//------------------------------// // The Blacksmith // Story: The Blacksmith // by BlackMuffin //------------------------------// I'm certainly not normal by any means. My upbringing, my family, my mind; nothing about me is like what you will ever encounter. I proudly consider myself the strangest pony you have ever met. Then again, I'm not a pony, am I? I was born, or rather hatched, from an egg inside of a large hive. An oozing, black hive with spheres plastered into the walls. Spheres that, like mine, would have small, insect-like black creatures explode from, landing in one pile at the center of what was the "egg room". This was the most disgusting part of the most disgusting place in the world. While this hive contained many rooms, halls, and wings, this room would always reek of birth fluids. Those that were forced to clean up after the hatchlings would usually die of disease or, even worse, be eaten by the hungry larvae. Jobs around the hive were not given in spite or merit. There was no real sense of promotion when you were moved to a different job; all tasks were handed out randomly by the Taskmaster. This position, as well as the position of Queen, were not random, unlike the rest of the jobs. The position of Queen was hoof-picked by the Taskmaster himself, based on which Female would be more fertile. The process of choosing the Queen in this manner is something that I would rather not describe. The Taskmaster was like a General, or even like a King. In fact, it was a position held even higher than that of Queen; whoever was Taskmaster had 'true' free will along with his Queen, and thus had inherent magical capabilities. This was also the most dangerous of positions, as one Taskmaster could be usurped as easily as he had usurped his former. The reign of all Taskmasters ended in assassination or combat. Therefore, only the most foolish of Changelings would attempt to gain such a position of power. Fortunately, most Taskmasters were fair and provided for their Hive with Civilizations to feed on. There was hardly any reason to overthrow him unless one wanted to have an empty sense of accomplishment, which would soon be replaced with a pair of fangs in the chest. This was our society for centuries, and we did a very good job of keeping ourselves under cover. There was hardly any change. Except, of course, Queen Chrysalis' death. Being launched at two hundred kilometers an hour off of a city built into the side of a mountain normally doesn't do good things for your spine once you land. For some reason, the rest of us survived the violent impact with the ground. Despite most of us having our exoskeletons broken and some of us losing about half of our brain cells, we still managed to survive. This begins my state of existence as it is now. I woke up in a meadow, full of flowers and bushes and small animals going about their business for the day. Picking berries, taking them over to a large basket in a single-file line... Wait, what? I jumped up, landing on all four hooves. I started thinking about why those animals would be picking berries. I then started thinking about berries. I could actually think for myself now! I became an intelligent creature! I can hardly describe how much fun I thought it was to have real thoughts. My mind began to race as all sorts of thoughts crashed into my head at once. Where I was, names of birds, animals, trees, bugs, my own name... As soon as I reached the subject of my name my mind simply just froze. I realized I had no name. I never had a name. Apparently ponies could identify each other by a title given by their parents when they are born. Once again my thoughts began to feed through like gatling gun ammunition. Ponies. The reason my Queen was dead. The reason my kind was gone. The reason why green fluid was running from my mouth and a large crack in my abdomen. I'm not sure why exactly I did this next action. Maybe I was just frustrated, jealous, or maybe even a little grievous. I simply roared as I felt a huge amount of magic pulse through my veins, changing my form from a simple changeling to an individual. A pony. A creature that I had been feeding off of my whole life. A creature that I had simply seen as something to sink my fangs into and devour when all of their love for others had been drained. I felt a rigid structure begin to form inside my body. My exoskeleton turned to pale skin, and dark red fur began to grow. I felt my wings disintegrate while my horn straightened out and also became a dark red in color. My vision began to become clearer as I finally saw color. I felt a mane grow, and out of the corner of my eye I could see it was a navy blue in color. The holes in my hooves began to be filled, improving my balance a little. Next thing I knew, I had become something I knew how to mimic perfectly. The difference was that this time, I was not mimicking anypony. I was mimicking myself. I had actually become a pony. Another thought occurred to me then. What if being a changeling wasn't the optimal thing for me? What if this love I consumed was what I was longing for this whole time? What if I was actually, somewhere deep in my heart, jealous of the ponies? I had become one of them now. Even if I could have changed back then, I wouldn't have. I was too thrilled, too happy to realize that I was now something I was never intended to be. I could live my life on my own now. Live amongst those who were once my enemies. Make friends. Make amends, if you will. Unfortunately, it seemed that my new body had decided to put this off until another time, as I passed out with a smile on my face and a small chortle came out before my head made contact with the ground. <---------------------------------------------------------------------------------> "Is he awake yet?" I woke up to the sound of three mares talking to each other. No...arguing, actually. They sounded pretty agitated. I realized that I was probably lying on my back on a bed of some sort, seeing as nothing smelled of grass and I was actually on a rather soft surface. "Who cares? He's kinda cute, and since he's out cold, we can pretty much do whatever we want with him, if you know what I mean." Oh dear. "How uncivil, Vinyl. You should never treat a guest with such vulgar actions." This one had quite the accent. British, almost. I made a mental note to thank her later. "Aww, come on, 'Tavi, admit it," I felt a hoof go up my hind leg, "this stallion's got a real nice..." "Oh for Celestia's sake, cut that out!" Immediately the hoof came off. That was close. "Twilight, how much longer do you think he'll be unconscious?" The british mare again. "Well, he should have woken up about 5 minutes ago judging by his injuries." The one named Twilight said. I wondered at that point if I should reveal myself to be awake. "Obviously you're wrong, since he's still very much unconscious. Here, let me prove it to you." I wondered what that meant when I suddenly felt a sharp pain in my left leg. My eyes shot open as I sat up to see a pale-white mare with electric blue hair and magenta eyes stabbing my left leg with an empty syringe. What an incredible way to welcome me. In my foggy state of mind, I did the first thing I could really think of at the time. I attacked her. What happened right after was really just a blur. I remember pouncing on her, pinning her arms down to the ground and roaring as loud as I could, and that's about it. Right after that my mind became clear. I stumbled back, bumping into a bedpost. I breathed deeply, trying to recollect my thoughts. The white mare hadn't gotten up, obviously from shock, while a grey earth pony wearing a bow tie and a purple unicorn just gaped at me. "Not the best introduction, I'm guessing," I laughed nervously, "Sorry about that." I looked at them with an uncomfortable smile, hoping they wouldn't choose to suddenly kill me. This awkward silence continued for what felt like a half hour until the grey one spoke. "That could have gone better," she said in the british accent I had heard earlier, "How long have you actually been awake?" "Oh, the pain woke me up." That was true to some degree. It was what got me to reveal I was conscious. "Aw, come on!" the purple one exclaimed, looking quite exasperated that her equation was wrong. The white unicorn just looked even more uncomfortable as she looked away, her face turning a deep shade of red. "I assume this means introductions are in order," the grey one started, "My name is Octavia." "I'm Twilight Sparkle. I'm Princess Celestia's personal student studying the magic of Friendship here in Ponyville." The purple unicorn introduced herself. I recognized that name. She was the one that had uncovered Chrysalis' true identity and had caused the destruction of the Hivemind. I was really unsure as to whether I should be infuriated or grateful to this mare. At the moment I chose to stay neutral and simply nodded. The two then looked at the white mare, who had now stood up and was looking at the ground in shame. Octavia just sighed and introduced her instead. "This is Vinyl Scratch. She's a DJ here at Ponyville, if you're the type that goes clubbing you're bound to run into her." Vinyl just mumbled and looked away. "So, what's your name?" Twilight looked at me. Buck. I hadn't thought of formulating a name for myself yet, and wasn't normally used to coming up with names on the spot. "I'm, uh..." I looked quickly at my new cutie mark for a possibility at linking my name to it. It was an anvil with a lightning bolt through it, probably reminiscent of my fondness of the armor smithing job I had at the Hive. I decided to leave my name as something simple. "I'm just the Blacksmith." <---------------------------------------------------------------------------------> "So, if you're a blacksmith, when did you learn to forge?" Twilight had been asking me a bunch of questions, trying to figure out where I was from. I had simply said that I didn't remember where I was from, but that only drove her to ask more questions. We were at some place called Sugarcube Corner, as Twilight had insisted that cupcakes would refresh my memory. Octavia and Vinyl came along too, although Vinyl had to be dragged along a bit more. She was still very uncomfortable, not knowing if I was actually awake when she had attempted to... 'touch' me, if you will. Although I had tried to speak to her a few times on the way to the Corner, she refused to talk. After a while Octavia and Twilight had given up on getting her to say anything, and I had also given up. At the moment she just sat there, looking out the window, not eating her cupcake. "I was very little, roughly five, when I started. My uncle owned a forge, so I asked him if he could teach me. He said yes, and soon enough I earned my cutie mark." I just made up a story right there. Of course, I never knew my uncle, and the smithing process was something all changelings went through at one point or another. It was true, however, that I had quite a knack at smithing. Unfortunately, of course, I didn't always hold that position. I would randomly get assigned jobs, like I said, and smithing came around every once in a while, sometimes twice in a row. It was hands-down my favorite job at the Hive. "You earned your cutie mark at five years old? That's quite impressive!" Octavia seemed impressed as well. Vinyl, of course, simply sat there, looking out the window while Twilight kept asking me questions. After a while Twilight offered me something I didn't quite expect. "There's an abandoned forge on the edge of town. I could ask Mayor Mare to lend it to you if you want," Twilight offered, "You could even make Ponyville your new home!" I have to admit I was quite stunned at her offer. After being stabbed in the leg by her friend and me attacking her in return, she offers me a chance to do the one thing I truly ever enjoyed doing. My new life as a pony couldn't have been going any better. I had even found a way to convince them all that I was actually perfectly norma-- "What was up with the roaring?" Vinyl finally broke her silence. I think Octavia and Twilight were just as surprised as I was by her sudden statement. They just gaped at her, looked at each other, then at me. I wasn't really quite sure what to answer myself. I stuttered a bit before improvising yet another story. "Oh, right, that was just a reflex, you know, being stabbed in the leg after being unconscious doesn't exactly do good things for your communication skills." I probably shouldn't have brought up the subject of her stabbing me, but she didn't even seem to care about that. She looked away from the window and looked directly into my eyes. Instead of being magenta, they had turned red. Creepy. "Ponies can't roar. Only manticores and lions can roar. Not ponies." Vinyl's eyes pierced my very soul at that point. I felt like the Royal Guard was going to burst down the door and drag me over to a pole to roast me alive. Octavia must have noticed my discomfort as she suddenly switched the subject, although not in the greatest way possible. "Vinyl, I just had a great thought! You should show Blacksmith around town! Get him introduced to everypony as he's going to be staying here now. You'd like that, wouldn't you?" Vinyl turned her gaze away from me and just stared at Octavia in disbelief, then in pure seething rage. She looked like she could just send her to Tartarus with a clap of her hooves. I really wasn't sure if that was the greatest idea. I looked at Twilight quizzically only to have her shrug in return. Thinking quickly, I suggested something to pull us out of the predicament, "Well, we could all go. You could show me where you all prefer going most of the time, that way I have some good pointers as to where I should head first after settling in." Vinyl immediately relaxed and stopped glaring at Octavia. She looked at me for a split-second and started looking out the window again. I couldn't tell if she was relieved or just as frustrated as before. Hopefully I had calmed the situation a bit so she would stop prodding me about the incident. <---------------------------------------------------------------------------------> It was dark out when we had finished my tour of town. Octavia had shown me her favorite places to eat, and Twilight had shown me her library. Vinyl hadn't said a word the whole time. I think that at that point she was just giving me the silent treatment. I hoped I would find out why eventually. We had just arrived at my new home. It was, as they had described, a forge. Somehow, Twilight had managed to contact Mayor Mare about setting me up there. I could just pay for it once I had made enough bits. There was an outdoor furnace with an anvil and a water trough, accompanied by a crate full of iron and steel. There was a relatively small stone house connected to it, with a wooden door being directly behind the furnace. That could pose a fire hazard, but I'd have to tend to that a different time. "Thanks for the tour, you three. I really appreciate it, I really don't know how I would have fared without that." I waved to them as they turned around and left. Twilight and Octavia didn't seem to notice that Vinyl had stayed behind and was still looking at me. Her eyes had become that soft magenta color again, and she didn't have that hard gaze she had when she was sulking. She almost looked sad, actually. "How long were you actually awake?" She didn't change her expression one bit when asking me that. She didn't seem worried as to what I was about to answer. She just looked at me with those charismatic eyes of hers. I simply couldn't lie to her then. "I regained consciousness about ten before you forcefully woke me up." I admitted. She didn't react for a while. Eventually, she broke the silence. "That means you were awake when I ran my hoof up..." she couldn't finish her sentence and looked away. I couldn't stand to watch her beat herself up over it. I felt myself become attached to this mare. I felt like it was my fault she felt so guilty. I shouldn't have reacted the way I did. It was wrong of me. There were so many things I wanted to say at once. So I just said something simple. "Vinyl, don't worry, I'm not mad at you," I went up closer to her, "I know it was a pretty awkward situation, but I don't hate you for it. I don't think anypony would hate another pony just for one small slip-up." She looked up, her face slightly tearstained. "I think I should go." She said, her voice cracked from crying. "I'll see you around town when you're feeling better." I replied. Hopefully, she did feel better eventually. Wait, since when did I actually feel compassion for anything else? Was it because I had friends? I felt some sort of warm feeling in my chest. Something I had never felt before. That must be what having friends was like. A warm feeling in your heart that accompanies you whenever they're around you. I truly felt complete then, like some giant gap in my life had been filled. I walked into my house with a smile on my face. It felt good to have friends.