“One week off,” Cogsworth says.

“What?” replies the drab pegasus stallion behind the shiny grey desk. His eyes are narrowed and his nose is wrinkled. He looks at Cogsworth as one would an enormous pile of dirty laundry.

“I want just one week off from work,” Cogsworth presses. He pulls a newspaper photo clipping from his wing. “Hoofington’s magical sugar beets are in bloom right now, and I thought that since I’ve never had a week off that--”

“Cogsworth, let me stop you right there,” the drab pony--let’s call him The Boss--interjects. “Have you completely lost your mind?”

Cogsworth is attempting to figure out whether or not this is a trick question.

“Um. No?” Cogsworth replies.

The Boss sighs and rubs at his temples. “You know why you cannot take that many days off from your job. In fact, why are you still even standing in my office? You’ve got to get back to your station right away!”

Cogsworth frowns. He is on the verge of saying something. Something like ‘No, I don’t know why I can’t take a week off from my job.” But he holds his tongue--mostly because he doesn't know what his job actually is.

Still, this time his meeting with The Boss feels particularly unpleasant. Earth ponies are saying that Hoofington’s beet blossoms are lush this year, and once again, Cogsworth will miss it.

He turns to leave The Boss’ office. He hates standing in the middle of all of this gaudy nimbostratus anyway.

---

Cogsworth is only three pages into the latest issue of ‘Marevelous Tales of Mystery Monthly’ when his cutie mark begins to tickle. He jolts up to his haunches in his dark corner before reminding himself to count. One, two, three, four tickles.

A streak of rainbow cuts through the room in which Cogsworth sits. It is hidden from view by a clutter of large gray boxes stacked up to the ceiling in columns. The rainbow's light pierces through the stuffiness and splashes dancing spectrums across the wall.

Cogsworth looks up. The words from his magazine swirl like ghosts before his eyes. He rubs his peepers with a limp hoof, and allows them a moment to refocus. There they are: those same old boxes. And there is the same dancing light splayed across those boxes. And, of course, not to be forgotten--is the crank.

Cogsworth huffs when he looks upon that lever. The handle is aged, all patinated copper, and is nearly as long as he is tall. It juts out of the wall on the opposite side of the room like a snaggled dog tooth or a broken bone. The smoothness of the wall’s surface at its base only gives the turning mechanism an even more misplaced appearance. Dancing light bounces off of its surface, and the flash beckons Cogsworth forward.

Cogsworth doesn’t want to get up, so he begrudgingly reminds himself that time is money.

He stretches the ache out of his back, shakes the numbness from his wings, and takes a few steps across the room. Upon reaching the lever he rears up onto his hind legs, and leans upon it. Cogsworth hesitates. He realizes he has forgotten how many times his cutie mark has tingled. His eyes close for a moment. “Ah. Four,” he eventually grunts to himself, bearing down upon the crank at last. It is hard-pressed to move, made stubborn with age. But not to worry! Cogsworth is very strong for a pegasus. As he turns the lever exactly four times, he curses the stars that his mother was born an earth pony.

Upon finishing the fourth rotation, Cogsworth lowers himself down to all fours. He looks at the crank. He hears nothing particularly interesting nor does he see anything particularly different.

Nothing has changed about the room or that odd crank at all.

Cogsworth returns to his magazine.



The crank seems a fated fixture in poor Cogsworth’s life. As he fails to concentrate on his reading, instead he remembers his mother. He remembers how she used to spend all of her time in her cellar surrounded by bits and bobs of various metallic qualities. The purposes for these bits and bobs never seemed clear to Cogsworth until she would pluck one from the bunch and place it into the clock or telegram or whatnot for which it was intended. Cogsworth remembers thinking that those bits and bobs only made sense when his mother had given them their meaning. He remembers the satisfied feeling he felt in the depths of his chest when one of her many contraptions was again rendered whole. There was a time Cogsworth had hoped that he would end up with a special talent like his mother’s. That he would end up giving seemingly pointless things their point.

Silly Cogsworth.

Now, as he sits staring at that lever, he remembers the day his cutie mark first came in. It was the same day he first saw this awful room, and met its awful crank. You see, Cogsworth was a late bloomer. Later than most. In fact, by his eighteenth birthday, he had yet to discover what his special talent was. Too old to continue waiting around in his mother’s basement wondering about his life’s purpose, one day he stole himself and picked up the Canterlot Classifieds. It was not by chance that he soon found a job, one that he did not suppose he would like but knew would keep a roof over his head.

Since there was never much competition in the Cloudsdale job market--being that pegasi were the only ponies who could walk amongst the clouds--Cogsworth eventually found gainful employment in some place owned by somepony who hired pegasi to do... something. Cogsworth had to admit that he had not read the job listing past ‘Wanted: Strong Pegasus’ and the travel directions, nor had ever really understood the details of his job. The pony who had hired him, The Boss, was rather absent-minded. On his first day, he spent most of the tour of the dark room--all one minute of it--thanking Cogsworth continuously, insisting that he was a life saver. Then, The Boss led him over toward the crank where Cogsworth has been working ever since.

“Still,” Cogsworth remembers The Boss saying whilst balancing a very thin filing folder upon his wing, “I suppose it could only help ease the mundanity of your position to explain what the purpose of your job is.”

That little filing folder had been so close. So very close. Before somepony had rushed into the room in a raving panic insisting that The Boss follow him to somewhere else, Cogsworth could have easily reached out and licked that file. Instead, his opportunity was missed. Quickly forgetting the folder, The Boss had collected it back up into his wing before rushing off to who knows where to do who knows what.

Cogsworth has never seen what that folder contains.The Boss has never come back, and Cogsworth is not allowed to leave his post during work periods except to hastily use the restroom. That so close, so very close folder moment on his first day is now the quintessential bane of Cogsworth’s existence.

Cogsworth recalls his first day on the job, cranking that crank and hating every minute of it. Never could he have expected that on that fated day his cutie mark would also appear. Its depiction was clear, unmistakeable. A single, grey gear--like what he might find within one of his mother’s clocks--was suddenly sitting upon his flank. Its large, geometric form had tingled out a count of numbers for which he had yet to learn the significance. As one could probably imagine, that’s when a feeling of dread had enveloped Cogsworth.

“Congratulations, Cogsworth!” fate seemed to shout to him. “Out of all the ponies in the world who I could have possibly chosen to screw, I decided to screw you!”

Thinking back, Cogsworth supposes that his stance at the time--braced down upon the crank with his bum in the air--was most appropriate for that momentous occasion.

---

At the sound of the evening bell, Cogsworth adjusts his work hat, packs the remains of his lunch into its pail, and leaves the room. On that particular day, he relishes the softness of the clouds outside. Unlike the cold, compressed gray nimbus of his workroom, these endearing white poofs squish beneath his hooves.

Cogsworth looks around the scene of wherever he is. Just like every other day, he laments the fact that this is one of those places that is too huge and prestigious to sully its own grandeur by putting a sign out front. This feature--or lack thereof--works perfectly to make anypony who doesn't already know what this place is feel like a complete moron. Cogsworth can attest to this.

His gaze roves in wide circles, and eventually dips toward what lies down below. Ponyville is a few miles further to the east today meaning that Cloudsdale has floated west a bit since he arrived at work this morning.

While the notion of a pegasus city moving around warrants little if any special reaction, the sensational results of such movement is special. Listening a little more closely, Cogsworth can make out the faint sound of heavy rain sprinkling over the vast countryside below. It drifts off slightly toward the east. As they fall, those endless drops of pure crystal nourish life upon land to budding prosperity and indescribable brilliance--a brilliance both rare, fleeting, and coveted by non-pegasi. Truly, it is a sight to behold, and one that only pegasus-kind is blessed enough to witness from these shining heavens above…

Cogsworth is super bored right now.

All of the other pegasi are just now getting off from work. He watches them fly in pairs, trios, or downright clusters to wherever it is that pegasi with work friends fly off to. He’s jealous. He wonders why he is required to work alone instead of with partners like everypony else. There are countless sunlight-splashed buildings at this wherever the hay this is. Why must he, alone, be subjected to solitude and darkness for the sake of a crank?

Cogsworth doesn't realize it yet, but an idea is beginning to formulate in his mind.



In bed he cannot sleep. Perhaps it is because of those peaches he ate for dinner, or maybe it is something else. A feeling is nagging him, prodding at him, perturbing him even. In the creases and corners of his darkened room he spies the replicated phantoms of a shape. It is a familiar shape, one both lengthy and oblong, sturdy and exact. The shape begins to rotate, and with it so do the gears in his head. He imagines a garrote attached to that shape, his neck within its ligature. The garrote turns and turns until he hears a snapping sound...

Cogsworth has got to end that crank before it ends him.

Decipher it, to be exact. Uncover whatever secret it holds.

Suddenly, he feels like a newer, bigger pony. One whose life is filled with meaning and adventure like one of the brave heroes from his ‘Marevelous Tales of Mystery’ magazines. Maybe after all this is said and done, he will find a truer purpose, have a bigger house, start paying into his pension, own a tailored suit for some reason, perhaps even have a gorgeous marefriend. Yes, indeed. By the second he is feeling more and more certain that solving the mystery of that crank will release him from its curse, at long last. He is pumped, amped, ecstatic for the following day to begin.



Cogsworth spends most of the early morning throwing up into an old bucket.

Perhaps those peaches from the day before had not been the freshest. By sunrise, he plans to go to work as usual, but suspects he just may not. Letting the dilemma hang in the air, he fetches some crackers to nibble upon, then goes to collect the morning paper sitting on his doorstep.

‘Cloudsdale on Schedule for Thursday’s Emergency Stop in Hoofington. City’s Rare Magical Sugar Beet Industry Relieved,’ the Cloudsdale Chronicle headline read. Cogsworth sips from the teacup he is holding within his wing. Some of it spills onto the newspaper page. He didn’t realize that Hoofington had been having a water shortage problem. He feels a slight sense of panic as he considers that the sugar beet blossoms might shrivel before he can visit them. He relaxes after reminding himself that he has never actually seen Hoofington’s beet blossom fields anyway. It has been six years since he started this job at wherever. Six years without a single vacation.

Cogsworth closes his eyes. He tries to find joy in this quiet moment knowing that in a little while he will telegram out sick from work. Instead, the peaceful aura about his home is muddled with his growing anger. Six years. Six years of his life he has been cutie mark-bound to that crank. Six years of having to perform an utterly laughable special talent without knowledge of its purpose. Six years of barely having a moment to breathe, to escape.

Cogsworth is going to telegram out from work today, alright. Not because he is sick, but because he is pissed. If he cannot be afforded a week’s worth of selfishness, then he will take at least this one day by force... as long as he doesn't get fired or anything.

He expects The Representative when she arrives at around nine. The Boss always sends her whenever Cogsworth misses work. The Representative inquires and prods, then rages and fumes, then begs and pleads for Cogsworth to come in, but he is unmoved. He knows her tactics well. Cogsworth kindly tells her that he is feeling under the weather, needs the breather, and will not be coming in today. He is pleasant about it since The Representative is kind of cute and does look a little distraught. When she turns to leave, Cogsworth stops her. He offers her a cup of tea for the sake of delaying the inevitable scolding she is sure to receive from The Boss. She smiles.

Cogsworth has forgotten about his crippling anxiety when it comes to mares.

Their teatime is filled with silence and a few anxious coughs. Cogsworth knows he is totally crashing and burning here. He needs a topic of discussion and quick. His gaze darts about until it lands upon his bedroom door. Suddenly, he remembers his fresh conviction from the evening before. He remembers the crank.

He is tempted to ask The Representative if she knows exactly what his job is, and more specifically, what that mysterious crank does. But Cogsworth is also paranoid. What if she relays the question back to The Boss? Surely, after six years, letting it be known that he has no idea what his job actually is will spell disaster. However, he acknowledges that he is on a mission. His tortured mind needs to know. He is glaring at her unsuspecting face. He feels his lips part. At long last, the mystery will be solved...

“More tea?” he asks her, holding out the teapot with both of his hooves.

The Representative declines and gets up to leave. Cogsworth feels his weakened stomach gurgle as he follows her out. At the door, she thanks him for the tea. In passing, she inquires if he is related to an earth pony. She says she asks because he looks to be quite strong.

Cogsworth’s heart patters when she smiles. He answers in the affirmative.

The Representative then inquires if the job he does for The Boss has anything to do with his strength. Cogsworth finds it strange that she also does not know what job she has come to beg him to do. He figures that perhaps The Boss is simply that absent-minded. When The Representative repeats her inquiry, this time Cogsworth wants to answer. Instead, he thinks about that crank in that dark room. Then he throws up on The Representative’s blouse.



Cogsworth is clearly the most stupid, dumb face, stupid, stupid who has ever lived.

He makes it a point to repeat this to himself as he drives his forehead into the bathroom wall. When he is finished with his emotional flagellation, he fits himself with a saddle bag, stuffs it full of crackers, and heads out of his front door. He knows that if he stays, he will only end up putting another dent in his house.

Cogsworth is going down to the earth for a little while. He is out of crackers, and wants to have a word with the pony who sold him those peaches. Besides, all of his co-workers work in Cloudsdale. Nopony he knows will be upon the earth to catch him out of his sick bed.

When he returns home, he is carrying two boxes of crackers and a bag filled with peaches--Cogsworth wishes he understood the art of persuasion like that peach merchant pony. His stomach is finally feeling settled again however.

Cogsworth munches upon crackers in bed whilst scheming and plotting against that crank.



On the following day, the headline of the Cloudsdale Chronicle reads, ‘Cloudsdale Delayed. Hoofington Magical Beet Rearers Claim Crops Suspiciously Quiet. “Them Darn Beets are Planning Something. I Just Knows It,” Says Excessively Rustic Local Farmer.’

Cogsworth finishes reading the paper and drops it onto the table, quite annoyed. Sipping the remaining dregs of his tea, he then arranges his saddle bag around his middle and heads out of the door.

At wherever he works, he powers through thirty lever rotations in one go, then collapses into the corner panting and staring. The crank seems to stare back, so he stares even harder. The crank seems to be laughing at him now, so he approaches it menacingly, pokes at it with a hoof, tries to come up with some witty things to say about its ugly crank mother. Before he manages this, Cogsworth remembers he is on a mission. He reminds himself that the crank will not be stopped by petty insults alone, but by the revelation of its hidden secrets.

Cogsworth thinks to himself. That crank is in a wall, so whatever it’s cranking must be behind that wall, obviously. He had grown up around gears and bobs, listening to the sounds they made as they clicked and clinked together. Perhaps now he can somehow decipher what it is he has been doomed to do with his life by the sound it makes. He turns to face the wall to which the crank is attached, leans forward, and presses his ear against its surface.

Cogsworth doesn't hear anything. He closes his eyes and holds his breath for a few seconds. A few more seconds. Alright, a few more...

Finally, he hears something. It’s rather faint, but it is there--a low, humming whirr.

Cogsworth has discovered his first clue.

He jumps about madly, scritching and scratching at the too smooth wall, trying to find some small hole or dent to peek through. He sees nothing. Cogsworth is sitting and thinking when his cutie mark tingles and startles him into action. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven… and on it goes. Feeling as if some cosmic force is watching him snoop, Cogsworth hurries over toward the crank and bears down upon it. As he turns the lever, he manages to whisper those insults about its mother.



‘Hoofington Beet Industry Preparing for Worst as Cloudsdale Reschedules Emergency Visit. Earth Town’s Non-Beet Working Residents “Still Don’t Get What Big Deal Is,”’ the Cloudsdale Chronicle headline reads the next morning. Cogsworth doesn’t care anymore. His plan, slightly more formed, continues to gestate in the back of his mind.

Before he does anything for his shift, Cogsworth walks up to the smooth wall. His cutie mark is tingling and tickling out of control, but he is ignoring it for the time being. Pressing his ear to its surface, he closes his eyes and holds his breath. He gasps when he notices that the whirr is gone.

Later, whilst cranking out a few of his forty cutie-commanded cranks, the absence of the whirr finally begins to make sense. There was no whirr this morning because he had yet to turn the lever. Whatever the crank was supposed to be moving hadn’t yet been powered. If his hypothesis is correct, then after he turns the crank, the whirring sound should...



Cogsworth sits in the corner, wiping the sweat from his brow. A yet unread issue of ‘Marevelous Tales of Mystery Monthly,’ lies next to him in a careless heap. His ear is pressed up to the wall. His eyes are wide. His breath comes quickly as the thing behind the wall again whirrs and whirrs.



Cogsworth does not sleep when he gets into bed. Memories of his mother and her cellar of bits and bobs swims through his head. He imagines that one of those mysterious gears looks like the one in his cutie mark. He imagines his mother plucking it from the bunch, and taking it off somewhere to give it a purpose. He now knows that his special talent is to power the thing that whirrs. But what is the thing that whirrs?



‘Hoofington Stunned as Reports of Magical Beet Related Injuries Begin Pouring In. “Their Fault for Endowing Hardy Veggies with Magical Properties. Plus, They’re Called Beets,” Cloudsdale Officials Say. Beet Reps Yet to Comment,’ the Cloudsdale Chronicle headline reads in the morning.

Cogsworth begins to wonder about Cloudsdale’s delay in getting to Hoofington. Surely there is a way to pick up the pace. Forget the town’s beet blossoms; if Cloudsdale did not arrive soon, there might not be a Hoofington left to even dream about visiting.

At work, whilst checking the wall for any imperfection, hole, or crack, something inspires Cogsworth to look up. Perhaps it is all of his begging the stars for a sign. Interestingly enough, they give him one. At the very top of the wall where its surface meets the ceiling and box shadows render everything barely visible, Cogsworth can now spy a rectangle-shaped hole. It is a grate, to be more precise. Eagerly flapping his wings, and ignoring the tingles in his flank, he makes his way up toward the grate only to find that it is blocked with bars. It doesn’t occur to him that he might have trouble removing the grate cover. He is very strong for a pegasus, after all...

Cogsworth strains his right wing on the very first tug, and performs a death defying spiral into the ground.

Lying there upon his back with his cutie mark tingling out of control, he gets angry all over again. Cogsworth swears that those grate bars are beginning to look like grinning teeth, and ridiculing laughter is seeping through from the darkness behind it.



Cogsworth is beating his forehead against the now dented grate bars when The Representative rushes in. The sight of her face makes his heart flutter and his wings falter. Again, he crashes to the floor.

Stunned, The Representative inquires why he is not turning the crank. Cogsworth did not consider that others could tell when he misses his rotations. He bolts upward, leans upon the lever, and begins to turn even though he has long forgotten how many times his cutie mark has tingled.

The Representative scolds Cogsworth in the most apologetic fashion possible. She reminds him that The Boss is counting on him to fulfil his duties. She reminds him that many ponies are counting on him.

Cogsworth’s mind is spinning just like the lever beneath his hooves. Many ponies depend on him? For what? To turn this crank? How could that be even remotely possible? Again he glances up toward the grate, then toward the Representative. At last, he’s had enough.

Cogsworth forgets his lever turning, and demands that The Representative allow him to speak to The Boss. She obliges with ease, and bids him to follow her.

Standing outside of The Boss’ office door, Cogsworth can hear him raging and fuming inside. A second voice--that of some poor terrified soul--stutters and begs. Somepony within tosses around the word ‘fired’...

Cogsworth considers the possibility that his shining moment of righteous indignation might very well be ill-timed. He turns and walks away.



‘Hoofington Residents Under Siege Whilst Cloudsdale Runs Behind Schedule. “Haven’t Seen Anything Like This Since the Crawling Carrot Crisis of ‘59,” Says Spooky Town Historian,’ the Cloudsdale Chronicle headline states on the next morning. Cogsworth is beginning to get tired of Cloudsdale. He is beginning to entertain the idea of moving back down to earth to live in his mother's cellar where answers seem, at least, easily attainable.

At work, Cogsworth sits in the dark room, brooding whilst perusing through his crumpled ‘Marevelous Mysteries’ magazine. His cutie mark tingles to the point of burning. He no longer counts the tingles. The crank remains unturned. Perhaps The Representative visits him again since he can hear somepony yelling at him from outside of the door. Cogsworth can’t be completely sure that it is her since he has shoved an old broomstick into the door handle, locking it from the inside...

It is possible that Cranksworth might now actually be a few cranks short of a full crank.

Perhaps a visit to his mother is long overdue.



Cogsworth finds it curious how much nicer Cloudsdale looks from far away, unlike the earth that only grows more beautiful the closer to it one gets. Pegasus cities seem ethereal and majestic until a pony arrives in one only to discover that it is, both literally and figuratively, just a ‘bunch of hot air’. Soft, cleverly-shaped hot air, but hot air nonetheless.

His mother pours him tea. Upon tasting it Cogsworth realizes that the stuff he drinks everyday amongst the clouds could never compare to what the earth ponies pluck fresh. Suddenly, he has forgotten why he ever left the earth in the first place. In a moment of frustration he laments to his mother.

“You left to find your purpose,” she replies.

Cogsworth is a little annoyed by the fact that her response seems too perfect, too well-timed, almost as if it were written into a story. He forces these odd feelings down admitting to himself that her advice was what he has come all this way for. “Find a purpose? Like you do with those bits and bobs?” he asks.

“Precisely,” she says.

“But what about all of the other hundreds of bits that you never find a purpose for?” he presses. Cogsworth is not stupid enough to call his mother a liar to her face.

“No such thing,” she chuckles. The familiar sound of her laugh settles and enlivens Cogsworth’s heart at the same time. “Every bit has its purpose, and if I find one that doesn’t fit anywhere, well then, there are tools to reshape it into something of use.”

Cogsworth frowns. He doesn't like this answer very much. “You force it to fit where it doesn’t belong,” he says. He knows that his tone is spiteful.

“I give things without clear purpose a place to call their own, no matter how ill-fitting or impossible anypony else might deem it,” she quips. She sips at her tea almost vindictively, in that way that mothers do when they know they are right. “Nothing can be pointless so long as it wishes to have a point. Everything has meaning even if it takes a little while to figure what it is. Even if you never figure what it is at all.”

Cogsworth hesitates. Something is still unsettled within him. “But I want to figure how. I want to know where I fit and why,” he pleads.

“Well then,” his mother says with a smile, “maybe it’s time to upgrade your tools, grind down the obstacles in your way, and reshape your circumstances.”

Cogsworth wonders what new, special ‘tools’ his mother is about to bestow upon him. Wisdom? Some courage, perhaps? A heaping helping of fortitude with a splash of grace?



Cogsworth recalls his mother’s wry sense of humor as he stares down at the industrial-strength crowbar now clutched in his wing.

He huffs at it whilst sipping some fresh tea she has also sent home with him. Remembering her instructions about prying out the front of that grate with ‘extreme prejudice,’ Cogsworth sighs heavily. He packs the crowbar into his saddle bag, and then takes a quick glance down at the day’s Cloudsdale Chronicle headline:

‘Hoofington Panics as Cloudsdale Comes to Complete Standstill. “We’re Looking Into it, but Seriously, Stop Whining,” Cloudsdale Officials Say.’

Cogsworth frowns. Cloudsdale in a complete standstill? That never happens. Was something going on in this city that he had completely overlooked? In the midsts of his own crisis, was he ignoring perhaps a far greater problem that was threatening Cloudsdale residents? More importantly, could he somehow finagle this into an excuse to move back in with his mom? Cogsworth looks down toward his saddle bags one more time. He supposes that he should try to follow her advice at least once before doing anything else.

In the wherever it is at the wherever he works, Cogsworth is turning the crank diligently. “Fifty-five, fifty-six, fifty-seven,” he counts as sweat pours down his brow. The amount of rotations his cutie mark demands of him is criminal. He wonders why the rotations have increased so drastically over the past few days.

His gaze drifts over toward the big security pegasus that now watches him from the room’s door. Next to him is The Representative. She is looking quite sad on Cogsworth’s behalf. They both know that if Cogsworth messes up one more time, it would mean trouble for him at the wherever this is.

Looking up, Cogsworth can see the dented grate. It shines like a beacon in his line of sight. The crowbar is tucked snuggly within his wing, and he can feel it burning into his side, insisting that he put it to proper use. If only a clear opportunity would arise. If only Security would leave. A moment is all Cogsworth needs. Just a moment.

“Seventy-three, seventy-four, seventy-five…”

Thirty minutes pass. Cogsworth is tired. At this rate, he might not be able to muster the strength to pry the grate open. The whirring sound behind the wall taunts him, daring him to fly up and reveal its secrets.

Fortunately, Security requires restroom breaks just like anypony else. When the big guy finally leaves, Cogsworth is ready. “Shove the broomstick into that door!” he orders The Representative.

The Representative looks stunned, but still does as she is instructed. Cogsworth ignores her pleas for him to behave as he pulls the crowbar from his wings and jets up toward the ceiling. Hovering before the pony-sized grate, he can hear the whirring sound louder than ever before. He hooks the crowbar into the side of the grate and tugs. His muscles are trembling from wear, but he knows he has to try again. Again and again until it is done.

The Representative has flown up to his side. She is shouting at him, asking him what he is doing. Cogsworth chooses to ignore her.

The grate budges an inch as they both hear sudden banging upon the front door. Security has returned.

The Representative is trying to reason with him, trying to tell him that he is one of the only pegasi strong enough to do this job. “If you are fired,” she says, “then you will be letting so many ponies down.”

The Representative is starting to irritate Cogsworth. He takes a break from his crowbar, and turns to her. “Why? Are you just saying what you were told? Do you even know why ponies depend on me?” he asks her.

Expectedly, she is stumped.

Cogsworth turns back toward the grate, and tugs again with the crowbar. Its right side breaks free. The banging upon the room's door turns into ramming. Security is breaking its hinges.

One last tug, and the grate breaks free. Its barred cover falls and clatters onto the floor below. Cogsworth barely has any time to decipher what lies beyond in the darkness as Security finally barges through the door. He flaps his large wings and soars upward, making a beeline straight toward Cogsworth.

Cogsworth doesn't think. He simply moves. Barreling forward, he shoves himself halfway through the grate before Security grabs hold of his tail. Security pulls and pulls, trying to draw Cogsworth out. Fortunately, Cogsworth is strong for a pegasus. As he hoofs The Security in the teeth, he thanks his lucky stars that his mother was born an earth pony.



Pitch blackness surrounds him. The light coming through the grate disappears into the void as Cogsworth falls through darkness. His wings flap and flail, but prove no help to him in this place where up and down are meaningless. He feels something against his fur. It is warm, and misty, and wet, all of the characteristics that any pegasus worth a damn can recognize as the inside of a cloud. The whirring sound is now a heavy drone. It is so loud that it makes Cogsworth’s insides rattle and hum. His ears twitch to and fro searching for the source of the din.

He realizes too late that the sound’s source is directly below his head. He hits something large and made of cloud so condensed that its texture is like smooth, sturdy metal. Cogsworth knows this because of the sound his bones make when they crash into it.

He struggles to his hooves, and tries to catch his bearings. His legs feel as if they are sliding out from under him, and his head is on an increasing tilt. When his hooves dangle off into nothingess, Cogsworth realizes that he is standing on something that is rotating. It is large, feels cylindrical, and reminds him of an oversized version of one of his mother’s bits and bobs. He is certain that it is a gear he knows well.

Flapping his wings once, twice, he hovers just above its enormous, rotating surface. Cautiously extending his forelegs, he reaches around in the blackness for something, anything that feels like an answer. What is this gigantic contraption? If he could answer that then he will also know what the purpose of his special talent is.

Cogsworth is so busy flailing about like a lunatic that he does not notice the sound of something large and swift approaching. The noise this thing makes isn't particularly attention grabbing. However, the deathly-close feather trim it gives him is.

As the large, rotating object swishes past him in the dark, his injured wing loses its equilibrium, sending him into another dive. Cogsworth knows this should all prove harrowing to him, and that he should probably be reciting his prayers to Celestia right about now, but instead he begins to think: a spinning, sharp, shaver thing that turns around a cylindrical also spinning thing. Cogsworth closes his eyes even though it is unnecessary. As he descends he tries to define the shapes in his head. He reforms and resizes them in his mind until, at last, they become clear. “Blade around a shaft! A propeller!” he shouts out into the darkness. The sound of his own voice is blotted out by the deafening whirr of a well-powered machine.

When his flailing and spiraling body finally breaks through loose cloud and tumbles out into daylight, Cogsworth spots field and plain rushing up to greet him. He is momentarily consumed with the special, stomach turning sensation that only the visual of plummeting hundreds of feet toward his death can provide. After a bout of screaming and cursing, Cogsworth considers that it might be a good idea to attempt spreading his wings.

Hovering below the foundations of the city of Cloudsdale, Cogsworth can see that it has again begun to move. Security--along with more of his scary-looking security friends--now approaches him from the east. Cogsworth assumes that they are set on taking him straightaway to The Boss’ office.

Cogsworth considers retracting his wings again.



“What I just don't understand is why you would do this when so many ponies are depending on you,” The Boss tells Cogsworth as he stares at him from across his grey desk.

Cogsworth has a brand new twitch in his left eye. He sighs. “Can somepony please tell me why anypony would depend on me? All I ever do is sit in that dark room, turning that awful crank!”

The Boss gasps dramatically. Everypony else in his office, including The Representative and Security & Co., just looks tired. Now, The Boss seems perplexed. “How can you not know why everypony depends on you? Don't you know what it is that you do?” he asks Cogsworth. “For Celestia’s sake, stallion! You've been working here for over six years!”

Cogsworth looks uncomfortable. “Actually… about that...” he says, scratching at his mane. “Perhaps you could also remind me where exactly ‘here’ is?”

The Boss stares.

Cogsworth stares back.

“I forgot to give you your folder, didn’t I?” The Boss inquires.

“Yes,” Cogsworth replies.

“Damn,” The Boss grumbles under his breath. Bending down, he reaches into a nearby filing cabinet where a great deal of dusty-looking files are sitting. Cogsworth refrains from dwelling on just how many ponies are wandering about this place completely stupefied.

Finding the proper folder, The Boss lifts it from the bunch, blows the dust off of its surface, and slaps it down in front of Cogsworth. “Here. Have a look at that, son. It should explain everything,” he says. “But hurry it up, will you? You've got to get back down to that lever if Hoofington is to stand a chance.”

“Aaaand, why is that exactly?” Cogsworth asks The Boss, smiling sheepishly.

“You can’t seriously be asking me that,” The Boss deadpans.

“Sooo, I still can’t have next week off, then?” Cogsworth inquires.

The Boss stares at Cogsworth.

Cogsworth stares at The Boss.

The Boss blinks at Cogsworth.

Cogsworth blinks at The Boss.

Cogsworth opens the file and glances inside.

“Ohhhh,” Cogsworth says. “So, just next weekend then?”