...Where an unhappy smith was staring at the azure mare in front of her. Seems like it was not enough of a lesson last time, when she was chased out from town in a glorious shower of anvils and horseshoes; this obnoxious loudmouth came back for more. Well, Metal Bend was never one to stop a good lynching, so she merely eyed the intruder with just a hint of hostility.
"Welcome to Anvilmare," she started in monotone, "town of smiths, anvils, and five o' clock brawls. What can I do for you, insert customer's gender here?"
The showmare simply smiled at her.
"I'd hold a piece of paper while saying that. Completes the act, y'know."
Thrown out of her stoic attitude, Bend growled, and affixed her gaze on the loudmouth.
"What in blazes did you came back for, anyway? I thought we made ourselves clear enough last time."
"Well, yes." Trixie agreed. "That horseshoe you made? I won a throwing competition with it. Anyway, I figured if I need an expert smith for an unusual job, I'd better ask the pros."
"What 'unusual job'?" Metal Bend asked, curious despite the fact that she felt a little bitter about the unicorn.
"I need a blade that can cut Ursa fur."
The earth pony laughed dryly.
"Is that it? So you can brag that you defurred an Ursa? Go away."
"No, no. You don't understand. I read that Ursa fur is incredibly thick. Normal blades cannot even begin to scratch it. We need something... strong enough to cut steel."
"Strong enough to cut steel..." Metal Bend mused, quickly stopping when realising whom it was that was asking a favour from her. "Wait just a darn moment! Why should I help you at all? The last time you were here—"
"I sincerely apologise for any inconvinience I caused to anypony while I was here." Trixie interrupted.
"I smelled like mayonnaise for two weeks after your little stunt." she answered begrudgingly. The showmare sighed.
"Look, if it makes you feel better, just smear some mayo on me, or ketchup, or mustard, or broccoli, or whatever."
"Why broccoli?"
"I like broccoli. Look, I'm not asking this for free. Tell me how much is this going to cost."
Metal Bend paused. There was a bottle of lamp oil in the back of the—no, no, stay focused. She looked indifferently at the azure unicorn.
"Let's just assume I forgive you. Even so, I can't help you."
"Why? I really need it!"
"No matter how much you need it, I can't help you. To produce a blade that cuts through steel... you'd need enchanted items, which we don't craft here. Alternatively, there are some very rare materials that could be used... but I don't think you can get your hoof on them in a lifetime."
"What rare materials are we talking about?" she insisted.
"Dragonscale. If I got my hoof on some... mixed with some of my special alloy, I could make wonders! Of course, there is no chance you'll get dragonscale, so I think you should—"
"Where can I find a dragon?" Trixie said, interrupting her again.
"Well, there is one in the nearby mountain..." She stopped, realising the implications. "Wait a second... You're not seriously thinking of confronting it?!"
"I need dragonscale, and there is a dragon located conveniently nearby. Do the math."
"It is official: you are retarded. Have you lost your mind? If you charge into it's cave demanding a number of it's scales, how do you think it will react?"
"I'll improvise. However, if I actually bring you some, you'll have to shape it into what I need."
Metal Bend waved a hoof dismissively.
"Sure, whatever. You go hunting for dragons, and I'll inform your next of kin. Anything you want me to add to your necrologue?"
Trixie paused for a moment, then smiled.
"Screw wheels."
_________________________________________________________________________________
"All right, let's see. I only have to con a dragon out of it's scales, right? No biggie. Except for the whole 'being roughly thirty times bigger' thing. Oh well. Since my fur is so pretty, I will at least make a decent rug before the hearth."
She had advanced far away from Anvilmare already, despite the fact that she only arrived there an hour earlier, without the chance of refreshing herself. The lush green of the countryside has slowly changed in favour of exhausted surface mines, rocky havens inbetween patches of dirt and mud, and an old road that used to stretch from the old mines to the town itself. The terrain was hostile, however; any attemt at deep mining was ultimately doomed to fail: pony technology and magic combined wasn't enough to keep the shafts safe enough for the miners—so they turned away from it, to seek different sources of metal from all over the country. Trixie found the stillness and the eerie silence of the whole area a tad unsettling. Even her thoughts drifted away from her predicatement, towards the possible horrors that could lurk in these desolate territories—stray manticores, basilisks, or even... fanboys. She shuddered. Suddenly, the dragon seemed a lot more inviting.
"Come on Trixie," she spoke out loud, if only to reassure herself. "there is nothing here, so just walk towards the dragon and nothing
wiiiiiiiiiIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"
The ground she stepped on suddenly collapsed under her weight, causing her to fall down a little larger than pony-sized shaft leading deep into the ground. After a hefty fall, she was fortunate enough to fall into a deep underground lake, emerging wet, but otherwise unscatched. She checked her surroundings, and registered that against all odds, she is unhurt.
"Hah! Take that, gravity! Because Trixieee~ she's greeeat~ and powerf-OUCH!"
Her improvised song was rudely interrupted by a falling rock hitting her square in the forehead, causing her to get confused about quite a lot of things, including the place she was, the number of hooves she had, and the square root of Pi. Unbeknownst to her, creatures surrounded her from every direction. She paid them no attention, because of the splitting headache and the existential uncertainity she experienced. One of the things spoke.
"What pony doing here? Is off-limits for ponies!"
Trixie struggled to her hooves, barely registering it's words, and even those she actually heard, she misunderstood the most ridiculous ways possible.
"N-no I wish not visit your luxury yacht called 'Mangrove'... Did somepony turn off the lights and on the stars? Whooo!"
The creatures watched in amusement as the azure unicorn wiggled with wide steps, often coming close to the point of tipping over, but ultimately retaining her balance. After a short while, the fog inside her head started to clear up, giving her a sharp insight on things.
"Oh my nondescript deity! Dragons don't have hearths! I am doomed!"
"Great." a new voice spoke up. "Idiot pony comes to annoy us."
"I'll let you know that I'm not a pony, thank you very much! Wait, I meant I'm not an idiot! Oh, hay..."
Words started making sense again, and the world has stopped spinning. When she looked around, she saw several Diamond Dogs surrounding her, although their stance was annoyed, rather than hostile. She cleared her throat.
"Ahhahaha... Sorry for 'dropping' in without notice."
One of the dogs groaned.
"Oh noes! Not just any pony, but a pun-y! Boss, let's just throw her out!"
"Not so fast." The third speaker, a tall, grey Diamond Dog with a tasteless cream vest, fixated Trixie with a calculated stare. "Pony comes, crumbles in ceiling. Pony not goes before she make amends."
Trixie sighed.
"Look, buddy—"
"My name is Butch. Buddy stand there, pony." he interrupted, pointing to a burly Diamond Dog with rather... dull fangs.
"T'aint fair, Butch! Ya introduce yaself, and we just called Diamond Dog One and Two?" a fourth one barked. Butch rolled his eyes.
"Fine! That in black vest in back called Pluto, one behind you is Scratch, and finally, one who talk too much is Claudius."
"Howdy, pony?" the fouth dog waved. Trixie snapped out of her fantasies about managing a Diamond Dog stand-up comedy show. She waved back, albeit a bit unsure.
"Uh, hi, I guess."
"SO." Butch started again, putting emphasis on his words. "Pony damage our shaft. Pony wil give us come-pen-sate-ion." Trixie raised an eyebrow.
"Strange hearing a Diamond Dog use that word."
Butch puffed his chest with pride.
"Is educated." he explained. Trixie started circling around in the cave.
"I am afraid, however, that I must decline the reimbursement of your possessions. You see, the quantum-fluctuations within the degressive tectonic quadrants override the degenerated mysoscopic features of thermonuclear immunity of cathartic ergonometrics. Therefore, I am in no possible way can be accounted for breaking through your roof." She shot a smile at the confused dog. "But I'm sure an educated Diamond Dog as you could already see that."
"Uh... Yes! I was just testing pony! Well done!"
The other Diamond Dogs watched their cunning and wise leader in awe. The showmare slowly edged towards what she thought to be the exit... until she tripped on something. Arriving face-first on the floor, she briefly wondered if they ever clean up the place. She angrily rose to her hooves, picking the offending object up with her magic...
"Pony all right? Sorry for useless metal lying there, we has to much of the stuff."
... A dazzling chunk of silver, shining in it's untarnished beauty. She cleared her eyes, but no, the silver still levitated there gently, and it was still silver! An idea formed in her head.
"Say... How much metal do you dig out?"
One of the digdogs looked at her with confusion.
"Why pony interested in useless metal? That can't be used for anything, unlike iron, and it's not precious, like gemstone."
"Could you still answer me, please?"
"We mine much of gleaming grey metal, can barely store it. We also mine iron, which useful, but it also take up too much room. We get gems rarely, even though they so shiny and beautiful..."
Trixie turned to them with a smug look.
"Say... are you interested in getting a moderate amount of gemstones?"
Butch waved his claw dismissively.
"Do worm live underground?"
"Perfect. You see, I think we can work out an arrangement here..."
__________________________________________________________________________________
"...And maybe something red. The late pony was blue, you see, so it'd complement her colour well."
"I see. Still, who's going to be the one presenting a speech at the funeral?"
"Well, I'm going to do one, along the lines of 'brave and stupid', and Smelting Heat has already called in seconds with 'good riddance'." Metal Bend explained.
"Still, how do you know she'll die? Maybe there is something about her..."
"Look, Wood, you're a good guy, but believe me, either that mare comes back with her tail between her legs, or she doesn't come back at all. There is no other possibility."
"Don't kill me off, please." a new voice joined. Yep, this was Trixie. Metal Bend turned to give her a piece of her mind, but stopped halfway when she saw a rather tall Diamond Dog occupy most of the door to the town's sole carpenter.
"Wha—huh? Whuhe-eeeugh?" she stated wistfully.
"The wisdom in your words is truly overwhelming. My business associate would like to have a little chat with you." Trixie said nonchalantly, while pointing at Butch. The Diamond Dog gave a toothy grin to the metalsmith, who only saw so much teeth in one place when she visited a kickboxing arena when they cleaned it up.
"Euuuuu... rrrgnph?" she nodded carefully. Butch took that as green lights, and put a claw over her shoulder, while pulling her away from the other two. Trixie turned to the amused carpenter.
"Greetings, good sir! I am Trixie Lulamoon, the one and only!"
The stallion slowly scratched his chin.
"Given the current state of affairs, I believe that is a good thing." He extended a hoof towards the showmare. "Name's Wood Carver. I'm the carpenter 'round here."
"Yes, you really can buy anything if you got enough bits." Bend confirmed from the background, sounding rather annoyed. Trixie smiled at the stallion.
"Say, do you know a jewelsmith around here? Preferably one with experience."
"Lessee... There is Platinum Poker, but he's a tad bit lazy, and probably wouldn't make anything you ask him in three weeks. There's Lucky Charm, but she's mostly crafting jewels for high-class money-pushers, so I doubt she'd lower her oh-so-mighty self to you. If you want good work done fast, you'd want to see Cast Silver... He's a bit grumpy, though."
"You have HOW MUCH?" asked the metalsmith with an increasingly hysterical voice. The showmare hid a smile.
"I think there is bound to be an agreement between these two."
_________________________________________________________________________________
Five tons of gold, silver and iron. FIVE. TONS. OF. DIFFERENT. METALS. Metal Bend trembled at the thought of having ample supplies for ridiculously low prices. The Diamond Dog thought himself a smart haggler, but the highest price he asked was about half the cost of bringing in metal from anywhere else. She walked in a daze, but her subconscious guided her well, right towards the house of Cast Silver. Trixie was trotting right beside her, humming a silly note. Metal Bend was carrying a large chunk of silver; how Trixie managed to convince her to carry it to Cast's home was not even clear to her. Still, metal at low prices, can't say a wrong word 'bout that.
Cast Silver's hose was on the far end of the village, so they had to cross the main square to reach it. Many smiths did a double-take when they saw Metal Bend, the Metal Bend, five-time winner of the annual hoof-wrestling contest, four times winner of the brick-bucking championship, honorary member of the 'No Mares Allowed, Ever' bowling club, obediently carry somepony's stuff around. Zany Vision, the old caretaker of the local inn, has closed up shop due to the world apparently going crazy. A brave stallion stepped forward.
"Uh, hey, Metal, where are you going?" he asked boldly, risking that he actually got an answer. The earth pony mare didn't acknowledge him, staring in front of herself, looking out of it. The azure mare in her company proved to be more sociable.
"Hi Mr. Somepony! Kind Metal Bend will take me to see Cast Silver."
The stallion hoped he'd misheard. The last thing this town needed was those two meeting again. Last time they bumped into each other, the town had to build a new grain silo. They were polar opposites, like iron and... not-iron. The stallion hurried home to take shelter from the ongoing apocalypse.
Meanwhile, the two mares finally reached a small, but easily recognisable house. The attic was full of shiny, sparkling, glossy... in one word, magnificent jewellery. Every accessory imaginable was present, from hoofrings to tiaras, present in silver, gold, and platinum. Even more noticeable was the lack of any type of security. Trixie took the chance to voice this. Metal Bend laughed dryly.
"Might I divert your attention to the left of the toolshed?"
Trixie obediently checked said location, and saw a crude wooden fence, thrown together for the sole purpose of nailing things on it. And oh boy, were there things nailed on it! Some sort of grey substance, in the shape of pony's faces, was all that could be seen all over said fence.
"What exactly is that?" Trixie asked.
"Whenever somepony tried to rob him, he would beat 'em up, then push their faces into that weird stuff, and put those icky mask-thingies out for everypony to see." She sighed absent-mindedly. "He's got style, you've got to admit. I mean..." she corrected herself, regaining her composure. "He's arrogant as can be. I'll wait here for your inevitable refusal."
Trixie smirked, but nodded to her nevertheless as she entered the house. Once inside, she had to squint her eyes, because the room was dimly lit. It was also devoid of any terrifying stallions.
"Hello?" she risked.
"Comin', comin' to hell with your naptime-interrupting kind."
Even though the stallion probably meant to whisper that last part, his voice simply boomed with such intensity thet it could probably be heard half a mile away. Seconds later, a gruffy, slightly yawning stallion entered from the back door. He was blue, with brown mane, and an amulet cutie mark. What was unusual about him, though, was the fact that he was a pegasus. Trixie raised an eyebrow. The stallion did not fail to notice this.
"Let me guess." he said, rolling his eyes. "You want to know why in Equestria would a pegasus take up smithing, right?"
"No." she answered, smiling. "The fact that you are a pegasus and still manage to get a decent living in a smithing town is proof enough of your skill. Which comes in handy, as I need something done real fast."
"What'd it be?"
Trixie told him. The stallion whistled.
"You got materials for that, missy? I sure don't."
"Oh, I've got materials. I'll even throw in some charming company! If you only step out with me for a moment..."
The stallion nodded, and they both stepped out, where a bored Metal Bend was kicking rocks, the silver still attached to her back. She noticed the stallion, and glared at him.
"Cast Silver."
The stallion returned her glare.
"Metal Bend."
Tension could be felt in the air. Growing, strengthening, waiting to erupt—
"Oh, get a room, you two!" an annoyed voice said, interrupting their sacred showdown. Blinking, they both stared at the offender, who was now levitating the silver down to the earth.
"So can you do it, or not?"
The professional overtook Cast Silver, and he examined the ore. Even though it was raw, it was also very pure; little to none refining would be needed to put it to use. This was fine material to work with.
"I think so. It'll probably take two days."
"I need it by tomorrow."
The stallion laughed dryly.
"I don't have that many hooves."
Trixie pointed to Metal Bend.
"Then use hers. She still owes me one."
"What?! NO!" exclaimed the two smiths at the same time. They immediately turned towards each other, huffing.
"Team up with a fancy jewelmaker?" Metal Bend sneered.
"Have my work screwed up by an amateur?" Cast Silver groaned. Trixie slapped her face with a hoof.
"My apologies. Let me amend my statement: you should go and make out behind the forge, and then, after the sexual tension is relieved, you can go make my order. Sounds good?" she asked, glaring at the two dumbfounded smiths. "Good!" she huffed. "Now, you get to it, and I'll go book a room at the inn or something. So long!" She turned back to the path they came from, huffing and puffing all along the way. "Seriously, like a couple wed for fifty years! How can somepony be so dense?"
The two ponies hesitantly checked each other out. The fact that they never considered any possible romantical interractions between them didn't even occur to Trixie.
"Well, he is a strong, handsome and skilled stallion." Metal Bend thought.
"Well, she's got a cute flank." Cast Silver thought.
"So, uh you wanna go do the thing with the forge and the pliers?" Cast Silver asked.
"Um, sure." Metal Bend replied.
They both retreated into the workshop, uncharacteristically aware of the awkward situation. This is going to be a loooong night...