//------------------------------//
// 140. One 
// Story: Short Shorts 
// by Coranth 
//------------------------------//

When my one died - fighting valiantly against the near unstoppable power of Lord Tirek - I was devastated. My one - David by name, High Templar by occupation - fought with Tirek to the death and killed him, though he was mortally wounded. As I lay with him in his final hours, he looked deep into my eyes; hazel met cyan and ama'hi - the immortal connection - was made. In that instant, my mind was filled with his thoughts as he gave me his very essence; he imprinted unto me all of his knowledge, experience and memories; all that he was. With his power - now mine - as my friends looked on, their jaws dropped, I carried him back to ou-- my Weyr; even as I did this the sadness of its mind filled me up; it knew what had happened.

Within, I interred my one in the Ihan Forest, right below the Weyrmind; though not before carefully, gently, removing his possessions. This was not ghoulish; in fact the mind - though saddened further - encouraged it; it was intended, part of a ritual. On went his shendyt - a loincloth-like garment that covered my rump and flanks, the nanocytes impregnated throughout making a hole for my tail. On went my one's golden-bronze psi-steel armor, shifting to become golden-metal barding. Atop the barding, rested my one's robe. Very few modifications were made to this; the nanocytes within simply adapting it for my form and resizing it just enough that I wouldn't trip when moving, though that was all. The robe's bulk and thickness were maintained that I still felt cocooned, wrapped within it... as he had wrapped me up in it when he had held me.

With a touch of my new psionic power, I strapped my beloved's forearm - now foreleg - computer to my body, then set his khaydarin amulet upon my brow, the metal surrounding the shard of khaydarin crystal already adapting to the shape of my head. Finally, the set of triangular earrings he'd always worn painlessly pierced through cellular lines to attach to my ears. I was ready. With a bow so deep that my muzzle touched the floor, I backed away from the golden sarcophagus in which my beloved laid at rest, to stand before the titanic ship, the franken-vessel, the Weyrmind.

"I am your new guide," I stated. "I fear no enemy, for the Khala is my strength! I fear not death, for my strength is eternal!" No sooner had I said this then a cyan beam lanced from the great ship to strike my body, the vessel scanning me inside and out, building a complete map of all that I was; then - "Re Mi Do Do So" - the Weyrmind acknowledged me. A moment later, a gasp escaped me as the great vessel implanted within me the Master Transceiver. David's Master Transceiver... And then the Weyrmind knew me and I knew it; we each knew the other and all that we were.

* * *

I am Guide of the Weyr.

I am a High Templar.

I am a Pony of Equestria.

My name is Fluttershy.