Blaze of Glory

The sun rose on another dreary day in lower Baltimare, Shadow Amalgam was dozing in her small straw bed her dreams ended as she felt the hints of sunlight touch her face. She knew it would be a dreary day long before she opened her eyes, it was always dreary here on the ground layer of the city thanks to the cloud mansions of the nobility that continually blocked most of the sunlight from ever reaching the ground. Sighing she quickly pulled back her coarse blanket and rolled out of her bed. She stood with a yawn, shaking the last remnants of sleep from herself before getting to remaking her bed and tidying her room. If any of her masters or teachers where to enter they would expected her little room to be tidy and clean so every morning she and every other pony who lived and trained here did these simple chores. Once her bed was made and her room cleaned, Shadow took her clothes from their resting place, folded at the foot of her bed and put them on, she wore a simple brown dress that looked old and heavily used despite being relatively new, the skirt of the dress reached down to the ground and covered the rest of her body besides her head and forehooves. it was readily apparent that the dress wasn't quite shaped right, the apprentices in the sewing wing practiced with the servants and slaves clothing long before they did anything that would see the light of day, other than that she just had her heavy smiths apron to fasten securely and a leather tool belt and she was ready.

Like every morning she spared a moment to inspect her room, it was a small stone room only as wide as the bed that was built on a shelf of stone on the far side of the door, her personal wake up call was placed right above her bed; her square window with a metal cross support. The reason all the servants and slaves had windows and were housed on the east side of the building, they were all trained early on "always wake with the blessed sun" lest they risk repercussions from their masters. She idly wished she had a more reliable wake up method, it was hard to wake with the sun when midday was barely brighter than early night, not to mention that saying like that seemed more designed to grate on a pony's nerves than it helped convey its intended message.

Seeing that her room was as clean and clutter free as she could get, she turned to the small copper mirror she had been allowed to keep on her single small shelf. The small polished mirror was one of her earliest works and despite the color she had lovingly shaped and polished it into a almost perfect mirror finish. She looked over her hair making sure it hadn't gotten too unruly in her sleep, her well kept white shoulder length hair had black streaks running through it making shifting shadows and figures as her hair moved, her tail was a shade darker but had the same effect as her mane; It was why she chose to risk it free unlike many of the mares in her profession that kept theirs tied tight out of fear that it would catch or get burned. Thankfully it wasn't messy enough were her teacher would care; Finding the time to get her hair cut and properly brushed was always a painful encroachment on her limited free time. Her coat was a silvery dark grey with the occasional lighter patch or shape, not that anyone could see most of it beyond the dress, and apron she always wore. Her face was pale and somewhat endogenous thanks to her stature and heavy muscle tone, but she had no scars or other deforming marks. She had always known that she was far from the prettiest mare ever but that didn't really matter to her, such was the cost of constant hard work at a forge. Not that she did much to counter the effects, she found the mares that would spend hours on end just to apply makeup and other silly things like that to be terribly vain she was much happier being plain and not caring about such things. Finally she checked her brown eyes, they tended to get a little bloodshot in the morning and she was glad to see this morning was an exception to that.

Satisfied that her morning routine was complete she headed down to the mess hall that all the servants and slaves used here, which considering this was the Storm Palace one of the largest and most renowned facility for training servants and slaves in Equestria, was large enough to hold and feed a full imperial legion. Also not surprising was how it was already getting packed by all the servants and slaves that had awoken at dawn like herself, she sighed as she got in line for breakfast.

Flame Blaze, he often wished wished his parents had taken that extra few seconds to come up with a better sounding or maybe less obvious first name, awoke to a morning much like Shadows. His home was also on the ground so he had long ago gotten accustomed to the near constant darkness. His room was large and was able to hold his four poster bed with little issue. With the exception of the wood flooring his room, like all his recently added third floor, was made of cloud. Scattered about the room with no particular organization were many souvenirs and items he considers to be personal trophies from his many travels as a merchant and from his other jobs. His floor was covered with an ornate carpet that a peer of his had obtained from some Monkaris village.

As he was forcing his eyes open a knock came from his door, and out stepped a particularly large earth pony stallion his coat was a light tan and his hair was red with squashes of white and pink running through it. His clothes where a typical butlers, a black well kept site, if one could see it then they would see that his cutie mark was a silver scimitar "Morning Master Blaze, I'm glad to see that you are pulling yourself out of bed for once" he spoke with an almost imperceptible smile, as he brought in a tray loaded with his masters breakfast and a few papers in the side.

Blaze shook his head "Oh Cresent, will I ever get you to drop the master nonsense?" He started right in to his late breakfast as soon as the butler put it down.

"I'm afraid not sir, but if it makes you feel better our leak inside if the Palace finally came through" he taped one of the papers on the tray.

Blaze dropped his utensils and garbed the report, still chewing on a piece of toast as he looked over the short document “Finally I thought we would never get to use our basement for anything!” it truly annoyed him that his home had a whole floor that was virtually unusable just because they lacked someone who could use it properly “While I finish my breakfast I want you to gather everything we have on Lord Golden Touch, I doubt he will allow us to acquire such a precious commodity without ample leverage”

Crescent nodded “I'll head right down Master, also I already have Fen combing our records, so it shouldn't take much time to gather it all”

Blaze nodded absentmindedly as his butler departed “Now all I'll need is to stumble across a good doctor and I'll have all the good luck I have ever asked for” he said before returning to his breakfast.

Shadow ate as fast as she could, despite the fact that even the slaves were allowed a small amount of leeway with how long their meals were, she wanted to get out of the dining hall as fast as she could. She had never been one to socialize with the other slaves she was forced to sit with, she found most of them to be depressing or angry at something. She figured the reason she wasn't was that she was not only born into this but so had her family for many, many generations. She guessed she couldn't miss something she had never had, or really needed, in the first place. Once she had finished inhaling her lunch, she got up and started to literally run to her job.

The halls of the Storm Palace where painstakingly carved out of large white marble blocks, the columns that lined the outside wall looked like a seamless spiral that stretched to the sculpted ceiling. The two story windows that alternated with the columns were stained glass depicting various scenes of Equestrian history, in particular the history of pegusopolus and the empire, and held together with pure gold. The halls also featured many statues that were evenly and tastefully placed, many actually payed homage to the greatest success stories that had once lived and trained in these vary halls. All of these details were lost on Shadow as she ran turning everything, including the other ponies she dodged around, into a blur as she sped toward the forge.

The forge, was actually a wing with numerous forges, storage rooms and everything else a smith might need to work. While it was primarily used to train smiths like herself it also provided a small amount of income to the Duchy of Baltimare and the Storm Palace as anything useable was sold or traded openly.

Sadly despite her skill she was still just an apprentice, she tended the forge, fetched water and materials, plus any other menial task her “master” wished of her and only when he was happy and finished with his own daily work, he would give her a chance at it. It always got on her nerves, it wasn't due to age nor talent simply that she was still a blank flank, if not for that technicality she would bet money she could out forge anyone in the palace. She always wished that she could just have been like her brothers and sisters. All her siblings had quickly found their specialty, be it blacksmithing like her brother Ferris or goldsmithing like her sister Amber, they had all found it within minutes of working with their predestined craft. She on the other hand had tried every metal craft and metal known to Equestria and still she hadn't found her specialty. She had even been allowed to try forging a measured amount of sacred Mithril, it wasn't a well known to the public at large but one of the reasons that all the Amalgams were so prized and expensive amongst the high nobility was that they passed down the secret of forging Mithril from generation to generation, a secret that only the Praetorian smiths knew in the current age. Currently the Palace staff had decided to try every variation and skill set they could come up with in hopes that she would stumble upon whatever obscure talent or destiny she had.

Once she reached her station she quickly rekindled the cold furnace and fetched a bucket of fresh water from the pure spring well that had been drilled and taped in the room adjoining the main room of the Forge and made sure all the tools were as her master would expect. Once everything was set she stood at her appointed spot by the forge and stood waiting for her teacher. She didn't move, nor would she, save to turn her head to observe the fire that she had built up in the furnace and occasionally restock it as it needed.

Her teacher soon made his appearance, he was a gruff earth pony only a few hairs smaller than she was. His coat was a light rust color while his hair was grey like unpolished iron his flank was adorned with a ingot of steel. He also had a standard smiths apron on his simple peasant's shirt and pants.

He walked past her like she wasn't there and inspected her work "Fires too cold" he looked towards the water "And change that water it is far too warm and I can see the impurities in it from over here!" He practically shouted at her.

She bowed "Yes Master" and set about fixing the perceived errors in her work, internally cursing that she had to call this olf her master for the sake of training. She knew of course there wasn't anything wrong with her preparations but her teacher would never give her a point of approval in the morning. When she had drawn a fresh bucket of well water, and stoked the furnace she returned to her spot and waited as was expected of her. For as long as the Palace had trained smiths they had strived for a rigid format of positions and expectations that the apprentices had to adhere to during their work, only when they graduated from the apprentice rank did the formality start to wane.

Once more he looked it over then nodded "It will have to do" he said dryly "Now fetch me some iron. And Shadow, you better be quick about it!" He ordered in an angry growl.

"Yes Master" She acknowledged before trotting off to the storehouse that the Palace kept to the rear of the forge for the more common metals such as iron. It wasn't long before she was back with a sizable ball of raw iron magically hovering beside her. She carefully placed it in the raw ore bin, before letting the ball fall apart inside it. Despite having a basic magic education telekinesis was still the only spell she used regularly; She liked being hands on when possible in her craft and most other spells simply were not practical or too difficult for a dedicated smith. The only exception she would occasionally have to that was enchantment but the smiths here knew so little of it themselves she rarely had a competent teacher to help her with the trickier parts that always seemed to hold her up.

Bar had been looking over their assignment sheet while she had been out fetching the ore "They have us with two pots and four pans for the kitchens then a set of fire pokers for trade, after which you will try your hoof at forging a simple dagger, is that understood slave?" he took some pleasure in forcing Shadow into her place, he had lost a better position to one of her uncles and secretly relished the chance to make the her even a bit more miserable in revenge.

"Yes Master" came her simple reply before the pair got to work on the stupidly simple items. they worked nonstop for hours before they took a break for lunch and by then they had finished the two pots and three pans, it hurt her to watch her teacher work for so long on such simple things. She wished that she could have just had her lunch there but she was forced to trek to the mess hall then once again rush back once that was done.

Blaze was enjoying the material that Fen and Crescent had dug up on good old lord Golden “And to think, I had put money on that lord reaching the limits of his greed but not only has he pushed his embezzling but now he is dabbling in black market slave trade, as if normal slave trade from the Palace isn't lucrative enough.” he shook his head at how easy this was going to be “How can somepony leave themselves so open?”

“Well Master Blaze he obviously has gotten far too full of himself and his connections in the army. I doubt he believes that anyone would be bold enough to outright blackmail him.” Crescent offered his personal observation on the Lord they would soon be confronting.

Nodding “I agree, it’s high time someone knocked him off that pompous high horse” it was far from a complicated plan but the one he was forming had just enough risk and adventure for him to get a touch excited at the prospect.

After they returned from lunch, the pair made quick work of the last pan and the fire pokers allowing Shadow plenty of time to make a knife "This time you will use only your own hoofs, none of that magic stuff, and then maybe we can make you less useless" that was his ever so kind way of encouraging her.

She couldn't help but smile a little at finally getting to work on the forge herself "Yes master, are there any other specifications you wish the dagger to be made to?" She asked politely; Knowing full well that he would have something ridiculous in mind.

He smirked at her question "I want a 5 inch kriss with guard and the hilt must be gilded with silver" he drew out a small silver ball he had saved for this project. He still didn't disappoint, he constantly tried to trip her up every day she had time to make anything; Which might sound like the mark of a good teacher but she knew better, he really just wanted her to fail no big reasoning or resentment she could figure out, he just seemed to want to see her truly fail.

She nodded before taking the last of their raw iron in hoof. First came the folding and purifying of the iron, sure she could have made a simple iron one but she knew that he wouldn't accept that therefore it had to be steel and she preferred true folded steel if she was to make it at all. Folding iron into steel is as simple as it sounds, get the iron red hot then flatten it and fold, with each fold the purity and strength of the steel is increased, she generally liked twenty folds on general work and up to a hundred on her higher quality pieces. Once she had a suitable ingot of folded steel she started rough shaping it, a kriss was a particularly hard knife to craft as the cruel wavy blade had to be in an exact interval otherwise it could make it lopsided or fully off balanced and render it useless for anything besides a show piece. Once she had the shape down all she needed was the details and sharpening, which didn't take her much longer to finish. The last part she worked on was the decretive hilt which she had to first shape and create a smooth handle that a pony could easily and comfortably grab by the teeth then came the intricate patterns as she guided it guard and base with the silver. She looked over the finished knife one last time before speaking "Here Master, a 5 inch, folded steel kriss, with silver gilded guard and handle, already balanced and sharpened" she handed Bar the knife and stood back waiting for his criticisms, sadly as she still lacked her cutie mark it would be marked as a failure. She just couldn't understand it, she was an amazing smith but still nothing felt right.

He looked it over, it was a fine blade and would fetch a large price, much like all of his charge's creations but she had still failed "Useless as ever, I'm beginning to think that despite all that time and money put into producing you, your just a dud that should be shipped off to some brothel. I bet you'd find your cutie mark right off the bat, be destined to lift your tail better than the average whore for the rest of your life..." his words started to fade as he started one of his normal tyraids following another of her “failures”.

She took the harsh words in stride, knowing that it was what was expected of her; Even as he continued cursing her to holy Celestia herself, she outwardly showed no emotion. The result of three centuries of breeding, she was docile and subservient by her very nature. Not that her training in early life had not reinforced such behavior to the point where a truly independent ability to make her own decisions was lost to her and all her relatives but she was content with her place or would be when she finally got sold.

As he wound down his words started to get clearer to her"... Get to bed slave, tomorrow's not going to be any easier" he said as he finished his ranting.

She bowed "Thank you, Master" rising she set off to her room, they hadn't bothered cleaning as other servants and slaves needed experience cleaning up after a smith in case they were employed or sold to one. Sometimes she wished she could do the cleaning though, it was far from time consuming and the other slaves or servants always managed to misplace their tools.

She made her way back to her humble room and striped down before folding the clothes neatly and placed them as before at the foot of her bed, only then with her last task done did she allowed herself to finally relax for a moment and glance out her window. She found it almost funny how Baltimare was extremely literal in its class system, the higher ranked the nobility the higher in the clouds they lived, after all most of the nobility in Baltimare were pegasi, so it made sense that they could afford and easily live in lofty cloud mansions, and at the heart of the city higher than all the other mansions was the Stormair estate, where the Lord of this Duchy resided. Meanwhile everyone who was not nobility lived on the ground below and they were literally in the constant shadow of their lords.

It was almost night, judging by how dim the city was getting, here and there lights sparked to life as the ponies made ready for the coming night. She sighed "Oh Celestia, what am I doing wrong?" She wondered out loud, before going to her bed sloping under the covers and falling asleep so she be ready to repeat it all over again.

Shadow’s next day started out normally for her, she woke up and got dressed without issue. Cleaned her room as normal, and then ate breakfast without a hitch she even got the forge ready as normal but that's when things changed. Instead of Bar a pegasus came for her; He had an average build but larger than average wings, his coat was light red with orange highlights at the tips and his mane was violet, his clothing from the suite and paints to the overconfident way he held himself suggested that he was a merchant, likely low nobility from what experience she had with the lower casts in the past. He walked over to her "Good morning Shadow, I am Flame Blaze, and I am interested in purchasing you but before I make my final decision I need a demonstration of your skills" even now he was looking over her morning setup and her general appearance and looking distinctly uncomfortable craning his neck up to meet her eyes.

She nodded politely "Yes sir, but I must warn you I have yet to receive my cutie mark" internally she hated pointing that fact out to sir Blaze; But orders where orders and, she had been ordered early on in her training as a smith to inform any potential buyer of her issue. A reason that helped contributed to her continued service at the Storm Palace.

He waved that off "I know that already. I'm more interested in seeing your overall skill, a specialty can come later" he looked a little annoyed at having been told a point he already knew but his smile quickly returned "Now make me a collar, using every metal you have access to and no less than five rubies" now he watched for her reaction to his slightly odd request, he hoped his request wouldn't discourage her in it’s complexity. He needed to know how well she could rise to an unusual challenge.

She had a feeling as to why he wanted that collar; It was common knowledge that many owners liked to have their slaves collared, not only to visibly show the separation between their slaves and their servants, many also believed it reinforced that station to the slaves themselves "Yes sir, right away" she then went off to collect her materials from the various store rooms.

She followed his instructions exactly, she had raw iron, tin, zinc, copper, silver, gold, mithril, a vial of mercury and five rubies. The mithril had been a particularly hard sell to the guard of the storeroom, but in the end he had relented because of how much profit this commision would bring the Palace, even if Shadow herself wasn't sold once it was done.

Blaze looked over her collection of materials staring at the vial of mercury and mithril in slight confusion before giving a quick nod of approval “Yes this will do. But I don't recognize that metal" he pointed a hoof to the mithril "what is that?".

She looked to where he was pointing "That is mithril sir, you did say every metal at my disposal"

He did a double take on the sacred metal before him "And you know how to forge that?!? I have to see that, proceed"

She bowed before starting her work. First she took most of her iron and like so many times before forged and folded it into steel, Blaze watched as she folded it and smiled not only at her expert technique but the speed at which she did it. When she was satisfied at the quality of the metal she shaped the new steel into the skeleton of the collar, a simple flat three inch wide, 1/2 inch thick circle with one opening, using her own rough neck measurements as a guide for its length. After that she combined copper and tin to make bronze followed by copper and zinc to make brass. Now she had all her metals and alloys ready to use, so she could get down to the detail work, she started with the mithril because of how hard it was to work with and forge, and started making the fastener and lock that would secure the collar. When finished it had three interlocking teeth on each side that fit together snugly, she had most of it polished to a mirror finish with the exception of a raised heart shape on the outside part which she had a rough finish with gold ivy spanning the edges down to the central keyhole. The key had used the last bit of mithril but it also included a silver and gold braided ring as well as the mercury which was alloyed into the toothed end of the key.

He raised an eyebrow at the key "What is the point of the mercury? Hasn’t that just weakened the key unnecessarily?" He finally asked as he just had to know why on earth she'd use such a weird metal especaly with such a rare metal like mithril.

She smiled lightly "It is precisely because it weakens it that the alloy is useful" she showed it to him "When alloyed with mithril it makes it easier to bend and shift when in contact with pure mithril" she sounded like some odd science teacher as she tried explaining the only abnormal alloy she knew and in some odd way it always felt better to make than the other normal ones.

He still looked confused so she went on with a demonstration "Watch" she took a stick of pure mithril she had left over and poked a spot on the teeth. The spot moved out of the way without much issue like she said it would but when she stopped putting pressure on it the key tooth went back to its original shape "It is a security measure my grandfather developed to prevent a key from being copied by impression" one of the few ways she knew about her ancestors was by their accomplishments and innovations as they were passed through the generations.

His eyes widened slightly as he watched the demonstration "Very clever" he commented neutrally though she could see a spark of approval form in his eyes before she turned back to her work.

The last thing she did with the lock was set the largest ruby on top of the heart where it came to a V. After finishing and attaching the lock to the collar she set about working the last of her metals and gems into a design of shifting multicolor streaks that followed the pattern her own hair had made for her. She set the last four rubies bordering the lock, two beside each half.

Blaze rummaged through his pocket as he spoke "Here, use this leather and fur for the lining" he finally pulled out some black leather and the softest black fur she had ever seen and handed it to her.

Shadow looked over the materials before saying "Thank you sir" as she took the offers materials. Together the leather and fur made for a exceptionally comfortable inside lining once it was riveted in place. "It is finished sir" she held over the collar and its key.

Amazing, he thought as he inspected it, to his eyes it looked like a flawless masterpiece. And it had only taken her a day to make on top of that, which was incredible given its complexity and level of detail "I am a extremely lucky stallion" he smiled "No one actually thought to see you work before me, and just because you lack a specialty" he laughed at that.

She simply stood her ground, doing her best to not look as excited as she felt inside at the compliment and slight joke at her previous prospects expense.

"By tomorrow you will be purchased and sent to my own forge" he smiled already seeing the money he would be raking in on this little gamble as well as the added advantage of having such a skilled craftsmen with his team "My very own Amalgam, never thought I'd be so lucky with how high a price your line brings" he literally looked like a kid in a candy factory with how excited he was over getting her.

She simply bowed and said "Thank you very much sir" as she tried to hide the huge grin that had begun to show on her face.