//------------------------------// // Chapter 12 // Story: Just Dropping In // by Gunsmith //------------------------------// I hear a muffled thumping getting louder. The noise seems to be nearing me. It reaches its peak of volume momentarily; the sound seems to be around twenty feet away from where I lay; when it does, I open my eyes. I catch a glimpse of the rear half of a cyan body as it moves down the stairs across the room, a rainbow colored tail trailing behind it. I continue to stare at the staircase, listening to the thumping, which I now recognize as the sound of hooves on a cloud, until it becomes very soft. At that point, I blink a couple of times, then roll off of the cloud I rest on, hitting the floor with a similar thumping noise. As I make my way to and down the stairs, I realize Rainbow Dash's activity must be waking me up, as it did the day before. I am silently grateful that she is fairly clumsy in the morning. I trot out into the kitchen, arriving in the white room to see the pegasus in question hovering near a cabinet, her head inside it, grabbing something. Rainbow turns back towards me, or more, the table in the center of the room, a muffin in her mouth. She lowers herself to the floor, beginning to make her way to the low-sitting table, when she finally notices me. I smile to her tiredly. Her eyes open a little more, but not much, and she attempts a smile without dropping the muffin. Dash speeds up in trotting towards the table, placing the muffin down atop it. "Morning," she says, smiling again with more ease. She sits down at the table, hungrily looking at her breakfast before reaching down and taking a bite of it. "Hey," I reply, going over to the same cabinet, which Rainbow Dash accidentally left open. I prop my forelegs on the counter, then reach in to grab a muffin of my own in my teeth. As I return to the side of the table opposite the cyan mare, I can taste blueberries and a muffin flavor in my mouth. We sit at the table quietly for a few minutes, eating our respective muffins. By the time I finish mine, Rainbow has been waiting for around a minute, trying to wake up more, I suppose. I swallow the last of my muffin, feeling more awake, myself. I glance up at Dash, licking a piece of muffin from the side of my mouth. She looks back at me, her magenta eyes half-lidded but much more awake than before. "So today'll be your first day, right? At work." Her scratchy voice crackles a little as she speaks, breaking the morning silence; I enjoy hearing her talk, though. I tried comparing her voice to others, of people I had heard speak before, but none could match hers; it is an odd voice, but again, I like it. I find it...well, cute, actually. I feel a little heat hit my face as I find myself thinking this. "Uhh...yeah, at the smithy, down in Ponyville." I smile in remembrance. I wonder how my first day will go, and am eager to see what the job entails. "Cool. Your boss sounds pretty nice, so hopefully your day will go good." "Yeah, I hope so, too." A moment of silence passes through the air. I don't really know what to add, but feel like I need to say something else. My brain is working at minimum capacity this morning, though, so I can't find any words, and instead just look down at the table, not wanting to stare at Rainbow Dash; that would make the silence even more awkward, at least, maybe for her. A feeling of relief passes over me when she continue the morning conversation. "Yeah...I'm like, my own boss, which is pretty cool. There's a pony who runs the whole weather station and stuff, and I still work for him, but I lead the teams, and I don't have to deal with him too much." "I bet that's nice," I say. "Do you like being head weatherpony?" I ask after a moment, my interest becoming more genuine. Her eyes brighten a little and she smiles. "Oh yeah, it's awesome. I get to fly around all day, do some stunts if I want, and beat up some clouds. Sometimes I've gotta do other stuff, like help get a big storm in, or lead the weather team in the Winter Wrap-Up, or get water from the ground to Cloudsdale so they can keep making rain and clouds and stuff. Other than that, I get to boss ponies around and take naps all the time while they do the work!" finishes Rainbow Dash, grinning jokingly. I chuckle, saying, "I don't believe a word of that. You're bossy, but not that bossy. Definitely lazy, though." I flash a grin of my own at her. She laughs a little in return, continuing to smile afterward. "Well, me and my lazy self should probably get to work," she says, starting to stand up from the cloud table in the kitchen. I do the same, stretching for a brief moment before relaxing again, smiling at Rainbow. I trot over to the door and push it open, holding it for her and watching as she trots out behind me. We walk to the edge of her cloud home again, I glance over at her, finding she has done the same. "Have a good day at work, Rainbow Dash," I tell her, smiling warmly. "You too, Ferrum." She smiles back, then glances towards her destination, the warmth in her smile turning to determination. Dash kicks off of the cloud, pumping her wings hard, sending her speeding away from where I stand, watching. A streak of rainbow follows her path, created by her multicolored mane and tail. I watch her cyan blue figure get quickly smaller, disappearing after a few seconds, the rainbow trail soon vanishing as well. I smile, then turn my head downwards, looking over a snowy Ponyville. I decide that I will also start my day with a little speed, setting my mind as I prepare to force myself off the cloud. As with the previous time I had done this, my mind begins screaming insults at me. At least they're less vulgar this time. I press my wings into my sides, angling face-down towards the ground. The rush of cold wind blowing past my face and forcing my mane backwards, the howl of the air in my ears, the slowly increasing adrenaline, I welcome it all. The scream of wind bouncing off my eardrums is soon blocked out by the beating of my panicked and excited heart. Ponyville begins to take shape, the figures of the houses and ponies gaining detail by the millisecond. I hear a subconscious voice in my head, instructing me as it did before. Wait...wait...wait...now! I force out my wings, causing them to catch in the air. The sudden change in my balance and surface area causes me to be thrown upward into a level position by the air currents beneath my black wings. I smile to myself, enjoying the press of wind on the fronts of my outstretched hooves, my wings, and my face. I can easily relate the feeling to that of riding a motorcycle at a high rate of speed. Making sure the air ahead of me is clear of building, hills, or other crash-inducing objects, I close my eyes, gliding through the air. As the seconds pass, the flow of adrenaline slows, and my hearing returns with only a soft heartbeat in my head. I open my eyes, glancing around casually as I continue to glide at a good speed. Looking downwards, I see I am a little past the town square. I decide to make a quicker route to my destination, and begin turning around in a wide half-circle. A few seconds of flying returns me to the center of Ponyville, and I quickly thrust and turn my wings forward, halting me mid-air. I hover down, allowing myself to drop a few feet every couple of wing flaps, and land on the snow-covered dirt roads of the town with a thud. I am in an alleyway directly beside the smithy. I collapse my wings back to my sides and trot out of the alley, turning and moving to the door of the stone building. As I push open the door with one side of my face, I feel a blast of warm air radiate from the interior of the building. I make my way inside and help the door along, sealing the room again. I turn my head back into the room, and see a silver-gray pegasus behind the counter a few feet away. Forge smiles at me, raising a hoof in greeting. "Hey, there you are. Was wondering if you'd show up or not," he says, chuckling a little. I frown. "Sorry, am I late?" I ask. I question to myself how I would know if I was late or not, seeing as there aren't any clocks around to go by. Maybe I should make a sundial or something. "No, you aren't late. As long as you show up, I really don't care when you get here. Don't abuse that, either," Forge adds, still smiling but with a hint of warning on his face. "I won't. So...when do we start?" "Now, as a matter of fact." He jerks his head backwards, to the door behind him, and trots through it. I go over to the counter, then follow through the door into the somewhat darker and much warmer room. A look around the stone room at the back of the building shows me that it remains the same as yesterday, with some minor changes. Some materials and objects have been moved around the room. One of the workbenches, sitting on the left wall of the room from where I stand, is completely cleaned off now. Forge is throwing some more coal into the main forge, using a shovel. He sticks the shovel back in the pile of coal opposite me in the room, then turns to face me. "That bench is yours to use," he tells me, nodding to the cleaned worktable. "Put some knick-knacks or something on there, I don't really care. Just don't beat it up too bad." I nod to him. A glance over to the metal table shows nothing of interest, since nothing is really there, so I continue to stand where I am. I look back at Forge, who is still tending to the forge. I see that he is standing with his side to the circular pit, and one of his wings is outstretched over the fire in it. He is using his wing as a fan, a bellows, to make the fire burn brighter; very effectively, at that, I note upon seeing the coals burn brighter and brighter until a steady flame, like the one I saw yesterday, hovers over them. Maybe that's why pegasi make good blacksmiths... I am prevented from further thinking into this when Forge says, "Alright, today we've got a few orders. Biggest one is the Apple family's shoes, we need to get those done first. Rest of 'em are basically shoes, got a few new knives for the restaurant here in town also." "Okay. Are horseshoes what you normally make?" I inquire. "Pretty much, yes. Shoes are big this close to the Winter Wrap-Up, since the earth ponies will be plowin' fields. 'Lotta skates, too, those are usually asked for a little later, though. After Wrap-Up, we generally make anything here. Seems ponies wear down metal pretty fast, in their shoes, their saddles and bags, you get the picture," he finishes. "Hmm," I reply, my curiosity satisfied. "Alright, enough chit-chat, we have horseshoes to make," says Forge, smiling. He beckons me over to the furnaces at the back of the room. After asking me to load some coal into them, to which I do, a little clumsily, admittedly. Gripping a shovel and keeping it level proves a little tough, and I find my jaw hurting a little from biting down hard after the furnaces are burning brightly. He then instructs me to help load in chunks of ore, for smelting. We close the ore-filled furnaces and wait patiently for a few minutes. I drum with my hooves a little on the forge. He announces the ores are melted, and begins removing them carefully with tongs and something that looks like a cooking pot, only with a small bowl and a long handle. Forge tells me to watch him as he does this, because the melted iron is extremely hot and has a tendency to spill or drip. I watch as Forge extracts the remaining chunks of stone and sediment from the liquefied metal. He then takes the container over to some rectangular pieces of steel, with carvings made in them. I see that they are molds, the carvings being of horseshoe shape. The molds, of which there are four, lie on Forge's workbench, side by side; a stack of more steel rectangles sits to the side of the table, and I assume they are molds of different shoe sizes. He carefully begins to pour the white-hot liquid into each of the molds. I see that he fills each to the brim, perfectly filling them with iron. After he finishes the fourth mold, he trots back to the furnaces and rests the pot-like container inside one of them, keeping the melted iron heated. Forge turns back to me, smiling a little. "Those molds took me a while to make. Had to take hand-crafted horseshoes of a few sizes, lay 'em in some softened steel. Speaking of which, you gotta use iron for shoes, never steel. Steel's stronger, but is harder to work with than iron, got it?" "Got it," I reply, nodding firmly. He returns the nod and smiles, pleased. We wait until the iron in the molds cools, and Forge tells me to help him get the shoes out of the molds. I watch as he lifts a mold, banging it on the workbench until the iron shoe falls out, and I mimic his actions with another mold. After all four of the shoes are out, he inspects them for a moment. He deems that the shoes came out cleanly, and moves them off to a box sitting on the wall of the room. Forge returns to the furnaces, telling me to switch out the molds for the smaller shoe molds, then grabs the pot filled with heated iron and begins the shoe-making process again. We continue to do this for some time. Later in the day, Forge announces that we only have one more set of horseshoes to go, then we can do the restaurant's order for utensils. He says that he would like me to try and do the process for the last set, without help from him. I don't feel nervous about messing up, but remind myself not to get too cocky. I begin by grabbing the pot device in the furnace; I see that the liquid iron in it is nearly depleted at this point. The handle of the container feels warm on my teeth, and I try to keep my tongue away from it for fear of burning myself accidentally. I cautiously trot over to the molds lying on the workbench, keeping the pot of white-hot metal as steady as I can. I approach the first mold. I tilt my head slowly, my eyes darting from the slow-moving liquid to the steel mold, watching as it begins to fill. I don't judge how much iron rests in the mold properly, though, and a little overflows onto the steel surface of the mold. Damn it. I sidestep to the next of the molds, repeating the process. On this mold, I am able to get the level of iron in it near perfect. The same result comes from the following two molds, and I feel some pride in my work. I return the now-empty pot to the furnace, and turn back to see Forge inspecting my handiwork. I near the worktable and he turns to me. "Not bad, not bad at all. First one's a little full, but we can smooth it out. Nice job, kid." I smile and nod in thanks, feeling a little more proud. After a few minutes, the iron in the molds cools, and I bang out the horseshoes. I pick up the first shoe, the overfilled one, in my mouth. It feels very warm, somewhat hot, and I again keep my tongue away. I turn to Forge with a questioning look, and he motions to the grinding stone off to the side of the same wall the workbench I am by rests on. I trot over to it, positioning myself beside it and placing my right hoof on it. I begin pedaling the wheel, glancing up to Forge, who nods in confirmation this is what he wants me to do, and I turn back to the spinning wheel. I inch my head towards its coarse and quickly-spinning surface, flinching a little when the iron shoe makes contact. Sparks glance off out and away from me as the metal is steadily worn away. At one point I nick my cheek on the grinding wheel, which elicits a grunt and an internal Ow, fuck! It feels like having a car covered in sandpaper drive past me, hitting my cheek as it does so. I continue to remove the shoe of its excess metal until it is fully removed, leaving the shoe looking like its brethren. I turn away from the wheel and back to Forge, setting the horseshoe down on the workbench so he can take a look at it. He peers at it for a few seconds, flips it over with a hoof, and continues to stare at it. Turning to me, he says, "Cleaned that up nice, it looks good. Let's move on to the restaurant's order." For the next ten minutes or so I watch as Forge basically creates steel. I help him add more iron and coal to the furnaces, and we wait for the ores to melt. He eventually removes the two pots that are in use, removing the undesirable stone and sediment before allowing the iron to cool, inside the pots. After it does, he puts the pots back into the furnaces, melting the iron again; he repeats this process a few more times, and finally removes the melted-and-re-melted metal from the furnaces; the iron has been removed of some of its carbon, creating a steel alloy. Forge takes one of the pots, instructing me to grab the other quickly, then goes over to another set of molds, laid out on the floor in one corner of the room. These molds are small, and have a small rod shape inlaid in them. We make about twenty of these bars, which end up remaining quite hot but have a solid form. Forge gives me a pair of tongs, telling me to pick up the bars and move them to the nearby workbench. We do so for a minute, and I place the tongs on the floor when all of the small steel rods are laid out on the workbench. I watch as Forge trots to another side of the stone room, grabbing a sledgehammer, before returning to me and dropping the hammer on the floor in front of me. "I'm going to set one of the rods aside, and you're going to hit it with the hammer. Hard. Not too hard though, in case you miss. Poor table's been beat up enough," he says, smiling. He uses a pair of tongs to move one of the rods to the side of the workbench; it still glows a little red in heat. I turn about a little, wondering how I should go about using the hammer, which is now in my jaws, to hit the small target. After a moment of decision I find a position that allows me to swing the sledgehammer in an angled arc, and attempt to line up my sight on the glowing rod of steel. I begin pulling my head up and to the side, feeling the weight of the hammer offset to one side of my mouth. I clench my teeth a little tighter, preparing to bring the hammer down. I twist my head down as the hammer reaches its peak, making it smack down onto the small piece of steel with a loud clang of metal-hitting-metal. My head vibrates from the impact, and my teeth hurt a little. I look over at where I have struck, finding I hit my target cleanly. I lift the hammer, returning it to its starting position, and see the squished piece of steel, looking much flatter now. "Nice hit. Let's do the next one," says Forge, moving out another. By the time I finish bringing my large hammer down twenty-one times, being that I missed at one point, leaving a fine dent in the metal surface of the table, my ears ring softly and my teeth are noticeably hurting. I drop the hammer on the ground and crack my jaw left and right, moving my mouth around a little. Forge smiles at me and chuckles softly before turning and grabbing one of the flat chunks of steel. He moves to the grindstone and begins sharpening it, and eventually the mashed piece of metal becomes a simple, dull-bladed butter knife. He and I repeat this process, alternating until twenty knives and a lot of steel dust remain. I notice my butter knives are fairly well-made, looking similar to Forge's in quality, save for a few nicks on the blades or blemishes on the handles, and smile a little in pride. Forge scans the knives a few times, then looks up to me with a smile of his own. "These look good. I'll probably touch up a few of yours, but don't dwell on that. You did some excellent work, especially for it being your first time doing this. You can head on home if you'd like, Ferrum." I smile to him. "Thanks. See you tomorrow, Forge," I say, trotting towards the door leading into the front room. I push open the door, make my way around the counter, then head out to Ponyville's town square. *** Rainbow Dash arrives home when the sun glows an orange color, only about a foot away from the horizon and only about an hour after I arrive at her house. I decide not to scare her today, and instead sit at the table in her kitchen, watching Tank as he flies about the room acrobatically. Movement catches my eye, and I see the door slowly opening. A cyan blue head covered in multicolored hair pokes inside, magenta eyes scanning the room before spotting me, sitting at the table. I see Rainbow exhale a little in relief and relax, pushing the rest of the way inside. She sees the grin on my face. "I thought you might try to scare me again," she clarifies. "Now why would I do that?" I ask, continuing to grin. Dash chuckles a little as she flaps her wings to a hovering position, opening some cabinets and removing two plates and sandwich materials. I stand up and trot over to the cabinets, helping get out a loaf of bread. She places the platters on the cloud table before returning to where I stand to make her own sandwich. We grab our meals and sit down at the table. I ask Rainbow Dash how her day went, the general small talk, to which she replies with her usual "good, but boring". When she asks me the same, I have a little more to say. I tell her of my first day on the job, what I did, how I think I'll enjoy it, and so on. She asks questions here and there, which tells me she's actually holding some degree of interest; I find it a little odd, thinking it would instead bore her, but continue on. I eventually finish, and she says she agrees that I'll take a liking to my job. Not having much else to talk about, we decide to get a good night's rest. I follow Rainbow up the stairs, bidding her good night as I break off into the second story. I lay down on the fluffy white couch, jaw and cheek still sore from my first day working as a blacksmith. I drift off into sleep somewhat thoughtlessly, feeling content.