//------------------------------// // Stand Back I'll Show you how it's Done // Story: Skeletons of the Past // by Sturrn //------------------------------// Chapter Three Stand Back I’ll Show you how it’s Done This Chapter is pending a re-write. “Sir, I’m afraid you are going to have to find somewhere else to sleep.” I was wrestled out of my pleasant sleep by a guard’s voice. Thankfully he didn’t yell at me and only roused me with a calm mild voice. I already like this guy more than the other two guards; they just attacked before I could spin my tale of woe. I mean who would believe my story? Being a reanimated skeleton of a dead species, sent to play a game by a doctor with a glowing pen really? ‘Okay I’m a weirdo and even I wouldn’t buy that.’ I grabbed my two axe heads and stood up to leave. “Sorry about that, I hadn’t meant to doze off last night. Hey, do you know where I can buy a newspaper or something also a way to get some money for said newspaper?” “If you promise to keep those claws and blades to yourself, I’ll give you a few bits to buy a newspaper how about that?” Really a pony from Canterlot helping someone less fortunate than them? ‘What is this heresy!?’ “I wouldn’t attack someone without adequate reason.” He beamed a toothy smile up at me, straight into my empty eye sockets. ‘The one place I can’t cover without drawing suspicion’ his smile drew to a frown quickly almost like he could read my mind. “Why are your eyes so black? I can’t even see any detail in them.” ‘Uh oh quick cover story um… blind diamond dog traveler lets go with that.’ “The reason you can’t find any detail is because I don’t have any eyes, I’m blind. I lost my sight when I was a traveling on the road, got into an accident and lost them both. I’ve had to use my other senses for a long time. You could say I’m my own Seeing Eye dog.” Yes good seal the deal with a lame pun, let’s just hope he buys it and doesn’t ask any more questions like that. “Ohh I’m sorry to bring that up, it must be hard being blind and dealing with all the racism in Equestria toward any non-ponies. Everyone only really just learned about the plight outside of the country a few months ago. Thanks to the Griffin pirates that is.” Okay now we are getting places, apparently Equestria is great and the rest of the world has problems. Definitely not a fan of the racism either and it looks like that guard wasn’t just an isolated incident. “It’s okay I deal with everything well enough but let’s not have you waste your money on me. You can just tell me what you have heard recently, sound good?” Hearing this from him would be a lot easier than just skimming through some racist tabloid trash. “Okay I can do that but you’re going to have to keep up with me. I still have to go on patrol through the city. I’ll even give you the scenic guard tour.” That actually sounds pretty good; get a lay of the land and what not. “Sure let’s get started, just lead the way and I’ll follow next to you.” “Why don’t you follow behind me that way no one bumps into you?” “Because I can see just as well as you even without my sight!” That was uncalled for and it’s not like I’m actually blind. Need to not get so emotional on things. I should give him an apology that would probably be good. He just stared at me devoid of any discernible emotion. That cannot be good at all. “That was my bad I shouldn’t have yelled at someone who is helping me, I just want to get moving.” “OK well then let’s go, you are really eager to get going at 7 in the morning I wish more of the new guards were like you. My name is Sturrn by the way” “I’m Rorke.” Well at least we have each other’s names. We started to walk out of the park grounds but I kept in mind the way back to that tree. From there I could get back into the museum underground. After a few minutes I decided to take a look at him in detail real quick. I saw he had the standard gold armour of the royal guard. However there was a symbol I didn’t quite recognize on the armour covering his shoulder, other than that he was your standard pegasi. I decided curiosity would be my friend this day. I drooped my hand over to his armor and felt the symbol. “If your wondering what the symbol is I’m a Drill sergeant in the royal guard. Normally I would be back at the castle training new recruits but the guard is spread a little thin these days. More threats keep coming to Equestria’s door and the guard has to be there to answer it.” “Sounds like a tough job, but you’re a lot nicer than I imagine a drill sergeant would be.” “Yes well let’s just say, I enjoy my job and my private life separate. You know something; you are so much more different than any diamond dog I have heard about. Ponies always say they are overly aggressive and not to very intelligent except for their leaders. You wouldn’t happen to be one of those… uhh Alphas that’s what they are called. Are you an Alpha?” I sighed ‘honestly this has got to be the stupidest idea I have had in a while but here it goes.’ “OK I’m going to tell you something but I need your absolute silence on the subject, you can’t go to the bar get drunk and spread this around OK?” “As long as it doesn’t endanger Equestria or its citizens then my lips are sealed. Plus I don’t get drunk I can hold my liquor.” “Good enough for me, can we stop in that alley right there?” “Sure but not for long, we have a schedule to keep.” Oh he has no idea, that schedule is going to be the furthest thing on his mind in a minute. As we entered the alley, I turned around to make sure no other ponies were walking by or looking in after us. Can’t be too sure who sees this. I definitely don’t want a city wide Anubite hunt. I turned to him and knelt down on a knee and began unwrapping my facial cloth quickly revealing my skinless muzzle. Finally I unwound my whole head as I let the cloth fall into my right hand, holding the axe heads as well. ‘I don’t think his eyes can get any bigger, uh oh he’s staggering backward that isn’t good.’ Sturrn opened his mouth to scream only for my hand to clamp down on his muzzle just a second quicker. He decided struggling against my hand would be a great idea. Claws right next to his eyes dissuaded that line of thinking fast however. ‘Honestly you think someone in the guard, a drill sergeant no less would be able to handle this.’ “I said absolute silence on the subject, that doesn’t mean scream your head off!” I snapped at him in a hushed anger just in case anypony was nearby. “I’m going to release your mouth now, are you going to scream again?” He shook his head no. Honestly though I didn’t trust him much however the only other option would be to kill him or tie him up in this alley and that is just mean. so he doesn’t start the hunt for me and he seems like a to good of a guy…stallion to just kill. I slowly crept my hand off his mouth and he made no moves to yell again. “You have 5 second to tell me, what in Tartarus’ name you are before my hooves get to have an intimate conversation with your face!” OK he is not taking this as well as I thought he would. I should probably skip straight to the explaining part. “Have you ever visited a museum? Maybe one lately?” “Not lately but I did have my shift at one last month, now what does that have to do with you not having a face or even an ounce of flesh at all!” This guy is totally a drill sergeant, he looks like he might actually have a stroke from this much anger. ‘Maybe a little Yoga or Pilates something of that nature would calm him down.’ Probably should omit the part about being an interdimensional traveler. “Calm down and that is great, you probably saw me. Until about oh... 10 hours ago, I was a museum exhibit in the basement so there is that. My full name, if you looked at the placard is Rorke Chardstone High Priest of the Anubite kingdom. Somehow I got brought back to life and here I am.” He looked to be examining the evidence as he looked at his hooves until his head shot back up and he examined my apparel, yep this might get bad pretty soon. “You lied to me; you aren’t blind at all are you? Honestly it was pretty convincing.Hey but that means you’re the one who beat and cut the guards, I sent to check a door alarm in the basement last night! You also stole museum property as well as destroying other pieces belonging to the Museum!” This kind of sucks, I was hoping he wouldn’t figure that out this soon “OK I will give you that one, I did beat your guards but in my defense I just wanted to talk to them and they immediately charged me with their swords drawn. The one without a tail sliced off my left arm and broke my axe staff. For the pieces of museum property destroyed, I’m not taking the fall for that those idiots smashed everything in between them and me regardless of what it was.” ‘That apparently made him calm down, those two must do that kind of thing a lot if me telling him so alleviates his anger.’ “OK I’ll believe you, just because destroying property while on duty is what got them museum duty in the first place. Just don’t do anything that would give this secret away to the public, It wouldn’t end well. Now get that face wrap back on and let’s get out of this alley. We need to get back on patrol, who knows maybe we might do something exciting for once.” The rest of the patrol was mediocre at best but I did glean some serious info from him. Apparently this Griffin guy has liberating all the Griffins enslaved by the diamond dogs up north in something Gem Fido. He’s been remaking a new country called ‘Dominion’ in the Zebrican isles. A huge battle against hydras was fought some months ago down near a rainforest village called Wethoof and the deciding factor was a Diamond dog apparently. An alpha, if what Sturrn said was true. Lastly the Grand Galloping Gala is coming up in a week and Griffin has started some recruitment tour across the major Equestrian cities ending with Canterlot for the Gala. Off topic reports listed some strange coming and goings all across the country. Like a wolf creature killing a dragon in Stalliongrad, while a winged wolf had simply been seen walking around but reports on that are sketchy at best. We stopped outside of the castle as Sturrn turned to me. “OK Rorke it’s 7 and patrol is done, unfortunately I can’t let you just walk off and sleep out in the open.” I tried to interject there but he glared at me hard enough for my blood to cool a bit yet I’m just a bag of bones so how that works I don’t know. “As I was saying, you can’t sleep outside with weapons just hanging out. You’re going to come back to the barracks with me and take those things to the smith at the castle to get them fixed. After that it’s off to the castle tailor for you because if those robes are as old as you say they are, then the stink that will come off them soon could knock a dragon out. Finally you’re bunking with me till I you get something worked out.” I looked at him with my best ‘Are you serious?’ face I could muster without having any face muscle and a cloth over my muzzle. “Don’t worry; I’ll list you as a foreign dignitary so no one should mess with you and if they do then let me take care of it.” “Thank you Sturrn, that is really great of you but it seems like you had this plan set up for a while. Been thinking about this long?” “Maybe but if you somehow lost your cover in public then you would almost immediately be attacked and brought before the princess in shackles. Honestly your case doesn’t look very good as it stands.” We arrived back at the castle, going around the left side of a large rectangular blue building with an attached obstacle/ training yard on the right side. He led me to another large Pegasus almost as Big Mac size who was shaping what looked like a breastplate on an anvil. Sturrn talked to him for a minute before motioning for me to give him the axe heads and the rusty khopesh for repair. I pulled out the wood bits of the staff too, so he could get a reference of the length I would need. After that the tailor was up, then lights out for him and me at 9 pm sharp. The tailor herself was actually really nice, kind of reminded me of a unicorn version of Granny Smith. “Oh why hello there I don’t get a lot of work from the guard. You mister look like you came to the right place, those robes look awful. So what can I do for you?” “Well as you can guess, my companion needs a new set of robes. However he can’t really take them off and a scanning spell would probably be a really bad idea.” “Now why would it be a bad idea? Is he allergic to magic?” she laughed heartily and just a little bit too high pitched as if to solidify her joke. “Well actually I’m afraid his body reacts badly to magic, so yes he is actually.” Quick thinking all though that explanation will probably come back to bite us later. “Well let me get my measuring tape and we can do this in a few minutes.” Half an hour later and we only just got away from the mare. She was just about as bad as pinkie would be if she was into tailoring. I’ll have brand new robes by tomorrow morning though so not a big loss. We started walking to the barracks and a few minutes later we made it right as the guards changed from day to night, I guess. Sturrn and I made our way through the crowd of sleepy guards coming from patrol or going out to start theirs. The cat calls about Sturrn leading my like a dog was bad enough but I particularly liked ‘that bucking mongrel is disgracing the castle with its’ filth. It seems like that guard from the basement wasn’t alone in his opinions.’ If Sturrn had heard any of those he played it off well but it was probably just him not hearing it to begin with though. “OK Rorke I got top bunk because I said so. We wake up at 6 and start patrol at 7. Any questions? No Okay then goodnight.” “I actually do have a question.” “Ugh, what is it?” “Do you have a body length mirror or something of that nature? Also do you remember how tall she said I was?” He just pointed to a closed door across the hall. Then immediately jumped up to his bed and proceeded to fall asleep before I could even begin turning around. ‘Apparently that's a no and walking around all day in that ridiculous armor tired him out. Honestly if I could feel anything akin to fatigue I would have passed out hours ago.’ I walked over to the door and opened it and a standard bathroom setup greeted me, with the minor exception of multiple showers. This did belong to a barracks full of guards, probably would get worse on a hot summer day. ‘Why did I retain some of my senses like hearing and feeling yet pain and fatigue didn’t come with? Would I be able to smell things at all without a nose? I haven’t consciously smelled anything, I should test it later.’ I walked over and looked into the mirror next to the first shower. I got a thorough look at my apparel for the first time since putting each piece on. The robe was almost on the verge of decaying into nothing, it wasn’t clean on any part. The whole thing was a dark shade of brown but it intensified the closer you got the edge of it, turning the whole outline of it a rotten coffee ground like shade. For all it was worth at least my gauntlet looked to be in impeccable condition. The gems looked to be slightly glowing inside but that must have been the lights. The metal that made up the whole glove was a matte black that accented the emeralds pretty well and made the whole thing look sleek but deadly. ‘Now it’s time to see what my body looks like.’ I carefully took off my robe and set it down gently, mostly because I still had to wear that thing to the tailor tomorrow morning and get my new ones. ‘I thought bones were supposed to be white?’ My body really was just a bunch of bones with not an ounce of flesh on them. They were tinged a light brown from their obvious age but they didn’t have a single divot or imperfection on them that I could see. I even checked the arm that had been severed and sure enough not a scratch on it. ‘Strange but not the weirdest thing ever, feels like I’m missing something though huh weird.’ I looked down at the toilet to my left and then to my hips continuing that cycle between them for about a minute till the info registered. “No please NO anything but that! I’m willing to waste time on having to go to the bathroom on a regular basis. I’m a skeleton who knows how long I could live. I don’t want to be a virgin for the rest of an unknown life!” I felt like I could just cry right there but no tear ducts and I maintain a stronger composition than that, I’m just glad no one heard that at least I hope not. I did however sit on the toilet and prop up one of my legs to examine it. The whole thing was strange to say the least; it was curved into a kind of springy form that was segmented into three major bones. There was the thigh bone that was pretty straight forward but at the knee bone it segmented backward at an angle. Finally it went forward again into what looked like a giant foot but if that was the foot then I could only walk on what accounted for toes. The whole thing was strange looking but not really weird. My feet felt pretty light actually and in fact, now that I could think about it I shouldn’t weigh that much. ‘I wonder if there is a scale in here.’ The search turned up no results as I searched over and about the whole room till I found it under the sink. It was much wider and longer probably to accommodate the pony’s different body structure. I shifted the large scale onto the floor and stood on it for about five second till the needle stopped at… 43 pounds. “What the hell? There is no way I can only weigh that much. I’d be a featherweight; a kid could push me down easily.” I checked again and again, it still came up the same. That was some seriously disheartening news to say the least. ‘My equipment is the only thing keeping me from blowing away in the wind.’ I stepped off the scale and started to put my robes back on, so I could go to bed. Turning off the bathroom light, I made my way to Sturrn’s bunk and just fell into the cushy object. ‘My second day in Equestria, not really as bad as the first one was. Actually it wasn’t bad at all, pretty good in fact but I think tomorrow can be better with new gear.’ My thoughts just stopped moving in any discernible manner and the dream world greeted me with open arms.