Flight of Fancy (Open to All)

[zasknu]

It was a beautiful sunny afternoon in the outskirts of Hoofington; the cloud layer was thin, the snow had settled on the ground, and the air was only slightly chilly. The general feel of the area was tranquil and silent, the stillness of the scene would have made the perfect backdrop for a nice relaxing sit down under a tree or on a bench. However, the stillness was shattered by the sound of a cart being pulled down a seldom used dirt path. The simple wooden cart contained a simple large wooden box and was being pulled with effort by a young periwinkle unicorn mare. As the unicorn slowly pulled her load down the path towards a large clearing, she seemed to be speaking to the trees and piles of snow as she passed them; offering quiet and out of place apologies for disturbing the peace.

When she arrived at the clearing, the pony unhitched the cart from her back and began to clear away some of the snow with her magic, taking the extra precautions necessary to make sure none of her equipment would be damaged before she got a chance to test it. Once the unicorn was sure that the area around her cart of cleaned up and at least somewhat dry, she floated the crate from the cart onto the grass and opened it with her magic. Slowly and carefully, the young mare picked and pulled out the various items she had brought with her, setting them down in the now empty cart. One by one, she put down a scroll bound with a purple ribbon, a large box which was opened to reveal several metalworking tools, a couple blank scrolls and writing implements, and several small box of medical supplies. Lastly, she lifted another crate out of the original crate, and set it down on the other side of the back of the cart.

As the unicorn opened the new crate, she smile softly to herself; "You've done a good job with this, Aestella. Just because it's a strange project doesn't mean it won't work." Aestella nodded in responce to her own thought, and began to take apart the original large crate, converting it into a makeshift workbench. When that was finished, she began to empty the contents of the new crate onto the bench, separating the various metal bits and pieces from the large canvas sheets and long metal rods. Once that was organized, she unrolled the ribbon bound scroll on the cart and magically spread it out in the air before her.

Following the design on the scroll, Aestella set to work assembling the project she had worked all winter long on. Starting with a sturdy vest, which the unicorn had reinforced with a thin bronze mesh between the layers of fabric, she worked on attaching a metal box to the center of the vest's back. Once it was attached, Aestella opened the box to examine the complex series of gears that were arrayed inside of it. For now, this engine would be powered by her magic, but someday the unicorn hoped that she could create a strong enough engine for this project that would allow anypony to use it. After making a few minor adjustments, she closed the engine and began to attach a series of pipes, gears, and wires to the vest on either side of the engine, eventually connecting the pipes to the metal box itself with some additional gears.

As Aestella worked on the vest, attaching more parts to the pipe and gear assembles that she had already set up, she allowed her mind to wander for a bit. She found herself pondering the cart that she had used to get her equipment into this field to begin with. Diamond Point had said it was perfectly fine for her to borrow it, but Aestella wasn't sure where the cart came from to begin with. She shrugged, assuming that if Diamond had let her use it than it was probably safe, the idea that it might not have been Diamond's to give or that Diamond had made some kind of last minute purchase never crossed her mind. Thinking about Diamond and Quillson, Aestella hoped they wouldn't be too upset with her for wanting to come out here alone. True they had said it was alright for her to be alone each of the several dozen times she had made the request, but she couldn't help but feel guilty for her decisions. After about an hour of such musings, she shook her head and examined the work she had done to find that her project had been fully assembled.

Aestella shook herself, still getting used to the weight that was now pushing down on her back. Even though she had cut back on the weight by using lighter metals and hollow pipes and tubing for the framework of the vest's design, she wasn't very strong physically, and she could tell that she probably couldn't support the contraption without magic for more than a few hours. After putting on a pair of gear purple tinted gear shaped goggles, so that the light of the sun reflecting off the snow wouldn't distract her, she slipped her forehooves into some cuffs that were attached to cables stretching back to the engine on her back. Assuming she had assembled the machine correctly, by manipulating the cables with her hooves, she would be able to control the speed that the engine would output.

Twisting her neck back, she turned a switch on the top of the engine causing the contraptions attached to it to fold out from the sides of the vest. Going over her mental checklist of the progress she had made, Aestella took a few steps away from the workbench and looked back uncertainly over her new mechanical wings, hoping beyond hope that she had made all of her calculations correctly and that today she would have a successful test flight.

[quartzwing]

"She's looking for a burst of speed!"

Air flying past her face, her mane and tail streaked back behind her as if the Pegasi's contrail. At high speed she dashed forward across the open road. Spots and landmarks whizzed past her vision as blobs of shapeless color. Suddenly reaching a turn the road took to avoid the Everfree forest, she kept on. She cleared the distance between herself and the wooded area in no time at all, seemingly to collide in an explosion of wooded tree.

At the last second Quartz jerked to the left, paralleling the edge of the forest. With her speed she zipped alongside dodging branches that jutted out to slap her across the face. Skillfully she bobbed up and down, maintaining her composure throttling through the air. Soon enough she began swaying from left to right, strafing between the trees on the edge of the forest.

Practice. She needed it. She needed to lose the world. She needed to lose the sights, the sounds, the smells. She needed *this*.

Grinning in determination Quartz flew out perpendicular to the forest edge, hurdling straight into the air. Whipping around a good distance up, she dive bombed at the Everfree. She stopped her wings, jutting them out at her sides. Blades. Weapons. Killing Machines. The Pegasi cut through the top of the forest, skimming the peaks of various plant life. Branches and leaves whizzed in the air as she began to spin and whirl herself, spiraling around the treetops.

After a few moments she came to a stop at the edge, looking back at the clouds of wood and leaf dwindling down atop the forest. Sharp as ever. She smirked over her shoulder at her "victims" before setting down outside the reach of Everfree.

Quartz slowly walked alongside the forest. Hoofington was down the road, a place she'd visited before. But there were faces there. Faces with memories. She'd be fins walking for a distance, maybe get in some ground practice on the defenseless branched plants beside her.

Ahead she witnessed a strange site. Hiding in a set of bushes nearby, the Pegasi watched some sort of... Unicorn. With what looked like a.... well, she didn't know WHAT it looked like. Some sort of... giant eggbeater? on her back. What was this Unicorn doing? Quartz watched secretly from the distance, hoping the scene would play itself out before her.

[zasknu]

The unicorn carefully walked back to the workbench, and unrolled one of the blank scrolls and began to take notes on the weight of her new device, as well as the various ways in which the vest was and was not comfortable. With her magic, she tested the wings by forcing them to beat slowly, feeling the vibrations it made through the engine as well as her body as they beat. Currently, it didn't feel like too much, but she know it would be vibrating much faster when the engine was actually turned on. Making a note of this, she heard a little voice in her head telling her to stop being distracted and to start the engine already.

Aestella was aware that she was putting the test off, but this was going to be completely new to her and she was, in her opinion, understandably frightened. With a sigh she set down the quill and sets a good safe distance from the cart and closed her eyes. In order to try and keep the engine compact with as few parts sticking out as possible, she hadn't designed the engine with an external 'on / off' switch. Envisioning the inner structure of the device in her mind, she focused on the mechanism that would start the machine and set her horn aglow with a soft cyan light.

After a second or two, a soft click emanated from the engine, and the gears inside began to turn. A soft 'whurring' sound came from the engine as it warmed up, it's internal mechanisms building up speed and slowly, but surely causing the mechanical wings attached to it to fold and beat slowly, mimicking the way a pegasus' wings might have moved. With a sigh of relief, Aestella checked off 'starting the engine' from her mental checklist. With an extreme lack of urgency, she tugged on one of the cords that stretched from her hooves to the engine. The sounds from the engine grew louder as the gears began to churn faster, which in turn caused the wings to beat faster. "So far so good..." Aestella thought, swallowing nervously as she tugged again, increasing the speed once more.

As the wings beat faster, Aestella could feel herself getting lifted from the ground. Slowly, but surely, she gained enough altitude to be truly floating off of the ground. The mare began to giggle happily at the feeling of being in the air and having her device work as planned, but the happy feeling quickly switched to terror as she realized that she was, indeed, off the ground. The unfamiliar feeling caused her to panic and accidentally lean forward just enough to cause the upwards lift of her wings to become forward thrust. She gasped as she began to fly forward, picking up speed be angling further from her stating position until she began to fly forward and down. With a gasp of horror, she covered her goggled eyes with her hooves as she crashed headfirst into a pile of snow.

[quartzwing]

They were wings?! The thought that somepony would be out in the middle of nowhere replicating something that influential seemed so... preposterous! But there they were, the artificial limbs swinging up and down beside the pale unicorn. Quartz watched with uncertainty as the Unicorn continued to use her horn on the back mounted mechanism. Faster and faster the wings went, becoming a misshapen silver blur cutting through the air.

The machine was eerily quiet, something Quartz found oddly surprising. He'd seen her fair share of homemade machinery, and they generally spewed smoke like a dragon who'd had his gems torched with enough noise to crumble boulders. But there it went, inaudible to the mare.

Soon enough the machine... seemed to actually work?! Who was this filly!? She had just built a flying machine, right there before Quartz's eyes. She pulled her head back in shock and awe, taking in the unimaginable sight. The unicorn looked happy all of a sudden. No doubt! What she had just mastered was-

When a look of fear overtook the unicorn's face, Quartz knew something was wrong. She quickly looked around at the surroundings to see if some sort of monster had toppled out of the forest, but saw nothing. When she looked back to the unicorn she was diving head first into a pile of snow. Quartz immediately lunged from the bushes, running over to the fallen mare. She spread her bladed wings, gliding over above the pony in the snow, and pulled her free from the cold prison.

She stood next to the periwinkle Unicorn, retracting her wings against her back. "That was a heck of a flight you just had. Especially for not having wings of your own to use..." She eyed the Unicorn with suspicion. Who did she think she was to be doing something like this?!

"So you got a name or what?" she stuck out a foreleg to the unicorn, offering help to her hooves.

[zasknu]

Aestella shivered as she was pulled onto her hooves, too numb to react to the physical contact that usually made her jump with shock. She stumbled a bit, trying to get steady on her hooves again and blinking at her sudden blindness. Carefully, she wiped the snow off of the goggles she was wearing and blinked at her rescuer. Before her stood a real pastel blue colored pegasus, with real wings and everything. Suddenly self conscious, Aestella quickly turned her neck around and flipped the switch on the motor that controlled the wing position. The wings speedily foled up against the sides of her vest, the same way the pegasus in front of her had tucked away her wings, if a little less snuggly.

Flushing red, she took a step back from the pegasus mare, looking down and away from her. "I'm so sorry about that. I really didn't mean to disturb anypony, Madam... My name is Aestella, and I thank you for helping me out of the snowbank." Her voice was quiet and shaky, somewhat from the cold, but now mostly from embarrassment. As happy as she was for having at least gotten air born, and being as relieved as she was for her wings not being damaged at all, she couldn't get past how awkward this must have looked. Glancing back up to the pegasus, she tried to get a little more information about her rescuer.

Apparently she was NOT amused at the situation and had a rather stern expression on her face. Aside from her other physical attributes, the big thing that Aestella noticed what this pegasus seemed to have metal blades attached to her wings and some kind of armor covering her body, giving the stranger a rather fearsome appearance. Now definitely wasn't the time to be fooling around with her disturbing and crazy project. Quietly, she continued to step backwards towards the cart, "I w-will just be, g-going then... Sorry to bother you with my antics." Fear was evident in her voice, and internally she was frustrated with herself at getting so emotional again. If she had tried to learn anything from her time in Hoofington, it was that getting emotional was not the best solution to her problems.

[quartzwing]

"It's no problem at all Aestella. I hope I pronounced that right, just lemme know if it bothers you." She winked at the nervous Unicorn, her state of emotional distress very apparent to Quartz. She found it rather amusing at first, how taken aback the this Aestella character was of her. And all she'd done was help the poor thing up from the snow.

She stared at the mechanical monstrosity on the filly's back as it closed up... almost exactly like her own plated wings behind her. She glanced back at the pair of weapons for a moment, before returning her stare at the Unicorn's face. Hey! Where did she think she was going? As Aestella took a slight step back, Quartz took one forward. Head lowered and an eyebrow raised she looked directly into the mare's eyes.

"Woah woah woah, where do you think *you're* going? Huh?" She stepped forward as the mare retreated slowly. "Don't leave on my account!" She hadn't meant for the unicorn to be scared off, not at all. Quickly, Quartz sidestepped Aestella and glided around behind her. Waiting for the pony to react and face her once more, she outstretched a hoof to the frightened mare. With another half smile and a glint in her eyes she introduced herself.

"The name's Quartz Wing. And there's no need to be scared Aestella. I'm just interested in that contraption doohickey you've got on your back. That, and the mind who came up with the idea."

[zasknu]

Aestella gasped as the stranger sidestepped her and put herself between Aestella and the cart she was trying to reach. Swallowing, she shrank back from the pegasus, trying to make herself smaller so that maybe the stranger wouldn't be more inclined to be angry. "S-s-sorry, I'm not g-going anywhere" The shy unicorn stammered, and it was true, she couldn't just get around this armed and clearly upset pegasus, so she wasn't about to run away anytime soon. "It's um... a p-pleasure to meet you, Q-quartz Wing." Aestella managed to choke, glancing at the pegasus' outstretched hoof but unwilling to finish the greeting by shaking it. She was already stressed, and she didn't want to add something and foreign to her as real contact to the mix.

Wait. What? Quartz wanted to know more about the mechanical wings Aestella had created... and she wanted to know more about Aestella herself? Her expression instantly changed from one of fear to one of shock and disbelief. "Y-you're interested in my project?" Aestella couldn't believe it. True, both Quillson and Diamond had shown interest in what she was doing, but Quillson was always super polite, and Diamond was... Diamond. "W-well... what exactly did you want to know?" Aestella asked, still uncertain of where this odd conversation was going.

[quartzwing]

Quartz continued to eye the mare curiously, slowly lowering her hoof back to the ground. The frightened filly was a mess. She began to wonder on this one's strange disposition. Was she always like this, or was Quartz just doing too much of a number on her? She should try and lighten it up a bit more before scaring the poor soul off.

"Careful now, don't get your flank in the snow again." she said calmly, gesturing with a nod of her head to the snow pile the filly had been caught in moments before.

She glanced once more at the mechanical wings on the unicorn's back, not sure what to make of the invention. For some reason it bothered her that they HAD been made. At all. As if the one thing that made being a Pegasus so special could be recreated by just anypony with enough metal what-nots laying around. But then again it was so genius and inventive... it deserved respect.

"I'm not sure WHAT I want to know. What is there to know about it?" She leaned in closer, her mane brushing against the side of the pony's face as she passed. Slowly Quartz looked over the machine, examining its various bits and parts. She pulled back, looking over Aestella's face once more.

"It's certainly interesting looking. But mostly I guess I wanted to see you use it." She leaned in rather close again, peering into Aestella's eyes. She squinted, examining her own reflection in them for a moment. "Or what's up in that head of yours. There had to be something to inspire such a creation."

She pulled her head back, returning her expression to that of neutrality. Soon Quartz offered a nice, calm smile for the pony.

[zasknu]

Fear, uncontrollable fear coursed through her body as Quartz examined both her and her mechanical wings. It was more than enough to caused Aestella to stand ram-rod stiff, waiting in terror for Quartz to make her next move. She made vain attempts to steel her mind and prepare herself for whatever the strange pegasus would say next, but her next action caught her completely off guard. The pegasus' orange and light green mane brushed against her face as the pegasus moved around her to examine the wings some more. Aestella clenched her jaw at this, and did her best to stop herself from collapsing into the snow and dirt and hiding her face in her hooves, which she managed not to do but still shook a little in fright.

"Y-you w-want to s-see me f-f-fly?" Aestella stuttered in response to Quartz' statement about wanting to see Aestella use them. Well, the pegasus wasn't about to let her leave, and Aestella would rather not make her any angrier than Aestella already assumed she was. Besides, the young inventor did want to perform more test flights. Swallowing nervously she nodded once and stated simply, "V-very well. I'll perform another test."

She took a few steps away from Quartz and turned her neck to flip the switch on the engine again, causing the wings to once more fold out from the sides of the vest. She closed her eyes and nodded to herself, setting her horn aglow yet again to power the engine. It was a simple enchantment that would keep the mechanisms inside the engine working for a few minutes, just long enough to make a nice short test flight, about ten minutes worth give or take three seconds. The engine clicked on and begin to emit a soft ticking sound, like that of a clock, as the wings began to beat slowly.

Examining the movement of the wings for a moment, Aestella nodded again, satisfied that the machine was working as intended. Slowly, she tugged on the cord attached to her right hoof, increasing the speed at which the wings were beating. After a few adjustment, the wings began to lift her up from the ground once more. Aestella blinked a few times, and stared forwards as she was lifted up, trying not to think about not having her hooves on the ground. Once she was a little less than two meters off of the ground, she leaned forward just a tad, causing the wings to once more turn the lift into thrust. Aestella began to fly forward, at a speed roughly equivalent to a calm leisurely trot had she been on the ground. As she was getting used to this, she made sure she didn't get distracted, ignoring pretty much everything she was seeing as she shifted her body to turn right in the air. With a sigh of great relief, audible even over the now louder ticking of the machinery, she began to fly in slow circles around Quartz.

[quartzwing]

It astonished Quarts that this Aestella pony was so distraught over her arrival. Had she really become "That" intimidating? Sure it had its pluses and occupational benefits, but becoming a boogey monster just on the streets wasn't her intent. But the unicorn was going to stay and work. Whether or not Quartz had come off reassuring, or had scared the pony into not fleeing it didn't matter; Quartz would get to see more of this back mounted flying machine.

She waited a few moments while the periwinkle unicorn seemed to mentally prepare herself for another test. Experiment, trial run, whatever. How many times had the pony tried her creation? Surely what she had walked in on wasn't the first... was it? If so then she was pretty darn good at this whole inventive things. Flight on the first try? Quartz had a hard time believing it.

But there she went, up off the ground as she had before. She was slow at first, just gaining altitude. She looked a bit awkward up there in the air, her body not bending or turning the way a Pegasus did to maintain height. Not that it mattered, apparently. Because there she was floating around. Quartz started to turn her head, following the pony as she gained speed in a circular fashion. The pegasus began turning in time, following the inventor with her whole body slowly rotating in a circle.

How foolish she must have looked! Quartz quickly stuck on a frown at herself, condemning becoming so entranced with this scene. She shook her head and straightened her mane before rising from the earth herself. She glided up beside Aestella, looking the contraption over while circling the pony.

"So far so good Aestella. Must say I'm mighty impressed by what you've done here." She was honestly impressed. But there was a tint of jealousy in her mind. Unicorns weren't *supposed* to be flying... But who was she to deny somepony's dream?

[zasknu]

"So far so good... just take it nice and slow... and don't look down." Instantly, she regretted even thinking about it, as she instinctively took a glance down to the ground a few meters below her and felt the same sense of vertigo that caused her to crash last time. Snapping her vision back to directly in front of her, she continue to slow fly in a circle, the beating of the wings roughly maintaining her height in a jerky, inexact way. her flight was nowhere near as graceful as that of a pegasus, but at least her project had partially worked, and for that she could take some pride.

It was then that she noticed that the observer had taken to the air as well, and was orbiting Aestella as the unicorn slowly made circles in the air. This caused Aestella to realize two things; That she could make the device work better if she could observe more pegasi flying, so that she could get the movements more exact, and that she was drawing even more attention to herself. Catching a glance at the look in Quartz' eyes as she made a pass around Aestella, the unicorn noticed a certain look within them that made her nervous. "What's that look... is she... angry? But she's giving me complime-" Aestella cut off her thoughts just as her anxious and fearful mind processed the information that Quartz was complimenting her work.

Somehow, the idea that she was not only getting noticed, but getting praise was even more frightening that the pegasus being angry with her. Suddenly, all Aestella wanted was to be small, quiet, and out of the way. Her desire to not be where she was, caused her to start of flail about in the air, jerking her legs in a way that caused the engines gears to seize up and stop the wings from beating. A loud clang, followed by a horrific metallic snapping sound caused time to slow down for the already panicked unicorn. After what seemed like a minute of just floating in the air, though according to her watch it was only a second, Aestella dropped the two meters down to the ground and landed once more in a pile of snow.

[quartzwing]

Quartz continued to eye the flying machine while Aestella continued her circle through the air. It certainly looked a bit awkward without the gradual and minor movements of a normal Pegasus working his or her body in rhythm to the wings. She started to wonder if the Unicorn had intended it this way, or if the thing was still a work in progress.

"So, how long have you been work-" Quartz was interrupted suddenly by a few obscene sounds coming from the back mounted wings. Something had gone wrong, obviously. The flash of fear on the unicorn's face made that very apparent.

They weren't very high up, only a few meters off of the ground. But the Unicorn was carrying a large hunk of metal on her back, and she didn't look the strong arm type. Quartz reacted to the sounds and Aestella's sudden plummeting by trying to fly underneath her. Maybe she could manage enough lift to slowly lower the unicorn down to the ground in a safe fashion. She dove beneath Aestella and began to push up against her-

-only to find herself slammed against the snow below with a loud thud and whooshing noise. Snow flew up around the bundle of ponies as they hit the ground, Quartz beneath the periwinkle unicorn. She tried to wiggle free at first, though found it near impossible with the extra weight above her. She managed to roll over, looking up at the unicorn with a dazed and annoyed expression.

"Think you could, you know, get off me?"

[zasknu]

For a moment, Aestella lost all sense of the world around her. She remembered losing control of her device, and falling down to the snow below, but not much else. "So that's where I am then... in the snow again. Odd, it's a little warm to just be snow that I'm laying on..." No sooner had she stopped to consider the odd variance in the temperature of her landing zone than she realized what had happened and she leapt back out of the snow, stumbling away from where she had fallen. The weight of the mechanical wings on her back made her stumble about for a few seconds after getting back onto her hooves.

Shaking her body to get as much snow off of her and out of her machinery, she looked guiltily over at the pegasus that had tried to catch her. "I'm so sorry about that," She whispered, "I didn't mean for that to happen. Are you alright?" Aestella frowned at herself, ashamed to have caused so much damage. Not only had she fallen on somepony, but she was still continuing to make a spectacle of herself with every word she uttered. She really did hope that the pegasus was alright, and would have gone closer to make sure, but the stranger was probably upset enough over what had happened that any more contact would only make thing worse in Aestella's opinion.

Instead, the unicorn turned her attention to her own wellbeing. She seemed alright, no injuries to speak of just a little dirtier than she was before falling the second time. But what was more worrying was what became of the wings she had worked so hard on. Aestella twisted her neck around and tried the switch to fold up the wings, only to find that it wasn't working. Not a good sign. Aestella sighed and closed her eyes, setting her horn aglow and concentrating on the engine to the wings. As her magic seeped into the device, she explored its inner workings within her mind, making a note of what was out of place or broken. Opening her eyes again she stared down at the ground sadly; several key gears had ruptured, and the connections that held the wings in place had been bent from the fall. Looking up again, she waited to see how the pegasus was doing, not wanting to go back to work on the machine until she knew the stranger wasn't harmed or angry.

[quartzwing]

Quartz squinted up at Aestella's face, waiting for the Unicorn to react to what had just happened. She looked even more dazed than the pegasus felt! She felt a little bit of anger towards the pony on top of her, but it certainly wasn't the latter's fault they ended up here. If anything Quartz was to blame for trying to help in the first place.

Once a sign of recognition flashed across Aestella's face and the periwinkle filly removed herself from atop Quartz, the pegasus rolled to an upright position and stood. What a mess! Snow had gotten all over her. Quartz shook as much of it free as she could, though her mane laid flat and wet against the side of her head. Wonderful.

"Yeah yeah I'm fine, just gimme a sec..."

She turned back to Aestella with a look of disgust (though half of said look was covered in streaks of green and orange hair) She shook her head once more to free some excess water, and flipped her hair away from her face. There, that should do it for now.

Once she figured herself dry enough, Quartz closed her eyes and recomposed her expression. No need to stay angry, wasn't the unicorn's fault. "You okay over there?" she said re-opening her eyes. The unicorn had backed off and seemed to be examining the device on her back. Quartz trotted over slowly, eyeing the filly. "You look fine. A little dirt, but that can be fixed."

She stepped beside Aestella, using a partially snow-wet hoof to wipe away a streak of dirt from the unicorn's side. "Is your doohickey okay? It'd be a shame if it got too beat up after just that run." She kept in close to Aestella, looking over the machine as carefully as she could. "I don't really know what I'm looking for. Suppose that's your job, huh?" She backed off from Aestella, waiting for the pony to respond in some way.

[zasknu]

"What's the matter with this pegasus?" Aestella wondered, cringing a little and the thought of the pegasus continuing to poke at her. "I hope I didn't cause her brain damage of any sort... But what else could explain her being so ... touchy." She mused on this for a moment, knowing perfectly well that she was still new to the whole, 'socializing' thing and probably wasn't ready to make judgments like this. "But why else would she keep poking at me... Perhaps she is somehow related to Diamond?" If it wasn't some kind of illness of the mind that made the pegasus this way, then maybe being related to the craziest pony Aestella knew would be enough to make some other pony this way, or even just prolonged contact. Aestella eyes suddenly grew wide with fright, "What if I end up acting this way?!"

Aestella rubbed the side of her face with a hoof, trying to calm herself down. Surely nothing at all was wrong with Quartz. Her behavior and serious demeanor were just a part of who she was, and Aestella would have to respect that and be very very careful with her upcoming request. "I am fine, thank you." Aestella began in response to Quartz' last question and comment, "The machinery in the engine however is slightly damaged..." Aestella lifted a hoof before the pegasus, allowing Quartz a good view of the cord attached to the strap wrapped around her foreleg. "By tugging on this, I can control the speed at which the engine on my back works... but I may have gotten scared and pulled too hard, causing the machine to break. I should be able to fix this within seven to thirteen minutes, assuming no interruptions or unforeseen problems."

Satisfied with her answer, Aestella backed up a little to deliver her next message. "B-but... I was wondering... if maybe, you wouldn't mind..." The unicorn slowly backed her way to the workbench keeping her gaze away from the pegasus, her voice steadily decreasing in volume as fear and nervousness crept their way back into her mind. "Maybe not ... touching me anymore... if it isn't too much trouble." She instantly regretted the words she had spoken, as she backed up to the workbench. "Oh you are being so rude again! How could you be this way, after a whole winter of getting used to ponies, you really should have learned your lesson. What would the rest of your friends think if they could hear you now?" Aestella shuddered as she imagined her friends letting her know how horribly she had messed up in dealing with this pegasus.