A Fatal Error Has Occurred

by Orderly Disassembly

Ch - 1 - A Warning

Author's Note:

Figured I should put a little preface here to explain. This chapter is more a warning than anything else. I don't want somebody to get a few chapters in and go "Oh, this is what the story was supposed to be." and then drop a dislike because they thought it would be something different.

Things slow down after this, characters get more time, and I'd like to think that things get better. I just want people to know they're bout to read.

One day, I woke up in hell and found it chilly.

Actually, my captors called this place Tartarus. But honestly, a corpse is still a corpse no matter what you call it.

My cell was a little cubby stuck in the wall. A rocky box with just enough room to take a couple of steps in any direction

A set of electric bars let me have a view of the walkway outside.

Nothing was special about that day, at least not at the start.

Same old guards, same old neighbors, same old lack of food. At that point, I’d gone more than a decade without eating. I wasn’t hungry mind you, but I did feel empty at times.

There wasn’t much one could do in my situation. Most of my magic was blocked, I had no tools to work with, and I was nowhere near strong enough to bend metal or crack rock.

I was stuck rotting in that hellhole, more than likely forgotten by the beings who put me there.

It was boring, annoying; aggravating even, but I never stopped smiling.

I was surprised to find out that I could change expressions given that I was a skeleton, but I still liked to smile.

I always smiled. I never frowned, and if I never frowned then I’d never be sad. And if I’m never sad, then I’ll never cry. I never cried, you know, not one drop. So I smiled, and so I smile.

Of course, even if there aren’t many things to do, I did still manage to find a couple of pastimes, like humming. Oh how many melodies I wove, grand pieces that would scale up and down octaves, dramatic crescendoes accompanied by a methodic tap-

“Would you just shut up? Just, please, please shut up, you’ve been humming that same damn tune for three days, three fucking days!”

My neighbor's gravelly voice sounded quite desperate so I obliged.

I quit humming but continued tapping, a single fingerbone clicking on the metal bars in an almost hypnotic rhythm, each ring of the metal echoing through the hall outside.

I tapped and tapped and tapped… for several hours.

By the time my finger ached too much to continue, my oh-so-friendly neighbor had gone from politely asking me to quit, to shouting, to pleading, back to screaming, and finally resigned silence, just as he had every time before.

I sat down and leaned against the bars, the electrified metal sending a pleasant tingling sensation down my spine.

I had begun humming once more when I heard my neighbor sigh.

“Can’t you be quiet for a few hours, just a few hours?”

The resignation in his voice, the despair in his soul, I could almost taste his hate for me pervading the air.

It was wonderful, so I chuckled. I laughed, I wheezed, and I cackled.

I knew he was confused. I mean, who would understand?

Who would know that he’d made a mistake?

After all he’d said, after all he’d threatened, who would’ve thought that those tame words would be his downfall?

“I entertain myself with various sorts of noises for many different reasons.”

“The hell does that have to do with anything? I just want some peace and-”

“Quiet, yes yes I know. However, quiet is slow, quiet is boring, so silence comes at a price.”

“Sorry I think I left my bits at home lemme just go grab them, be back in a-oh wait, that’s right, I can’t because I’m stuck in some rinky-dink cage next to you! Seriously, how the hell am I supposed to pay you!”

I heard a loud clang, a buzz, and a scream of pain.

“Ah you misunderstand my friend, your request requires me to suffer boredom. As recompense, I require entertainment!”

The poor guy was probably gritting his teeth through quite a bit of discomfort if the higher pitch indicated anything.

Then again, it may have been me imagining things. After all, this was just another talk, just another day, just another stroke of the brush upon my art piece.

“I ain’t a clown ya moron!”

My eternal smile widened.

“Oh I can do all the entertaining myself, I just need material. That is what you’ll provide me.”

“And how in Celestia’s name am I supposed to do that?”

I dragged a sharp fingered bone down a bar of my cage, the metallic shriek singing a discordant melody that soothed my nonexistent ears.

“Just rest an appendage next to the bars, no touching, and I’ll do the rest.”

He muttered to himself while I dragged a magic string from my right eye socket. The red line was made up entirely of ones and zeroes when looking at its code.

The string of perfection strengthened the smile on my face.

The code was so clean, so uniform, so perfect, unlike the rest of this jumbled mess of a prison. Ones and zeros meshed together into nonsensical variable names and recursive functions that brought an even wider smile to my face.

Then again, flaws themselves are part of perfection, so who was I to judge?

I noticed a problem in my precious thread, a single one out of place, the first sign of decay.

My smile may have weakened at the thought. Then again, it might not have. What I do remember for certain is that I reached through those bars and whipped that beautiful string towards my fellow captive.

He cursed when he felt the construct strike him and probably felt quite a bit of dread when he felt the string pulse like a vein.

“The hell was that!”

I only laughed in response as I dragged my thread of code back. My smile deepened as I felt the wealth of information flow into my head.

My neighbor was a tall brown stallion named Ring Lead that had a knack for smithing and leadership.

“Once upon a time-”

“I thought you said you’d be quiet!”

My eye sockets narrowed.

“After I finish the story, I’ll give you six hours of quiet. If you insist that I be silent now, then I’ll only hold back for an hour.”

Some grumbling preceded a snappy answer.

“Fine, just be quick about it.”

“Once upon a time, there was a little colt.”

“Great, already sounds like a dumb story.”

As I’ve said before, when I first woke up, I thought I wouldn’t be able to change my expression. Being a skeleton and all. However, even with the unnatural flexibility of my bones, the way my face scrunched should’ve been impossible.

“Interrupt me again, and I’ll make sure you don’t sleep for the next week.”

I punctuated the threat by clawing at the stone wall that separated my neighbor and I.

After I was sure he got the point, I continued my tale.

“He was a good little colt. He went to school, did his homework, helped out the neighbors, the whole shebang.”

I shifted to take weight off of my tailbone.

“Life was good, life was fun, and, oh my gosh he got a cutiemark! He’d found his calling, his purpose in life! And do you know what it was?”

Little scrapes on the stone floor told me I had a rapt audience.

“Why it was metallurgy of course!”

More scraping.

“He loved his work, he loved it oh so much. Some time passed and the little colt had become a big grown-up stallion. However, he never lost that spark, that will to create. He wanted to improve, to know more, to become the greatest smith that ever touched a hammer. So, he went to Canterlot.”

I heard fur brush against stone and the clicking of hooves shifting.

“In that city of spires and gold, our stallion perfected his craft. He knew every way one could cast and forge metal. He knew every brand of polish, every type of metal, and every good place to find it.”

I sighed.

“He surpassed the great masters of the forge, the grand sages of metallurgy, but no matter how good he got, the castle’s gates were forever closed. Our stallion reached for the peak but time and time again he could never quite reach the top. Do you know why?”

If I was able to see Ring Lead at the time, then I probably would’ve noticed that his ears were turned towards me.

“One word: nobles.”

I heard Ring Lead grunt in understanding.

“They worked the gates to the palace. They decided who got in and who did not. The doors to the top would swing wide open for any of highborn blood, and let in few others, those being the ones that gained their favor. However, our stallion had not done so. He was far too busy with his work to be concerned with making contacts in high society.”

Ring Lead sighed.

“So it was that our stallion never reached that particular peak of metalwork. However, that needn’t be the end for his ambition.”

Ring Lead may have smiled, he may have frowned, maybe he even gaped at the endless similarities between this tale and his own. I’ll never know, but I do remember that he stopped moving entirely and the scraping went silent.

“Instead of going back to the grouped forges to hammer out products like a factory worker, our stallion went freelance. Any request that came, he would fill, at an appropriate price of course.”

I paused to crack an out-of-place vertebra.

“At first, only commoners would come to get some commission or another. A weirdly shaped door hinge here, or a particularly intricate piece for a favored trinket there. Then the higher-ups started coming. They wanted elaborate latches, fancy locks, and so much more.”

I waited for a time allowing tension fill the air, and waited for Ring Lead break the silence.

“Like?”

I tilted my head in mock thought before using my arms to give grandiose flourishes. Not that anyone was watching.

“Suits of armor covered in grand designs; swords that resembled works of art meant for a museum rather than a battlefield. But it wasn’t enough. It was never enough. So, the stallion dug deeper. He met gang members, talked with dealers, and eventually, he even brushed shoulders with crime lords. However, he noticed a very glaring weakness.”

I leaned into the bars harder, pressing the side of my skull against the metal.

“He saw flimsy blades, bent shields, and warped bows. He saw so many weapons but so few professionally made. He saw opportunity.”

Ring Lead chuckled before I continued.

“So he dove right in. Daggers, dirks, swords, shields, crossbows, bolts, and even armor. He had a thriving business in barely a week, a veritable empire in a month, and by year’s end, his illegal weapon’s trade spanned most of the known world.”

I could feel Ring Lead’s satisfaction invade the air like a city’s smog.

“Then he met a mare.”

And just as fast as it had come, the happiness died.

“She was cute, she was kind, she was everything that the stallion ever wanted. They met, they talked, and they laughed. Everything was going so well!”

I could hear the wet grinding of teeth.

“So well that they went out again, and again, and again.”

Ring Lead started muttering to himself in a voice he thought I couldn’t hear. He was wrong.

“Such a stupid mistake, it was going so well, and then I made that stupid, idiotic, rookie mistake.”

His breath hissed.

“Should’ve gutted her the moment we met, should’ve known something was off.”

I shook my head before continuing.

“The saying goes that ‘love blinds’ and oh how true a saying it was. He failed to see the signs; the fidgeting, the nervous eyes, the sweat. He thought they were good things, signs of her not wanting to screw things up.”

My raucous laughter echoed through my cell and faded into the background of moans and screams that pervaded the endless halls of this hell.

“He was right, so horrificly right, but not in the way he thought.”

Sniffling came from Ring Lead’s cell.

“On the fifth date, a regiment of guards met him instead of the mare he thought he knew.”

Sobs are such little things you know? Quiet, short, jerky, desperate things, each catch of the breath symbolizes a little tear in the soul, each whine a crack in the heart. A better backdrop to a story I have never found.

“The trial was quick, a full guilty verdict with no chance for parole. What was the sentence again?”

I let the question hang, and just as I thought nothing would come, Ring Lead growled a teary answer.

“Forty fucking years.”

I tapped my skull with a finger bone.

“Oh yes, silly me, thank you for the reminder. Anyway, our little stallion was thrown in prison for forty years. All for one mistake, all for one stupid, idiotic, rookie mistake.”

Another growl cut through Ring Lead’s sobs before I continued.

“Silly me, I forgot to tell you our little protagonist’s name!”

Ring Lead’s crying paused for a moment before he called out a question in a warbly voice.

“H-who, who was he?”

I took a deep breath to savor the despair, the salty bitterness, the bittersweet longing.

“His name was Ring Lead.”

The named stallion froze for a moment before launching himself into an avalanche of insults blended with questions.

Tidal waves of his rage and regret washed over me, I could even see numbers in the air to represent them.

I stayed quiet throughout his barrage of questions that inquired about anything ranging from who I was to how I knew.

However, my voice did not return. Not for the questions, not for the crying; not even when his sobs finally faded into a troubled sleep. After all, I did make a promise, didn’t I?

Oh, you don’t know why a seasoned criminal would weep because of a simple story? He cried because he was weak.

I am not weak, so I do not cry. I do not cry, because I do not frown. I do not frown because I am not sad. In fact, I am happy. I’m always happy. Always! So I smiled. So I smile.

Comments

[DingoAte]

SMILE:)

[Cheshire2]

To quote a certain demon, "You're never fully dressed without a smile".

[UnamusedWaffle]

Mmmmmmmmmmm
Me smile
Me happy
Ooh ooh aah aah

[Orderly Disassembly]

11297716
ok u ruined the line for me thanks

[BurningSkies]

Where are Celestia, Luna, Nightmare Moon, and Tirek?

[Orderly Disassembly]

11298242
They get introduced in chapters after this one. I was planning on updating today but stuff got in the way. I got the thing written but I need to go over the chapter again. So expect the next chapter some time tomorrow. As I stated in my authors note, this chapter was more to show the audience where I intend to go with this story.

[tolmo]

Fatal Error is my favorite UTAU character. It'll certainly be interesting to see him be adapted in this universe!

[nighters]

I wonder if there be other skeletons than just fetal error rustling equstria up?