Blank

by GameMakingOtaku

Chapter 6: A Freak Like Me

Chapter 6
A Freak Like Me

A week has passed. Inn had become an extremely efficient predator, catching everything, unable to be caught. She could remain unseen until it was to late, and then if she did not wish to fight, then there was no fight.

And no monster knew to fear her.

She was slowly gathering more material for a hut she was making from bones and skins of the monsters she faced. She moved deeper and deeper into the forest, seeing a strange lack of the creatures that are usually so numerous. She Came upon a house made out of metal. Inn had never seen anything like it before. She was not sure what to expect from a pony living in the Everfree, so she thought it would be safer to leave it for now and make her way back to her new home instead.

She returned to her clearing some hours later. While she was working on the construction of the hut, she saw two ponies wandering by. A stallion with an hour glass cutie mark and a googly eyed mare with a bubbles cutie mark. She had seen the stallion some years ago, but his companion had been different then. This brought up questions in Inn’s head, but she quickly shook them off so that she could get back to her house work.

=============

When Inn had finally finished her hut two days later, she decided to go see what was with the metal house she had seen before. She approached cautiously. Staying low and looking around all the time, taking no chances as she drew close to the odd metal door.

“Can I help you?” an old, cryptic voice asked from behind Inn.

“Eep!” Inn squeaked, jumping nearly a foot off the ground. She flipped over in the air, landing on her back to see the disfigured pony that had been behind her. He was old, really old, and his body looked to be sewn together from others. He had a blue head and neck, the neck was cut a diagonally and had a second color, green, that stretched to the front right leg. He had three colors on his back, all different shades of orange. He had three different colors for his legs, one yellow, one white, one green, and one that had two different shades of gray. He even had an oddly cut in secont green color to his front right leg. His underside was laced with six more colors, almost a rainbow pattern. His mane and tail did not match ether, the tail was solid black, and the mane had blue with three green highlights. One eye was emerald green, the other deep violet. Even his ears were different, one black, and the other brown, the latter appeared to be slightly larger. Most unusual of all, he had blank pink patches where his cutie mark aught to be. He looked like a very bad quilt.

Inn had gotten good at seeing details and picking up on new things, and this pony's appearance made her shake in fear. Out of all the things that had gone through Inn’s mind torment Elegance and Exquisite Stone with, this was far worse than anything she had come up with. It was too weird and scary.

“Is there anything I can do for you, my little pony?” the voice seemed as if it where creepier than last time, but it had not really changed.

A shiver went up Inn’s spine. She tried to regain composure and right herself, but it took a few seconds of working her legs uselessly in the air before she managed to climb back to her hooves. “Y-y-yeah. I am, I-I-I am-”

She was interrupted by the stallion in front of her, “Let me guess, you were traveling and saw my peculiar house, and you wanted some company.” There was small laugh in his tone.

Inn gave a weak nod, it was all she could muster.

Once inside the house, Inn saw that there was a room with a door at the back. After passing through the second door, she saw a massive room with no dividing walls. The kitchen, bedroom, dining room, and bath room all shared the same space. The closest thing to a wall was a makeshift collapsible curtain for the bathroom, and that was gathering dust.

Inn was blown away by the sight of the mostly metal house shining back at her.

“Sit, sit, don’t be shy now,” said the stallion as he went to the kitchen. Inn made her way to the dining room, and sat at the metal table. The chair was solid, and made from a material she could not identify. Each chair was covered in a different colored cloth. Trying to ease her mind from the shock of seeing the stallion, she tried to make herself comfortable in the chair.

There was a commotion from the kitchen. Inn turned to see the stallion getting out metal tea cups and a metal tea pot to put on the metal stove. There was so much to take in; there was a pony that looked weirder than her, which was saying something, and now she was looking at more metal than she had seen in her entire life. The strangest thing of all was how the more normal, non-metallic items seemed alien in this environment.

Inn sat for a few minutes and then heard the flames light on the stove. In no time at all, the quilt-like stallion was at the table with apple cider. “So my little pony, what brings you to travel in Everfree? Did a monster do something to your mane and tail? Do you have a place to stay? Are you all alone out here? Are you going to drink your apple cider?” rattled off the stallion.

Inn wasn’t even ready for the pony to be next to her. Him asking these questions as fast as he did was too much for her to understand. “Wh-wh-what?”

He looked confused for a second, but then he realized something. He took a few seconds, sighed, and then took a deep breath. “Sorry, I can get a bit excited when I have guests over. What brings you in Everfree, my little pony?” he said, much more calmly and slowly.

“I, um, I ah,” Inn wondered if it was a good idea to tell the truth.

“It’s okay if you don’t want to say. I’m here because some years back, my home town got frightened by my curiosity. If only the had as high an interest in learning as me, they would have seen that I am not as scary as they think I am.”

The little white pony, just sat there for a few seconds thinking. His story was very similar to her own. Looking at the quilt like pony again, she also began to think that they had another thing in common... Scary appearances. She took a sip from her apple cider, “This apple cider, is... good,” she said. She wasn't lying, even though the flavor was slightly metallic.

“You think so? I made it myself. It is hard to do here in the Everfree, you need to know just the right tree to get the apples from. I’ve gone to the wrong tr-” A loud whistling pierced the room. “TEA! I’ll go and get it. You just wait right here.”

As Inn was sipping on her apple cider, she heard some more clanging of metal.

The patchwork stallion clattered over carrying the tea on a platter. The cups where on small metal plates. The tea pot was on a wooden disk.

The stallion sat down and took one of the teacups. “Oh, if you like my apple cider, you will love my tea.” Inn did not want to have tea while she still had the cider, so she tried to finish it as quickly as she could.

=============

They talked at great length about the Everfree and the monsters that inhabited it. There seemed to be no end of things to talk about. Inn gradually began to warm up to him, she felt like she could trust this stallion.

“Actually... I ah, I’ve killed one before.” Inn said over her seventh cup.

The stallion's eyes widened, “How did you kill a manticore? Did you have help?” he asked.

“Ah, n-no. I killed it all by myself. I’m... good at, ah... well, stealth. I’ve, um, ah, also killed other monsters you mentioned as well.”

“What do you mean by stealth?” he asked, with great interest.

“Well I can mimic things, and blend in,” said Inn, using the stallion’s voice.

A big creepy smile went across his face. “Ohh, I see!”

“And, this is the reason why I am here in Everfree. I was seen... transforming, or something... I still need to work on my stealth,” Inn said with a laugh. And to make the point of what she can do, she transforms into the stallion.

The stallion stood, walking in a slow circle around Inn, examining her disguise “Is that really what my mane looks like from the back?” she heard him mutter. He gave a low and slow laugh. “You know, I just thought of something... Do you want to see the rest of my house?”

Certain she had nothing to fear, Inn agrees. The stallion led her trough another door beyond witch a metal staircase spiraled down into semidarkness. Inn starts to talk about some of her fears. That she will never see her parents again, or that they fear or even hate her. When they get to the bottom of the steps, the stallion says, “Oh, my little pony, no need to worry so much. Some things in life are bad, they can really make you mad, and other things just make you swear and curse. When you're chomping on life's bit, don't grumble, give a whistle,” he pauses to whistle a short marry tune. “And this will help things turn out for the best-”

“I-I just noticed...” inn said, cutting him off “we have y-yet to introduce ourselves. I’m... Inn Cog, Neato, you can call me Inn.”

The stallion stood still for a few seconds thinking, “We haven’t, have we? Well my name is Doctor Moonstone Specter. Just call me Moonstone.”

The lights came on suddenly, and Inn was amazed by how big this room was. It was bigger than the one above, and it had doors leading to other rooms. Looking around to see all there was, Inn noticed many odd things indeed. There were many tables with metal ponies that had bizarre strings coming out of them. One metal pony was black, and looked more like armor than anything else, and was not dangling parts like the others. She moved toward it and asked, “Wh-what is this, M-Moonstone?” Moonstone saw Inn looking at the black pony thing, and answered with, “Oh, I have somethings that I work on. That one is Tex. Shes not quite done yet, I still need some more things, and she will be all finished.”

This all seemed... no word seemed to express her thoughts clearly enough. But the... for sake of debate, bizarre, room was overshadowed by a thing of hide hanging on the wall in a wooden frame, a cutie mark of a magnifying glass over a puzzle piece.

Inn was at first frightened by what she was seeing, but then she thought back to how others had treated her and tried to shrug the fear away.

=============

Another hour passed by. Moonstone had been showing off some of the things that he had made and the tools he used. Suddenly he jolted up, “OH my, OH my! You have been here for quite some time Inn. Is your house nearby?”

“Ya, ah, kinda... it's a few hours away.”

“Oh no! That is too far. I can’t let a filly go out into the forest at night, not even you.”

“So... you want me to... stay... here?”

“I only have one bed, but it has molded to my form over the years. If I could, I’d make you one now, but I’m not that fast with bed making,” He said with a smile. “So, I’m sorry to say, but there are three options: The floor, a table, or my old bed?”

Inn thought about this. The doctor looked old, he may need the bed. The only other options where, lay on metal, or lay on metal.

“Ah, the, ah... floor.”

“Okay. This room here is the warmest, you should be fine here,” he brought Inn into a room with a table and many cabinets. There was plenty of room for her to lay down here.

“Good night Inn.”

“G-good night, D-doctor Specter.”

“Oh, and Inn...”

“Yeah?”

“Always look on the bright side of life...”

“What?”

“Always look on the bright side of life.”

Comments

[GameMakingOtaku]

I meant to say this earlier but my mom was using my laptop at the time...
This chapter was named by Mr_Darkboy2010
It's a perfect name for it... and much better than what I had at first

[Medlimakar]

This story, despite its flaws, is excellent and deserves moar likes. I'm loving the dl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/emoticons/misc_Octavia_plot.png and how Inn's special talent is being a blank slate.