The Stone

by Martian


Chapter 4 - Tempering Iron

“I’m surprised you aren’t with the rest of your family,” said Trixie, stepping beneath the drooping roof of Rosethorn’s forge.

“Already ate.  Anyways, too many ponies gets noisy in a hurry.  Apples, especially.”

“Well, you’re an Apple,” Trixie set her prop crate down on the floor, the nimbus of magic fading swiftly away.

“Nope.  Apples don’t have thorns.”

“The big one- uh, Mac- said you were his aunt.”

Rosethorn shrugged, giving the coals a light raking, then stepping a hoof down on a bellows set on the floor.  The glow turned a shade paler, sparks drifting upwards to the tin cylinder that hung above it.  “Ain’t.  Just been here long enough, I guess.  Close enough to be family without sharing the blood.”

Trixie considered the taciturn blacksmith a moment and compared her to the stoic Macintosh.  You’d never guess they weren’t related, though given that the former was sharp as a knife while the other was blunt as a sack full of mud...

“Regardless.  Springs; can you make them?”

“Depends.  Only have iron wire, not steel.”

“There’s a difference?”

“Plenty.  Rusts quicker, more temperamental with its heating, gets brittle.”

Trixie frowned some, eyeing the box of wrecks.  It was just her luck to be stuck with hillbilly technology.  Well, she would have to make due; she had done it before, she could do it again.  Even if they just lasted for a little while, it would be enough.

“Well, it’ll do.”

Rosethorn pulled down a kind of half-circle lid over the coals before turning to the unicorn, nodding, “Show me what you need, then.”

Trixie expected to have to describe every piece to the loutish mare, but to her surprise, Rosethorn seemed to understand just what was needed.  She asked a few short questions, namely about length and strength, before drawing a few metal spindles from a rack and yanking down a line of wire from a large spool set on a cunningly fashioned cradle hung from the rafters.  It was hard for Trixie to admit to being impressed, but she very nearly was when she saw the practiced ease for which Rosethorn moved.

The blacksmith stuck the end through a little notch cut at one end of the rod and set the other end into an odd-looking clamp with a handle.  A few quick cranks and she had a coil of wire resting on the spindle.  A few more deft, energy-saving motions later and she had the coil cut from the spool, slid off the spindle and set into the edge of the forge.  She didn’t talk, didn’t try for light conversation, didn’t even acknowledge that Trixie existed; there was simply the fire and the metal.

A moment later, Rosethorn plucked the coil from the flames when it glowed red, set it on her anvil and, with the kind of care and skill Trixie would have never dreamed of seeing in an Earth pony, used a pair of pliers to curl each end of the spring before setting it back into the heat.  It took her ten seconds, if that.  The motions were almost poetic in a way; every movement was performed with the ease and grace of a pony long familiar with every inch of her surroundings.  Trixie did not doubt for a second that the mare could have done it blindfolded.  She could have probably heard the colour of the metal as it heated.

Fifteen seconds of studious focus later and the newly fashioned spring was sizzling away at the bottom of a trough full of water.

Perhaps two minutes had passed from drawing out the spindle to the wire hitting the water.

Rosethorn dredged the piece from the trough. “That good?”

Trixie stared at the offered spring. “It was indeed...”

“What?”

“Oh, I mean,” she blinked and plucked up the little coil with her magic.  She compared it to the last good one she had left (having carefully left the horribly bodged one in her wagon), and nodded, “Looks like a good match.  How much for, say, twelve more?”

Rosethorn rolled her eyes and sighed, “Not gonna fight.  A bit for two, five bits for twelve.”

“Six bits,” Trixie corrected her, frowning just a bit.  Honestly, she didn’t know basic math?

“Package deal; five for twelve.  Take it or leave it.”

“Fine.”

“What else?”

“I need this flywheel flattened.”

“Looks like you blew it up.”

Trixie coughed, “Yes, well, there was a mix-up.”

“Fair enough.  Not hard to fix; half bit will do.  Paint will be burnt off, though.”

Trixie thought a moment as Rosethorn got to spooling out another coil.  “I don’t suppose you have any paint I could buy?”

“Nope.  Might have some old stuff in the barn though; ask dad.”

“Your father is here?”

“Turnover.  The loud one,”  Feeling that this wasn’t quite accurate, she added, “The loudest one.”

“I thought you said you weren’t an Apple.”

Rosethorn gave Trixie a narrow-eyed look.  “Not by blood, but that don’t make him any less my da, nor Merlot any less my mum.”

“Ah,” said Trixie, suddenly (and unusually) apologetic.  “Sorry.”

Rosethorn grunted, turning back to her spindle.  In a matter of moments she had coiled and cut a dozen pieces and tossed them into the fire.  Without even pausing, she took up the first from the batch and began shaping it with the pliers.  Not a movement nor moment was wasted.

“I also need a smaller, lighter spring for this piece...”

“Out of luck there, I expect; only have this wire, and it’s pretty thick.”

“Can’t you, like, make it thinner?”

“Yes...” said Rosethorn slowly, “I’d have to refit my crucible to be able to pull iron thin enough first, though.  You got three days?”

“Mmn.  Fine.”  

The bent knife was a quick fix, and Rosethorn was certain that she could weld the smoke machine’s handle back into one piece with little trouble.  After making a few promises to be careful and to replace everything she used back where they belonged, Trixie was allowed to use a few of the blacksmith’s dizzying array of tools to try and work open her bit-eater box.  

Trixie hadn’t ever found herself working alongside another pony before, or not in a while, in any case.  Despite her abrasive nature, Rosethorn actually made for pleasant company; she didn’t try to make smalltalk, didn’t interrupt with needless advice, didn’t do much of anything other than work, and work she did.  

The coals rattled as she raked them, the bellows wheezed, glowing metal hissed as it was dropped into the quench.  It gave the air a steamy, tinny flavour.

It was an oddly relaxing environment, for all the smoke and heat and noise.  Trixie actually found herself grinning faintly as she tried cutting at the sheared metal of the bit-eater’s latch with a chisel, cutting off a few flakes of brass and scoring the hinge itself a fair bit before there was a satisfying jolt and the trick bottom sprang open.  There were actually only three coins there, nestled into the sound-muffling velvet, but it was still three bits...  

Trixie’s grin widened just a little more when she realised that one of those bits happened to be larger than the rest, and sporting a different pony’s profile than the usual Celestia:  it was a ten-bit piece.  All of a sudden the expression on the face of that one rather well-dressed pony she’d tricked with the little joke box made perfect sense.  

Well, those were the breaks of not keeping your eye on the bits, old pony.  You should have known better.

Now wealthier by twelve bits (or rather by ten, given that the first two were hers to begin with), and feeling exceedingly clever with the memory of a rich pony successfully shown up, Trixie started to hum to herself.  It was a rather happy tune.

“Do you mind?”

“What?”

“I’m trying to work here and your humming is throwing off my rhythm.”

“Oh, sorry.”

Even so, the grin didn’t lessen.


“So what’s the word off west, nephew?”

Turnover dropped down onto the seat beside Mac, their combined weight causing the wooden bench to creak in an alarming fashion.  The world around them was filled with ponies talking at various levels of shout.  Given that many were children or grandchildren of Turnover himself, it wasn’t really a surprise; talking loudly was more or less the family pass-time.

Mac chewed thoughtfully on a cherry-bread doughnut as he considered just what would be worth sharing.

“Quiet,” he said.

Turnover snorted. “You could have at least told me you built another barn or something, which I happen to know you did, hah!”

Mac had to concede this. “Two, actually.  Two and half might be more accurate, mind,” he added.

“What, you get bored halfway through the last one and left it?  I suppose when you have to build as many in a week as you lot do...”  Mac rolled his eyes and gave his great uncle a little bump with his shoulder, causing the old stallion to chortle merrily as he struggled to keep his sandwich in hoof.  

“Earlier one, we were actually replacing in the north end.  Ended up collapsing on us halfway through because of...”  Mac trailed off, his brow furrowing.

Because we was overrun with two dozen manic Pinkie Pies was not the kind of thing one really wanted to share, if one wanted to maintain at least some level of respect within the family.  Mac didn’t even pretend to understand how that had happened or how the problem had fixed itself;  AJ had said something about magic and that was enough for Macintosh.  Anyway, that kind of answer would mean he’d have to try and explain what a Pinkie Pie was, and he was not at all certain he was capable of broaching that kind of philosophy.  He caught Apple Fritter’s eye and saw her wince; she had heard the question and did not seem willing to try and approach it either.

“Bad nails,” he finished, lamely.  

“Uh huh,” said Turnover, recognizing the old family code-word for ‘don’t ask’.  “Other than that?”

Mac thought a moment then shrugged, “Nope.  Been quiet.”

Turnover rolled his eyes, “I’d swear left and right that yer Granny Smith is indeed my sister, but I’m starting to think you were adopted or something, nephew.  You realise you are allowed to talk around here, right?”

“Yup.”

The older stallion watched Macintosh calmly bite into a fresh donut, the big fellow apparently feeling he had contributed enough to the conversation.  Turnover chortled, “Fine, be that way.”

Lunchtime at Turnover Hills was a raucous affair on the calmest occasion.  By adding some thirty relations to the mix, it became something closer to a good-natured riot, with everyone trying to talk over their neighbour.  Friendly shouting matches and mingling laughter painted the air, highlighted here and there with the rattle of flatware and dishes as war was waged on the mountains of food that would have been called a banquet in any other company, but was referred to here as a light lunch.  

Cherry donuts and glazed apple fritters, pies, sandwiches, dumplings, and soups in half a dozen pots, each different from the next.  A small mountain of dusted sourdough bread loaves sat beside a crock of freshly churned butter, which itself was sat beside a wheel of white cheese that could have been fit to Mac’s cart in a pinch.  All three had suffered grave casualties in this war of attrition, and just now there were ponies lining up to make a second pass.

The Apples would show no mercy; leftovers was a four-letter word in these parts.

Mac blinked as a mug was set before him.  He looked into the beaming face of another uncle... or maybe just a cousin; it was hard to keep the bloodlines straight sometimes.  His memory held up a card, identifying the dapper fellow as Dandee Red, his neat white jacket and hat going well with his earthy red hide.

“Hello, cuz!  Been awhile since we’ve seen you around here.”  He had the friendly, lazy drawl that all the Apples seemed to inherit, but with a somehow high-class tone to it.

Cousin then.  Mac nodded to himself as he did the mental gymnastics to sort Dandee into the right part of the family tree.  He was fairly certain the fellow was from great aunt Weirouge’s side.  “Likewise.  This fresh?”  Mac picked up the mug and gave the gently fizzing cider a sniff, discovering a pleasant hint of cherry under the bright apple scent.  If a warm spring sunset had a flavour, it would have been in that mug.

“Two weeks since casking.  A bit light, but good for this weather.”

“You did mark the barrel, right?”  This was Turnover, his booming voice muffled by his sandwich.

“Yep; red tap for the adults, up high.  Blue tap with the soft stuff for the ankle-biters.”

Mac polished off the mug in a few short gulps.  There were drinks that you spent time carefully nursing and savouring, there were others that you belted down quick or risked burning out your sinuses, and then there were drinks like this; so delicious that you simply could not stop drinking until you had tasted every last drop.  He set the mug down reluctantly, a cherry-scented breath escaping his lips.

“I think,” he started, then craned his neck around to get a bead on this barrel of heavenly nectar, “That I am gonna see to planting a few cherry trees at Sweet Apple Acres.  You got a recipe for this, cousin?”

Dandee Red grinned through a mouthful of butter tart.  “Ain’t enough diamonds in Canterlot to wrangle it out of me, Mac.  It’s proprietary.”

Macintosh looked hurt.  “Now that just ain’t fair.  I thought all us Apples shared and shared alike.”

“Uh huh.  You just go ahead and ask your Granny Smith to send me her method for distilling her brandy, then we can talk.”

Mac smiles ruefully, “We’ll need forty or fifty teamsters pulling on that chain to lever it out of her.  Doesn’t trust anyone else with it since someone blew up her still and burned her journals.”

Turnover huffed, “Not my fault.  She shoulda shown me how to use that gizmo of hers.  How was I to know that it would catch fire and blow the shack?  I was lucky to get away with my arse in one piece.”

“Dad, language!”  This was from a rather plump mare with a pale yellow coat at the table next to them.  “There are foals about!”  

Turnover shrugged sheepishly and looked around, noting that there were indeed a number of little ponies seated all around.  He eyed pair of young colts that were giving him the kind of knowing grin that said they had heard everything.

“Hey, you two.  If anyone asks, I said bum, got it?”

“Sure, grandpa!”  Their grins didn’t lessen.

Turnover waved towards them as he leaned towards the mare who had given him the scolding.  “Go on, ask’em what I said, Jazzy!  I’m sure yer ears were wrong!”  The look she gave him in return was withering, but Turnover managed to diffuse it with a jolly grin.  It really was hard to keep a frown going in the face of that beard, flecked as it was with various crumbs.

It didn’t stop her- Jazz Apple, Macintosh’s memory suddenly revealed- from scolding him a bit more for it, much to the glee of the two colts.

Mac leaned back on the bench, glancing about casually and trying to place faces to names and farms, though the way everyone moved and milled about in the jolly chaos of the gathering, he was only able to remember a few faces for certain.  Dandee Red was talking to him again, so Mac figured it would be easier to take stock of everyone and get an idea for just who wanted what by way of the seedling exchange later that night.

“So, where is that pretty friend of yours?”

Mac had to think for a second on just who his cousin was referring to.  He drew a blank.  “Uhhh, who?”

“That mare with the rather fancy wagon that followed you in,” Dandee grinned impishly, “Don’t think I wouldn’t notice her.”

Mac blinked slowly, then again when that wayward neuron found what it was looking for.  “Oh, Trixie?”  He looked about again, and indeed she didn’t seem to be in the crowd.  “Huh, I dunno.”

Dandee waggled his mug towards the homestead, “Saw her dazzling the little ones.  Must have been at it for near two hours.  Do you have any idea how nice it feels to have two hours free from a dozen foals?  Eh, you probably don’t.  Well, I didn’t trip over a single kid, nor had to yell at anyone other than uncle to keep his hooves off the food the whole time.”

“Eh, you talking about me?”

“You stole an entire tray of cherry tarts, uncle.”

“Well, no one told me I couldn’t.”

“Auntie Jazz had a sign over them saying ‘Do not touch’-”

“I thought she meant somepony else.”

“-And a second sign saying, ‘This means you, Dad.’”

Turnover started to laugh.  “Shoulda known that I am selectively illiterate.”

The two went back-and-forth over Mac’s head (or around him, given his stature), but he didn’t mind.  He took a longer look around at the general hubbub of eating ponies, but did not see one blue mare with a pale mane amongst them, and certainly not one in a slightly ridiculous hat.

He did see a little colt with a pale yellow hide sporting a pointy hat made out of folded newspaper though.  It was a hat that held no small resemblance to the stereotypical wizarding number, albeit with a point that stuck straight up rather than flopped around.  The colt was up on his back legs, hopping this way and that while waggling his forehooves around in a more-or-less mystical fashion, though the effect was reduced by the half-sandwich that was hanging from his mouth.  There was a crowd around him of other foals, all chatting away excitedly through their own mouthfuls of food.

For a brief moment, Macintosh disconnected from the world and seriously wondered if that was how everyone saw the Apples; giant groups of yelling ponies all stuffing away enough food to choke a... well, a horse.  Several dozen normal horses, anyway.  At least.

He came back to the bustle at hand with a shake of his head, interrupting Dandee and Turnover mid-argument.

“You haven’t seen her here?”

“Nope.  I was cooking and bringing out the tables with the rest, so I’ve been here the whole while,” Dandee Red plucked an apple out of the basket in front of him, taking a generous bite of the ripe flesh.  “Mmn, kids rolled on in like a tidal wave and hit the buffet table all in one go, but didn’t see hide nor hair of her.  She shy?”

Turnover snorted, “I don’t think a filly who prances about on stage is gonna be shy.  Would be a hair on the side of silly.”

“Huh,”  Mac shook his head, “She’s not shy, that’s for sure.  She’s just, well...”  Stubborn as any five mules and bad-mannered as a timberwolf with a toothache was probably a rude thing to say.  She enslaved our town for a day because someone showed her up once was accurate, but also probably the wrong thing to say.  As Mac heard it told, that trinket that was around her neck had been the cause of all the trouble, and he wasn’t one to hold a grudge on a pony for what was probably a mistake.  He tried a different tack.

“Well, remember when Granny Smith wrote you about me getting them busted ribs, and my sister got it into her fool head to harvest the entire acreage on her own?”

“Way I heard it, a certain brother of hers challenged her to do it,” said Dandee, grinning as he took a bite out of the applecore, seeds and all.

Mac gave him a sideways glance, “What I told her was that it was too big a job for her alone, and I was proved right.”

Turnover laughed.  “Same thing, with your Granny’s side, hah!”

“Yeah well, she’s kinda like that; doesn’t like help.  Rubs her the wrong way, I guess.”

“Figure out how to rub her the right way, then.”

“Uhh...” Mac’s brain shorted out for half a beat.  “What?”

Turnover had a toothy grin showing through his beard, and Dandee Red’s sly smile was likewise suggestive.  “Yeah, thought so,” he said.  “Look, we got enough food to share and if she’s too stubborn to come and get it, you should bring it to her.”

Fresh memories from the road stood to the fore of Mac’s mind, particularly the parts involving an angry, shouting mare who nearly caused him to smash his hooves into a cast iron pot that could otherwise have been used as a wrecking ball.

“I don’t think... she’d take to that,” he said slowly, a frown forming.  Mac picked up one of those apples from the basket Dandee had raided and sheared it in half with one bite.  Sweet and tart, with the kind of crunchy flesh that Mac’s head immediately identified as a Splendour.  He nearly choked on it when Turnover smashed a soup-plate sized hoof into his shoulder.

“Hah, so you think!  Merlot wouldn’t give me the time of day when we first met; never stopped me none!”

Dandee spat out a stem. “So that’s why auntie doesn’t own a clock.”

“You’ll be sleeping in the field tonight, pup.”

Mac left the two to their newest round of playful banter.  He took with him his mug and drifted towards the stands that held the barrels to draw a full serving out of the spigot with a practiced hoof.  He paused in mid-sip when he saw a small pair of sunny yellow hooves holding up a half-sized mug, a hopeful expression on the face of his little barnacle.

“How many is that for you now, sweetheart?”

“Only three!”

“Uh huh,” Mac glanced about and immediately caught the eye of Inkie Pie, who was giving him a sort of calm warning look that said more than any number of words ever could.  “Well, three’s an awful lot of a little filly.  You can have half a one and that’s all, okay?”

Peachy Pie tried giving Macintosh the kind of sorrowful, wet-eyed look of a puppy that had just been kicked, but Mac hardened his heart to it and measured out a careful half-pint for the half-pint from the blue tap.  It broke his heart to see the little filly frown, but he’d rather have a broken heart than a broken ear; Inkie Pie was always incredibly calm and soft-spoken, but she had a way of delivering lectures that made one almost wish she’d take to raising her voice.

When she realised that she wasn’t going to get a full mug, Peachy, to her credit, took it in stride and settled on giving Mac as big a hug as she could manage before trotting back to the group of chattering foals with her prize balanced neatly on her back.

He stayed near the barrels for the moment, taking slow sips of the delicious cherry-apple cider, letting the fizzy bubbles play across his tongue as he took in the world all around for what it was.  He wasn’t really looking at anything, more using it as an excuse to let his mind wander.  The infuriating part was how his head kept wandering to the bull-headed mare in the absurd wagon, and the way she had practically exploded when he had offered her a share of breakfast.

What kind of road-bound pony would ever turn down free food?  There was being stubborn, then there was being a plain fool.

His eyes focused on the gently-creaking trestle table at the edge of the gathering, still weighed down with enough food to kill a starving hippopotamus.  

Big Macintosh downed the rest of his mug, gave it a refill, then ambled to the small mountain of eats.  He drew out one of the cutting boards that looked to no longer be in use and went about building a hearty selection of what was on offer.