A loud yawn filled the bedroom as Chrome stirred to consciousness and rubbed his face with his hooves. Still feeling slightly weary from last night’s ‘adventure’ he slowly managed to drag himself out of the bed and trot his way downstairs to the kitchen as all of his muscles seemed to be screaming at him in protest. He bumbled around the kitchen trying to figure out what he wanted for breakfast. It had been a long time since he’d actually had that much exercise and it was really hard for him to keep walking around at first. Walking to the party and back was fine enough; he wasn’t that out of shape, so why was he so tired them? Oh right Pinkie… that certainly was exhausting, just thinking back to the way that she had dragged him around the party at such a quick pace made him want to go crawl back into bed for the rest of the day.

“Get a hold of yourself Chrome… you have to set up the telescope today, no time for slacking off,” he had to remind himself as he finally grabbed a sleeve of pop-tarts. As he munched on his ‘meal’ he wandered back upstairs and into a room full of the last few boxes he’d left unpacked. His tests last night with the telescope had pretty much shown that he was right at the limits of working with a telescope that small. He pondered this thought for a moment as he kept chewing on the last bites of the pop-tarts. He started to unpack the boxes and look inside them, the first few were just full of larger lenses and mirrors he’d used for other telescopes in the past but hadn’t been able force himself to get rid of. Buried deeper in the third box were the first few parts of his full sized telescope.

“Well the entire point was to shrink it to a more usable size, ugh why can’t this ever be simple. I guess I can’t avoid putting this together after all,” he grumbled quietly to himself as he carried the boxes into the back room of his house.

He stopped and looked around this particular room; he had only come in here when he was looking at the house before he moved in. The ceiling was large dome that seemed designed to unlatch and open a good portion of it up to the sky. This room was actually the reason why he had chosen this house over the others despite the distance from Ponyville. Sure it looked a little bit odd with the huge dome perched on the back of it, but it had apparently been owned by an astronomer previously. This fact alone made it so that he wouldn’t have to build a room specifically to fit his telescope, he smiled to himself glad of this fact while he started to unpack the boxes and lay the parts out carefully on the floor. As he looked over all the parts and arranged them into optimal spots all around the room he let out a long sigh, this was going to be a long day…

*****

Chrome stopped to admire his work so far, the telescope was most of the way done and just about ready for him to open up the roof. Sure he still had a decent amount of work in front of him, but he was most of the way there. As he stood there feeling proud of himself his stomach interrupted him with a particularly loud rumble. He wandered back into his bedroom to fetch the extra clock he had bought for this room and stopped as he looked at the time. There was no way that could be right he thought as he glanced at his alarm clock. He ran over to the window not believing that either and drew the curtains aide unable to keep a quiet gasp from escaping his mouth as he saw his sun well on its way towards the horizon.

“Well that would explain why I’m so starving…” he admitted slightly embarrassed to himself as he walked back to the observatory to put the clock up on the wall. Then he remembered his food situation, or more specifically the lack of one with a loud groan. As he walked down to the kitchen and confirmed his fears with a quick glance into his cupboards. Finally after a long moment he just turned and head out the house starting his way towards Ponyville as he figured he could find something to eat there.

“Well I can probably finish the telescope tonight in time to gaze at some stars, but if I can’t get the same power out of the smaller telescope I’ll basically be starting over at that point…” he sighed to himself as he started the long walk to Ponyville proper. He continued to mutter to himself under his breath trying to think of any way to save himself wasted time but suddenly stopped as he realized he was in the center of town without fully remembering how he got there.

“Great too busy not paying attention again, now which way was that restaurant again?” he asked himself under his breath as he looked around with a confused look on his face.

“Hey Chrome! Wha’cha doing standing in the middle of town looking so confused for?” came a bright voice from directly behind. He jumped as he turned around with a hoof over his chest trying to calm down as he looked for the source of the voice. Standing a good distance behind him was a giggling Twilight Sparkle, but she wasn’t close enough to have been who was calling to him. As he looked around looking for the source he heard a loud laugh from above him and turned his head up to see Rainbow Dash laughing hysterically at his frightened expression.

“Oh man that never gets old, but what were you doing just standing around like a dummy for anyways?”

“Yes I was curious why you were just standing there with that confused look myself, though I probably would have approached it differently…” Twilight added as she looked at him inquisitively then switched to a meaningful glance directed at Rainbow which she seemed to completely miss.

“Well I was walking into town looking for somewhere to eat, but I got distracted thinking about the problems with my telescope… Then I found myself standing here in the center of town without remembering how to get to the restaurant.” He looked around the square again looking slightly confused.

“Uhhhm, which one again? Besides you could just say you were spaced out while thinking about smarty hooves stuff and leave out all the extra stuff. I know Twilight does the same thing all the time, right Twi’?” Rainbow teased the other mare with a grin and chuckled at her indignant reaction.

“Well! Ignoring the part about smarty hooves… yes I am familiar with that feeling. Chrome we were just about to head over to get a quick snack from the Sugarcube Corner, you could always come along. I wanted to talk to you about your inventing anyways and you said you’re having problems with a telescope? I could maybe help; I have books about all kinds of things!” Twilight added with an absolutely delighted look on her face at the prospect of being able to fix other pony’s problems with books. She even started to tap her hooves on the ground like an excited school filly before a look from Rainbow made her blush and clear her throat.

“Well if you’re sure I wouldn’t be intruding or anything…”

“Certainly not, we insist come on!” Twilight said with a smile and started to trot off towards Sugarcube Corner with Rainbow hanging back and flying beside him as she gave him a meaningful look. She just stayed there as she waited for him to start walking off first apparently, a point she made abundantly clear as she gave him light head butt before flying lazily next to him as they went.

*****

“You said you were hungry Chrome, but I didn’t expect you to be that hungry,” giggled Rainbow as he walked back towards the table levitating several pastries in front of him.

“Well, I may or may not have forgotten lunch while I was busy working on my telescope…” he admitted with an embarrassed look on his face as he sat down.

“Oh yeah that settles it, you two are totally the same pony in different bodies.” Rainbow grinned at the two of them as she fought back another burst of laughter.

“Well I do admit that I have forgotten a meal or two while studying, but I do try to avoid it when possible. Anyways Chrome what is it like being an inventor? Do you have any exciting projects you are working on?” Twilight questioned as she sat there with an excited look on her face after only taking a few cursory bites of her own food.

“Yeah do you have a secret lab in your house that you’re using to work on your dastardly plan to overthrow Celestia and Luna? That would be so cool! Well the secret lab part not the whole overthrowing the Princesses part…” Rainbow added hastily after Twilight shot her a scathing look.

“Well…” Chrome munched on a danish for a moment and pondered to himself about their questions as he had to consider it for a moment.

“That’s a deep subject you’ve got there” Rainbow teased with a grin and Chrome just ignored her.

“Can’t really say I’ve been asked to describe it before honestly, it’s frustrating at times I guess. I haven’t really done anything revolutionary or anything up to this point, or even had any major breakthroughs. I’ve mostly just been tweaking existing technology, sometimes I wonder about it though because it can be so frustrating and yet it seems to yield so little. But every time I do start to wonder about it I remember that I got my cutie mark while inventing so then there’s not a whole lot I can do to try and avoid that so I stick with it.”

“I assume later on I’ll do better and figure out what it is in particular my calling is in relation to inventing but for now I guess it’s just frustrating.” He pondered this for a moment just staring at the danish he was floating in front of him. He never really had put that particular set of feelings into spoken words before but now that he had, it was really starting to bother him. Why was he still plodding on with inventing?

“Umm, Chrome? Equestria to Chrooome…. CHROME!” yelled Rainbow in his ear making him jump and his danish flew sideways as he’s started out of his reverie.

“Well what exactly were you doing when you got your cutie mark then if you feel like that?” Twilight asked kindly as she caught his danish with her magic and floated it back onto his plate.

“Well I’d always been fascinated with stars when I was younger, I loved to look at the night sky and I couldn’t understand the story of Nightmare Moon because well how could no pony appreciate Princess Luna’s night? It was just so beautiful and my parents had a telescope that I loved to look through so I started to play around with it. At first I would just look at the stars, but I really wanted to see them you know? Not just the tiny little pinpricks of light that were mere imitations but what the stars actually looked like.” He concluded this part and took a moment to eat some more of his food.

“So what did you do then?” Twilight questioned with a curious look on her face as her food lay on the table in front of her completely ignored at this point.

“Well I read up on telescopes and took it apart, and then I put it back together, and repeated this process until I had figured out how it really worked. Then I started to try and improve upon it; the lenses weren’t really optimal, and the mirrors were poorly positioned. The whole thing just gave very poor magnification; I even went to a work pony in town that specialized in glass work to get some new lenses and mirrors made specifically to fit the telescope. I finally managed to improve upon the design enough to make it so that I could see some details a little bit easier but it wasn’t good enough. I even tried to test the magnification by looking for Nightmare Moon trapped in the craters of the moon somewhere. I had this idea she would be gigantic… and that if I could improve the telescope enough I’d be able to see her.” He chuckled quietly to himself at remembering the childish dream.

“I’m not entirely sure when it happened, because I get so focused while I’m working as evidenced by my forgetting to eat today. But one day after a particularly successful day of modifications I felt like I was making some real progress and I passed by a mirror only to see these gears on my flank. I assumed it meant I was to be an inventor because, well they’re gears and the only other Pony I could find record of that had gears as a cutie mark was exactly that. But I really don’t enjoy it for the most part, I really only like the part where it comes to testing the telescopes and I get to look at the stars in all their wonder and glory.” He finished this statement by looking back at the symbols on his flank that taunted him so much, telling him that it was his calling to do what he found so little joy in. He let out a quiet sigh then turned to look out the window aimlessly for a few moments.

“You know I think they look like stars, maybe you should just be an astronomer…” stated Rainbow Dash simply while hovering next to him as she stared at his flank and his cutie mark. Chrome could only blush as he looked uncomfortable with having his flank scrutinized so heavily.

“Clearly they are gears Rainbow can you not see how they are interlocked like that? Besides what kind of stars have holes in the center like that?” snapped Twilight suddenly who was now looking at the other side of his flank studiously making him sit up straighter and while he looked thoroughly confused and uncomfortable.

“How do you know huh? What if there are holes in the middle of stars and you just can’t see them? What if he’s going to discover that somehow, besides why would gears have such pointy ends like that anyway?”

“Umm…” Chrome tried to interject but the two of them didn’t seem to hear him at all.

“Psh, plenty of gears look like those have you not seen clockwork before?”

“Well no, not really but why are the points so far apart then huh?” asked Rainbow smartly.

“GIRLS!” snapped Chrome finally as his face was now quite red and the two of them kept alternating between staring at his flanks and then arguing across his back about his cutie mark. “Do you mind giving me some space here?” he asked awkwardly as the two of them glared at each other for a moment before they then returned to their seats flushing a little pink themselves as well.

“Ahem, well what was the problem with your telescope you mentioned earlier then?” ventured Twilight awkwardly after a long pause while she picked up her food and started munching on it bashfully.

“Well, what I’ve been trying to do is make a smaller version of the telescope I have at home, I have a giant one that I’ve been assembling and getting ready. It has really good power to it but it’s just… large. When I got older I built it myself employing techniques I had developed on my parent’s first telescope and a few subsequent ones. I’m not entirely sure but using my findings I believe I’ve been able to get as close of a look at the stars as Celestia’s own observatory, or maybe even closer I can’t say for sure never having seen it myself. They way they look shining at night is just simply marvelous; also the detail on the various nebulae and galaxies at night is just beyond description. The problem is it takes so much fine tuning and adjustment on the lenses and positioning of the mirrors to get a proper look that it’s just not viable for most ponies. It takes adjusting so many dials and such that no pony other than a unicorn could possibly handle it. Ponies simply just do not have enough hooves to manage everything, plus you really have to understand the way it is set up to use properly since it’s set up under a different design.” He concluded with a shrug then goes back to munching on the rest of his food and started in on his drink.

“Well since you put it like that… could it not be both?” asked Twilight diplomatically.

“What? How?” questioned Rainbow as she quirked her eyebrow at the two of them.

“Well he got his cutie mark while making a telescope right? It sounds like he’s been working on the smaller telescope so that he could show other ponies the stars the way he does right? What if that’s the type of inventing you’re supposed to do? Would you enjoy that more? Making it so that other ponies can see the night sky the same way that you can?” asked Twilight simply before finishing her food finally.

“I suppose… the problem is I’ve really reached the limit on what I can do with a telescope as small as the one I’ve been working on. There’s just too much limitation on the size of the lenses and mirrors, so I’m basically back to where I started without really sure where to go now. I spent almost all day today setting up the full sized telescope like I said, it should be done by tonight but it’s frustrating I don’t know what else I can do at this point. The small one just doesn’t work for my purposes and the big one is still just a problem. Twilight do you have any books on telescopes? Maybe I could pick up some ideas from those on how I can continue from here?”

“Oh certainly, our book selection is amazing! I think we even have more books than I did at Canterlot! You are certainly welcome to stop by and take a look sometime.” beamed Twilight always happy to have any pony stop by for books.

“Yeah I’ll probably stop by sometime tomorrow I’d like to finish setting up the telescope tonight, I just want to look at the stars and relax tonight. I’m rather frustrated and don’t want to bother with any more adjustments for a while. Thanks for sitting and chatting with me girls, it helped a lot.” He added with a smile as he stood up and stretched with a quiet yawn.

“Okay see you tomorrow then Chrome!” waved Twilight as he started to walk away.

“Seeya Chrome!” Rainbow yelled after him as he walked off and then the two of them went back to talking when Chrome glanced back. He started his walk home trying to ignore the spinning sensation that was filling up his head, every time he stopped to think about the implications of what they discussed he came up with different ideas on what he should do.