he’s had more interactions with the other foals he’d met there. Their ongoing contact, without anything seriously going wrong, has helped Gearing build up confidence in traveling on the outside world. Away from the safety of his bedroom.

So his mother agreed to let him go out with the other foals he’d made friends with for Nightmare Night this year. He’s not exactly happy about the holiday in general. And, in general, he stays home during it. Outside of the times when she’s taken him to places directly, he’s not wanted any part of the holiday for a few reasons.

Namely for the name of the holiday for one and who it’s connected to.

He heads inside the house that he was told to meet up at once he finds it, as the front door is already open and various adults have been standing around chatting and talking as they have their own party. And it could be successfully argued that his ability to simply walk past all of them, on the way to his preassigned meeting place, is a massively positive sign for how far he’s come over the course of the last year. He’s not actively hiding from each and every other pony he sees. He does, by nature, keep notice of them as he’s passing. But he’s no longer going out of his way to keep some piece of furniture of other object in between him and them.

In the enclosed back porch, there are squeals of delight as both fillies and colts chatter about what they have planned for the night. Gearing comes in through the hall from the front, peeks into the area, and, after noticing the variety of already costumed up foals, turns and hops into a bathroom that was in the adjoining hallway without anyone noticing. A few minutes later, Gearing steps out wearing his own costume, and walks in to join the others. Though the sparkling gems give him away. Instantly the others look over, and the volume of foalish excitement increase as they notice Gearing, and his costume.

“It’s Radiance!” a filly squeals as they are gobsmacked by the intricacy of the costume Gearing’s wearing.

Especially since his mother, a professional seamstress, went to town on making him the costume and spent far more than any normal mare would on a one off use of clothing. She worked on it in minute detail. And Gearing helped her immensely. He provided a lot of reference images for her to work from. From a variety of sources. And went so far as to provided a detailed list of each of the individual things she needs to include in the costume to make it look as authentic as possible.

Now, most mares would love to see their children enthused about such things, but they would have to reign in the expectations of their foals. Into something far more manageable. More affordable. But, those mares didn't have the problems to deal with that Heartly did. Her young colt had been through far more than someone his age should have to live through. And because of that fact had become quite agoraphobic. And, if she was being honest with herself, ponyphobic as well. So the fact that he not only wants to go outside of home, but had found a reason to actively interact with other ponies in a positive way, was a chance that she couldn’t pass up. She feels obligated to encourage it. So, if her little comic loving treasure wants to go out dressed as one of his favorite heroes, she’s going to make it happen. And she’d planned on doing such a good on it that he would feel the need to show it off, which he did.

The base of the costume is a dark blue jumpsuit that covers the majority of his body -wings included- with only his head and tail poking out of it. A prominent light blue over sized collar trims along the head hole of the jump suit. Although his tail is obviously inside of some kind of decorative sack to make it look more like the grayish blue color of Radiance’s own tail. And upon his head is some sort of wig of the same color as the faux tail. On his face is Radiance’s trademark pointy masquerade style mask. The rest of his head is left in the open, as his natural golden brassy hide does a pretty good emulation of Radiance’s yellow pelt color.

And then there were the accessories. So many accessories. Which is no surprise to those that know about Radiance, since that is what she is known for. That is where her powers come from, after all. Both forehooves have a set of pinkish gemy bracelets predominately adoring his legs right above his fetlocks. Around his neck is a thick golden necklace with another large pink gem at it’s apex. And then all over the blue jumpsuit, and attached to both the faux mane and tail, are a smattering of other gems. The suit as a whole seems to be encrusted with the stones.

And then there’s the horn that he had obviously wonder-glued to his head. Of everything, that was the thing that took the longest to get on as he had to make sure it didn’t go on crooked and would stay on.

Gearing walks into the room a few paces, then turns strikes one of his favorite heroic poses of the heroine for the others to see and enjoy. He’d been practicing that pose relentlessly since his mother started working on the costume, and it shows.

The other foals run over and start looking his costume over from various angles as they squeal with glee.

“You look just like her!” the small filly giggles as she starts walking around and looking at his costuem from various angles.

A colt slides in front of Gearing and looks at the bracelets up close and asks, “Are those the real power bracelets?!”

“Where’d you get all those gems for the costume?!” an older filly asks as her jaw drops and she’s obviously counting the gems covering Gearing.

“They’re not real,” Gearing comments flatly. “My mom has a friend that makes hoof blown beads from glass, so she asked her to make what she needed for the costume.”

A younger filly steps on the colt laying on the ground, who doesn’t seem to mind actually as he’s lost looking at the bracelets, and comments, “The necklace is soooo pretty! It even has the small carvings in it that was only shown in the special edition that had the close ups when they were studying the necklace in the comic!”

Gearing stands there with his chin up, smiling with pride at what him and his mother made. Mostly his mother, he knows this. “Yup! My mom spent a lot of time getting the details right! The necklace was a pain to carve correctly, too. This was the fourth attempt. I messed up on the first three and had to redo them.”

But, as they all look at his costume, he looks theirs over as well. The young colt at his hooves is wearing a common store bought costume of of of Nightmare Moon’s bat pony soldiers. Complete with fake webbed wings that flop around at his sides, hard plastic breastplate, and fangs. Though the breast plate already has a crack in it from when he jumped on the ground to look at Gearing’s bracelets. And when Gearing compliments him on his scary costume, the foalish colt strikes up his own pose, complete with an extra fangy smile

Proving that not all costume have to be complicated to look good, is the youngest filly of the group. She’s wearing a Fili-second costume composed of a light pink jump suit that’s had purple arrows painted onto it. And Gearing judges it as fit for the squad and a bit jealous of not having to worry about messing it up as much as he’s worried about what he’s wearing.

The oldest colt of the group, Gearing instantly recognizes as well. Sir Cumference from Chivalrie Tails. A fantasy series of old time Equestria when ponies had to use their wits and strength to survive in the world, and those fighting the bad monsters wore shiny suits of metal armor and shields. This colt, however, had managed to get a long sleeve shirt that’s printed to look like chainmaille, and the sword in the scabbard is painted wood, with his shield being made from a metal trash can lid that had been beaten into shape. And the over all look gives Gearing ideas for his next costume attempt.

The costume with the absolute minimum effort put into it, and shamelessly at that, is the filly in the Grog the Barbarian ‘costume’. It’s quite obvious she’s just there for the candy. Especially with the plastic double headed axe on her back, and faux fur bracelets instead of the fur trimmed leather bracers the character would normally wear. Not to mention everything else that’s missing that helps define the character. The only other thing she’s wearing is a pair of saddle bags that are currently completely empty and she's obviously planning on stowing as much candy in them as possible. She’s a mini mare on a mission. And that mission is candy. As much candy as she can plunder before the night is over. And Gearing can’t help debating on what to do with whatever candy he gets that night.

The last member of the group is also the oldest, and is apparently the chaperon for all of the foals tonight. The eldest filly here and older sister of the young Fili-Second. She’s dressed as Fluttershy wearing the traditional Ministry of Peace nurse outfit. Complete with a pink wig, yellow wings, and saddlebags that are actually metal medical boxes with the three butterflies emblazoned on a cross. And as Gearing is looking at her, he can’t help having a bit of anxiety as he’s spent too much time around ponies in those outfits as far as he’s concerned. And really hopes they don’t need the contents of those metal boxes.

The eldest filly looks around at the others and asks, “Since we’re all here, are we ready to go?”

Gearing looks over at her and asks, “Sooo what’s the plan?”

The small colt dressed as the batpony soldier hops around and starts prancing in a circle as he says, “We trot around house to house, and ponies give us candy for our costumes!”

“Ohhh, that sounds… fun…” Gearing says as he looks around and gives an unconvincing smile.

The eldest filly gives him a side bump before she says, “Don’t worry. I know it can seem scary, but its all in good fun. Just remember, nopony’s trying to hurt you. That’s what I had to keep in mind. They just wanna scare you and have a bit of fun for everyone along the way.”

“Uh… right…” Gearing comments.

The youngest filly runs around waving a cloth bag around as she giggles. She sees Gearing and asks, “Hey, where’s your candy bag?”

Gearing looks at her and tilts his head. “Candy bag?”

She nods and waves hers around. “You gotta have a candy bag! Where else are you gonna put your candy?!”

Gearing looks around at his outfit, and then gives a light shrug as he gives her yet another unconvincing smile.

The little filly scowls as she drops her bag. “Oh, no, this wont do! You gotta have a candy bag before we can go!” She looks at the others and demands, “Right?!”

The others nod and hold their chosen containers up high in agreement.

Gearing looks around as his ears fall a bit. “Well, I guess I could use the satchel I brought my costume here with…”

He starts to turn toward the bathroom, and the little filly jumps in front of him and shoos him away with her forehooves. “Oh no, that’s not good enough!” She puts a hoof to his nose as she says, “You” and she points at the floor “Wait here!” She starts running away from the back porch area as she yells, “Mooooooom! I have an emergency! Candy emergency! Moooooooom!”

He stares after her in utter battlement before the eldest filly giggles. “She’ll have this ‘emergency’ solved in a few moments. Don’t worry. Then we can all go.”

Gearing glances at her, then shrugs, and goes back to looking down the hall where the little filly had run off to.

Sure enough, a few moments later, she comes running back with a cloth bag in her mouth. She skids to a halt in front of him and holds it up triumphantly. “Got one!”

Gearing accepts it from her and looks it over as he says, “Isn’t this just… a pillow case?”

She nods and points at it. “Yup! They make the best candy bags!” She holds up her own one as she grins. “It can hold sooooo much candy!”

Gearing looks around at the others, and catches eye contact with the one colt that has a plastic bucket. The two shares eye contact for a few moments before he pointedly looks a different direction and cradles the bucket closer to himself. To Gearing it’s quite clear that not everyone agrees with what is the best candy container, and that colt in particular doesn’t want his treasured bucket to be any more offended by the silly filly.

The eldest filly rears up as she giggles. “Well, emergency solved, so now we can head off!”

The colt in the batpony suit jumps in the air and strikes a pose when he comes back down, hitting the ground with three legs and his fourth holding his plastic bucket out in front of him as he points off down the hallway. “To the candy! Chaaarrrrgggeee!!!”

And on cue they all run down the hallway in a small pony stampede. But, hearing this, the adults look down the hall, and quickly jump and skitter out of the way as none of them wants to be trampled by the sugar fiend foals. Most of them actually laugh at the display and a few even start recounting similar escapades they themselves had done on Nightmare Night.

Once outside they stop at the curb, looking in both directions of the street, and take in the surroundings. Everywhere the houses are all decorated up with various novelties and gimmicks for Nightmare Night. But, this year sees even more of the electronic variety. It’s no longer simply pumpkins and sheets thrown over bushes to make ‘ghosts’. Now there’s electric lights hanging from windows. Animatronic fake spiders that go up and down on the sides of houses following its track rope. And then there are also many other ponies out and about, the vast majority of which all have their own costumes on as well.

Even the adults.

Gearing looks around before looking at the eldest filly. “Sooo… What do we do?”

The older filly bumps him sideways as she points to the right. “Just follow us, and do what we do, and you’ll be swimming in candy by the end of the night!”

“Uh… okay.” Gearing replies and gives yet another unconvincing smile.

The older filly turns and the foalish crowd starts following her, with Gearing bringing up the rear. But, the smaller filly walks over to him and starts walking next to him as they are walking down the street. “Hey, Gearing…?”

Gearing looks over at her and tilts his head. “Yeah?”

She leans closer to him, causing him to do the same. “Soooooo… you’re mom asked me to remind you of something.”

Gearing frowns before he asks, “What?”

She looks at him and scrunches up her mouth as she seems confused about what she's about to say, but is going to repeat it anyway because of how important it seemed to be. “She said to tell you that noponies going to hurt you. So to keep that in mind. She said some stuff about it being scary, but not to worry about anyone trying to hurt you.” She shrugs as she says, “I don’t know why. I mean, yeah, it’s scary sometimes with ponies jumping out or yelling or dressed up in scary costumes… But even if someone yells at you that they are going to gobble you up, it’s just a joke…”

Gearing stares at her for a few moments and asks, “A joke?”

“Yeah, your mom wanted me to keep reminding you not to be scared. That noponies going to hurt you. That it’s all a big joke tonight. That that’s what Nightmare Night is all about. Having fun. And no ones going to be mean to you.”

Gearing frowns as he looks around at some other ponies. But then stares at a group of traveling adults that none of them are in costume. “I hope not…”

She leans over and gives him a sideways hug with a foreleg. “Don’t worry! We’ll be fine, I promise!”

Gearing smirks and isn’t sure, but still leans into the affection anyway. And, a moment later the two scurry to catch up with the rest of their little herd.

The older filly leads the way, to the first house she’s targeting and starts motion for the others to go on ahead. “Mrs. Butterscotch always has some of the best candy around. She used to make it herself, but now she just buys the prepackaged stuff… But, because of that, she gives out extra.” The group huddle up by the door as the eldest filly brings up the rear. And once they are all up there the unicorn’s horn glows and makes the door knock. Then, in unison, all of the foals, except Gearing, call out. “Nightmare night! What a fright! Give us something sweet to bite!” As sweetly as they can.

A moment later the wooden door of the old house opens up and an elderly mare steps onto the front door stoop. She looks them over through her thick glasses and grins. “My, look at you children! So creative costumes this year!” Her horn glows and a parade of little baggies comes out, a clear plastic wrapped around a bundle of various candies and tied closed with a colorful ribbon. And, one by one she drops them into the bags and containers at the door. The others, following strict Nightmare Night unspoken protocol, give her a few smiles and words of thanks, before quickly getting out of the way and moving on off the stoop so others in line can get theirs. When Gearing gets his turn, after the small filly, he looks up at the mare. He gives her a crooked smile and says softly, “Nightmare night... What a fright... Give us something sweet to bite…?”

She looks him over and her eyes sparkle as she leans in closer. “My! What a costume! It looks like you walked out of the television!”

Gearing looks at her, then gives a more warm smiles as he says, “Thank you, my momma made it for me.”

She floats a plastic pouch of candy to him, and he stares at it for a moment before sheepishly opening his bag, and she puts it inside. As he’s leaning in to look at the contents of his bag, She reaches out a shaky hoof, and gently starts rustling his mane through his costume. He flinches at first, but then slowly looks up at her. Seeing his reaction, her own eyes go wide in recognition before she quickly pulls her hoof back. “I’m sorry, you’re the skittish sort aren’t you? Well it’s very brave of you to be out and about tonight. Make sure to tell your momma I said she did a great job on the costume! Looks like a professional did it!”

Gearing stares at her for a few moments as he recomposes himself. “Thank you. But. My momma is a professional seamstress.” He lifts a foreleg and shows the leg covering before he says, “She normally makes dresses and such. But this year she made me a costume so I could go out.”

The older mare works her mouth a bit before she asks, “Is that so?” Gearing nods. She leans a bit closer before she asks, “Does she make wedding dresses?”

Gearing looks up at her for a moment before smiling and nodding. “Yes. She makes all kinds of clothes. Suits. Dresses. Wedding dresses. These wrappy thingies that look like bed sheets but get wrapped around a pony to make clothes… I dunno it’s name though.”

The unicorn mare turns, grabs a piece of mail off the counter near by, and floats a pen out of her pocket. “Can I get your mother’s information? My daughter’s planning on getting married but she can’t find a dress to fit her right that looks good.” Gearing looks at her, grabs the pen out of her magical field, then quickly starts scribbling with the pen in his mouth onto the piece of mail as the older mare holds it with her magical field. “Here you go. That’s our mailing address. She normally takes orders through a couple consignment shops, but she does direct orders too.” He gives her back the pen as he smiles. “Her name’s Heartly.”

The older mare thanks him and stows the envelope after looking at it. “Thank you! I’ll send out a letter first thing in the morning. I know it’ll take a while to make so hopefully she can get it done by the wedding in little over a year.”

Gearing waves a hoof as he says, “Once every thing’s decided, and she starts working, it normally doesn’t take long for her to finish a piece. The longest I’ve seen her take on something was two weeks, and that was because the bride started panic eating and gained so much weight my mom had to let it out a bit.”

The older mare starts laughing loudly. “Well, that’s certainly something.” She waves at him and is about to close the door, but sees more children coming up the walkway. “Thank you again. I’ll stop talking your ear off so you can get back to trying to fill that bag of yours.”

Gearing smiles and waves at her as he quickly trots off to join the others from his candy foraging herd.

As he’s walking up to the group that had been standing there watching him, the older filly asks, “What was that all about?”

Gearing shrugs and waves back towards the door stoop where other foals are currently in the process of getting their allotment of candy. “She liked my costume and asked for my mom’s information so she can have my mom make something for her daughter.”

The colt giggles and waves his bucket around. “Your mom should have given you some business cards or something… With a costume that good you’re going to have that happen a looooot.”

They all giggle, with Gearing starting to feel a bit selfconcious about it, but then the oldest filly turns and leads them on to houses further down the street.

After a couple houses following the same kind of Nightmare Night ritual for candy, they come to a house that’s heavily decorated with various ominous things. Signs saying ‘Beware’ and ‘dragon’s den ahead’. And there’s even an over-sized grill off to the side of the door with a sign next to it that looks like it came from a restaurant that says “Roast Rogers Pony Pit”. The kids carefully walk up to the door, bunch up, then knock on the door as the chant their chorus, “Nightmare night! What a fright! Give us something sweet to bite!”

Instantly the door gets thrown open and a booming voice yells, “More ponies for the barbecue! Yes! They’re young too! Tender and delicious!”

The large reptilian head that pokes out has thick scales all over it, with a slimy substance dripping from its teeth. The orange eyes seem to glow even compared to the bright red scales that encompass the whole head. Multiple horns stick out at various angles on the top and sides of the head threatening to skewer anyone that gets too close.

The kids jump in the air as they scream, with the colt in the Sir Cumfrence costume fowling the air with a large questionable fart, before they all stampede off and away from the door. Even the oldest filly went running and screaming in terror.

All except Gearing

He stands there, locked in position, staring up at the over-sized reptilian head.

The head looks out, at the ponies hiding behind the large tree out front, and starts laughing. It slowly gets lifted and a middle aged looking stallion looks out at them with a more than please expression on his face. “Hehehehe, Got’em! Works every time!” But, then he slowly lowers his head, and sees Gearing standing there, not moving an inch.

The two stare at each other for a few moments before the stallion asks, “You not scared?”

“Nope.”

“Not even a little bit?”

“Nope.”

“But… it’s a dragon… Aren’t you afraid of dragons?”

Gearing tilts his head. “Why would I be? Dragons have never done anything to me?”

The stallion stares at him for a few moments before his jaw drops. “Kid… you’re something else…”

Gearing stares at him a bit longer, before lifting the bag. As he’s maintaining hard eye contact he asks, “Uhhh… Nightmare night? What a fright. Give us something sweet to bite?”

The stallion laughs, “Well, you already called bluff on my trick, so have some treats!” He waves to the others hiding behind the tree. “You kids too. Come on. As thanks for the laugh!”

The others look over, and after a moments hesitation they scamper over to get their treats. Lead by the Grog filly who’s desperate to put some more weight into her saddlebags. Which he dutifully doles out a good portion for each of them as he has obviously have been enjoying the night.

As Gearing is walking away, he ends up in the center of the crowd of the foals as they chatter about how brave and fearless he seems. And how he really did look like a hero standing there, staring down a big dragon, and not even flinching.

Gearing feels a bit uncomfortable about the attention, but can’t help but smile. He shrugs as he says, “Well, it was just a mask. But even if not it’s just a big ole dragon. Nothing to worry too much about.”

To this the other’s giggle at how silly he’s being. And their excitement just keeps increasing as the older filly leads them up to the next house.

They line up, as usual, and perform the same ritual of knocking and calling out, “Nightmare night! What a fright! Give us something sweet to bite!”

A sweet mare’s voice calls back from the inside. “Coooomiiiiinngg. I’m coming, don’t leave!” And a few moments later the door opens and a dark pelted mare with a dark purple mane opens the door and smiles warmly at them as she hovers a basket of candy in front of herself with her levitation magic.

Before she can say anything, at all, Gearing jumps in the air, flapping his wings, right out of his suit, and all of his limbs, as he screams out, “It’s Nightmare Moon! Run aaawaaaayyyyyy!!!” He turns around, hits the ground and is already running before he actually touches down. He’s flapping his wings as he runs, trying to make himself run faster as he screams, “She’s back to finish the job and eat our souls! Run awwaayyyyy!” And he runs down the sidewalk, up the street, and slides under a wagon parked on the side of the rode.

All of the other foals startle at the sudden screaming, but then turn and watch him run away at an impressive pace. They stare. In unison. Saying nothing for a while.

The young mare at the doorway gives a sheepish smile as she says, “Oh dear… I seem to have frightened him off…” She puts a hoof to her cheek as she says, “I don’t know if I should take it as an insult or a compliment that he thinks I look like the princess…”

The colt in the Sir Cumfrence costume stares down the rode, at the wagon he saw Gearing dive under, and rolls his eyes. “So much for being a fearless hero… He’s scared of the princess…”

“That’s kinda weird, isn’t it?” asks the young colt in the batpony costume.

The little Fili-Second looks up at the mare and gives a sheepish smile as she says, “Please forgive him… This is his first year out and he’s kinda… not good… around others…”

The mare looks down at her and lets out a sigh. “Oh, I see… Well, would you do me a favor?” She floats out little cloth bags stuffed with candy and drops them into their respective bags. She holds out an extra one and motions towards where Gearing had run. “Could you give him this for me? I feel bad I scared him and he shouldn’t miss out because of that.”

The little filly nods and takes it, balancing it on her head as she grins at her. Then they all thank her and make their way back down the street. With the rest of them staying at the end of the next house while the older filly and youngest filly goes and to fetch Gearing. On the way back the younger filly smiles as she says, “See… Scary… but not mean.” She flicks her snout and the bag of candy pops over for Gearing to catch.

But instead of grabbing it he opens his bag and lets it land in there instead.”I guess… Sorry to run off like that…”

The little filly shakes her head. “It’s okay. Just don’t run off too far even if you get scared. Don’t want anyone to get hurt.” Gearing simply nods and continues on with the group as they continue down the road, going house to house, and even stopping at a few corners where some ponies have set up candy distribution points themselves.

About half an hour after Gearing’s run in with ‘Nightmare Moon’ Gearing keeps looking at an old tree that’s further up the road. A large, thick, walnut tree that is growing not far from the walkway. And he can’t help looking around as he notices the cloud movements. And all of it is making the spot between his shoulders bothered.

After one of the houses that’s only a couple away from the one with the big tree in front of it, Gearing stands at the sidewalk and looks at the others, “Hey ummm… I think a storm’s coming in.”

They look at him, and look up. And the older filly holds a hoof out to the side as she asks, “Why? Did you feel a drop or something?”

Gearing shakes his head and looks up. “No. But the clouds…”

The youngest filly looks at the older one and narrows her eyes at her. “Didja forget, sis?” She rolls her eyes and waves a hoof at Gearing. “He’s a pegasus… They are like super duper sensitive about that stuff.”

The older filly nods and looks at Gearing as she asks, “You think we’re going to have a big storm come through? Lotta rain or something?”

Gearing shrugs. “I don’t know about a lot of rain, but there’s definitely going to be some. And the wind’s going to be picking up… and soon too.”

She nods as she looks around. “Okay, well, we’ll go down to the end of the block, then turn around and start going back the other way on the other side of the road. I don’t want to be out in a rain storm. And if we come back soaked and get sick from it, our mom’s will have my hide…”

Gearing nods and starts looking up more often as they are traveling down the road and going down the rest of the houses. They keep the same enthusiasm as they are traveling down the road despite the warnings and potentially having their night cut short by an incoming rainstorm. Even when the wind starts picking up and a slight chill starts cutting through their fabric and fur every now and then. Gearing’s pace has gotten slower, being a couple paces behind the rest of the group, as they have spread out a bit more as they are going. The youngest filly is in the back of the herd, just a few paces in front of Gearing and a couple paces behind the next couple. As she’s busy looking in her bulging bag, and talking to herself about what she wants to eat first, Gearing keeps looking up more. His ears twitch and he looks at the large walnut tree as they are starting to pass it, but his pace slows down further. He fells the wind kicking up again, and the more wind there is, the more there is something coming from the tree that Gearing just doesn’t like. But he can’t put a pinion on it.

And then a loud crack echos out of the tree, like a small explosion, as bark on the far side of the tree flies away from the wood at high speed. And as scary as that would be, that’s nothing for what makes Gearing’s eyes go to their widest. The large tree starts falling over, and it’s moving a lot quicker than what he’d think given the holotapes he’s seen of lumberjacks. And that’s when he realizes that the tree has already been falling, or trying to, the wind just managed to give it enough of a nudge to break loose the last bits that were holding it up. And thus the equilibrium was shattered, along with the bark, and the tree starts falling out into the road. The noise of the bark shattering drew some attention, but not nearly as much as Gearing’s panicked scream.

Everyone within ear shot looks over, and the horrific realization dawns on everyone who has line of sight to what is happening.

Anyone even remotely close to the tree starts running away as quickly as they can to avoid the wide canopy coming down. Many others even duck down behind random things to try and get some kind of cover from any debris that is going to get thrown up after the collision. And more than a few squeeze their eyes, and pointedly avoid looking, because there’s nothing they can do, and they don’t want to witness what’s about to happen.

Because the youngest filly of the group had just stepped in line with the tree, when it finally gave up it’s fight with gravity, and was looking in her bag. So as the tree’s falling on her, she’s barely had enough time to even look up to see what’s going on, let alone time enough to process the danger and take action.

But Gearing had seen enough, and is rather jumpy by nature, so he runs towards the massive shadow under the tree as quickly as he can, flapping his wings to give him that extra boost as he bounds the few feet to reach her. But, as he’s running towards her, he realizes he’s not going to be able to simply push her out of the way. His mind races through the mechanics of the tree, it’s angle of fall, and the additional limbs creating the canopy. And every thing he thinks of tells him he’s not going to be able to even throw her away from the falling tree far enough that she won’t get hurt. He already knows he’s not fast enough to grab her and run with her. But with even his strength not being an option to chuck her clear, he can’t think of anything he can do to get her clear of the impact.

So he goes with plan ‘C’: Prevent the tree from falling on her.

He jumps next to her, stands up on his hind legs, and screams out, “Get down!” as he raises his forelegs up above himself and stands as upright as he possibly can with his hooves outstretched.

As the tree is about to fall on them, and the second he stands up, this is the image everyone sees before they lose sight of the pair under the tree and its massive canopy.

Screams of horror go out into the night so loud that they even drown out the thunderous crashing sound of the tree as the canopy makes contact in the road and actually crushes a wagon that had been parked on the side of the street on the far side.

The rest of Gearing’s Nightmare Night group had run away from the tree at high speed, screaming the whole way, but they quickly come back as the older filly screams, “Sis!”

A large group of ponies crowd around the tree, with many adults running over around to where the sidewalk is. A couple of the adults go around checking on each of the kids they can find, and try to make a headcount for who’s around verses how many they thought they saw just a few moments ago.

A mare across the street, standing on the stoop of her porch, screams into her phone calling for rescue personnel because a huge tree just fell on a group of kids.

A large stallion bounds down the street and jumps over the fence as he comes to a skidding halt. He starts checking around the canopy as he’s calling out. “Hello?! Is anyone there? Call out if you need help!” All the while hacking at tree branches and hewing them from the tree with his big axe as he looks around on the road for anyone caught in the fall.

But then one of the adults that had made it around the huge canopy of leaves gets to the sidewalk and has a grimace on his face as he walks up to where the tree trunk is and hopes that he’s not going to find something that’s going to put him in therapy for the rest of his life.

Instead he finds an even more incomprehensible image.

Gearing, standing there, on his hind legs and completely upright, with his forehooves raised above himself. Like a pillar. Completely unyielding. And supporting the entire tree trunk with just his own strength and body. Various places on him have become visible as he has ripped out of his costume. The costume wast’ meant to be worn in this particular position. But, beyond that, several of his cogs, plates, and other pieces have ripped clean through the fabric and their brassy shine is in full view, poking out of his costume. More than a couple of which show signs of cracks or bends. Gearing stands there, still looking up at the tree, as he ticks and clicks and his lip quivers.

The stallion recoils for a moment, before he looks down and sees the little filly Fily-Second, curled up in as tight of a ball as she can at Gearing hooves. He quickly reaches in, grabs the filly and yanks here out from under the trunk as he yells out with a scream that is both joyous but sad and on the verge of choking as he can’t believe their luck. “I got her! She’s okay!” He hops away from the tree, holding her up like a prized holy relic for everyone else to see.

The others run over, and another stallion looks under the trunk, sees Gearing standing there in his position, and smiles. The stallion looks over, and sees the car wagon, and then back at Gearing. As the other stallion is reuniting the youngest filly with the rest of the group, and a few others that want to check her to make sure she’s actually okay, the stallion next to the trunk calls out to Gearing. “Hey, sport. You did good. That was very brave of you. But you can come out from under there now.”

Gearing ticks and clicks a few times before he groans, “I- I can’t”

The stallion waves over to the side towards the wagon in the road. “The wagon’s supporting the weight. You’re lucky. So go ahead and come out.”

“N- No. I can’t,” Gearing replies.

“Why not?” the stallion asks as he looks Gearing over. “Stuck?”

“Y- yeah… it’s … it’s so heavy. I can’t move. It’s too heavy.”

The stallion frowns as he narrows his eyes. “Kid… I know your dressed like a super hero or whatever. But you are not holding that tree up. Trust me, the wagon over there has enough of the weight. You can come out now.”

The little filly comes over next to the stallion and looks at Gearing. She jumps up and down a few times as she says, “It’s okay, Gearing. Come on out. I’m okay. I’m over here! You can drop it now.”

He looks over at her, then looks around. “I’m stuck.”

She tilts her head as she asks, “Stuck? How?”

“It’s heavy… My hooves are stuck in the wood…” Gearing moans.

She looks around, then stands up and starts making a motion with both of her forehooves. “Then throw it… like hiya! Just throw it to the side. That should work, right?”

Gearing looks at her and starts thinking things through. Then he looks up at the stallion and says, “Move please.”

The stallion raises an eyebrow as he asks, “Move? What?”

“Move please, it’s heavy, and I’d like to put it down now.”

“What are you-”

Quickly the little filly bucks the stallion in the foreleg as she scowls back at him over her shoulder. “He said ‘move’! So move it, mister!”

The stallion yelps, and jumps back and away shaking his foreleg from where the little filly had kicked him. And she had kicked him hard. But before he can even say anything to her, a true sight to behold takes place next to them.

Gearing stretching and folding over forwards. He tilts with the trunk, and makes the motion like he is trying to throw it, but instead he ends up dropping it right in front of him. And, in the process, his hooves come out of the deep impressions they had made into the hard wood. Gearing gets smacked by a few of the lower branches, but he’s not much worse for wear. If you don’t think about his costume. Which he’s really trying not to.

And, to the stallion’s great horror, the trunk does in fact fall all the way to the ground. Almost flat to the concrete. And the wagon that he had thought had been supporting the tree’s entire weight gets crushed more as all of the remaining weight is offloaded onto it.

Gearing sits down, wobbling, as he stares at the tree. After a few moments of trying to process everything, he turns his head and looks up at the stallion. He gives him a beaming smile as he says, “I- I did it… It worked…”

The little filly jumps around and waves her forehooves as she yells, “Sis! Come quick! We need your boxy things!”

The older filly runs over and looks Gearing over, with his costume in absolute tatters, and she starts to pale. She leans back, opens up the metal box on one side, and shows the inside to her little sister. The completely empty insides. “I don’t have any medical supplies, the boxes are just for show. They’re empty! I wasn’t allowed to have the contents. They only let me have the boxes because they were already empty! It doesn’t matter if I wanna be a nurse when I grow up, they ‘don’t want to waste supplies’!” She kicks the ground and scowls. “I could really use them here too! Wait till I get home, they’re getting such a letter!”

A mare in a Ministry of Peace uniform pushes her way through the crowd, being directed by one pony or another until she comes over and finds the young filly and Gearing. She checks the young filly over, and doesn’t find anything too serious. But she gives her a potion, just in case, and when the little filly points over to Gearing, she jumps over and starts checking him over next. But, she’s more than a little confused by him.

She gently leans down as she asks, “Are you okay, little one? Do you hurt anywhere?” The shredded costume doesn’t escape her notice for a millisecond.

Gearing looks up at her and frowns as he says, “I hurt everywhere. The tree fell on me and my friend. My legs and hooves really really hurt… especially my shoulders…”

She smiles at him and rubs his head before she nods. “Here. Drink this. This’ll have you feeling better in no time.” She doesn’t see any blood anywhere. And he’s obviously conscious. So she’s pretty sure it’s more shock than any physical trauma. But, if it’ll help his mental state from his near death experience, she figures it’s more than justified in using a potion. She pops the top on the potion, and holds it to his mouth.

He carefully drinks it as its offered. But stops and licks his lips as he smiles. “Mmmm! Minty!” He grabs the bottle and sits there slowly drink it with small steady sips.

Which the nurse finds to be a bit peculiar. Then something even more strange happens. As she’s watching, she sees several points of the shiny metal poking out of his costume actually pull back inside. Her eyes slowly open wide in horror as a thought crosses her mind. She gently reaches out, and starts trying to feel his shoulders with a hoof. But, she’s left even more confused as all she feels is his hard metal. But she’s certain that she saw his body react to the potion, which means he did have an injury of some kind. She gently starts running a hoof over his sides and shoulders before she asks him to stand up. Which he does. She starts moving her own body, striking poses, and asking him to do the same, as she tests his mobility. Which seems to be okay. But, her gut still bothers her. She pulls out another potion and hands it to him, and he readily accepts it and sits down as he starts drinking it again. And this time, as she’s watching, she sees his shoulder suddenly, and unnaturally, move on its own.

And that’s the last straw for her.

She reaches out with a hoof and gently rubs his cheek. “Sweetie. I think you need to go to the hospital. Where’s your momma?”

Gearing frowns and lowers the bottle as he sighs. “The hospital? Again? Last time I went there I was stuck there forevveerrrr…”

The older filly walks up and waves at the nurse. “I know his mom. I’ll take him back. I’m pretty sure were done for the night anyway… right, guys?” She looks back at the others and they are huddled tightly together as they stare with eyes wide and full of fright. And they quickly nod in agreement as despite the promise of candy, the threat of trees trying to kill them is all too apparent.

The nurse looks at Gearing and asks, “Can you make it? Or do you need an ambulance? Should I call an ambulance for you? . . . I think I should call an ambulance…”

Gearing shakes his head as he gets up. “No. No thank you. I can make it back on my own. Thank you though!” He gives her the empty bottles back and walks over to the group of children. As they all turn and walk away back towards where their parents’ party is, Gearing mutters, “Stupid tree…” He looks at the little filly and comments, “You were right. It wasn’t the ponies I had to watch out for. It was the stupid trees!”

The nurse looks over, and sees the flabbergasted stallion still staring at the flattened wagon, and walks a bit closer. “Sir? Are you okay?”

The stallion slowly rotates his neck to look at her, a bit unnaturally at that, before he says, “I think I just met the real Radiance, and they’re a fucking foal!”

On the way back to the party, the others slowly start warming up and chatting. And after only a block they’re back to their energetic attitudes as they talk about what had happens. Along the way the batpony costumed colt tells Gearing that he should have dressed up as the Saddle Rager since he’s basically a real life version of them anyway with how strong and tough he must be. This starts a long debate that lasts all the way back to the party.

Although, once taken back, and the word spreads about what had happened, Gearing is instantly spirited off to the nearest clinic by Heartly. Who grabs him, holds him close, and flies off far faster than anyone at the party thought she was even capable of flying. And though the trip is annoying, and long by Gearing’s account, it’s a necessary one. But, unlike what he had feared, his stay is limited to a few hours of outpatient treatment. A fact that his very worried, but very proud, mother is just as happy about as he is. Though, as he’s being treated, he gives the candy he’d collected to the nurses so they can share it with the other kids that are having their nights ruined. He’d been wondering what to do with it as he’d gathered it, and as he’d seen a few other foals in bad ways here, he figures it’s as good of a use of it as any. Which earns him rounds of admiration from the staff, and even more so when they find out the whole story about how he ended up that way.

And despite everything he’d been worried about, he never once was chided for damaging his costume. And in fact, when he brings it up, she lightens the mood by reminding him that heroes go through a lot of costumes because of damage. It’s a hazard of being a hero and saving lives. And then she almost nuzzles her little hero into oblivion.

Footnote: This story was written for Halloween 2023, but things transpired to push it back even further. [It was original planned as far back as 2019, but *waves vaguely at the world around us*]

Author's Note

Timeline wise this takes place less than a year after the party at Pine Garland’s, so roughly 2 years after ‘the incident’. The series of events in this story is one of the ones that helped spur our clockwork repair pony on to other bigger and better things. And these ponies in particular helped pull him out of his agoraphobic shell. I know it’s a weird story to be told during Nightmare Night, but, it’s done intentionally. Because even the most relaxed of days can present an opportunity for great change. And this was one of them for him.

For those that still don't understand: This is the catalyst that made Gearing realize he wasn’t nearly as weak, defenseless, and helpless as he’d thought he was after “the incident”.

Currently [as of this writing] there are 88 chapters released. And ‘the incident’ will be covered in future chapters. The revelation for what’d happened to him as a foal is coming, but, I don’t know the exact chapter number it takes place in. I already have the path laid out. So, we’re getting there.

Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed it.