Title:           Silver Spanner (WIP)
Author:          HorseFellow
Pastebin link:   http://pastebin.com/PkBaMCsL
First Edit:      Thursday 16th of July 2015 03:11:56 PM CDT
Last Edit:       Thursday 16th of July 2015 03:11:56 PM CDT

"Silver?"
 
There was a loud knocking at the front door following a voice on the other side. Obviously whoever it was had no consideration for the unpredictable sleeping pattern of a one Silver Spanner, the resident of this charming little cottage in central Ponyville. The mare had been up all night toiling on some work for a friend of hers. She's not entirely sure what time it was when she crawled into bed the night before, her latest estimates put it at somewhere between 4 and 5am but she is pretty sure that a rude awakening at... What time was it?
 
Reluctantly the unicorn rolled onto her side, pushing her sheets off her head and focusing her vision on the clock atop a bedside table. 8am. She just sighed, staring at the clock. Who is even up, out and about at 8am? Let alone bothering somepony else. The second hand ticked by, but she wasn't any closer to moving out of bed.
 
Waking up at 8am would do nothing but harm her already awful sleeping pattern, but she didn't have much choice. It could be important. The door, she meant. Someone important could be at the door. She had hoped it wouldn't be her landlord. Again. Reminding her to keep the noise down and refrain from working in the early hours of the morning.
 
"One more complaint..." He'd said, about five complaints ago. The empty threat didn't worry Silver, but maybe her luck was about to run out.
 
Or perhaps she was just worrying herself over nothing. It was obvious that the ageing pony was passed his prime and that his bark was most certainly worse than his bite. Silver was very almost certain that he'd never kick her out of this house, not as long as she paid her rent on time consistently. Silver knew not to worry about being made homeless, but that didn't stop her resenting the stallion. His large, bushy eyebrows were enough to put her off any extended conversation with him and his stern voice wasn’t what she needed early in the morning.
 
Of course she'd never let anyone know that she wasn’t fond of him or talk about him behind his back. Any reason, even the slightest, to annoy him further would spell trouble for the mechanic turned go-to repair mare. Always look on the bright side, is what her father would tell her even if she wasn’t too fond of that expression. It helped from time to time, but right now? Where she paid for a house too large for herself because it was the only one available in her price range that had a basement or somewhere for her to work? She wished oh wished oh wished that she didn’t have some two pony house with a spare bedroom that was never used and she wished that she didn’t sleep in a large, cold double bed all on her own.
 
She’d hoped to find a roommate or that some of her old academy friends would move in with her. Truth of the matter was that she had no friends willing to move in and knew no pony who would be willing to put up with her late schedule. Although, she considers, living with someone who could pay their half of the rent meant that she wouldn't have to work into the unusual hours of the morning trying to do as much as she could to scrape by. It was a good thing she inherited her parents... How would you put it? Their frugal nature? Their money-grubbing tendencies?
 
But on the bright side, again a phrase that she wasn’t too fond of, she had a roof over her head despite complaints from the neighbours. It was kind of sad, when she thought about it, that the ‘bright side’ was a basic right that every citizen of Equestria should have.
 
"Silver?" The voice called again, almost growing impatient as they knocked louder and harder. She got a better listen this time, definitely a female voice and she had her suspicions who. With a sigh, the unicorn climbed from bed made and made her way to the front door as quickly as possible, brushing her white mane from her eyes as she opened the front door.
 
"Ah, you are awake!" Said the mare facing Silver. Bon Bon, less of a friend and more of an acquaintance of sorts. Only because she always seemed to be out of town. She'd come to Silver with help fixing her old radio the day before. She always seemed to have something broken for Silver to repair, the radio was just the newest addition. This was the third... No, fourth thing since Bon Bon first moved to Ponyville a couple of years ago.
 
There was very little value in this thing, much like the others. Silver wasn't ever sure why Bon Bon kept breaking these. On purpose. Silver wasn't stupid, she could tell the difference between something that was an accident, as Bon Bon claimed, and purposefully broken. Not that she ever brought it up though, it wasn't any of her business as to why Bon Bon, a humble sweet shop owner, was breaking radios. Nor did she really care. She paid Silver like anyone else and at the end of the day that's all she cares about.
 
What?
 
She couldn't be giving out a free service, what would you expect? She needed to pay rent, pay for food, the hope that she might find a place of her own to live in; though the chances of that were very slim given how much money she put aside every month. She an ambition in life beyond being a repair pony, metalwork was her true passion but so very little did her job ever call for such skills. Any Unicorn could pull off the dexterity needed to fix broken wires and screw a few nuts in place, whether or not they knew what wire went where was another question, but what was special about Silver was what she could do with metal. How she could turn her passion into gold? That was another question entirely.
 
"Come on in," Silver yawned mid sentence "make yourself at home. I'll go and get the radio." The copper coloured mate walked with half open eyes to the basement. Her little work-cave, her home where she was in her prime and could do whatever she wanted. She could turn scrap metal into almost anything, but as she looked around what she had always hoped was going to be her own little slice of heaven under her house looked like a graveyard for electronics. Old, broken pieces of metal littered the workstation. Shards of glass that she's been meaning to clear up last week were still scattered across the floor. The only thing that was even remotely tidy were her tools, the neatness of which almost seemed to juxtapose the rest of the room. Not a spanner or a screwdriver out of place, not a hammer without a suitable stock of nails nearby, not a visor missing or a... You get the idea.
 
Neat and yet messy. A perfect balance of imperfections. That kind of summed up Silver in a sentence. Never a hair out of place on her mane or tail but her choice of style was left to be desired. Right in the centre of the room, on her main workbench, Bon Bon's radio. Left on its own over night, just after Silver had put away her tools of the trade the night before. She lifted it into the air, a grey aura surrounding the item, and carried it in front of her head up the staircase. Remembering at the last minute before she turned the light off to the basement, a clipboard. A list of the parts she used and how much she was charging for each. A quick flick of a switch and finally her workshop was plunged into darkness. She sighed closing the door behind herself.
 
"Oh perfect!" Bon Bon cried as she saw the fixed radio ahead of Silver.
 
"Ten bits an hour, I worked on it for four hours so that's forty bits plus twenty-five bits for the parts..." "New wiring, water damage from the speaker and" another yawn "a new front grill. All in all that'll be sixty-five bits."
 
"How about I round that up to seventy?"
 
"No Bon Bon, you negotiate down not up."
 
"No I just..." "If you don't want to work as much as you do, just charge more per job. Ponies know you, they know you're good, they'll understand."
 
"I don't need more money."
 
"No, you need more time to yourself! When was the last time you had a break?" "Silver? A day off? Hearthswarming? You didn't-"
 
"Yes, I did. But you'll be happy to hear I charged double for emergencies. Ponies needed their ovens fixed so..."
 
"Silver, no!" "Dear Celestia, are you serious? You wouldn't need to work through Hearthswarming if you just charged more and worked less."
 
"Thank you Bon Bon, but I'm fine the way I am." "I can keep on top of my rent, I can pay for my food and the bills. I'm fine, I don't need anymore money. I've got a good thing going with a lot of ponies in this town, I don't want to ruin it by putting up the price."
 
"Silver... I'm your friend, right?" "I just want what's best for you and you know that."
 
"How much sleep did you get last night?" "Did I just wake you up?"
 
"Yes." "Six hours."
 
"When was the last time you saw your parents?"
 
"My birthday." "Yeah, my birthday. Do you even know when that is?" "Yeah. Some friend."
 
"Okay, I can be an ass and I don't know your birthday but it doesn't help that you never open up to me. You never come out. You never even want to talk. This is probably the most we've spoken in months and we're just annoyed with one another." "Silver come to the party." "Come on, a new year! This is your chance to make a fresh start." "Get out there, Silver Spanner, and show them who you are!"
 
"I'm sorry."
 
 
 
"Sorry, I'm just not a morning person. I didn't mean to get angry with you." Only part of that was true. It's true that Silver wasn't a morning person, it's true that she was sorry for having a short fuse but she's not entirely sure whether or not she'd be a whole lot better to talk to later in the day.
 
"It's okay Silver, don't worry about it. Water under the bridge."