In a world with no giants
Ch.05 “Prometheus”
Empress still hadn’t left, and if the way she was splayed on her sides was any indication, she wouldn’t leave in the foreseeable future either. Not that Angelo complained; the lack of food might have been tough on his body, but what had really surprised him was the sheer pressure that being alone had put on him. She might not have been the best conversationalist, but having someone to talk to was a relief in itself that he felt genuinely grateful for. That she also knew where to find food, of course in no way had influenced his opinion of her...
At first his stomach had protested against his new diet of fruits and water, but when faced with the choice of stomach cramps versus starving to death, his body had begrudgingly complied. Sooner or later he would need to find a different source of nutrition, if he didn’t want to experience some serious deficiency syndromes but for now he would survive.
If his memory could be trusted, it had been nine days since he had entered this strange world and finally he felt genuinely confident about his chances. He had spent most of the day hauling fruit back into his lair, in an attempt to make room for some tasks aside from basic survival, and finally he was ready to use this time productively... if only he could figure out just what productive entailed in this situation.
“Tools!” he finally announced to the world, startling Empress from her afternoon nap. The white hare shot him a reproachful look, but Angelo didn’t even notice her as he crawled around the confines of his small burrow, gathering up stones.
He had never been the most handiwork inclined person, always more interested in finding out how things work then in how to produce them (a trait that had caused his parents to soon lock up all electronic devices around the house, to prevent them from turning into very expensive spare parts), but his lab work had often required him to build his own equipment and he was reasonably confident that he would manage to craft some basic tools.
“How hard can it be?” he asked nobody in particular (meanwhile all around Equestria soothsayers, fortune tellers, and no small amount of magically inclined literary critics felt the sudden urge to facehoof, facepaw, or reach towards their faces with whatever appendage was available).
The first thing he would need was a knife or at least some sort of wedge. The plating of his suit, would have made for good material, but “The Suit” had been built with durability in mind, and he doubted that he would be able to take it apart without at least a blow torch. He had been lucky enough that most of the electronics were on the inside of the suit, only protected by the insulation.
He took two of the stones he had gathered up, solid pebbles, no sedimentary rock.
A few seconds later, the peaceful idyl of the forest was interrupted by a naked man jumping around on one leg, while he held the other foot in his hands.
“Okay, when trying to splint stones, always make sure to secure the stone you’re working on,” he mumbled as soon as he sat back down in the burrow, still holding his mistreated toe. Judging from the amused sounding squeaks his fluffy companion was making, the small interlude at least had been funny for one of them.
He rearranged some of the stone he had gathered to form a sort of workbank for his further attempts at toolmaking. The stone he had deemed the most promising rested in a mould, firmly secured against slipping. Once again he took up his hammer and resumed his work.
…
The sun had made it’s way over the firmament, and slowly but surely the sky was turning orange. The strange low hanging clouds looked like small puffs of pink cotton candy, and the clear fresh air revealed an breathtaking view. It was a real shame that Angelo didn’t notice any of that.
At his feet lay an ever growing pile of rubble, while the pile of stones that he had prepared was ever shrinking. Much to his frustration, he hadn’t managed to produce any sort of edge so far, the stones resisted even the most basic attempts of shaping them.
Empress still hadn’t moved from her spot, and watched him with half lidded boredom.
With a groan he sat up. His back protested against the prolonged cowering, and gave an audible crack.
“You wouldn’t happen to know anything about how to make a knife?” Angelo asked the white hare, of course only receiving a blank stare.
“Thought so...” he mumbled and bowed over his workplace again.
Yet another stone was quickly turned into rubble.
“Goddamnit!” Angelo’s pent up anger suddenly erupted, and he threw aside his latest failure. Angelo froze.
“Did you see that?” he asked without looking away from the spot where the stone had hit the ground. Whatever Empress answer was, Angelo didn’t see it as he crawled towards the unassuming mold in the dirt.
Had there really just been a spark? Could he have sat on a deposit of flint without even noticing it?
Frantically his hand dug into the dirt, throwing handfuls of earth left and right. Several minutes passed, and he was just about ready to believe that his eyes had played tricks on him, when his hands suddenly touched something hard. This didn’t feel like the pebbles and stones he had dug up earlier, it was smooth, and with some clear defined edges.
A stray beam of light found it’s way into the burrow, for a short moment illuminating Angelo’s find, that short moment however was enough to make Angelo’s eyes grow wide.
He redoubled his efforts and before long he held the stone in his hands, not the shiny, glassy flint he had expected, but a nearly fistsized ruby.
Had he just stumbled upon a hidden treasure, or maybe a relic of an long lost civilization? But no, the gem showed no scrapes or other signs of long exposure to the elements, and he was pretty sure that burrowing something would have left at least some tracks.
Could it be that gemstones just formed naturally in this world? The thought was absurd, but then again so was falling through a transdimensional portal and nearly getting eaten by space-leviathans.
With a sigh he brushed aside the hypotheses that were about to flood his mind, he had other more pressing matters to attend to. Briefly he considered using the ruby to craft some tools, Crystals were generally more brittle and it would probably easy to break it into some form of sharp edge, but then he discarded the idea for the meantime. The perfectly cut gemstone was a mystery and he intended to solve it.
As he carried the stone deeper into the burrow, somewhere where it would be safe from the elements and the occasional curious magpie, he dropped it. In his mind he already saw the stone hitting some hidden rock and splintering into a million pieces, but as the stone hit the ground a bright glowing spark was released from the gem.
“I’m pretty sure, that rubies shouldn’t do that.”
He looked towards Empress, but the hare seemed to be just as shocked as he was.
Carefully he Angelo picked up the red gemstone, placed it on his “workbench” and then proceeded to hit it with another stone. His efforts were rewarded with another spark, that landed on his calfs. With a swat of his hand he extinguished the small ember.
The stone itselfs didn’t show any signs of abuse, still as perfectly smooth as at the time he had dug it up.
Once again Empress was left alone looking quizzically at the exit through which Angelo had just vanished, but before long he returned with a bundle of sticks, moss and other dry foliage. His half mad grin, while slightly disturbing, was an honest sign of relief and happiness about his find.
A pile of tinder was quickly assembled, and some larger branches lay readily available. It took him a few tries, and once he nearly set his hair on fire, but predicting where the sparks would fly soon became an easy task and soon a small ember rested in it’s nest of dry leaves.
Angelo blew on the small orange dot, but as soon as his breath touched it, the glow died down. Cursing his carelessness he once again tried to light a spark.
This time, careful not to put too much force behind his blowing, he fanned the small spark. A small laugh escaped his lips as the glowing ember turned into a flame. Bit by bit he added more material to the fire, careful not to suffocate the flame, until finally he could lay some of the bigger branches into the fire. Before long a homely fire was burning in the burrow.
He nearly broke into a celebratory dance, but then his eyes met the black orbs of Empress. The white hare had retreated back into the deepest recess of the cave. She shivered and her eyes were peeled on the dancing orange colours of the flames.
“... You’re still just a animal, I guess...” Angelo said. There was a comforting smile on his face, but his eyes betrayed another emotion altogether.
He moved slowly, choosing his motions carefully in order to not startle the leporide lady any further. When he stood between the fire and the scared Empress, he sat down, his back towards his fluffy companion. He remained still, only occasionally stretching his hands towards the fire.
Time passed, he couldn’t tell how much exactly, but the sky outside had turned dark. Angelo felt the sensation of fur against his back, and sure enough there to his right he could make out a shiny black nose, peering past his broad figure.
He stretched his arms towards the fire, carefully to not burn himself.
“See, it’s not dangerous as long as you are careful,” he said, keeping his tone soft as if he was talking to a little kid.
Encouragement or not, Empress seemed to be content with watching the fire from her current position, and Angelo was too tired to try anything else today. He lay down on his side and let his mind wander, while he waited for sleep to come.
Only moments before he finally fell asleep he realized that this was the first time that Empress had come this close to him. The smile on his face grew just a little bit more honest, and before his eyes finally closed, just a little bit of that strange painful emotion had vanished from them.