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Clockwork
If Clockwork Callous died tomorrow, he would be remembered for living up to his name. No pony could produce clocks and automatons to match his creations, not even those technologically advanced – Ha! – bucks from Equestria. A thousand years had clearly destroyed the imaginations of his brethren. If those plain, unoriginal monstrosities were what passed as quality these days, Callous was happy he’d missed a millennia.
But today would be different. Today, after a year of struggling to obtain funding, browbeating ignorant assistants and five redesigns, Callous would show the world what real craftsponyship looked like.
The clock tower rose tall over the streets of the Crystal City, its brilliant edges gleaming in the sunlight. Hundreds of ponies lined the streets to witness the moment of activation, when the first modern – truly modern, as Callous defined the term – clock tower of the Crystal Empire would be activated by none other than the Princess of Love herself. Among the attendees were not only crystal ponies, but foreigners of every stripe and design, most of them tinkerers, designers and inventors in their own right. All had heard of the fabled clockmaker returning to their world, and not a one wished to miss his first public work in a million years.
The tower was a thing of beauty. Its lithe crystalline form twisted into the sky, all graceful curves and precision. The shimmer of its surface was rivaled only by the Crystal Palace itself, the silvery edges glimmering like water in sunlight to fool the eye. Many among the audience questioned if the structure had edges at all; perhaps it continued into some hidden, magical dimension created to hold all the gears and bolts. After all, surely the inner workings of a clock would never fit into something so thin and with such a strange, rolling shape!
There was no illusion. The careful engineering required to put everything in the tower was the true masterpiece of this creation. Callous had given the princess a view of the interior only two days ago, and her astonishment still filled him with pride. Those modern ponies with their square blocks of ticks and tocks would be studying his design for years and may never grasp its true beauty.
And so the time came when the princess approached the tower. Held in her magic was but a small golden key. One simple turn, and Callous’s greatest creation would come to life.
It was then that the long hidden worries arose, the fear that only the master inventor knew. The designs and patterns flowed through Callous’s mind. Where were the flaws? What were his mistakes? What if a critical shaft had been produced below specification? Months of planning, endless nights with no sleep, weeks of tension and fear and hope and desire, all coalescing into a single twist of a key!
That key entered its hole. A dainty, royal hoof touched it. With the lightest of motions, bolts moved behind crystal walls.
High atop the tower, the smallest hand of a brilliant glass face shuddered into motion. It moved again. And again. Seconds of life, seconds or reality slipping by. Words were being spoken, praises were being sung, but Callous didn’t take his focus from the hands. One minute. If it went for at least one minute, then his work would be done.
Twenty seconds.
Thirty.
Forty. His heart began to flutter.
Fifty.
Crunch.
And with that, Callous’s greatest success ground to a halt.
Silence filled the world. All eyes were set upon the hands of a clock that remained as still as death. Then, they focused upon the legendary inventor himself.
Yet he saw them not, for all Clockwork knew at that moment was failure. His prize, his dream, the design he’d longed to complete before even the rise of Sombra, gone. For the first time in his long life, Clockwork Callous felt the burn of tears. Perhaps those modern ponies had been right all along. Perhaps the famed clockmaker of history should be relegated to precisely that: history.
A soft hoof touched his shoulder. Calm came upon his soul, and at last he wrenched his gaze from the face of his defeat. She stood before him, that young princess. He prepared to apologize, to beg forgiveness, to promise to never insult her with his work or waste her time again.
She stopped him with only a gentle smile.
“Thank you, Clockwork. Thank you for this beautiful expression of love.”
But today would be different. Today, after a year of struggling to obtain funding, browbeating ignorant assistants and five redesigns, Callous would show the world what real craftsponyship looked like.
The clock tower rose tall over the streets of the Crystal City, its brilliant edges gleaming in the sunlight. Hundreds of ponies lined the streets to witness the moment of activation, when the first modern – truly modern, as Callous defined the term – clock tower of the Crystal Empire would be activated by none other than the Princess of Love herself. Among the attendees were not only crystal ponies, but foreigners of every stripe and design, most of them tinkerers, designers and inventors in their own right. All had heard of the fabled clockmaker returning to their world, and not a one wished to miss his first public work in a million years.
The tower was a thing of beauty. Its lithe crystalline form twisted into the sky, all graceful curves and precision. The shimmer of its surface was rivaled only by the Crystal Palace itself, the silvery edges glimmering like water in sunlight to fool the eye. Many among the audience questioned if the structure had edges at all; perhaps it continued into some hidden, magical dimension created to hold all the gears and bolts. After all, surely the inner workings of a clock would never fit into something so thin and with such a strange, rolling shape!
There was no illusion. The careful engineering required to put everything in the tower was the true masterpiece of this creation. Callous had given the princess a view of the interior only two days ago, and her astonishment still filled him with pride. Those modern ponies with their square blocks of ticks and tocks would be studying his design for years and may never grasp its true beauty.
And so the time came when the princess approached the tower. Held in her magic was but a small golden key. One simple turn, and Callous’s greatest creation would come to life.
It was then that the long hidden worries arose, the fear that only the master inventor knew. The designs and patterns flowed through Callous’s mind. Where were the flaws? What were his mistakes? What if a critical shaft had been produced below specification? Months of planning, endless nights with no sleep, weeks of tension and fear and hope and desire, all coalescing into a single twist of a key!
That key entered its hole. A dainty, royal hoof touched it. With the lightest of motions, bolts moved behind crystal walls.
High atop the tower, the smallest hand of a brilliant glass face shuddered into motion. It moved again. And again. Seconds of life, seconds or reality slipping by. Words were being spoken, praises were being sung, but Callous didn’t take his focus from the hands. One minute. If it went for at least one minute, then his work would be done.
Twenty seconds.
Thirty.
Forty. His heart began to flutter.
Fifty.
Crunch.
And with that, Callous’s greatest success ground to a halt.
Silence filled the world. All eyes were set upon the hands of a clock that remained as still as death. Then, they focused upon the legendary inventor himself.
Yet he saw them not, for all Clockwork knew at that moment was failure. His prize, his dream, the design he’d longed to complete before even the rise of Sombra, gone. For the first time in his long life, Clockwork Callous felt the burn of tears. Perhaps those modern ponies had been right all along. Perhaps the famed clockmaker of history should be relegated to precisely that: history.
A soft hoof touched his shoulder. Calm came upon his soul, and at last he wrenched his gaze from the face of his defeat. She stood before him, that young princess. He prepared to apologize, to beg forgiveness, to promise to never insult her with his work or waste her time again.
She stopped him with only a gentle smile.
“Thank you, Clockwork. Thank you for this beautiful expression of love.”
“A millennia.” Well, so much for that strong first impression.
I kid. Mostly. It’s just a pet peeve, but it’s a pretty big one.
I admit, I was kind of hoping that this would end in Clockwork triumphantly declaring how his masterpiece would only lose one second every year, followed by awkward shuffling as ponies waited for someone else to tell him how technology had passed him by.
Of course, I can’t condemn you for not writing the story I wanted to read. The one you wrote is a lovely little tragedy and a great Cadance moment. Thank you for it.
I kid. Mostly. It’s just a pet peeve, but it’s a pretty big one.
I admit, I was kind of hoping that this would end in Clockwork triumphantly declaring how his masterpiece would only lose one second every year, followed by awkward shuffling as ponies waited for someone else to tell him how technology had passed him by.
Of course, I can’t condemn you for not writing the story I wanted to read. The one you wrote is a lovely little tragedy and a great Cadance moment. Thank you for it.
I kinda wish I had something more to say for this story, because it is delightfully written, and the sequence where Clockwork is, um, clock-watching conveyed tension extremely well with such a small number of words. It's not my cup of tea, but that's purely down to individual preference, and takes nothing away from its qualities. Thanks for sharing your work with the community.
I only have picky comments for this one.
I was confused by "those plain, unoriginal monstrosities" because it implies you're referring to something previously mentioned, and you haven't explicitly mentioned anything that matches. Maybe if you'd mentioned the inventions of the other ponies first then it would work. Otherwise, use "their" instead of "those".
A millennium (-um is the singular) is a thousand years, not a million years.
I think "may" needs to be "might".
I was confused by "those plain, unoriginal monstrosities" because it implies you're referring to something previously mentioned, and you haven't explicitly mentioned anything that matches. Maybe if you'd mentioned the inventions of the other ponies first then it would work. Otherwise, use "their" instead of "those".
A millennium (-um is the singular) is a thousand years, not a million years.
I think "may" needs to be "might".
I get it! it's cuz his name is Callous! so everyone thinks he is! though that trait is not emphasized much in the text. he's certainly arrogant and clever, but hard to say if he acts callous towards others. so maybe I'm wrong here.
I've never seen a clock tower with a second hand...? at first I was wondering how the crowd could tell the clock had stopped moving, because most big clocks. then I reread it and realized "smallest hand" wasn't referring to the minute hand.
I was actually hoping worse would happen, like the mechanism is gradually tearing apart on the inside, the failure heard but not seen. then, it finally stops, and silence. I think that'd be even more eerie.AND THEN IT EXPLODES! okay, fine fine, this is your story, not mine.
I've never seen a clock tower with a second hand...? at first I was wondering how the crowd could tell the clock had stopped moving, because most big clocks. then I reread it and realized "smallest hand" wasn't referring to the minute hand.
I was actually hoping worse would happen, like the mechanism is gradually tearing apart on the inside, the failure heard but not seen. then, it finally stops, and silence. I think that'd be even more eerie.
Nitpick: some repetitions — lined the streets to witness the moment of activation, when the first modern – truly modern, as Callous defined the term – clock tower of the Crystal Empire would be activated; His prize, his dream, the design he’d longed to complete before even the rise of Sombra, gone. For the first time in his long life, Clockwork Callous felt the burn of tears. Perhaps those modern ponies had been right all along. That’s many “long” in a short while :P
Well done: you write about Cadence without ever writing her name, so nobody will relapse in that eternal Cadance/Cadence quibble. Wut? :P
I don‘t get what happened to C.C. Did he sleep for a millenium? Was he imprisoned in ice? Resurrected? That point is pretty obscure.
Otherwise, that’s a nice fiction, and the punchline is great. But, as Dubs mentioned on the chat, no clock is as precise as a broken one, since instead of giving always the wrong time, it gives the right one, twice per day.
Well done: you write about Cadence without ever writing her name, so nobody will relapse in that eternal Cadance/Cadence quibble. Wut? :P
I don‘t get what happened to C.C. Did he sleep for a millenium? Was he imprisoned in ice? Resurrected? That point is pretty obscure.
Otherwise, that’s a nice fiction, and the punchline is great. But, as Dubs mentioned on the chat, no clock is as precise as a broken one, since instead of giving always the wrong time, it gives the right one, twice per day.
Okay, the first paragraph is hitting me over the head here, and not in a good way.
... uhh ... Equestrian deer? Is this alt-future? Is he cursing and bowdlerizing? I am lost. D:
Over the course of the paragraph we go from an external narrator telling us about CC in clear third-person style, to an internal narrator giving us the thoughts in his head.
Alicorn? Lunar banishment? Is he actually an automaton himself? I have questions. I hope the story will answer them.
... okay, I guess there's something going on here with the Crystal Empire, and he's just a normal pony who vanished along with the city? That could have been better lampshaded —
— augh what the hell
I am bouncing off this story hard. Please, in editing, go back and take some deep breaths, figure out what those first few paragraphs are trying to tell us about the situation, and be a little less clever about the exposition of it. The fact that so many things are bewildering in the first few paragraphs is causing me to preen the text for clues and notice a lot of little errors that are having an outsized effect on my enjoyment.
Once I managed to pretend that rough start didn't exist (about five paragraphs in), this was decent enough, if a little too melodramatic for my tastes in the clock-watchy parts and the angst. But the ending structurally and thematically came out of nowhere. Everything in the earlier text focuses on the mechanism itself, except for a single throwaway reference about him browbeating his assistants. The Princess' words are a screaming left turn from the themes you've been building. And you can totally make a story out of that! But if you do, you need to acknowledge that it's a departure, that this is the moment in which he learns some lesson and things change — in other words, if your point is that he was focusing on unimportant things, you're ending the story at the moment of climax, and it sorely needs a denouement to show how that realization changes him, closing out his character arc.
I can see that there's a lot of potential here, with editing. But right now there's too much in the way for me to appreciate it.
Tier: Needs Work
bucks from Equestria
... uhh ... Equestrian deer? Is this alt-future? Is he cursing and bowdlerizing? I am lost. D:
If Clockwork Callous died tomorrow, he would be remembered for living up to his name. ... If those plain, unoriginal monstrosities were what passed as quality these days, Callous was happy he’d missed a millennia.
Over the course of the paragraph we go from an external narrator telling us about CC in clear third-person style, to an internal narrator giving us the thoughts in his head.
A thousand years had clearly destroyed the imaginations of his brethren.
Alicorn? Lunar banishment? Is he actually an automaton himself? I have questions. I hope the story will answer them.
... okay, I guess there's something going on here with the Crystal Empire, and he's just a normal pony who vanished along with the city? That could have been better lampshaded —
his first public work in a million years
— augh what the hell
I am bouncing off this story hard. Please, in editing, go back and take some deep breaths, figure out what those first few paragraphs are trying to tell us about the situation, and be a little less clever about the exposition of it. The fact that so many things are bewildering in the first few paragraphs is causing me to preen the text for clues and notice a lot of little errors that are having an outsized effect on my enjoyment.
Once I managed to pretend that rough start didn't exist (about five paragraphs in), this was decent enough, if a little too melodramatic for my tastes in the clock-watchy parts and the angst. But the ending structurally and thematically came out of nowhere. Everything in the earlier text focuses on the mechanism itself, except for a single throwaway reference about him browbeating his assistants. The Princess' words are a screaming left turn from the themes you've been building. And you can totally make a story out of that! But if you do, you need to acknowledge that it's a departure, that this is the moment in which he learns some lesson and things change — in other words, if your point is that he was focusing on unimportant things, you're ending the story at the moment of climax, and it sorely needs a denouement to show how that realization changes him, closing out his character arc.
I can see that there's a lot of potential here, with editing. But right now there's too much in the way for me to appreciate it.
Tier: Needs Work
I enjoyed this one. The idea of a pony who returned from a thousand years ago and is trying to make his mark on the new world he's in was a great concept, as well as the idea that he's a bit of an egotist who is forced to confront failure for the first time in a long while. But he's not arrogant to the point of unlikability, and that makes his breakdown and Cadence's comforting all the more poignant. I think it makes the fic feel more whole than some others I've read for this contest, and other than maybe describing some of the clock's interior a little more, I wouldn't change much about it.
16th, huh? I'll take it. But egad, do I feel stupid for some of those typos and missed slip-ups. My lack of attention to detail has been killing me lately. I mean, seriously, did I really put in "million years"? And how the hey did I miss that I wrote "millennia" instead of "millennium"? I wouldn't be the least surprised if those slips didn't cost me two or three ranks.
If anything struck me as odd, though, it's how certain people developed some wild ideas out of something so very simple. Even with the mistakes, I would think that the intention was clear. Apparently not. Just goes to show that you can't assume the audience will look at things the way they are supposed to, no matter obvious the writer thinks it is. For those of you confused, he's just a famous clockmaker who spent the last thousand years sealed away like the rest of the Crystal Empire, and who wants to remind ponies of his existence through his work.
And because it got brought up: yes, his clock has a seconds hand. This was meant to be a subtle reflection of how things have changed over the last thousand years, because modern clocktowers (at least in real life that I know of) don't have that third hand.
If anything struck me as odd, though, it's how certain people developed some wild ideas out of something so very simple. Even with the mistakes, I would think that the intention was clear. Apparently not. Just goes to show that you can't assume the audience will look at things the way they are supposed to, no matter obvious the writer thinks it is. For those of you confused, he's just a famous clockmaker who spent the last thousand years sealed away like the rest of the Crystal Empire, and who wants to remind ponies of his existence through his work.
And because it got brought up: yes, his clock has a seconds hand. This was meant to be a subtle reflection of how things have changed over the last thousand years, because modern clocktowers (at least in real life that I know of) don't have that third hand.