I close the door and walk down the hall, the old house is on the edge of the city and with the outer district being abandoned I don’t get many ponies visiting. I use my wing to throw my coat onto the chair and pull my saddle bags off, the bag catches one of my release switches and sends my heavy wings to the ground with a loud metallic clang.
“Great.” I mutter to myself and lift up one of the dusty photos.
I smile and wipe the years of dirt off it. It was two years before I left, the sun was out and she had shinned my armor like new. Spark’s wide smile was still visible as she propped her front hooves on my head, my gear shaped eyes are looking up at her and a goofy smile is on my face. The park and houses looked so new in the background. Both now lie unused and decaying. I was almost sad in a way. I returned the photo and pulled out the box. Removing my horn I torn at the tape and dumped the contents out onto the floor.
“What the hay Briss” I say trying to remove the stallion from my mind.
I shift through the old letters, film strips, and photos. It all looks like old junk that anypony would own. Why was it so important that the queen of all ponies would want me to have this? I’m about to trash everything when my hoof lands on a smaller box. I take it in my hooves and open it, the small object that falls out makes my gears stop.
“How the buck?” I stammer and hold the object to the single light in the room.
I wasn’t dreaming, in my hoof was one of the only and possibly last memory chips for a model C-10-ckw series 0-rk clockpony I was the only one of that model, deemed defective and taken out of service, at least that’s what Briss had told me. I open the letter surrounding the chip and read the notes that Briss Brass had written, ‘The clockponies where all automatons, they normally worked where most ponies couldn’t, gathering resources or removing hazardous materials. But model C-10-ckw is different, most others don’t show any sign of a conscience, ask questions, or act like a normal pony. But this one does and the council has ordered us to cancel the C-10’s they see her an immortal pony who could plan, who could somehow disconnected herself from the central control and who could turn rouge. They tell us that she is a threat to the kingdom, termination for the project and the automaton is scheduled for tomorrow at noon.’ The rest of the page is scribbled with tech notes and statistics. I drop the paper as the realization hits me hard.
“Terminated?” I whisper, “Me? Is that why I went crazy? Why everypony feared me before?”
The questions flood my mind in a frenzy as the room starts to spin. I sit down and shake my head, clearing it.
“Well l may as well see the chip.” I mutter hitting the small latch on my belly. There is a small hiss of coolant as the compartment slides out. I search the slots and find an empty memory one, though I had an upgrade a while ago I still have some of the original circuitry so the chip should still fit.
I take a deep breath and plug the chip in and slide the compartment back into place. I feel dizzy as my circuits reboot. The world starts to shift left as I fall to the ground my gears slowing to a stop as I land my head next to the picture of Spark and myself. Then the world goes black.
*1500 years ago, Northern Desterian Forest*
Twigs snap under my hooves as my mane gets blown into my face again.
“Solaris?” I call nervously into the shadows. “Solaris! This isn’t funny anymore, it’s getting almost too dark to see the paths!”
‘Oh Silver what have you gotten yourself into.’ I think silently.
Another branch snaps behind me as I jump around. A light is cast over me as a mare giggles.
“Oh Silver you scared filly” Solaris says her horn dimming as she pokes my foreleg. “Thought I up and walked out on you heh?”
I snort and turn back into the direction of Luna’s rising moon, my tail deliberately smacking her in the muzzle. She sighs and trots to keep up with my quick pace. The last thing I want to do is be out here when the moon is fully risen, you never know what could be hiding behind a tree.
“Oh come on! Don’t tell me that you had a little bit of fun trying to find me!” Solaris says playfully her red and golden mane flipping over her neck as she tilts her head.
“No I didn’t. I came out to find some materials and instead had to find you.” I say annoyed. “Now Briss will think I’m not taking my internship seriously.”
Another sigh.
“Fine I’ll help you find this stupid flower.” She says walking further into the forest. “What did he say it was called again?”
I search through my saddle bag and find the book Briss gave to me that morning. After several minutes of flipping pages with my muzzle I find the bookmarked section.
“Poison Joke and Lunar Lotus. It says not to allow either come in contact with our bodies, and seeing as you’re a unicorn that shouldn’t be a problem.” I say happily stuffing the book back into my bag. “In short look for the blue magic looking flower.”
Solaris rolls her eyes and mutters how this is not a task for a unicorn and how much she hated working. Ignore her rant and allow my coat to catch the warmth of the sun peeking through the leaves above me. I hmm a sweat little tune from my time at the orphanage and keep my eyes open. We walk for several hours before reaching a patch of the Lunar Lotus flowers, their blue petals wrapped up tight in a white pod, awaiting the glow of the moon to reveal their beautiful star pattern pedals.
“Silver why do you even want to be his apprentice anyway? I mean he’s a bit odd messing with those clock things.” She says using her magic to pick several of the flowers, placing them into glass containers and into her own bags.
“Solaris they are called Automatons, and I find it fascinating that he’s trying to give them life.” I say imagining how the new potions and spells would work to finally give Desteria the protection it needed. “Briss plans on creating them to serve as protectors not just for fix clocks or other machinery.”
A golden glow hits the trees in front of me as I turn back. The sun was descending towards the Equestrian Mountain Range and it would soon shroud the forest and most of the city in darkness until the moon was risen. We had gathered enough flowers as it was and hopefully Briss and I would start with the first batch of potions and building the copper armor for his creations.
“You know everypony hates the idea of the clockponies right?” whispers Solaris as we reach the edge of the forest. “They think its going to be Frankenhoof all over again. But I know you’re as stubborn as earth ponies come so I’ll just say this, when he powers on those- those things remember what you really are,” she pokes my chest with her hoof, “YOU are a real pony and I hope you don’t forget they aren’t.”
She hugs me and trots off to the other side of the city, leaving me with a small cart of jars and flowers. I grab the harness with my teeth and start moving towards the shop, I hope to have everything set up by the time Briss arrives at dawn. Just needed to make it through the night without touching those flowers. I pass several guards as I approach the shop all of them giving me a strange look as I kept my head down, my reputation around town wasn’t the best but they till tried to look after me, not because they wanted to but because my father had been one of them, when the timber wolf packs had started preying on citizens he was one of the first to enlist to stop them. He gave his life and in remembrance they agreed to watch over his newly orphaned filly. And several cases of theft and petty crime didn’t help my image or his. By midnight I had made it into the shop and started smelting and shaping the copper that would be used to create the automaton’s ‘coat’. Sweat dripped off my face as I worked over the fires using my teeth to hold the cooling pads while my hooves held the large hammer. At dawn I was pulling out a chest piece as Briss trotted inside, he had coffee in his hooves, almost like he couldn’t function without the dreaded stuff. He took a look at the flowers and at me with a smile.
“I think ye might be overpassin’ my expertise Silver.” His voice made gravel seem like clouds. “I take it ye found these flowers pretty easy?”
I nod, my teeth biting a hot grip pad as I removed a batch of copper faceplates. My hoof catches a lever as water flows down and cools them with a hissing of steam. I pick up one of them and put in over my muzzle.
“Error, error I am not an automaton.” I say with a grin.
The old unicorn almost falls over laughing at the stupid comment. Though I had never known my father, I always imagined him to have been like Briss Brass. The two had known each other in years past but never got along, except with their dumb sense of humor. In fact most of the city shunned the poor stallion, it’s no surprise he lives on the outskirts amongst the abandoned cottages and underfunded subdivision developments that never reached completion. I continue my work and throw another set of hardened copper chunks into the fires and wipe my face.
"When I started I underestimated how hard this job would be Briss." I say with a smile. "But its better than being at the orphanage."