• Published 7th Feb 2022
  • 2,468 Views, 144 Comments

Bits and pieces - Cackling Moron



Grumpy human and small horse make decisions, mistakes, grow as individuals maybe.

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#7

Author's Note:

I'm sure if you looked at a map and traced a line with your finger none of this would make sense, but I'm not really going for inviolate accuracy here. I have the same relationship with accuracy that ancient historians did - it's nice if it's actually the proper amount or the right place, but what really matters is the feel of events.

Which is to say, I glanced at the map and shrugged. It probably works. Ish.

Once away from the city and out into the comparatively open countryside Paul was really able to open up and demonstrate (to the benefit of anyone who might have been watching, though no-one was) that, for all his faults, he could at least make a damn-fine wagon-pulling machine. Thing could really motor, even in a way it had never been meant to.

And it was just as well the machine was speedy, because there was no stopping to rest on this trip. There was only the occasional bit of slowing when geography forced Paul to stop following the rail tracks (which was mostly what he was doing, figuring it the best way to keep heading in the right direction) and he had to consult the page he’d torn out or some sign or some landmark or something else until he was able to resume his beeline once more.

Some of that, but certainly no stopping.

There came a point, he saw, where the tracks looped wide to account for the geography but he just cut straight across and around and met up with them again before they hit the mountains, saving precious time and thence carrying onward to the whatever empire place that apparently lay beyond.

Things stopped being green and started being barren. Then, some while after that, they started being frosty. Then, snow-blanketed. Paul was annoyed at the rather arbitrary way the landscape changed, as though themed by zone, but that was just how this place worked, he’d come to accept. That, and how small it bloody was, how close everything seemed to be. Not like home at all.

Onward he pressed, urging his clockwork mount ever-faster. The snow got thicker and deeper. Paul had little first-hand experience with snow. He’d seen it once or twice, fleetingly, but never like this. He hadn’t known what to expect. His machine didn’t really know either and progress slowed to a crawl.

Agitated, Paul opened up its insides and disengaged whatever safeties and regulators he could reach. Progress sped up again. Soon, amidst the snow, he found what seemed to be a worn track leading the way he needed to go. Progress sped up even more, to Paul’s satisfaction, and he pressed his machine even harder.

The machine gave up the ghost just about when the crystal city first hove into view over a gentle rise. The strain of the non-stop pace, that it hadn’t been designed to be ridden the way Paul was riding it, the effect of the climate on its internals, having had its insides fiddled with - all of this added up, with the cumulative result being the machine juddering and shaking and struggling to crest what turned out to be the final hill and then suddenly and without warning collapsing just as it was starting to hurtle down the other side.

Paul was catapulted through the air, flying a good dozen feet or so before hitting the track ahead and rolling over and over, momentum and gravity carrying him down the slope. For a few seconds he lay sprawled on his back at the bottom in a dip, utterly bewildered about what had just happened, staring at the sky.

Then his wits came back and he sat up, wincing, and looked down to check the damage.

Just a few scrapes, luckily, the heavier clothing having done a good job of protecting him from the impact. Though the plunging temperatures and biting wind chill from riding so fast made these few scrapes hurt far more than they looked like they should.

Biting his tongue, Paul ignored them and stood up, having to give the frame around his good leg a whack to get it back into proper working alignment. It didn’t work exactly, but he at least got it straightened out enough to take his weight and let him hobble. He then cast his eye around for the machine, spotting it twitching and writhing in a furrow it had dug for itself in the frozen ground beside the track. He limped over.

Come on, get up,” he said, nudging the thing with his foot. And it did try to rise, it really did, but it was just too busted, making the most piteous whining, grinding sound as it’s shaky legs lifted it from the ground, but only for a second before it collapsed with a crunch and stopped moving entirely.

Fucking machine…” Paul grumbled, turning away in disgust and making a mental note to come back and get it once he was finished and had Cozy tucked safely and securely under his arm. Broken as it was, didn’t sit right with him to abandon it completely.

But first things first. Had to finish getting to the city. Find Cozy.

Finding where his bag had landed (and spilled its contents) he dug about in the snow for the one picture of Cozy he had and that he’d brought with him. It was one of her old wanted posters.

Out of date, yes, but it was all he had and all he’d thought to grab before leaving. All the more recent pictures of her were in her room and featured her and her friends, usually, and he just hadn’t thought to grab one. They weren’t his, after all. Stupid move in retrospect, not having grabbed them. Stupider move not having taken any pictures of her himself.

After this he’d take more pictures, he told himself. She’d already grown up so much, wouldn’t do to miss much more, would it?

Poster in hand Paul turned and stumped along the track, towards the distant city. Or empire. Or whatever it was. The place where Cozy was. Wasn’t that far away in the scheme of things.

His legs might have hurt but he could live with that. It wasn’t that much worse than normal. And keeping moving kept the cold away. And it wasn’t that far away.

He finally arrived just as evening was moving into late evening, and most residents had gone home. Those few that were still in the streets gave Paul a wide berth, having never seen anything like him. He found their wide-eyed stares irritating, but he had other things to worry about than making a poor first impression.

“Seen child?” He would ask loudly to any pony that strayed too close, holding the poster up.

They ignored him. He growled.

He’d start knocking on doors. See them ignore him then!

His replacement leg and his frame were not working as smoothly as he might have liked. The clockwork and joints had not been made to function in this sort of cold or after that sort of spill, and his own joints weren’t really up to the task either, come to think of it. He forced his way through the stiffness of the former and the pain of the latter, staggering from door to door, hammering furiously.

Those ponies that opened up - and not all of them did - found themselves confronted with a snow-speckled, panting, wild-eyed thing covered in bleeding scrapes and scratches looming over them, holding up a wanted poster of all things (a faded, out of date wanted poster to boot) and glaring like they owed him money.

“Have you seen child?” The thing would ask in clumsy Mareain, thrusting the poster towards them.

And, appropriately, the ponies would shake their heads fearfully and shut the door very quickly indeed, leaving the thing outside to grumble loudly and swear in a language they didn’t recognise.

This repeated for some time. Late evening concluded. It got dark. Street lights came on, as if by magic (because they were magic).The streets became totally deserted and utterly quiet. Fresh snow was starting to fall. Paul did not stop.

Were he of a clearer, more coherent frame of mind he might have realised that his approach needed a little tweaking, might have maybe reevaluated. Unfortunately for him he was cold, physically exhausted and mentally shattered. To him, what he was doing made perfect sense. He’d just go to every single door in the city.

Process of elimination! Easy. Simple. Eminently possible. Just had to keep doing it.

Which was why he kept doing it, just working his way further and further down the street knocking on doors, then down a side street, then just on and on, going to whichever door looked closest to the last one.

He was getting slower though, and the burning that was filling just about every inch of his body was getting harder to ignore with every step, and every step was getting harder to take. Was the snow deeper here, or was it just more difficult for him to drag himself through it? Were his fingers slower to form a fist to knock on a door now, or were they always that distant and numb? Had the numbers on these doors been that blurry to start with?

Difficult to tell, so mostly he just ignored it.

Just had to keep going, had to find Cozy. She was around here somewhere. Had to be.

Reaching a corner he limped to one of those magical lampposts and leant against it, wheezing. The cold air was not agreeing with his lungs, every gulp feeling like he was sucking down a handful of needles. Just his imagination though, he knew, nothing serious. Cold air was always like that. He’d been through worse.

Taking a few more of these breaths he forced himself to stand under his own power again, set his face and staggered over to the nearest door he hadn’t tried yet, the first on the street. He’d do this whole street, too. Then the next. All of them. He had to.

He knocked, waited, and a moment or two later he found himself again facing down with another pack of gormless, bewildered looking shiny ponies. He was too worn down to even really care about the way they were looking at him anymore. He just cared about if they’d seen Cozy or not.

With supreme effort he raised the poster again, entirely crumpled in a shaking hand, and said through gritted teeth:

“Where...is...daughter…” before keeling over sideways into the snow.