//------------------------------// // 10: The Secret of Waterwood Manor // Story: Wood and Steel // by CodenameOne //------------------------------// The smell of polished marble and mahogany filled Axle's nose as he stood in the grand hall of the manor, accompanied by Limb Trimmer, who had just closed the front doors and was trotting up to him as he stood in the middle of the room, looking around at the decor and architecture. He'd been in the foyer before, but had never actually stopped to appreciate its beauty. It was gorgeous. "I can't believe just how majestic this place really is" Axle commented as Trimmer came up beside him. The Unicorn's demeanor had livened up a bit, but his expression was still mostly unreadable. "Isn't it, though? This house was built well over a hundred years ago by our great-grandfather. He settled here with his wife because he thought it was the prime location to build the mill he'd always wanted to start. There was a flowing river to turn the wheel, and it was surrounded by a massive forest. It's been in our family ever since" Trimmer explained. "You've been in the foyer before, but allow me to properly introduce it to you. The grand staircase dominates the center of the room, with a fireplace on the left, flanked by two couches. On either side of the fireplace are doors, one leading into the dining hall, as you're aware, the other leading to a hallway that branches off to other rooms. On the right side are two more doors, one leading to an art gallery, the other to a bathroom. Behind the stairs is the entrance to the basement, but we don't keep anything of importance down there." Trotting ahead Trimmer began ascending the stairs, Axle closely following behind. "Up the stairs to the right is the hall that leads your guest room, along with the others. To the left is a library. The other rooms on that wing of the manor have to be accessed via staircase in a downstairs hallway." "Not mighty convenient, huh?" Axle asked. "No, but all that's over there are sundry rooms. A large storeroom, a greenhouse, a bathroom, et cetera" Trimmer replied, pushing the door open into the blue hall. "The guest rooms, as you are familiar with." Trimmer gestured to the doors that lined the right side of the hall every 20 feet. The hall ended in a corner that went left, windows overlooking the mill lining it. "Down this way here are mine and Willow's bedrooms." Trimmer pushed open the first door, revealing a clean and spartan room, the walls painted a deep green, a queen-sized bed against the center of the far wall. There were miscellaneous decorations; a potted fern in one corner, a dresser with framed pictures adorning it, and a small table and chair in another corner. "Willow's room" Trimmer commented. Moving down the hall the Unicorn pushed the second door open, which lead into a room that was presumably his. The walls a cream color. A bed was against the far wall, the same as Willow's room, but the decor was different. There were several bookcases against the walls and in the corners, lined end-to-end with books. A desk with a lamp was in the only corner not occupied by a bookcase. "As you can tell," Trimmer started, "I very much enjoy reading." "I figured as much! Ya'll got more books than I do" Axle declared. Trimmer nodded with a smile, allowing Axle to trot in further and look around. Immediately he was drawn to the bookshelves, interested in seeing just what Trimmer found to be invigorating reading material. "What have ya'll got here? Maybe we read some'a the same things." "What you'll find is mostly non-fiction reference manuals, technical journals, and history textbooks. Opposite of that you'll find mostly commentaries on society using fictional characters and lands as the vehicle for that commentary. So authors like Horsewell, Haynlein, Huxhay, and so forth. You won't find any Daring Do or anything of the sort on my bookshelves" Trimmer said. "I do love me some Daring Do, but some of these look mighty interesting" Axle said as he bent down to take a closer look. True to Trimmer's word there were mostly reference guides and manuals, but there were the fiction books he described. Novels like Startrotters, Brave New Equestria, even the rare Haylysses. "Can you tell me a little about these? I've never read any'a these?" "Of course. Startrotters is set in a future where the entire world is run by a unified government with a majority of military and veteran military members. It asserts that Equestrian society is weak in its current form--past form, in the novel--and advocates a stricter society. Even capital punishment. Of course, in the novel, the world has flourished under this harsher society" Trimmer explained. "Brave New Equestria is an exposé on a futuristic society in which ponies are artificially created and placed into castes based on intelligence and labor, creating a kind of bizarre utopia in which there is no conflict, but to enforce this any noncomformity is severely punished." Axle nodded, finding himself growing interested in the books the Unicorn had. "These are a mite darker than what I usually read. What about this one, Haylysses?" Trimmer looked away and rubbed the back of his head, suddenly uncomfortable. "That's...a very bizarre and unsettling tale of a stallion and one ordinary day he goes through" Trimmer replied. "Doesn't sound too bad. What's so strange 'bout it?" "Believe me, it's a very unusual story. Quite obscene and vulgar, really. I hear Princess Twilight herself described it as 'a literary mockery that offends the sensibilities of every reasonable pony.'" "What'd the author have to say to that?" Axle asked, amused that a Princess would issue such a scathing criticism of a book. "I believe the author's response was 'I appreciate the ringing endorsement.' He is really quite proud of that novel" Trimmer answered. "By gosh, I may just have to find me a copy of that and read it." Leaving Trimmer's room the two of them continued down the hall, where there was another left hook. As they turned the corner a small staircase came into view, bending circularly to the right and up to a heavy-looking red door. They ascended the steps and Trimmer pushed the door open, the room beyond a sight unlike any other in the manor. It was a massive, grand room fit for a king. A sprawling bed dominated the center of the room, complete with four posts holding up a tenting canvas that shielded the bed from view. The left and right walls were purely bookshelves, every last shelf lined end-to-end. A small table was at the foot of the right wall, two chairs on opposite ends of it. The walls that weren't entirely made of bookshelves were painted a deep red, the room illuminated by torches mounted to each post on the bed(the flame shielded by ventilated glass, so as to not light the silk canvas on fire). To the left was a roll-top desk, the cover rolled down. The plush carpet was a satin purple with gold trim, intricate patterns and swirls adorning the corners. To crown it all was the ceiling; a high dome with a mural painted in it, the ponies displayed in it unknown to Axle. Axle was taken aback. This room was like something out of Canterlot Palace, it was that majestic. He never expected to see such a room in person, and as much as the whole manor was a beautiful place, the master bedroom was beyond the pale. "This is daddy's room. Impressive, isn't it?" Trimmer asked rhetorically. "Ya ain't even need to ask. I was impressed by the entire house, but this is breath-taking" Axle replied, trotting further into the room. Axle considered himself a simple pony with simple desires, but he had to admit he wouldn't mind having a room that looked like the one he was currently in. "This manor was one of the last structures built in the classical style, before modern architecture came in to vogue with emphasis on quartz and grand spires. This more closely resembles castles of old, and the same style was emulated with the master bedroom, as you can see" Trimmer commented. Axle nodded and took a few more minutes to look around before trotting back around to the door where Trimmer was patiently waiting. "Well, is that all for tha tour?" Axle asked. Trimmer shrugged. "I could perhaps show you the west wing, should you like." "Lead tha way." A short hike back across the house found Axle and Trimmer in the west wing on the first floor, in the hallway beyond the second door in the foyer. The color on the walls was a dark blue, subdued and moody. There were two doors on the right and a staircase at the end of the hall. "Through the first door you'll find a piano bar. When the house was built the family was a mite bigger, and everypony would come in a couple nights a week to socialize. Great-grandmother was an excellent pianist, apparently, and the family very much enjoyed listening to her play. The bar was never really the draw; her skills with the piano were why the family had this room" Trimmer said, gesturing a hoof into the room. Moving down the hall the two came upon the second door, which, according to Trimmer, contained another hallway, the rooms beyond empty. The two stallions ascended the stairs, Axe taking note that they were reverse landing stairs; they led up to a landing, upon which the upper floor stretched back in the same direction the stairs were facing. Axle followed Trimmer close behind as they reached the top of the stairs and turned around the railing, trotting down the hallway. "The only noteworthy thing in this wing is the greenhouse, really" Trimmer stated as they went down the hall. It ended in a left-hoof turn, two doorways in the corner, each facing the length of their respective hallways. Trimmer turned left and led Axle down to the end of the hall, opening the door at the end and allowing the train stallion entry. Inside was the greenhouse Trimmer mentioned, but much to Axle's disappointment nothing was being grown anymore. The left and far walls, as well as the ceiling, were all windows, allowing as much sunlight as possible to enter the room. Long-neglected planters sat on rows of tables in the middle of the room, dry watering kettles on the floor underneath each. Pulling back out of the doorway Axle noticed that Trimmer looked...down, thought it was hard to truly tell what the Unicorn was feeling. "Back this way is a bathroom and a study. We can safely skip the bathroom, so we'll end with the study" Trimmer said, the two of them reaching the end of the tour. Trimmer opened the door and Axle followed, the room within quiet and still, lamps casting soft lights across every surface. There was a desk immediately to the left, put up against the wall in such a way that the floor space was a vague 'U' shape. Bookcases lined the far wall, but every other wall had single shelves mounted to them, picture frames lining them end-to-end. There was a fine layer of dust on everything, but the picture frames were perfectly clean. Axle found it a little strange that the pictures were so clean, so he went up to the closest shelf to take a closer look. A few depicted Trimmer and Willow as foals, colts, and even as adults. Hugging each other, hugging their father(to Axle's amusement, the two colts looked like they were being crushed by their father's massive hooves as he hugged them, their faces comically strained), and solo pictures of each. Most pictures looked much older, depicting ponies that Axle didn't know. "Ya'll got a lot'a pictures. I'm assumin' they're of your family?" Axle asked. Trimmer nodded. "That's right. Most of the pictures here are of our great-grandparents and grandparents. They made sure to take as many pictures of one another as they could. For posterity." Axle hummed an acknowledgement and perused the pictures, a mix of proper photos and ones clearly taken without the other's knowing. A mare watering the plants in the greenhouse, a stallion shaving a log with his teeth, two colts(one who looked like Log Breaker) climbing on the mill wheel, a stallion waving a rake at them. Axle smiled bemusedly at both the charm of the quaint photos, and the antics depicted in others. A mare's comically horrified expression as two colts held up frogs in their hooves, a young Willow chasing Trimmer, their faces frozen mid-laugh. There was one photo at the end of the second shelf, depicting Log Breaker and his young sons, a magenta Pegasus mare at his side, the brightest and widest smile Axle'd ever seen on her face(though the colts looked rather grumpy). Her eyes were a vibrant blue, and there was even a flower in her pink mane. Even Axle thought she was pretty, but there was just one question nagging at his mind. "Who's this?" Axle asked as he gently pulled the picture frame down from the shelf, so as to show Trimmer, who came up beside the conductor stallion to get a closer look. "Let me see. Oh, that's--" Trimmer stopped, his eyes going wide as he saw the mare in the photo. Axle looked at him in concern, noting how the color seemed to drain from Trimmer's face. "Trimmer?" Axle said, getting no response from the Unicorn, his gaze utterly fixed on the depiction of the magenta mare. Axle could only assume that she was his and Willow's mother, but Trimmer's reaction set off alarm bells in Axle's mind. "Trimmer." Again no response, and Axle could see that Trimmer's breath was starting to quicken, his chest expanding and contracting shallowly. This was the biggest shift in behavior that Axle'd seen since first meeting Limb Trimmer, but it only served to confuse and alarm him. As Trimmer continued to stare at the picture his head began to tremble as he pulled back, his head turning away even as his eyes remained fixed on the photo in Axle's hoof. He was practically hyperventilating now, and Axle knew he'd have to get the Unicorn to snap out of it before hurt himself. "TRIMMER!" Axle shouted, putting the frame down at the floor. Trimmer flinched, his breathing returning to normal. He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head, coming back to his senses. He blinked several times and looked back at Axle, his expression immediately melting into that usual mask of indifference and apathy. Axle was almost shocked at how quickly Trimmer's demeanor changed, and how, now that he'd seen Trimmer show true emotion, how manufactured the Unicorn's usual expression looked. It looks like he intentionally tries to look like that! "Forgive me. My nose does not agree with the dust. I'm afraid that'll do it for the tour. I trust that you enjoyed it. Good day, Axle Box" Trimmer said, turning on his heels and quickly cantering out of the room, leaving Axle alone. And wondering what in the name of Celestia had just happened.