The first thing I can remember would be darkness, darkness and cold. I was quickly assaulted by all of my senses, excluding sight. The air around me smelled like parchments, metal and dust. My mouth tasted like copper and what little I could feel of my body felt pleasantly cool but heavy. My surroundings seemed quiet so I didn't really hear anything but myself moving and some kind of metal clicking.
My thoughts were all over the place, so I kept my eyes closed while I tried to sort out my thoughts, rather than adding more questions to the pile.
First off: What happened?
Trying to think back, I came up with nothing. While I seemed to understand things, able to communicative with myself in my thoughts and my knowledge of things like smells and feelings confirmed that I did understand thing, meaning I must have learned them somehow. The question was, when?
Unable to answer, I decided to answer the questions I could: What?
What indeed. Something was going on, I briefly wondered if I was dead, but decided it wouldn't matter since I obviously was still conscious and couldn't actually remember being alive. Most likely meaning that I was alive right now. I tried remembering what all the signs of life were, the first signs of life I came to think of were energy, water and air. Since I was able to move, I concluded that I possessed energy. I carefully moved my tongue and was pleased to feel that I indeed was moist in my mouth, meaning that water was also present. As it came to air, I simply tried to take a breath, the key word being tried.
I panicked as I felt nothing from trying to breath in, no air was either escaping or entering my lungs, the organ meant for holding breathable air. In my panic, I opened my eyes, looking around in panic, I saw I was in some kind of workshop or something. There were a few lit candles placed around the room, telling me that there was indeed a presence of oxygen in the room. Instead of calming down, I only panicked harder.
If there was a breathable atmosphere here, why couldn't I breathe? I questioned, already preparing to loose consciousness. After a few more moments of panicking, I realized something that stopped me dead in my tracks, I wasn't suffocating!
My curiosity took over as I calmed down since I for some reason didn't die. Trying to understand what was going on, I tried to close my eyes again and think of what it was that could be keeping me alive. Alive, because it wasn't unheard of organisms without lungs or a need to breathe oxygen. I didn't really car much for how I knew it, only that I did and that it calmed my nerves.
This however brought up another question: What was I?
The thought of not knowing what I was was a bit frightening, but I decided not to fret, after all, I could always just check.
Opening my eyes once again, I angled them downwards while angling the one limb I could feel forwards, trying to get a good look at it. To say I was surprised was understatement. The limb I saw was made of several different metals and gears. It reminded me a lot of some fascinating clockwork mechanisms I knew of. Surprised, I looked up, not completely sure what to think about seeing myself being made out of metal, in other words, something that wasn't supposed to be alive.
As I looked up, I noticed something I hadn't done before when I had looked around in panic. I saw something sleeping in the corner of the room, covered with a blanket. But what interested me more, was the mirror standing next to the sleeping entity. The mirror contained the reflection of my full metallic self.
I was apparently propped up on some kind of stand, I had what looked like the head of a pony, something I recognized was fairly common in Equestria since most of the country's inhabitants were ponies. Unfortunately it seemed I was incomplete, I had no mane, and I also seemed to be missing an eye, my left eye to be precise. From below my neck, the metal covering my face, acting much like 'skin' was missing, instead a thin metallic frame could be seen, filled with gears, springs and a few pipes. I could even see what I guessed was my windpipe. I had one foreleg, it was the same one I had raised to get a look at. The others seemed to be missing, together with anything else meant to come after my breast.
I quickly figured out that what would act as my lungs was most likely missing from my body, explaining why I was unable to breathe. Me being incomplete also explained why I couldn't feel most of my body, it was because I had none. I somehow found it amusing, but refrained from snickering at it. Inspecting the edges of where my body abruptly stopped, I noticed that the parts made a pattern. I was either being assembled, or disassembled. I had briefly considered that I had been broken by something when I had noticed that I wasn't whole, but if that was the case, the edges would most likely have been bent and jagged.
Uncomfortable with the thought of being disassembled, I began looking around the workshop to make sure that wasn't the case. I idly noted that a lot of the gears and springs moved inside of me as I began moving, producing metallic clicks. I found it a little creepy to be able to see my own insides, but decided not to dwell on it until I knew if my existence was on a clock or not.
I imagined that if I was being dismantled, it would be done by first taking me apart into bigger parts, before dismantling them further. While I was looking around the workshop, I found nothing that would resemble metallic limbs or body parts that would have been a part of me. Suggesting that I was most likely being built. Upon further inspection, I noticed a lot of gears and different metal parts all over the workshop, in boxes, on the floor, strewn across the multiple tables in the room, together with a few parchments that looked like they had pictures of a pony on them.
It took me a while to realize what they truly where, blueprints. Specifically, blueprints of me.
The blueprints pretty much confirmed that I was being built, rather than being dismantled, something that made me feel a lot better about my situation. I guessed the sleeping form next to the mirror would be my creator then. I would have loved to wake them right then and there, unfortunately, not being able to breath came with the handicap of being unable to speak as well.
I couldn't move, and I couldn't wake the only other being in my vicinity. In the end I decided to return to an earlier point of interest to pass the time, namely, look at my own gears turning and springs springing in the mirror while I was moving.
While it was a bit unnerving to see my insides, or rather, the very things that I guessed kept me alive, like that. I honestly had nothing better to do. I took note of the fact that most of the gears seemed to be made of brass, while my frame seemed to be made of what looked like silver. I wasn't entirely sure though, I wasn't exactly an expert in metals and could only guess. My only other guess would have been steel, but the color didn't quite match with my knowledge. But to be honest, a lot of things didn't.
I had no idea how I was alive, it seemed all my sense were working perfectly, yet I had no need to breathe, and I didn't seem to grow hungry either. Most likely it was because my body din't require me to, but the question was, why did I feel like I should?
I also noticed that the tone of the metal clicking while I was thinking about something was different. Trying to investigate why, I noticed that it didn't come from any of the visible gears, but rather from the ones I couldn't see inside of my head. I found it fitting that the gears in my head were the ones turning whenever I was thinking, I also realized that it sounded different because of how the sound traveled through my skull, or rather 'skin'.
Eventually I ran out of things to entertain myself with, I ended up starring at myself in the eye with the help of the mirror. From a certain point of view, I looked terrifying, I guessed I was somewhere in the uncanny valley in my current state. Hopefully it wouldn't stay that way.
This train of thought however brought forth something else to the forefront of my mind, the blueprints. While I had studied most of my current body, I hadn't really studied my blueprints. Turning my head to get a better view of the blueprints, my expression fell. The blueprints were all laying practically on top of each other, the only thing I could see was the design for a few of the specialized gears I had seen withing my frame. The only new thing I learned was what each individual gear was named, and that each part was marked with their name, like A-42 as an example. Something meant to make it easier to assemble me I supposed.
I found it a bit depressing thinking about myself being assembled. I questioned myself why, since being assembled was a positive thing from my point of view, only to realize that I would much rather have been born naturally.
Shaking my head, I decided not to think about it anymore. Trying to find anything else I could occupy my time with until my creator woke up, I decided to count as far as I could, only to know how far I could go.
I woke up to the sound of somepony moving about and mumbling something. Opening my eyes, I saw that my presumed creator seemed to have woken up and was now walking about the workshop while mumbling something to himself. He was a unicorn stallion in his later years, with an orange coat and gray mane and tail. I was unable to see his eyes, since he had yet to look in my direction, but I could see that his cutiemark was of a wrench that looked like half a gear. I guessed his special talent had something to do with mechanical stuff. If he had built me, then he most likely deserved that cutie mark, I mean, even I was impressed!
It looked like he was looking around his workshop for something, but I had no idea what. Soon getting bored from watching him, I decided to learn what else had changed. Looking around, the workshop looked much the same, some dust had been disturbed, some parts moved out of the way and a few documents had either been added or moved. I also noticed that everything looked like it was a lot farther away from me, possibly because I had awaken, but I could only speculate. It wasn't lik-
My thoughts suddenly cut off. Distance, I had estimated distance. Quickly looking towards the mirror, I confirmed my suspicions, I now had another eye. I immediately began inspecting the rest of myself, earning myself a few metallic clicks and such as I moved my head instead of just my eyes this time. Taking a look at myself, I saw that I now had what looked like the beginning of a second foreleg, and a few additions to the first one. This confirmed my idea of me being built!
My thoughts, however, were interrupted as I heard something I didn't expect, a voice.
"W-what?!" I heard in a masculine voice. Turning towards the source of the voice, I saw that it was the stallion. He had apparently left the room while I wasn't paying attention and had returned with a few rolled up pieces of parchment under one hoof, a pencil behind one of his ears, a pair of glasses upon his snout and a gray vest. I also noted that he had magenta eyes.
