Author's Note

Surprise! As always, a little shorter than I'd like, but c'est comme ça. Uh, I'm still in the weeds of 'working' brain, so I ain't got much else to write.

!

Finding Some Sense

Pastel let out a low whistle, his eyes dancing over the glinting metal arrayed on the temporary workspace that was his tailgate.

"How'd you make the anvil?" he asked Shadow, poking the heavy hunk of metal with his hoof.

"With my hammer," he chuckled, shaking his head. "How d'ya think such a working would be done, colt," he half asked, the tenor of his voice still tempting Pastel to double-take.

"Well, I don't know, casting maybe?" he replied, picking up the long-handled tongs in one hoof and the needle-nosed pliers in the other. "These are so delicate Shadow, are you sure that a muscle-bound lump of meat like you made them?"

"Well, it was either me or you, and, well…"

He purposefully trailed off, smirking at Pastel and gesturing at his forelegs.

"Har Har Shadow," Pastel grinned back, gently poking one of the burly stallion's rippling biceps with the tongs. "Just 'cause you're built like a tank doesn't mean every metalworker needs to be."

Pastel was distracted looking over his new toolset, but he still noted the long silence. Looking over at Shadow, he saw the stallion looking at him with pity.

"How do you know what a tank is, colt," he gently asked.

Pastel had to almost physically restrain himself from a facehoof. He'd forgotten that most ponies nowadays wouldn't know about Griffon char d’assaut, unless they were frontline fighters. Luckily he hadn't really gone into what all the unicorns had 'done' to him, so this would be an easy cover-up.

"I was, uhm, sent North before the princess returned," he said, letting the smithing pony draw his own conclusions from the statement.

They stood in awkward silence for a little before Shadow suddenly grabbed him around the barrel and gave him a gentle squeeze. Before Pastel could say anything, Shadow let go and cleared his throat.

"So, about payment," he said roughly, nodding at the spread canvas holding just about any starting pony would need to get started working with metal on a small scale. "I’ll keep it simple; you'll apprentice with me for twenty hours and give me a discount on any work I need ya doing for me. Within reason."

"That, uh, sounds more than reasonable," Pastel said, giving a small sniff before offering his hoof out to shake. “What sort of things would you want, though? So I can know what kinds of things to practice.”

They spoke for a while longer, settling out what items and simple machines Shadow could want before going on to figuring out a schedule for his apprenticeship.

A few minutes after the smith left, Pastel felt a body settle beside him out of the air. “Wow, those’re tiny.”

“I’m probably going to have to make my own screws and stuff,” he said to Roxie, replacing the tools he’d been getting used to holding in the canvas. “I wonder if Shadow has a lathe hidden away somewhere…”

“Lathe?”

“Yeah,” Pastel said lightly, twisting a couple of the tools so that they sat perfectly in their pockets. “It’s like… Have you ever seen a potter’s wheel?”

“I’ve seen one being used,” she said with a nod.

“Well, it’s kind of the same thought, but you put it upright instead of the wheel being flat. Then you pin some material between it and another piece that holds it as it spins. While it’s spinning, you use some carving or sanding tools to take away some of the material, and that shapes what you’re carving. I’d probably start with a file or something.”

“Why not just use nails?” she deadpanned.

“They don’t hold as well,” he shrugged. “I know it sounds like a lot, but I can probably make one every five seconds or so when I get some practice in. More, I guess, I would have to get them on and off of the lathe.”

“What are you even going to make with them?” she laughed, shaking her head lightly.

“Everything!” Pastel proclaimed with a wide grin.

***** ***** ***** ***** *****

He started small, of course, and mostly practiced with wood until he figured out what tools were necessary for what actions. Most of his apprenticeship with Shadow was actually him figuring out how to build his own tools. At the end of his twenty hours, he’d made himself a drill, a tap and die set for threading screws, and a simple lathe of his own.

Getting used to keeping the machine spinning consistently was a chore, but soon enough, he built up the muscle memory to keep it moving smoothly.

The first thing he built, the true first item made entirely by his hooves, was a small chest. It was just wide enough to hold four rolls of scrolls and just long enough to keep the standardized pieces of paper. It was thick enough to also hold his journal, after a slight resizing.

Using some of his carving tools, he made a hollow in the bottom of his wagon bed before setting the box into the space with some glue. He sighed at the bottom ledge of the box poking out, but he couldn't place it flush without making the box impossible to open.

Frowning in thought, he eventually smacked his face before altering the box's lid to open like a trapdoor. With another addition, he had a tiny padlock that latched up into the cover so that it wasn't hanging beneath the wagon. He greased the hinges so there was no chance of them glinting any light, and he had a secret place to keep his journals.

His second item was the promised timer, the work freely gifted to Zucchini and installed in his wagon. After showing the baker how to stopper the drain and giving him differently drilled stoppers to alter the time kept, he painted in the different time measurements and even added a place for a candle to better see inside the bottom barrel.

Snacking on the cookies he'd been given as a tip, he then started on his third project, a set of carefully carved and decorated plates treated with beeswax. He'd gifted the four pieces to Cherry Charm, who'd sworn never to use them and had them carefully placed within the decorations inside her wagon.

He stopped making note after the fourth item turned out to be wagon parts, then the fifth, and the sixth, and...

Well, a few of the following pieces were less about keepsakes and more about having backups of necessary parts and, in one case, replacing a broken piece entirely.

He quickly found himself bogged down with orders for items and soon found his wagon lacking for carrying his payments. Food was a popular one, as were blankets and quilts, but most of what he collected were debts, usually without a monetary value. Things like promises of raw materials, herbs once they were properly dried, even a custom order from Shadow after quickly carving a series of spokes for his wheels.

With the flurry of activity and just working and walking, Pastel found himself quickly surrounded by falling leaves and frosty mornings. The caravan stopped by a couple of villages to trade and stock up on items, and Pastel found himself desperately wishing for a pot of nice, hot, sweet Griffonstonion coffee.

He wasn't even able to get his hooves on any of the teas he was used to finding in any of the markets of his own time. What he was able to find was restricted to the simple blends from Shire Lanka, and even those were out of reach for him, not physically but monetarily.

Instead, he was limited to either boiling water for tisane or weak beers local to each torn they stopped by. He even found himself roasting and using dandelion roots as a coffee substitute, one, unfortunately, lacking in caffeine.

"I don't see how you can stomach drinking that stuff," Roxie had told him after she'd finished gargling water and chewing on some blanched dandelion greens Pastel had been making for dinner.

"It's nostalgic," he said with a smirk, taking another sip before pushing over a candyleaf tisane he'd already prepared for her. "Staying over for supper again?"

She took the wooden cup by its large handle, her cheeks darkening slightly as she nodded.

"I'm glad I gathered enough," Pastel joked, setting his own mug down and continuing to chop the roots he was preparing to fry for dinner. "Surely my cooking isn't that much better than your mom's is, though? She's been doing it for a lot longer than I have."

"Not better," she smirked, "but different. Nopony around here uses herbs and plants the way you do." She glanced down at her tea before looking back at him. "Almost like the deer."

Pastel glanced at her, his time back at Haydale flashing through his head.

After a moment, he nodded. "The old ways always have something to teach, even if it's just how not to do things."

"Like how not to poison yourself with weird mushrooms," she said with a chuckle.

Pastel nodded slowly, smiling for a moment before it slipped from his lips. "But also culture," he murmured, his knife coming to a stop as he said, "things like certain magics being less than others. Certain knowledge being forbidden, merely because ponies don't understand it."

After a few moments of silence, he continued chopping the veggies.

Later, after the leftover food had been given away and the dishes scoured, Pastel sat on the gate of his wagon, watching the sunlight scatter over the tops of the blazing leaves of the forest.

Beside him, Roxie was sipping a bit of after-dinner brandy Pastel had been able to convince an alchemist to make him. His small glass, the second and last one he owned, was already polished off and sitting inside the wagon behind him.

She let out a quiet sigh and gently leaned against him, an action that he was getting used to slowly. Fluttershy had often copied the actions, after all. Surely this was just one of those pegasus friendship things.

With another small sigh, she gently rubbed her snout into his shoulder, nuzzling just beneath his neck, spreading warmth and the sweet scent of the alcohol.

"I hope this never ends," she whispered before leaning more fully against Pastel.

Horse-apples, he thought.

***** ***** ***** ***** *****

Dusk paused in his pacing (circling more like) inside of his wagon as a hoof gently tapped on the wood of the bed.

"Honey?"

Mentally groaning, as well as a few other actions he didn't want Cherry to hear, he pushed his head out between the flaps of canvas and smiled at her. "Yes, Cherry?" he asked, as lightly as his tensed neck would let him.

She looked up at him for a moment, and he felt the sweat start to form and drip.

"Honey," she said reproachfully.

He let out a harsh breath and dropped the rictus grin, along with his head. "Hi Cherry," he murmured, stepping back and holding the flap open for her.

She stepped up into his wagon and took a seat near the door. Pastel maneuvered himself to the other side of the bed, looking at the floor between them. "Brandy?" he asked, pulling out the same two glasses used earlier that night.

She opened her mouth, sniffed a bit, then nodded. "Just a little, please."

He poured the lightly golden fluid into the glasses, giving them both a jigger of the drink before stashing the bottle away again. Keeping in mind he'd already had a drink, he took a small sip before nodding at Cherry.

"Sugar noticed," he guessed.

Cherry nodded, taking a mouthful of the drink and shivering. "She sure did," she said. "What happened? You two have been happy as can be the last month and a half, once she got to know you."

Dusk sighed and tossed back the rest of his drink. "I realized she liked me as more than a friend," he murmured, rolling the empty glass between his hooves.

"She sure does," Cherry murmured back, taking another sip before breathing in. "Why's that a problem, colt?"

Dusk chuckled, shaking his head. "It's one of those things I won't talk about," he admitted, looking up into her gaze. "Let's just say that, even if I were looking for another pony, it wouldn't work out for me. Or them."

Cherry glanced up at him, rolling her half swallow around the glass before setting it aside.

"That means you're into, what, deer? Griffins?"

Pastel couldn't help the clear laugh that was pulled from him. "I mean, I'm not unattracted to any of those, or ponies," he said, wiping at his right eye to get the tear away from fur before the salt could crystallize. "That's not the barrier."

"Then what is, Pastel?" asked the mare, sighing and tapping the bed of wood between them. "You know my Roxie's a good mare, and we both know you like her. What could possibly be stopping you?"

"Time," he said before flinching.

"What time?" she asked, gesturing to him with a hoof. "Are you saying a couple of months isn't long enough? I'm not asking you to marry her for Celestia's sake, just—"

"Not," Pastel said, setting a hoof down beside hers with a heavy thump. "Not the time we've shared. Cherry, Roxie is my best friend in camp, over everypony else. It's nothing to do with her, just..."

He sighed, using his hooves to rub his temples.

"Look, you know I have some earth pony blood, right?" When she nodded, he continued, "What happens when I outlive her? Everypony knows earth ponies live longer; they're just plain hardier," he argued, gesturing at his stocky barrel. "What happens when she dies years, cent—, decades before I do?"

Cherry watched him carefully as he panted, his short rant taking more air than he felt possible.

"Then you keep loving her, colt," she said with a tilt of her head. "You think that death stops things like love? You think Shadow loves you any less for his dead son?

"Yes, Pastel," she said when his head whipped up, and she leaned forward to place a hoof on his chest, "others have lost. To the unicorns, to monsters, to time. Do you think we love those who are lost any less than we love those right across from us still?"

His chest felt hollow, sucking, and he placed his hooves on her shoulders as he felt his balance, his eyesight shifting.

"But it hurts," he whispered, dipping his head as thoughts of his lost friends danced through his head. The main five, Spike, Celestia and Luna, Cadance and Shining Armor, Starlight and Trixie and Sunburst, all of his students and teachers and every being he had ever known and called friend and brother and sister.

"Does that make the love any less worth it?" Cherry asked softly, and Pastel couldn't help but break then, tears streaming down his face as he gently grabbed the mare, pulled her into his chest, and squeezed her close as her legs wrapped around him.

***** ***** ***** ***** *****

Rock Sugar sniffed, staring at herself in the tiny steel mirror her mother had gifted her for a birthday after she'd complained how hard it was to braid her hair, not only with hooves but blindly as well.

She played with the braid, tugging her hair this way and that as she tried to find something more alluring than the simple pattern she kept it in most days.

She picked up a hair clip with some dyed wood stylized as a flower, testing it before putting it back down. A silver one was tried before she grabbed one of her mom's ribbons and pulled her hair into a bun behind her ears.

With a mild curse, she threw the material at the reflection and buried her muzzle into her forelegs on the table, trying her best to keep tears from flowing.

She felt a large hoof gently smooth over her back. She smirked a bit, turning into the leg and hugging her dad's barrel as he pulled her deeper into an embrace.

They were there for a minute before there was a familiar knocking on the wagon. "Hey Roxie, come on out now," her mom called.

Her dad gave her a last squeeze before pulling away. Roxie glanced at the vanity before just walking towards the door, her hair falling in a loose curtain of curls as she opened the door.

"Wow," whispered a voice, making her freeze. Raising her eyes from the step leading out of the wagon, she looked down at Pastel.

He was gazing up at her with widened eyes that shined in the faint light of the almost full moon. There had been some attempt to flatten his unruly mane, and he was holding one of his hooves behind his back.

Her mom was beside him, and after a moment of staring between them, she nudged Pastel with an elbow.

"Ow. Uh, I mean," he said with a shake of his head, more of his cowlicks popping up from the water-logged hair. "I uh, uhm, uhhhhhh—"

Cherry sighed before elbowing him again.

That jump-started some spark behind his eyes, and he pulled the hoof out from behind his back.

Offering out a small bouquet of three calla lily, Pastel tried a cocky smirk that became a watery grin.

"I, uh, really like your mane," he said, looking up at her and saying, "really like, Roxie."

She flew down over the step and into his chest, barreling him over with a happy cry.