The Gilded One

by Officer_Sam

Chapter One - Ticking Clock.

Tick. Tock.
Tick. Tock.

The room is dark.

Tick. Tock.
Tick...

The clock stopped ticking a long time ago.

…

The room was silent for an eternity.

…

That was until the eternal silence was broken by footsteps, muffled yet echoed.

The steps kept getting closer and closer.

…

Then they stopped.

It was silent again, but then I could hear someone fumbling around with a door handle across from me.

Suddenly the room is flooded with an orange glow and the sound of loud creaking of the large double doors across from me.

I try to speak but make no noise, I try to move but produce no progress. My eyes are fixed straight at the doors, like I'm staring out a window.

The bright orange lamp bounces about as it moves forward, not illuminating the holder. Based on the height of the lamp this person is short or this room is just big. However, the footsteps are now more noticeable as a sorta clip-clop on the floor tiles.

The lamp is set down on the floor facing me as a silhouette steps in front of it, the orange outline of a half sized horse. I was expecting a small human, a dwarf maybe. But this looked like a horse, a pastel brown one? Hard to tell in the orange glow of the lamp light.

"Well, what do we have here?" I hear a female voice whisper. Did that thing just talk?

It approaches me and lifts up a hoof and places it on my torso. I can't look down my head and eyes are stuck straight, maybe I'm just a spectator in a show at this point. I watch the mare trot out of view behind me.

Then they seemingly stop behind me. Suddenly, I hear the sound of cranking and-

Tick. Tock.

How long have I been out?

Tick. Tock.

Sensation fills me. I can feel once more.

My eyes dart around the room as I feel a metal crank being pulled from my back. Delightful clicking fills my head and mind as I am no longer a spectator to my body. I slowly tick up out of the throne I sat in, using my arms to support the push out of the seat.

I can move.

I can't remember the past.
But atleast my clock is moving, once more.

"What in Celestia's name have I done?" I hear the female voice gasp.

My joints are still a little stiff, aching but still ticking. I turn around slowly to face the voice. My shadow looms over them, blocking me from getting a clear look at their face in the dark. However, I can somewhat make out that this is indeed a horse, or a pony?

I slowly raise my arm, the mare seemingly flinches. I try to wave at them and speak, but my voice is without sound. I can feel my jaw move open as if about to make noise but nothing happens. So I make the hand gesture to wait a second, but they still seem to be in fear of me. I use my other hand to mess around where my voice box would be in my throat. And to no one's surprise it's missing.

I wave at the mare and gesture to their lamp, slowly moving back to give them room to pick it up. The mare takes this opportunity to walk over to the lamp, looking less frightened by my appearance.

"You aren't going to hurt me right?" She asked with an odd expression of curiosity and fear.

I shook my head slowly and extended my hand out, actually now that I see it; that's a claw, I have or a slight mix. The mare put their hoof out and we did a little hoof-hand shake. They seemed a little cautious but a bit curious.

"So I assume you cannot speak?" She asked.

I nodded.

"I guess I could call you Mr. Deer for now. Seeing as your face resembles a deer skull of sorts and those antlers" She said.

I put my hand on my head, indeed these are antlers. Then my hand moves to my face and feels about, this does indeed feel like the shape of an animal skull. A metallic skull and antlers upon my head, I don't quite remember that. My claw skids off my snout as I gesture at them while tilting my head a bit.

"Right, my name. My name is Caramel Stone and before you ask, well I mean… not that you can. But it was my parent's choice for this weird name." Miss Stone said,"And to add to that I am a ruins explorer, which is why I am here."

I nod a bit in acknowledgement.

"So Mr. Deer, quite a place you got. I almost thought you were an art piece… not to offend you or anything…" she said, getting quiet at the end.

I look around the dark room, suddenly I can see a faint blue glow on my snout and a warm feeling within my ticking being. My eyes adjust better to the darkness, I can see better. Not clear as day but it's better than pitch black. I look around again, being able to see the room in better detail. This indeed looks like my throne room in a bit of shambles, and that is indeed a pastel brown pony with a black mane, wearing some sorta light green uniform and a pith helmet of sorts.

She looks up at me with a startled yet curious look.

"Since when do your eyes glow?" She asked, then realizing,"Oh wait, right."

I squint at her and notice the blue glow on my snout moves with my expression. I have much to ask but I cannot speak. She still stands next to the lamp in front of the throne as I walk into the dark of the room. I could barely make out some furniture when suddenly the orange glow turned upon me. A desk off to the side with a mirror frame and no mirror and a drawer with… parts. Useless parts, except for what looks like a voice box. I pick up the box and slowly place it into the base of my throat where it would be, I hear it click and start ticking rapidly then slowing to normal.

I make an audible coughing noise as a start and a couple audible attempts to clear my throat. I turn to face the mare who trots over to me, tilting their head.

"Hello there, Miss Stone." The voice was slow, sorta deep, a little raspiness and a subtle ticking on each pause.

This voice box might be slightly old and maybe damaged but at least I can produce sound now. Even if I sound a bit creepy, slow, sinister… I mean I have a deer skull for a face and glowing eyes.

"So you can talk now, I see." She said looking at my throat area.

"It appears so." I said in reply coughing again,"So where are we located?"

"We're deep in the Everfree Forest in Equestria, of course in this here ruins."

"I see." I nodded a bit. Equestria? Am I even in the same realm as Earth, have I been out for that long?

"I sorta stumbled in here by accident looking for some mines. We could, uh, leave if you'd like." She said, picking up the lantern with her mouth.

I nodded to her as we exited the throne and proceeded down the halls.

I put my claw up to my snout, tapping it silently. Something definitely feels off about this stronghold, for parts of it I remember and parts of it seem strange. That and the absence of any clockwork remains of the guards once positioned, unless there is still some in the storage rooms but the layout of this place seems different. In fact, I myself feel off but the ticking shall guide me. For now I say it's best to exit and find my bearings in this realm before attempting to recreate the old country of clockwork. I should take mental note of the land outside and compare it to where I've been before.

"Say what year is it?" I asked as we walked along the empty hallways towards the exit.

"Think it was like the year 1012 on the Celestial Calendar." She said with the lantern in her mouth.

Interestingly, my internal clock says it would be about 7118 now. Making this world's time about 6000 years off from Earth's realm, this makes me about 5500 years old. Such a long time and I haven't any clue as to how I am here now or how and why I 'slept' through such a long time. But I can't let that worry me right now, I have to keep going as my clockwork only moves forward with time. If I make haste I might be able to bring about what I built in the previous realm to this one. Let's just hope it isn't as hard fought and needlessly violent to do so.

We made our way through the ruins until we exited into a cavern and in turn eventually made it into a forest, Everfree I think she called it. This forest seemed a bit off putting and wildly untamed even though it's noon, unlike some of the forests and magical forests on Earth which were more peaceful even if they held some of the most deadly beasts known to the realm.

Miss Stone set the lantern down and put it out then attached it to her side belt making it clink as she trotted along. She then froze as the leaves rustled and I stopped too in realization. There was rustling in the leaves around us and a low growling. I could sense their magical presence, as if they were like the beasts from Earth. So even other realm's have magical beasts and out for blood no less.

The mare slowly backed up towards me and looked up at me with a scared look before looking around frantically, I looked down at her and pet her head in reassurance. I looked around and focused my magical senses. There were three wolf type signatures in this hunting pack, slowly circling in closer. It seems I can't use attack magic yet, so I have to do this the physical way. My joints may be ancient at this point but it seems I can still move at a decent speed with the passive enchantments I laid out long ago. I slowly bent over Miss Stone, crouching a bit with my arms ready to defend from the vicious hunters. That's when two of them pounced out from the left and right bushes, I was able to grab one by the throat and the other latched onto my arm, it's teeth keeping grip in my exposed skeletal structure. Now in the light I can see these wolves are made of wood, their glowing green eyes locked at me. Almost fearful gazes realizing they didn't do anything to harm me.

I squeezed my claw down on the one I grabbed crushing the wooden neck with a loud snap and splintering wood, I let it slump out of my hand as it's eyes went dark. I then reached over to grab the other one off my arm when I could sense the other one running behind me, when I felt it's jaw bite down onto my leg as hard as it could. I could then hear a light wood cracking sound and a whimper as it bit down, I bet it liked the taste of metal. I reached over and grabbed the one still latched onto my arm by the head, yanking it off as it's teeth snapped like twigs from where it was, and used it as a melee tool against the one behind me by turning my torso around and using the momentum to knock the other one out. The audible cracking of wood was a nice sound as both wolves lay still behind me, the green glow fading out. Glad to know I still got it at this age, still would prefer to have made them into campfire fuel using magic.

It was then I noticed both of my legs were digitigrade and had deer hooves, which is strange as I don't even remember even making such modifications but then again in a way it helps me fit in slightly to a seemingly animal society. Also I feel slightly better in this form for some reason, I guess whatever force brought me into this realm liked deer though.

I then looked down at Miss Stone, who was in shock. I tried to pet their head to calm them and asked if she was okay.

She just looked at me and nodded, she didn't seem in total shock anymore, maybe the petting helped a bit. Which is strange, I have claws essentially but yet I can seemingly be very delicate with them.

After a bit of comforting her, we finally continued on our way through the forest but this time she was trotting by my side trying to keep close to me while still leading the way through the forest.

After some stumbling over loose wood and trying to not get scared at every leaf related noise we eventually reached a faded path and followed it, presumably out of these damn woods and too civilization.

Author's Note:

This first chapter is a rewrite of an old concept story in my drive.

I am still a little new to writing stories and such, but I think I did good compared to the original rushed draft and the fact I wrote this up on mobile while I don't have my PC setup yet.

But anyway, off to adventuring.

Comments

[ARandomLonelyDude]

this cool. he a wedigo.

[SiamesePhoenix]

Looks pretty nice. I have to say that, fella.

[The A I]

Tick tock tick tock...
but when the gears go awry and the watchers get restless who will be the judge of the ticking of the clock.
Tick tock tick tock....

This is a nice start and i look forwards to where you may take this