"Huh?" he whispered to himself. surely he must be hearing things....
*Knock Knock Knock*
So he wasn't making it up. He brushed his mane down, it was wildly sticking up from having fallen asleep on the workbench. He rushed to open the door. Standing on the doorstep was a purple alicorn mare, not much younger than he was. he eyed her over once, as he was, of course, a stallion, and found the mare quite attractive, in a nerdy sort of way.
"Uh.. hello ma'am, are you Tinker Redhooves?" The mare asked, not bothering to look up from her clipboard.
"Yes ma'am, i am Tinker, but i prefer to be addressed as a male..." Redhooves chuckled. The purple mares face turned a delightful shade of red. She looked him over up and down, and hadn't stopped blushing yet.
"I-I-I'm s-so sorry sir, i just thought by your name..." The mare started, but Redhoovees stopped her.
"Don't worry about it, i get that a lot.... oh, where are my manners, won't you step inside for some tea?" Redhooves asked politely. But then he remembered that it was cleaning day.
"My house is a bit of a mess, but its freezing out here, and i'm sure whatever you have come tome with will take longer than a few minutes, otherwise you would not have sought me out. You're in luck too, its cleaning day." He bit his tongue, not wanting to come off as sexist. The mare gave him an unpleasant look "I-uh-What I meant is... just follow me before i put my hoof in my mouth again."
The mare followed him into the sitting room, the one room in the house that was completely clean. Redhooves could see though that the mare had no interest in the cleanliness of the room, she was to busy admiring the magical and non magical contraptions on the shelf and workbench. Redhooves walked over to a seemingly out of place pile of scrap parts, flipped a switch, and the contraption came to life. it rolled around the room cleaning dust off of the gadgets and other places, and began cleaning the house, he stepped to the sitting room and flipped another switch, causing a hole in the middle of the floor to open up as a coffee table lifted out of it.
He took a moment to admire the look in the alicorn mares eyes, and she was practically puking rainbows. She was wondering in her head as to how Redhooves could do all of this without casting a spell.
" Oh pardon me again, my name is Tinker Redhooves, but you already knew that, what is your name ma'am?" Redhooves asked as gentlestallionly as he could.
"Oh... uh my name is Princess Twilight Sparkle, but i prefer just Twilight..." The purple mare mumbled, obviously her mind was fixated on the contraptions again. Redhooves remembered he had forgotten to bow. He saw she was an alicorn and yet he forgot to bow... so he bowed for a moment and stood back up when he realised she wasn't paying enough attention to tall him to rise.
"Did..uh... did you have a reason to be out here?" He asked politely.
"Huh? Oh...oh! yes i did," She said, snapping out of her stupor . "Princess Celestia has predicted an earthquake, and we need a way to keep Ponyville from collapsing when it happens. I was directed to you by Mr.Carrot Cake, who claimed you were an inventor... and now i see that he wasn't wrong."
"Okay,and what is expected of me ma'am?" Redhooves asked.
"Nothing is expected of you, but i came here to ask if you have anything that might help absorb the shock." Twilight said in her smooth voice, Redhooves couldn't help but wonder why she didn't have stallions following her everywhere just for that voice.
"I actually do, here, i cant make many of them but i'm sure you could duplicate them." Redhooves said, handing her a working model and the blueprints. "Take care of them though, that's my only blueprint. I'll also get to work on a big one for the bridge, so that it won't fall."
"Thank you, i'll take very good care of it." Twilight chirped, but was interrupted by the sound of someone knocking on the front door.
"I'll be back, and then i'll get some tea to serve." He said, only now remembering that he had promised tea. As he stepped towards the front door, he flipped the switch on another robot, and ordered: "Tea." the robot set to work, boiling water a tea kettle on its head. Redhooves opened the door, and managed to say "Hello can i-" But he was stopped short by a bouncing pink pony standing at his doorway. His heart started racing, he found it hard to breathe.
She was the most beautiful mare he had ever met...
Chapter 1: Loneliness
Dark Paths: Love.
by Dyoxis
Loneliness is a strange state of being. A pony could have no friends, no family, no one at all, and yet still not be lonely. Likewise, a pony an entire world of friends could still be lonely. Many who have "Escaped" Their dark past live a life of loneliness and sadness
Sadly, i regret to inform you that this story does not begin happily, but whether it ends happily is yours to judge.
Staring into a magnifying lens attached to his reading glasses, Tinker Redhooves magically levitated a set of tweezers, slowly working a small piece of metal between two teeny tiny magical batteries on a seemingly ordinary piece of green plastic. Laying down the tweezers, he picked the piece of plastic up off of the cluttered metal workbench and placed it between a set of pulleys on the underside of a miniature carriage. The wheels sparked to life, rolling forwards without seemingly any propulsion at all.
He picked up his quill and parchment and began to take notes on the carriage, taking in every time the engine faltered or stopped. To his dismay the carriage tipped and the left wheel and the carriage began spinning madly. He heard a Crrrrack as the wheel snapped off of its axle, sending the metal lined wheel bouncing around the room, shooting sparks off of any other metal it touched, finally coming to rest on the floor in front of him.
"Better than last time," He sighed running his right hoof through his mane. "at least the engine ran."
He threw his clipboard violently down on the table, sending a few research notes flying into the air, floating downwards and collecting at the foot of the table. He lifted his eye glasses off of his face and sat them, far more gently than with his clipboard, on the table as well.
The house was dark from the lack of lit candles in the room. it was pushing on 11 o'clock, and his eyelids were getting heavy, heavier.heavier.
...
Redhooves was standing in the dim light of the moon, just clearing his head. he heard the balcony door creak open behind him. Turning to face them, he...
Redhooves woke with a start. The dim morning light creeping through the dusty windows. He looked outside, expecting no-one, and receiving no-one. It had been a month since he had moved here...purchased the house from Mayor Mare. nopony had be walking around that day, the streets were utterly dead as he strolled into town hall.
Suddenly he found his thoughts focused on that mayor... something about his memory was a little... off. That pony seemed ages younger than she claimed to be...and Redhooves could seem to remember the slightest pink spot on the tip of her mane....
*Knock Knock Knock*
