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Post by silverfall on Mar 8, 2005 9:59:04 GMT -5
Razz rushed out of the nursery and hopped up on his scooter. He revved it up, drove it across the street, bumped it half-up on the curb there, and parked again in front of his shop.
He raced through the front door, waved to the electrician who was trying to get his attention, and ducked through the side-door and into the alley. Once in the back, he found his large, yellow four-wheeled cart. He used it in his garden or whenever he went out shopping and had a lot of stuff to bring home. He pushed it through the alley to the front of the store, where it clanked noisily over the curb, and set it behind the scooter.
Razz rushed back into the store to grab some tools and again waved cheerfully to the exasperated electrician before retreating outside. He slid under the scooter and in a few moments of clink-clack and whizz-whir, he'd managed to attach the cart. He stood up and smiled to himself and gave the cart a good thump with his hoof as if to assure himself it was sturdy.
(Of course, who knows if it really will be? I really should have that other pony look at it to be sure...)
He went into the store one last time, paid the poor electrician for his time, grabbed a big box out of the corner, and went out again while flipping the OPEN sign to CLOSED. He put the big box in the cart and then hopped back in the scooter. He backed up slowly and then drove up in front of the nursery. He hopped off and continued to tinker while he waited for the others.
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Post by WingSong on Mar 8, 2005 22:24:24 GMT -5
Meera had been watching Razz attach the cart to the back of the scooter across the street, and just stood patiently watching as the purple pony drove the scooter back towards the nursery. He apparently didn't see her, as he began tinkering with the scooter again.
Mesmira was a bit of an unusual foal, because instead of always wanting to be part of things she was often quite content watching the everyday lives of other ponies. And it was best when the other ponies didn't know they were being wached. When she didn't have a solid home the filly would just sit somewhere and watch the ponies for hours on end. Her favorite places were restaurants - she'd watch the ponies come and go, order food, sometimes meet new people.
But now was one of those rare times when she wanted to be noticed - maybe be told how the scooter worked, which she'd always wondered about. So the small filly cleared her throat quietly and said, "Um...sir?"
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Post by silverfall on Mar 9, 2005 18:35:04 GMT -5
Razz stopped his tinkering and looked up.
"Hello," he said. "I'm getting her all ready and then we'll be able to go for a ride. All of us at once!"
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Post by WingSong on Mar 9, 2005 20:13:58 GMT -5
Meera smiled in response, not usually remarkably talkative with adults, and paused. "Do you...do you think - if you're done with fixing the scooter - you could...maybe show me its controls?" Then she waited a bit, and figured that she might as well ask all of her questions since she'd bothered to ask one. "And how fast can this go? Are you gonna take it to its top speed?"
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Post by silverfall on Mar 9, 2005 20:47:15 GMT -5
"Sure! I can show you how it works. Check this out!" Razz was grinning ear to ear, which was a pretty big grin for a pony. He hopped up on the scooter and motioned for her to climb up.
"This is the key, of course." He inserted it and gave it a turn. "Hear how she purrs, just like a kitty cat. She gets a 150 clops a minute not counting the clip-it-tee. I'm not sure we'll take her that fast today with so many passengers."
(Yeah, or however they calculate speed, lol.)
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Post by WingSong on Mar 10, 2005 0:30:58 GMT -5
Meera wasn't sure she understood what Razz was telling her, but she was listening attentively. And the engine rumbling beneath her hooves was getting her excited already. "Could we drive it a little ways? I've never really been on a scooter before..."
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Post by silverfall on Mar 11, 2005 0:07:56 GMT -5
"Ok, just a little bit," Razz said. "Helmets first." And he grabbed them from the back and plopped one on her head. Then he put his on and wasted no time kicking it into gear and off they went straight up the street.
(Wheee!)
Before they had gone tooo far, Razz slammed down on the break, threw it in reverse and shot back toward the nursery. A small cat was crossing the street. It darted for cover as it saw the scooter coming down on it. Fortunately it was pretty quick to get out of the way. Razz overshot his mark and had to slam on the brake again. Then he drove the scooter back up to the nursery and put it back in park.
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Post by WingSong on Mar 11, 2005 0:49:30 GMT -5
Meera was a little dazed from her first scooter-riding experience, but thrilled nonetheless.
"Oh, wow! Thanks!"
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Post by silverfall on Mar 12, 2005 20:35:34 GMT -5
"That was a lot of fun, huh?" Razz smiled. "So what's you're name again?" It was so easy to get the foals confused.
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Post by WingSong on Mar 12, 2005 21:34:12 GMT -5
"Oh - uh, I'm Mesmira, but a lot of people call me Meera." She fluttered her sparkly black flutter wings nervously. She really felt uncomfortable talking to adults, but Razz seemed okay - he had let her go on a scooter ride.
Still, now she was terribly bored. The filly spotted a piece of paper blowing by and picked it up. She folded it into a fortune teller and held it towards Razz. "Ooh! I love playing with these things! Pick a question."
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Post by Crescent on Mar 13, 2005 4:11:12 GMT -5
Twilight had been walking on the street past the Nursery when a gust of wind caught her mane and a loud roar made her shrink back. A scooter drove past her, turned back and then drove past again, stopping in front of the nursery. She raised an eyebrow to the demonstration, especially when she noticed a foal seated on the scooter with the stallion who was riding it. She didn't appreciate this modern nonsense very much, and she feared that such a terrible machine would end up getting someone killed.
She trotted over to the couple, however, curious. She was surprised at herself for not visiting the nursery before, loving foals as she did. She had lately heard that there were orphans in the nursery, and since she was getting rather lonely in her cottage by the river, she thought that she might offer a home to one of the poor things. The pale pink unicorn stopped close by, smiling to the foal's enthusiasm with the paper fortune teller, but said nothing. She didn't want to interrupt anything, so she thought to wait until she was noticed and then introduce herself.
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Post by silverfall on Mar 13, 2005 5:21:50 GMT -5
Razz looked up and smiled at Twilight in a way of informal greeting as she was standing there and turned back to Meera.
"Uh...what are the questions?" he asked. He was not at all familiar with the game.
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Post by WingSong on Mar 13, 2005 13:50:40 GMT -5
Meera looked at the pink unicorn that had just walked up. "Well, you can both ask one", she said.
Then the filly grinned somewhat devilishly. "Just ask a yes or no question you don't already know the answer to. Or one you do. It doesn't matter - it's always right."
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Post by Crescent on Mar 14, 2005 8:47:41 GMT -5
Twilight smiled back to the stallion and then turned to the foal. She hadn't played a game with a foal for a long time. Not since... oh, she could hardly even remember.
"All right," she said pleasantly and tried to think. "Hmm... Let's see... Well, here's my question: will I meet a friend today?"
She thought that was harmless enough a question. Yes, it was boring, but any question she might have truly wanted to know an answer to she dared not ask - though she had to admit that the one she had asked was frighteningly close to her real thoughts. And besides, this is just a game, is it not? she added to herself.
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Post by WingSong on Mar 14, 2005 13:05:03 GMT -5
Mesmira had already written in the answers, and made a big deal of it too. No visible spells, no tricks - yes and no written in ink, absorbed into the paper.
"Okay - pick a color, and then two numbers. The last number has to be one, two, three, or four."
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