I stared at the old wooden door that stood in front of me, as if daring me to open and walk through it. There was something about doors that I absolutely hated, a stunning realization I happened across quite some time ago that’s almost always accurate down to the point: Any day something bad has happened, I’d walked through a door. Big doors, small doors, wooden doors, iron doors, hidden doors, trap doors, it didn’t matter, they were all the same. And the worst part:
Doors. Are. Everywhere.
Giving a defeated sigh I raised a hoof and pushed this new rival open, the bell hanging above it ringing like a gong signaling a victim entering an arena. As I walked through the accursed contraption I heard a hiss and a poof, and a faint clattering from somewhere unseen. The poof resounded through the quaint little shop and a pleasant “Welcome!” accompanied it, seeming to come from another entrance behind some kind of makeshift counter towards the back. The curtain strung over the other doorway parted, and a metal mask with some kind of nozzle attached to what seemed to be the mouth bobbed over to the counter, the nozzle glowing brightly.
I stared at the mask in slight confusion and it back at me in what I assumed was the same. Either that or it was wondering what would happen if you mixed maple syrup and eggnog and sold it to hospitals for use in intravenous lines. It suddenly jumped slightly as if remembering something.
“Oh! Sorry, just a second!” the mask spoke in a muffled, but unmistakably feminine voice, as the owner of the voice undid the straps holding the mask to her face and taking a deep breath as she removed it, placing it on the countertop beside her and stepping through an opening to her side, finally revealing the mare beneath the mask.
She was a slightly small mare, a dusty tan in color and a tad petite in form and height, but in no way unappealing, as her frame only accentuated her surprisingly beautiful features and curves. Her muzzle was smudged black here and there, no doubt from her work, but it made her already cute face all the more so, somehow accenting her vibrant purple eyes.
She exhaled her breath of fresh air and softly shook her head, shaking her mane out after binding it under the straps of the mask. It fell back to its natural position: slightly messy but stylishly feathered, cut moderately short but still long enough to swish gently as she did so, except for one longer lock in the very front of her mane which hung smoothly down the right side of her face. Interestingly enough, it seemed to show a slight pink tint when the light hit it just right, probably a long-term effect of plasma welding.
“Phew, sorry about that, I completely forget I’m wearing that thing sometimes. I probably shouldn’t have made it so comfortable,” the mare chuckled softly, tousling her mane and looking slightly embarrassed before smiling brightly and grandly sweeping a foreleg across the shop. “Welcome to Mechanaria, your one stop part shop for all your mechanical needs! I’m Bright Spark, but most of the ponies around here call me Dusty, for obvious reasons. What brings you around toda- Oh, I love your eyes!” she exclaimed, her gaze shifting between my green right eye and blue left.
“I...uhm, thanks...I need a bit of specialty work done,” I offered hesitantly, my low baritone voice soft but easily filling the room. I shook off the bit of snow that had collected on my deep blue coat and walked up to the counter, sweeping my duster open to remove a pair of devices and set them on the counter with a metallic clink. “I’d like to get my wingblades looked at and possibly fixed up; the middle hinge of the right one is twisted and doesn’t move fully, and the left could stand to have a professional look at it too.”
“Ooo,” she cooed as she bent over the counter, examining the pieces. “Are you a collector?”
“A…collector? A collector of what?” I inquired with yet another confused look.
I swear, one o f these days ponies are going to realize you really don’t have any idea what you’re doing if you keep making that face.
Shut up, brain, you’re not helping.
“Foreign and unique weapons?” she replied with an inquisitively cocked eyebrow. “This is Griffish black steel, excellent work with regard to even the smallest details, and a design I’ve never quite seen before.” She gestured to the blades. “May I…?” I gave her a nod.
“Go ahead. As for your question,” I continued, “they are indeed exactly what you make them out to be, so I must commend you for a good eye. However, they are not collector’s items; I had these made by a friend whilst I was in Griffonia.” She picked up the right blade, testing its movement range. “Phrey is an excellent blacksmith, the quality of her work I have yet to see anywhere outside her own shop. No offense, of course.”
“Y-you…you know Phrey?!” Bright Spark exclaimed, making me wince as she dropped the blade onto the counter attempting to pull her jaw off the floor and failing miserably. “You’ve been to her SHOP?!” I took a few nervous steps back from the counter.
“Um, yeah…look, clearly you’ve heard of her, but I meant no offense, I jus-“
“Heard of her?! Phrey is amazing! She’s practically my idol!” she interrupted me with an enthusiastic jump. “And to think, someone who knows her on a personal level is here! In my own building!” I began to worry slightly as she started to hyperventilate, one of her eyes twitching madly.
Get out. Get out now.
Hold up, brain, maybe she can fix my things before she finishes her mental breakdown.
…good point.
“Yes, yes there is,” I said slowly, still not fully trusting the mare’s mental state. “And he comes bearing a reward for services rendered unto him.”
“Oh, of course!” She looked down at the devices with an almost reverent gaze, her hoof hovering above them as if she wasn’t worthy to touch them. She slowly brought the hoof down to touch one of them, pulling it away suddenly as soon as it made contact and shooting me an enormous grin before doing it again and squeeing as she jumped into the air again. I cleared my throat and shifted a bit, causing her to allow enough of her attention to fall back on me to remember I was there.
“Aheh…ah, sorry,” she said, looking suitably embarrassed. She shook her head and picked up my equipment with a forced calm, turning to walk over to a device that looked like something from a horror movie’s doctor’s office; a solid middle with several metal arms rising out of the top of it, each arm ending in a variety of claws, clamps, and other things that were surely the cause of patients’ screams in the night. She set the blades down carefully in front of it and then walked to a panel to the side of it that held a multitude of knobs and switches. As she began to carefully manipulate the controls on the panel, the many arms of the device began to move, most of them rotating around to hang off the back while a few left on the front bent down and closed their feely metal grips around my wingblades, securing and lifting them up.
“What in Luna’s name is that?” I asked her with a distinct lack of calmness.
“Oh, this is Mr. Handy, isn’t he dandy?” she chuckled at her little rhyme as another arm brought a magnifying glass around for her to examine the blade. “I built him for fine manipulation, something that non-unicorns don’t have a lot of skill in. I mean, even pegasi wings are better at it than most earth ponies, and I don’t particularly enjoy the idea of holding everything in here in my mouth. Sure, I try to keep the place as clean and tidy, but in a metal shop, there’s only so much you can do.”
“Of course,” I said, looking around at the various devices that filled the shop, things like the dissected clock that served as the centerpiece of a corner table and an almost half-completed work of chain-mail hanging from a rack, any empty space around it surrounded by metal rings of various diameters and thicknesses. “’Tis a way of the metalworker, unavoidable at best.”
“Mhm. So tell me, how’d you end up in Griffonia? And in,” she took an excited breath, “Phrey’s shop?”
“I manage to get around,” I replied, sitting down on the floor. “I travel all the time, the Griffon Kingdoms my last visit, and I guess I just happened to be around and heard a scuffle in the woods. Lo and behold, there was a griffon with one and a half busted wings backed against a rocky outcrop by four manticores, if memory serves. Might have been five. Anyway, I happened across them, dropped down through the trees, and flew her out. Turns out it was Phrey; she was out looking for more of a special ore she uses and got jumped by a hungry manticore. It managed to break one of her wings and tore up the other pretty bad before she got away, but her noise through the brush and the smell of blood brought the others.” I looked up from the floor where my gaze had wandered and jumped slightly at the incredulous stare I was getting from the mare.
“By Celestia’s beard, what do you do? What do you travel for?” she asked, ready to disregard everything I’d said as just a fantastic tale if there was any hint of deceit to be found about me.
“Others,” I responded with a shrug. “I just kind of…wander, I guess. Do what I can to make other ponies’ lives better. Well, griffins, minotaurs too. Anyone, really. Every life deserves to have some light shine in it.” She stared at me, searching my face for some time for any sign of deception. Finding none, she returned to peering through the glass held by the machine.
“So you’re like a superhero? Isn’t that what superheroes like Superpone and Spidermare do?” she asked over her shoulder. I shrugged again.
“The role of hero is subject to perspective. Justice is not real, it’s just an imaginary word we keep using so we can live with ourselves.” She gave me an odd sideways look before returning her attention to Mr. Handy, who had done an excellent job in not interrupting me, one thing I could never fault inanimate objects for.
The room descended to a silence broken only by the ticking and whirring of her brainchild as Bright Spark engrossed herself into examining my blade. She suddenly sat back away from the magnifier and sighed, returning to where I was at the counter.
“Well, they’re certainly in need of some work, and I can say for sure it’ll take a couple days,” she explained, gesturing to the other half-completed projects around the shop. “The anchor points show quite a bit of wear, almost as if they are constantly jarring against your wings,” to which I shrugged. “The middle hinge of the right has been twisted slightly at the back end of the angle, which is why it doesn’t open all the way. How did that happen?” she asked.
“I fell while I was wearing them a little while back, must have landed on them wrong.”
“You fell?” she challenged. “Black steel takes way more than falling to damage it, you must have done someth-“
“I fell,” I said with a tone of finality. “I was flying and I fell.” I sighed and lightened my tone a bit. “How much will it cost to repair them both as best you can?”
“Erm…140 bits, I believe, due at such time as they are finished,” she responded with a perplexed look from my answer. “I probably won’t get to them until the day after tomorrow; I usually close up on Hearth’s Warming Day. I’ll actually be locking up in a bit for the Eve though, perhaps you’d like to take them back and just return then?”
“Nah,” I said, waving a hoof off, “ye can hold on to them, unless you’d rather I take them?”
“No, it’s perfectly fine by me,” she said with a small smile. Wandering around the room, she began to push the many piles together, organizing them and tucking things away. “So do you have any plans for the Eve tonight?”
“Hmm?” I hummed, glancing out the window at the falling snow. “Oh, that. I’ll find some way to occupy myself,” I shrugged. “What about you?”
“Nothing too fancy, just a quiet evening,” she responded, dropping a few small items in a metal tin before snapping it shut and setting it on a shelf. “It’s good to just have some time to just relax every now and then.”
“Ain’t that the truth. I feel that I’ve kept you long enough though, I’m sure you have other things to do besides listen to the random stallion ramble,” I said, standing up and brushing off a bit of dust given to me by the floor.
Thanks, floor, I will cherish this always.
“Alrighty, I should finish cleaning up. Good thing you came in when you did or I might have forgotten to stop working,” she chuckled.
“I arrive when I am needed,” I said, inclining my head in a slight bow before walking towards the door.
“Oh, I never got your name!” Bright Spark exclaimed as I pushed my wooden nemesis open. I stopped and turned my head partly back to her.
“And why would you want to know such a thing as that?” I asked her calmly.
“Well, t-to know who you are...I guess?” she stuttered out, confused.
“Names are but empty words that we are assigned. Live in such a way that your actions define you, not a pattern of letters,” I said coolly before giving another partial bow and walking out, saying, “It’s Flux.”
"Uh...alright then," the little mare laughed quietly to herself, glancing around at nothing as she tried to make some semblance of sense out of what she'd heard. "Weird guy. Interesting, but definitely weird."
[╪╪╪]
I walked down the street away from the shop, not going anywhere in particular. The already soft light had begun to fade long ago, leaving the last bit of the day in a soft haze as the sun finally dipped below the horizon and made way for the moon to take its place. Not that it mattered, the clouds that had been hanging above for a few days now had rendered day and night grey and darker grey.
You really shouldn’t have told her all that, you know.
Oh shut up, what’s the little mechanic from Fillydelphia going to do?
You never know. No telling what she’s gotten herself into.
It’s fine. You should learn to share trust with ponies sometime.
Yeah, great plan there, champ. So tell me again, what happened to the last one that got involved with you?
…
Because if I remember right, and as your brain I always do, she ended up strap-
That’s enough! I will not have myself turned against me! You are MY brain, therefore you do what I say!
Uh, technically, it’s the othe-
I stopped listening to myself and concentrated on walking, having proven internal dialogue to be a predominantly pointless process at this particular point. I noticed that the street began to open up slightly, the houses towering on either side of me becoming smaller and more spaced out as I got closer and closer to the edge of town. To my right I saw a small park; the playground equipment abandoned and covered in snow, the benches deserted.
I looked around the empty path, watching the snow gently drift through the yellow cones of light cast down from the occasional streetlamp, then sighed and trudged towards the park, finding a suitably less-covered-in-snow bench before scooping up some snow from the ground to pile on it. That’ll teach it to not be so appealing. I took a few more steps on my previous path before turning back and drawing a sad face on the snow pile of shame, nodding in satisfaction as I left it to cry its frozen tears.
I walked through the little park and up a small rise on the other side, stopping near the top and turning to look out over the small valley that stretched out away from the town. The cloud cover dwindled off further away, Luna’s moon shining through and casting shafts of white light to grace the landscape below.
Tucking the loose ends of my duster underneath me I sat down on the snow, removing from a pocket one of the few things that could still bring a smile to my face. I turned the small object over in my hooves as the distant moonlight gleamed off its polished casing and sighed. Raising the small harmonica to my lips, I blew out a single note, listening to the way the snow covered area absorbed the sound, leaving one to wonder if it had ever existed in the first place. I closed my eyes with a sigh and began to softly play, letting the sounds blend and build on each other and sending soft melodies to dance through the snowflakes.
I played into the empty night, slowly letting loose the pure emotion that drives true music to greatness. My mind began to wander to the past, thinking of all the good I’ve been able to create...but also of the bad that far outweighed it. What was it I told the mare? Justice is in illusion? An illusion to cover what?
Oh, nothing much, just the lives you’ve ruined, the lives you’ve ended, the chaos and strife that’s been brought by your hoof alone. Other than that, pretty much nothing.
I do what I do because there deserves to be someone willing to step in and do what needs to be done for the greater good!
Every side thinks they’re the good one.
Go away...
Fine. Sit here and wallow in self-pity, let’s just catch pneumonia while you’re at it, won’t that be fun?
Ignoring yet again the voice of, well, me, I was again struck with the magnitude of the things that have been done in the name of betting the world, things I’ve done for the sake of the same...
---
The lightning flashed again from the dark thunderclouds, briefly illuminating a figure speeding behind them. I spun to face where the shadow had been, but was quickly plunged back into darkness.
---
But such is the path so-called “heroes” walk, is it not?
---
A sudden movement from behind me and my bodily control was lost to the howling wind as the dark pegasus bit onto my tail and pulled hard, attempting to break my steady flight.
---
We do what we must...
---
Fighting back the reflexive tears that come from such a sharp pain, I grit my teeth and flapped hard, losing a good amount of worth-significantly-less-than-my-life tail hair in the process. I blindly spun as a rogue gust of wind suddenly changed my direction and threw me at my attacker.
---
Because we can.
---
Time slowed and another bolt of lightning flashed by, brightly and clearly illuminating the dark metal gleaming on the front edge of my wing...just as it passed through the base of the pegasus’s wing, the thunder drowning out his scream.
---
We, the strong, have to stand up and fight.
---
I hit a thundercloud hard, once again reminded that they’re not the soft, fluffy kind as my vision swam from the impact. Shaking my head in an unsuccessful attempt to bring my multihued eyes back into focus I saw a dark spot descending, a shadow of a shadow, as the black pegasus was thrown out of control toward the ground by the raging wind.
---
The strong do what they can; the weak suffer as they must. But if the strong are righteous, the weak need not suffer, for the strong provide.
---
Disoriented and with still swimming vision from hitting the thundercloud, I felt myself begin to fall, unable to regain enough control to stay airborne. Fortunately I was still able to use my wings to create enough drag that I didn’t instantly obliterate my skeleton as I hit the ground, instead landing upside-down on my right side with a heavy grunt and the assurance that I would be mightily bruised later.
---
And when the strong defend the weak, the weak become strong.
---
I shakily stood and lifted a hoof to pull my soaked mane out of my eyes and shield them from the rain, squinting as I searched. I tensed as I spied a shadow not too far away, but slowly relaxed as it revealed no movement.
---
But in all this, one thing is always true...
---
Moving closer, I stumbled slightly as the ground became rockier. Peering closer at the shadow it soon took a shape similar to a pegasus stallion, his black coat keeping his form undefined in the stormy night, but not enough to hide the sharp angle at which his neck was bent, nor the stump on his back that had once been a powerful wing.
---
You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.
---
I stretched out a wing and plucked a dark feather before bending over his broken body and securing it in his mane, something that I found helped bring some semblance of peace, somehow. For every life I take, a part of me also dies, and I have no right to allow the dead to perish alone.
---
The image of the pegasus faded with the haunting overtones I had somehow come to be playing and I lowered the instrument as my right hoof wandered to the upper portion of my left arm, slowly drawing it from my shoulder down and pressing my fur down around the six ridges that held their hidden descent.
Six scars.
Seven lives.
It was time again.
I set my harmonica in a fold of my duster then reached into its pocket and pulled out a small, sharp knife. I sighed as I unsheathed it and brought it up in front of me, reflecting the surface of the moon on its smooth blade. Closing my eyes I again stretched right hoof to left arm, taking a breath as I felt where the last scar was and positioned the small knife below it.
“That thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord they God giveth thee,” I spoke in low whisper. I began to pull the blade across my arm. “Thou shalt not kill.” The knife came away with the last word, a few drops of blood falling to stain the snow crimson as I let out a shaky breath and cleaned the blade off in the snow before returning it to its leather sheath and then to my pocket. I picked up my harmonica again and started off a low tune, wordlessly mourning the loss of another life, a life that could have been anything, could have been a stallion whose family never got to see him come home at the end of the day again. I stopped playing as I heard a slight shuffling behind me, my ear twitching slightly towards the noise.
“You don’t have to stop,” Bright Spark said as she started forward again from where she had stopped. “It’s a bit dark, but it’s pretty.” I lowered the small instrument, looking out over the valley again as she trudged through the snow to stand beside me. “Oh, Celestia, you’re bleeding!”
“It’s fine,” came the icy response, leaving no question that the subject was not going to be discussed. “Music...just is, I guess. Helps me think,” I sighed.
“It certainly sounded like you were into it,” she said, eyeing the bloodstained snow warily. “What are you doing out here, anyway?”
“I could ask the same of you,” I said with a smirk. “Thought you were going to just relax at home?”
“Well, I was on my way home and heard you. I just live right over there,” she gestured to the last house on the other side of the street.
“Oh, sorry,” I mumbled, standing up. “I can go find somewhere else, I didn’t mea-“
“Nonsense!” she exclaimed. “You shouldn’t even be out here all alone like this, it’s Hearth’s Warming Eve!”
“It’s another day,” I said, trying not to appear too rude. “Another passing of sun and moon, and life continues as it was.”
“It’s a holiday! A time to be with friends and family!”
“I don’t need anyone,” I spat, my eyes narrowing slightly. She took a step back and scrutinized me for a moment.
“You…you’re all alone…aren’t you?” she asked softly. I froze, my breath catching.
Wow, you’re transparent. What happened to the jaded and desensitized wandering adventurer?
Stow it, I’ve had just about enough out of you today.
“I am alone for good reason,” I muttered through clenched teeth. “Just as I have been, and will continue to be.”
“Nonsense, nopony should have to spend Hearth’s Warming Eve alone! Alright, you’re coming with me,” the little mare said in a tone that allowed for no argument, stamping a hoof for emphasis. I was shaking my head before she finished her sentence.
“I’ll not intrude on the life of somepony I’ve only just met, I told yo-” I gasped as she grabbed my still-tender left arm in a surprisingly strong grip, dragging me along behind her toward the house.
ABORT ABORT ABORT ABORT ABORT ABORT
Maybe...maybe it won’t be so bad...
ABORT ABORT ABORT ABORT ABORT ABORT
Just this one year...
ABORT ABORT ABORT ABORT ABORT ABORT
To not be alone...
STARS ABOVE, GET OUT WHILE YOU STILL CAN. SHE’S SMALL, YOU CAN TAKE HER. NO WITNESSES. ABORT ABORT ABORT ABORT ABORT ABO-
Oh, that’s how I turn you off. Good to know.
The small mare brought us up to the front of her house, unlocking the door and walking in, pushing a lever that started sparks to light candles all around the house, and a flint to jump in the fireplace, causing a small flame to slowly grow. I observed all this from the open doorway as she took off the scarf she was wearing and draped it on a hangar by the stove to dry. She looked back at me, realizing I had yet to come in, and silently gestured me forward. I hesitantly took a step in, watching the distance between my hoof and the floor close until I had walked fully inside and closed the door behind me.
[╪╪╪]
I sit on her soft sofa now, gazing in to the depths of the fire, letting the softly crackling licks of flame become my entire focus. Sure, it had been a little awkward at first as neither of us really knew what to say or do, but we eventually got comfortable enough to have a pleasant evening, trading stories and jokes and essentially enjoying the company of perfect strangers.
She had gone upstairs about 20 minutes ago, insisting that I spend the night somewhere warm instead of out who knows where. I listened to her soft hooffalls traverse the stairs and then wander through the second story for a bit before I heard a shower run briefly before more steps and finally a soft thump as she collapsed in her bed. A minute passed before I heard a few more steps followed by the distinct sound of a lock clicking, then a return to the bed. ‘She’s far from stupid, this one,’ I chuckled to myself.
As I drain the last of the cider she had warmed up I am yet again struck by how good it is. Of course I’ve made a few passes through Ponyville before and dropped by the famous Sweet Apple Acres, wherein is made the best cider I’ve ever tasted, but this was a close second. Setting the now empty mug on an end table I lean against the couch back, resting my head on the cushion and returning my gaze to the fire as my eyes slowly drift shut.
Maybe...maybe a friend wouldn't be so bad...