"Okie doke!" said Hay, spinning on his hooves to begin a lively trot towards the center of the room, "It's a bit of an older toy of mine that never took off or ever really got past being a simple prototype, but I still like to bring it out every once in a long while whenever I feel inspiration to tinker with it a bit or can remember where last I lost it."
Bubo, finally managing to return to being more than a statue of metal with a mass of clicking and whirring insides, loosened up enough to finally move his limbs, the mechanical avian snuggling up against Star with a light coo then wriggling free so as to flutter up and land on her right shoulder and start examining the new mare with a curious eye. He gave a clicking chirps hello as his inner workings continued to work through its issues, a sudden extension of his right wing displaying his current mild but annoying struggle to regain full control of himself for all to see.
Leading them deeper into the workshop whose occupants of metal and grease continued to growl and murmer in attempted hushed tones - these failing to be very hushed in the slightest as their creaking and grinding was probably loud enough for somepony outside of the shop to pick up on - Hay weaved and navigated past both fancy looking doodads and twisted piles of junk until they arrived near the center of the main room for the shop, a moderately large table situated next to a particularly large and ruined... uh... metal suit? It wasn't clear anymore exactly what that thing was/is/was meant to be, a chair of some sort that was stuck into its middle being the only clue as to what crazy idea Hay had managed to conjure up when he built it. Whatever it might have once almost been the metal junk heap was not what Hay had brought them here to see, it merely taking up space and leaving a crescent of open space around the table as well as being disregarded by the green stallion as he circled around to the other side of the table across from the mares and propped his front hooves up so as to lean forward towards them, his muzzle hovering over the real invention he wanted them to see.
resting on a triangular shaped base, flat on the bottom but with hill like curves on each of its three ends that dipped back down into a crater like center was a glass dome. Inside the dome was a silver sphere set atop of a thin metal rod - it appearing as if it had no right to be able to support the weight of the ball - that was planted into the center of the base.
"Here we are!" Hay proudly clarified, Bubo fluttering up off of Star's shoulder and elevating himself up to the same level as the shoulder of the defunct metal pony thing so as to watch from above, "This right here," a hoof tapped the glass of the device as he spoke, "Is what I like to call the 'Thought Theate', or just 'TT' for funsies. Its something I thought up when I was bored one day and wondered what the average pony did for fun. I figured that, in a pricey place like Canterlot, a lot of us are just stuck with daydreaming and using our imaginations, right? So what could I make that could make that even better?
"This!" the front hooves of the little inventor were held out to again present the thingamabob he'd built to the others ponies, "I wanted to make something that could let you watch your daydreams and imaginary what have you! Here, I'll show you."
And so he did, his hoof pressing against a button located on the nearest end of the TT's base and, of course, mixed in among a few other dials and dealies that may or may not have served a function. At the press of the button, a tray ejected from bellow the assortment of switches and twisty things that had an indentation pressed into it resembling the shape of the average ponies hoofprint, Haywire doing what it was obviously instructing as he pressed his own lightly onto the tray. Almost immediately Haywire felt the usual odd sensation of what felt like a slight siphoning of heat from his leg, through his hoof, and into the invention, it having been a funny feeling back when he'd first been working on the Theater but quickly being shrugged off by the inventor now that he expected it. As if the heat he felt was leaving him was being used to heat the sphere within the glass dome, the silver ball began to look less and less solid, eventually changing from a clearly solid ball into an odd looking rippling sphere, something one might see if a skilled unicorn were to successfully levitate a small amount of water without having it splash around and onto everything.
There the now evidently floating ball sat as if waiting for something to tell it what to do next. Haywire, having been waiting for this moment and actually showing a fair amount of focus as he'd watched the sphere eventually liquify, then moved on to the next step, his eyes finding their way upwards as he stared up at the ceiling of his home and tried to conjure up a detailed thought that he felt would serve well enough to show off his whosawhatsit. a few seconds passed as he thought, his tongue even being stuck out at one point as he focused, before he started to become satisfied with his thoughts and started to simultaneously pour mental effort into defining and pouring detail into his blurry and wavy imaginary scene and watch the liquid silver within the dome as it started to change.
Imitating what it was picking up on, the tray Hay's hoof was pressed against grew warmer as the Theater got to work, the silver liquid splashing down onto the glass keeping it contained then swirling around as it processed what it was trying to do. Settling down, it stopped its frantic wash of the dome after a few energetic seconds and started to form a plain to serve as its canvas, the liquid then splitting and moving around as it formed shapes and figures that were glued down onto the plain as if they were game pieces on a board.
The scene being organized was one of a party being held outside if the tree was anything to go by. A table decorated with sweet treats and set up by a fountain was currently being raided by a small pony with goggles while others around him talked and mingled. It didn't take too long for the stage to be set - the Theater even going so far as to try and fine tune a few things on its own such as adding small patches of what looked like grass here and there, though they tended to dull out after only a few moments due to it not being quite perfect - but once it was ready it moved on to its most impressive feature.
Everything began to move.
The fountain sprayed silver water, the ponies speaking showed body language, laughed and clapped, and the stallion with the goggles munched happily on the candies and desserts available for his enjoyment.
The detail on everything, like with the grass, wasn't quite right, everything appearing slightly off like, for example, the table cloth over the table not blowing in the same breeze that the tree swayed to, but it sure was doing its best.
Hayewire glanced between his invention and the mares, eager to hear what they thought.