Well there's your problem (Steam Sprocket)

[Deleted]

Oh no, this was not good. Shady Daze did not like to blow things out of proportion, but this was really bad. The camera that had been entrusted to him was now broken. It wouldn't even take weird broken pictures. It couldn't do much at all except incriminate him. At most, it used to incriminate other people, not him. The reversal was not a welcome one. As soon as Miss Cheerilee found out about this, he was going to be in big trouble. If Featherweight found out, he'd probably knock Shady back to the printing press. So obviously, he had to stop either of them from knowing.

So he had two options. One was to buy the exact same camera and replace the broken one. Problem was, he didn't have that kind of money and he didn't know where the old one had been bought. So his only real option was to try to get the one he had fixed and hope he could pay for that somehow.

He knew the town well enough to know where to go. Shady Daze was not a frequent visitor, but Steam Sprocket's shop was all about mechanical objects and as far as Shady knew, cameras were mechanical once you got inside of them. The ones he could currently see due to the damage certainly seemed to be. He walked into the shop, hoping the owner was around.

“Anypony here?” He asked, a bit mystified by the displays. Maybe he should have come in here sooner. This place seemed pretty neat. Maybe the camera had been bought here.

[sprocket]

Creak, creak...

A few cranking noises echoed through the shop before they stopped, and all was quiet once more. Steam Sprocket was concentrating hard on a clock he had been entrusted to fix. While clocks weren't big, they were especially fragile and difficult, so the fix-it earth pony always had to be as careful as possible when making modifications. He squinted at the tiny gears, his hooves steady over the time keeper as he worked.

He hadn't even heard the young colt walk in until the greeting was asked hesitantly. He jumped slightly, letting out a quick laugh and shaking his head. "Jeez. Long day already," he muttered to himself before waving a hoof over his head. "Aye, aye, over here~" he said loudly, grinning at the young colt. "And what can I do for ya, kid? Looking to buy or fix?" He tilted his head to the side. He felt as though he recognized that pony from somewhere, but he couldn't tell. Though, the more he thought on it... ah, yes, he was one of Cheerilee's students, a photographer for one of the newspapers as well. What was it... Fine Foal? Something with "foal" in it.

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The colt didn’t know what he would do if Steam Sprocket wasn’t around. He could probably hide the fact he had broken the camera for at least a day or so, but lying was wrong. He didn’t want people to think of him that way.

Shady Daze looked over in Steam Sprocket’s direction and walked over to him. “I need my camera fixed, it kind of got broken while I was trying to get a good shot.” He wasn’t one to get overly excited, but this was really important. Photography hadn’t earned him a cutie mark yet, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t eventually do so. Shady removed the strap from around his neck. Reaching up high, he placed the broken device upon the counter so it could be properly looked at.

“Do you think you can fix it?” He asked, not giving the older pony a whole lot of time to make that decision. From what Shady could see, the lens was cracked and the buttons were all stuck. After knowing if it could be fixed, he’d worry about things like payment or telling anypony else it was broken in the first place.

[sprocket]

Looking down over the desk, Sprocket blinked at the young colt and smiled at him. Made sense that it was his camera that needed fixing... those things could break quite easily. "Well, let's have a look, aye?" He gingerly took the broken equipment from the colt's hooves as he set it on his counter, pulling it closer and peering at it with narrowed eyes. He turned it around in his hooves a few times, his ear flicking idly as he studied the camera.

A few moments passed before he grinned. "Easy as cake! I'll actually be done with this in a couple'a minutes, you can look around if y'like!" Sprocket stated with pride, trotting away. He came back from a nook in the shop only a few seconds later, with a brand new lens. He popped the cracked one off and then opened up the camera itself, grabbing a few tools and starting to crank at a few gears. "This is an easy fix, you're lucky you didn't do some horrible damage. What happened to it?" he asked idly, pursing his lips as he worked.

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Shady watched the mechanically inclined older pony begin repairing the camera. He was highly assured by how confidant Steam Sprocket seemed to be about the state of the beat up camera. There was no doubt that this was the right way to solve his problem. While he was still concerned, his heart was back to its normal rhythms and once again lacked the dull pain of worry that had been visiting up until now.

”Uh I wanted to get a really cool shot so I got into this tree and I was kind of upside down and then it fell on a rock.” He hadn't realized that the strap didn't work when he was upside down until it was too late. The crashing sound the camera had made had been pretty loud. ”The picture wasn't going to be upside down, though. I was just trying to get a good angle.” Aspiring professionals had to go the extra mile! But after this he would probably stick to the first mile for a while.

”Is it really going to be easy?” He asked. Maybe he could have done it himself. He placed his front hooves on the counter to try to get a better look at the repair process.

[sprocket]

ooc: ugh goodness, this is really late, I'm so sorry D:

Sprocket listened to the young colt's tale, his tail swishing behind him with interest. He couldn't help but wince as he got to the part where he described the camera dropping on a rock. "Ach. Jeez... were you okay? You didn't fall after it didja, kid?" he asked with a frown, his eyebrow furrowed a little in concern. No visible bruises could be seen on the young Shady Daze, but it wasn't out of the question. Maybe he only took a light hit or something; but a fall was a fall and Sprocket hated to hear how other ponies got hurt. It made him feel bad. Maybe he should've become a doctor instead...

Sprocket couldn't help but smile as Shady Daze spoke up again. "Aye, easy as cake! C'mere, you can watch!" It was a little rare for other ponies, young ones especially, to take interest in Sprocket's job. They thought it was boring compared to all the fantastical things that surrounded Equestria. But at least they respected the fact that he was part of the backbone of Ponyville. If he built things and they didn't work, then Ponyville's many assets would be in jeopardy.

"See, all we hafta do is change the lens here, it's cracked..." He then popped in the new lens he had brought in with ease. "So that's the easiest part. Now here's some gears that got a little bent outta shape. Those are harder. Hey, kid, y'mind giving me a hoof?" He grinned at him a little. "I can do this free of charge if you help me out~" Maybe that would be enough to entice him... He always wanted to teach somepony how to fix things! Plus, then maybe Shady could do his own work in the future to avoid heart attacks like this.

[Deleted]

ooc: No worries!

As it became clear that everything was going to work out, Shady’s body worked through the very last of the panic that he had come into the shop with. His heart no longer had that impossible to ignore prickly feeling and he didn’t feel like he had to lie down and sprint at the same time any longer. Curiosity filled the void left behind by the fleeting emotion of worry. ”Almost, but,” he mentally relived the moment, wherein he attempted to follow after the camera in the short time it took to fall. He had been spared success through the small amount of locomotion created by flailing his back legs in the air. The wiggling itself had almost caused him to fall, but he had remained safe.

”I was pretty steady up there. It took a lot of time to get down, actually.” To be fair, the amount of time had felt like a lot of time, as fear filled seconds are won’t to do.

Shady did as he was told and moved so that he could watch the process more closely. The thought of finding his true calling by learning how to do this did enter his mind briefly before he became focused on what he was being shown. It quickly returned as Steam brought him further into the process. ”Sure! What do I have to do? Do I hafta pound them back into shape?” He had never fixed anything before, but he unbent things before, sort of.