• Published 29th Aug 2018
  • 298 Views, 4 Comments

The Building of Nee Hill - TeddyG



Nee Hill, a builder, earth pony, suddenly learns she is quite different from everypony else when her cutie mark disappears.

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A New Building

She walked for days upon days. The desert gave way to hills, the sagebrush to green grass Then came birch and pine. Nee found more to eat, and, even better, more to drink. Her walking became brisker, she even spoke to other ponies she met along the road, but she always kept walking, and always kept her tool skirt on.

As she walked she sometimes thought of building, and what if felt like to build and the kind of wonderful things she could build. Late one night, while in such a rumination, her gaze came upon a silvery clearing a stone’s throw from the road. She hiked the short distance to it and found an opening in the wood flooded by the full moon’s light. The light poured in through an opening in the ash trees to the south. To the north, a great stand of bamboo had started to crowd its way in. She discovered a sparkling stream of sweet water and berries and grasses to eat. She unpacked her wagon and, when the sun rose, she began to build again.

She started each day with the rising sun and escaped into her dreamy world of building. She saw the wood reshaping and coming together, bringing a new structure into the world. When the sun went down she stopped work and ate all she could, for she would forget to eat during the day, and drink all she could, for she forgot this as well, and then she would fall asleep, exhausted.

Before the moon could change its phase from full to new, she had built a house for herself. The structure had the shape of a great wing, the tip stretching off toward the South. The roof sat high to let in the light and the view of the ocean. She had crafted it with the living bamboo, woven and worked together. For the interior framing, she used square-set timbering made from cypress and cedar so that the smell would calm and relax her. She had included ventings and windows so her tools would stay dry, but a healthy air-flow would continue to circulate.

Nee stepped back and admired her work. She thought it lovely, and so well blended with the surrounding wood that it looked as if it had grown there from a strange seed. She felt, every inch, a builder again, and cutie mark or no, a builder she was.