Lightning streaked past Cogs as he wended his way through an array of strange and fantastical contraptions, each one bearing some similitude to devices he was familiar with; an iron carriage with black panels on its roof, an open book with buttons on one page and a back-lit picture frame on the other, and an oven with a completely flat surface.  These foreign objects varied greatly, but they all shared one definitive characteristic: they had cords attached to them running towards the center of the room, where the more antiquated items were.  The cords all connected to a massive pillar, made of alternating layers of orange and silver metal, balanced by glass beams that rose beyond its top and connected with the high roof.  Cogs cautiously cantered to the tower, and noticed something leaking from between the layers; he put his hoof out and, shutting his eyes tightly, he touched it.

There was no pain, only a tickle accompanied by a faint sizzling sound; he opened his eyes and saw that the surface of his hoof was dissolving.  The liquid was acid.  In an instant, the small leaks had become flowing streams; Cogs discarded his jacket and ran, barely outpacing the oncoming wave.  It was gaining and he was exhausted, there was but one option left; he coiled the muscles in his hind legs and jumped, gaining enough thrust to begin flying, but as he tried to unfurl his wings, he yet again felt the odd tickling sensation, and plunged headlong into the raging sea of acid below, gasping for breath as he simultaneously drowned and dissolved.

Cogs awoke with his face buried in a pillow, struggling to breathe.  He lazily propped himself up on one foreleg, surveying his lodgings; he noticed the conspicuous absence of a clock, one of the few luxuries he had lived his entire life with.  After sitting for an indeterminate amount of time caught in the twilight zone between waking and sleeping, he arose and trudged down the seven flights of stairs that displaced his complimentary room from the ground floor.

"Good morning!  How did you sleep?"

Cogs struggled to focus on the face of the Inn manager, a rather skinny colt whose name he couldn't remember.

"I slept..."

He paused and searched for the exact words to describe how well he had actually slept; unable to come up with any, he decided to fall back on the traditional answer:

"I slept well; and you?"

"Divinely."

Cogs noticed yet another conspicuous absence.

"Where are the rest of the guests?"

"Probably still asleep, it's only five-thirty after all; generally I'm the only one up this early."

Five-thirty?  He never slept in, but rarely did Cogs rise so early; he owed it to the unfamiliar bed.

"So, what do you want for breakfast?  We've got dandelion sandwiches, hay biscuits, and strudel of every flavor."

After brief consideration, Cogs asked for the simple dandelion sandwich, recalling all to well the sickly sweet taste of strudel.  As the manager left, the train of thought that had halted for sleep the previous night started its engines back up: 'What kind of jobs could I get here?  Something mechanical would be preferable, or maybe a courier, that would give me plenty of time to think, or perhaps a waiter, that would be much less strenuous.  I think I'll just apply at the first establishment whose name clearly states what it offers; the last kind of ponies I want to work with are the romantics who can never speak anything straight, but always adjust what they say to sound more poetic, often losing the meaning in the process.'

The manager returned and placed the meal before Cogs, then started to trot away.

"Excuse me, do you know if there are any watch shops around here?"

He stopped and turned to Cogs.

"Just a few buildings away, actually, Sepia's place."

"Thank you."

The manager nodded and resumed his previous course, disappearing through a door to the kitchen.

*    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *

Since he was first capable of rational thought, Cogs had been a pessimist, always expecting the worst and never glad for the best, because he knew it was merely a transitory stage between two great misfortunes; this attitude had been shaken, however, when he met the quartet.  He saw himself reflected in Noteworthy and realized just how unpleasant his negativity was for others; Scratch and Octavia were perfect examples of taking certain personality traits too far to either end of the spectrum; and last of all Lyra, she had shown him what it was to persevere towards one's goals.

Though it had been less than a day since he'd seen them, Cogs already felt a tinge of nostalgia, which clouded his brain and impaired his attempts to fully wake himself.  As he plodded along the lane, he noticed one building which stood out from the rest, as it was perfectly symmetrical with a very no-nonsense look about it; the sign in front of it was clear and straightforward, reading 'Sepia Tock's Clock Shop'.  He quickened his pace and stopped inches away from the polished display window, behind which lay masterpieces of fine-tuned mechanics.

The shop's proprietor, a blue-eyed, brown-haired stallion with a chestnut coat, had noticed his interest and gone outside, walking right up next to Cogs and joining him in his silent wonderment.  Several minutes passed without either moving anything save for their eyes.

"Real beauties, aren't they?"

Cogs' focus shifted to the foreground as he gazed at Tock's reflection.

"Indeed they are, I'm quite fascinated by them."

"That much is obvious.  Anyway, as you might have already guessed, I'm Sepia Tock; is there anything I can help you with?"

"Well actually, I'm looking for a job at the moment and was wondering if you have any open positions."

Tock stared at him, dumbfounded, then regained his composure and let out a small chuckle.

"What's so funny?"

"It's as if you were sent by Chronos himself!  My assistant Colgate just left on a two-week vacation last night, so there is an open position, which I'll consider giving to you after a sort of practical job interview."

Just as Cogs was about to reply, a large crash rung out, prompting them both to turn and determine its source; they heard several subsequent crashes, each closer than the last, before they saw the culprit: a storm cloud-riding yellow-haired pegasus, around whose back leg was a long rope knotted to a trash can.

"Doctor, Doctor!  Help!  The Daleks are chasing me!"

"Ditzy, stop!"

It was too late.  The trash can caught on a sign, dragging it's victim earthward; the storm cloud, however, continued to zoom towards Sepia, who froze with fear.  Cogs leapt and leaned all of his weight forward, catching the cloud right before the unusual altitude caused the contained lightning to arc out and contact the ground, creating a small dust explosion.

Ditzy looked on with horror; she didn't know what had just happened, but she knew it was her fault.  As the dust began to clear, she saw the silhouettes of Cogs and Sepia, the former on his hind legs with his front ones stretched out to either side, shielding the shocked but perfectly healthy Tock.

"You do not want to get hit by one of those, trust me."

Sepia stared dumbfounded for a few seconds, then asked the simple yet essential question:

"How... how did you do that?"

"Painfully, if you're asking about taking the brunt of that explosion."

"No, not that; how did you catch the cloud?"

Several lies formed in Cogs' mind, but were discarded when he decided that telling the truth would be the most convenient route.

"I'm a pegasus."

He lifted his coat to reveal what was left of his wings.  He then watched as the clockmaker's expression shifted from shock to horror, from horror to pity, and from pity to neutrality.

"I suppose that makes sense.  Back on the subject of what we were just discussing, go inside and I'll be right there to test you."

As Cogs entered the shop, he overheard Sepia talking to Ditzy, but could only make out one thing:

"...and for the last time, I am not the bloody doctor!"

*    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *

"Well, you obviously have a gift for understanding complex mechanical concepts, but it seems you know absolutely nothing about watchmaking, so I won't hire you, but I will accept you as a paid apprentice; you'll be under my careful guidance every step of the way."

Sepia raised his hoof for a shake, which Cogs misinterpreted completely, bumping his own hoof against it in a short, quick motion; Tock looked puzzled, but thought it better to not ask what had just transpired.

There was much Cogs had to learn about watchmaking, but fortunately it all came with an amazing degree of ease.  His first task was to effect repairs on customers' timepieces, it was a task of low difficulty, ranging anywhere from fixing misaligned gears to simply recoiling springs.  During his lunch break, he watched Tock spin molten sand for the hourglass bulbs, often melting down and re-spinning the same piece several times until he was satisfied with it; Cogs tried his hoof at it, but what he created looked less like a proper hourglass and more like one from a Dali painting, causing him to switch back to dealing with watches.  At five-thirty, he was given the day's salary and sent on his way; this process was intended to continue like clockwork for the next two weeks.

The clouds were thickening as Cogs left the clock shop, he could see the forms of pegasi soaring overhead, gathering the scattered bits of fluff into one massive thunderhead.  By the time he reached Spectrum he was soaked and shivering, in addition to being singed and sore from the dust explosion earlier.

This was the first time he had used the front entrance; the club wasn't in full swing yet and there were only a few guests, and they were the calmer ones, not the party animals that would swarm the joint whenever a big, open event was held there.  Cogs made his way to the back, entering into the familiar lounge where he spied Scratch, sprawled on her back with her eyes closed and brow furrowed in concentration as she spastically twitched her forelegs; he assumed that she was practicing mixing, but as he nothing of the subject he couldn't be sure.

He tried sneaking past her, hoping that years of dubstep had dampened her bass hearing; no such luck.

"That rhythm... either Lyra's walking funny again or it's..."

She opened her eyes and sat up.

"...Coggles!"

"Hello, Vinyl."

"Hey!  Watcha doin' back here so soon?"

"I came to talk with Lyra about a few things and ask Octavia about guitar chords."

She looked disappointed.

"That's it?  You just came to talk?  If you've got time afterwards, you should totally drop in and taste the night life; then you'll get to see my awesome mixing skills!"

"I'll consider it."

Scratch lay back down as Cogs moved to the hallway, trying to remember which direction it was to Lyra's quarters; he decided to leave it to chance and made a left turn.  Luck was in his side, it would seem, for he had barely rounded the bend when his ears were greeted with the sweet melody of the lyre.  He pushed open the door and saw Lyra reclining on that odd piece of furniture, her instrument levitating before her.

"Anybody ever tell you it's impolite to not knock?"

"Very funny, but please no more jokes; I'm here on urgent business."

"How urgent?"

"I'm trying to re-invent an instrument and I need your help, that's how urgent.  More specifically, I'm here to steal some books on music history."

"Re-invent?  That means..."

Lyra's face lit up with joy as she realized what his statement entailed.

"Take my books, take them all if you want!"

"Uh, thanks?"

Cogs was a little disturbed by her response, but thankful nonetheless.  As she resumed her playing, he cantered off to find Octavia.

*    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *

"No, no, no!  You have to curl your hoof like so."

Octavia twined her foreleg around the imaginary guitar's neck, trying to demonstrate proper technique to Cogs.

"See?"

"How can you even do that?  I can barely bend my joints half that distance!"

"Stretching and practice, though mainly practice."

Cogs once again attempted the stance, but succeeded only in spraining his left shoulder.  He winced and moved his foreleg down gingerly.

"Thank you, but I guess still need a lot more practice."

"As long as you don't give up, you'll do splendidly."

He exited her room, finally feeling the strain and monotony of the day beginning to set in.

"If I don't get to sleep soon I'm going to be in trouble tomorrow morning."

He yawned widely as he pushed open the lounge exit, completely forgetting what was to be expected past the door.

"Yeah it's me, DJ PON-3; I'll be layin' down beats all night through the heat, so dance strong and dance long.  First up on the deck, some Sapphire Shores, mixed fresh to death!"

Vinyl's little intro amused Cogs, but the following noise assaulted his eardrums.  He thought that as long as he was exposed, he might as well go to the source and chat with her.  As he stepped onto the podium, the volume dropped abruptly; for the first time he noticed the ethereal dome covering Scratch and now him.

"Huh, I took you to be the kind who would blast their hearing into oblivion, 'savoring' the loudness."

"Nah, love my ears to much to do that to 'em; but acting like a stereotypical, beat-crazed DJ has worked out pretty well for me so far.  So, what'd you come here to say?  Not a lecture I hope."

"No, but I did want to ask you about a certain something that has been puzzling me all day."

"Shoot."

"Okay, what exactly is all this 'Doctor Whooves' business I keep hearing about?"

"That?  That's just some weird rumor about the local clockmaker that got blown way out of proportion, probably 'cause of Derpy telling everyone about it."

"Derpy?"

"The town's mailmare; her name's Ditzy Doo but everyone calls her Derpy."

Cogs recalled the clumsy, cloud-riding pegasus.

"Ah, now it makes sense; thank you, I'll be going now."

"Wait! The music jus-"

He stepped outside the dome, forgetting about the insane bass he was exposing himself to, which at that moment had reached its loudest point.

"Aargh!"

He screamed and galloped to the exit, turning the few heads that were not entranced by the noise.