Bronze Tiara

Chapter ten

Marble strode his way down the road to his neck of the woods, the most subtle pep in his step as he walked. While his home may not be quite off the beaten path, it was further from town than some others. Something that he enjoyed, with having his own privacy, and little prying eyes to any of his new creations for one of his stores.

Reaching his home, the colt strolled in and brought the bags of groceries to the kitchen. No sooner had the bags met the counter as he was greeted by his daughter, “did they have them?” the filly almost fell in to the bag as she looked for the treat she had hoped to find.

With a jingle of its contents, Marble held up the chocolate covered pretzel box with his aura as he waved it above her, “Yes dear, they stocked up recently it seems,” though as she leapt up like a fish to catch them, the colt held her prize ever higher out of her reach, “that said, you can have some after dinner, I’m about to start cooking anyway.”

“Awe… dad…” Topaz pouted as best she could, trying to win him over with eyes only a father could love.

Though it was a face the father knew all too well, “Nope, that hasn’t worked on me since you were a foal.” He started to chuckle at her, forcing his daughter to break the pose.

“Ohfine, worth a shot at least,” accepting her defeat, Topaz trotted around helping to put the other groceries away. Already having her desert in mind for the evening.

“Has Bronze woken up?” he beckoned for an answer, having seen the clock, and knowing that she must have been out for a few hours at the very least, “I doubt she wanted to sleep the whole day-”

“She’s under the house.” Marble twisted to look at his daughter, as she held a few cans of stewed tomatoes up, “What?” the filly protested, stacking them in the cupboard, “she asked what needed fixing around the house, you’re not exactly the best when it comes to repairing anything but jewelry, and so I might have mentioned the leaking pipe under the house.” Topaz started to scratch the back of her head with all the innocence she could muster, “I mean, were you ever going to fix it? The shower head su-u-ucks ya know?”

“I was getting to it…” the colt tried to answer to the best of his defense.

“Sure you were dad,” Topaz rolled her eyes at him, having heard that excuse for a month now, “She said she wanted to help out, and it was the least she could do… what did you want me to tell her?”

Marble simply set down what goods he had in his grasp and face hoofed, his kin did have a point. Ask him to resize a ring, or repair the smallest of chain links on a necklace he could do it. Though when it came to things around the house… that was better left the professionals. As he had even said to Bronze before, though the stallion wasn’t expecting her to jump at the opportunity of making it up to him so soon.

Without a word, and just a snicker to Topaz, Marble made his way outside the house and to the opening of the crawl space underneath. Just in time to see the dust and dirt covered face of Bronze pop out from the side.

“If I had known you were going to be down there, I would have bought more rags,” he said to the mare.

“Ohplease,” Bronze lifted her bare self from the crawlspace and up on to the grass, “I’m used to working in less than stellar conditions after all.”

“Never the less, I do appreciate it,” Marble helped her up to her hooves with one of his own, “I know Topaz will be happy about the water.”

“Good to know,” Bronze beamed inwardly to herself. It wasn’t a large feat in the slightest, but even this much was a start in her book, “I re-brazed the piping to those bathrooms, so they should be able to take the extra pressure.”

She may have not grown up working on plumbing, or house work in general. Though her dad taught a variety of things when it came to hardware, enough to keep her talons busy with trades far from leveling a country.

“As myself and my kin so lovingly put it, I’m not the best when it comes to fixing things around the house,” Marble kicked the ground below him, plodding his hoof about, “I’ll try to do some patchwork when I can, but bigger tools aren’t my forte. Plus, this last week has had some of its own unexpected… enjoyable highlights, that got in the way of things,” He glanced over to her.

Bronze looked away hiding her flush as they started walking to the front door, not sure if that was a good thing to be coming from him or not. “I needed to give my talon a workout anyway, and see what it could do. So, fixing something around here, like I already agreed to anyway, was perfect,” he held the door for her as Bronze thanked him with a nod and stepped in, “besides, I have my trades, like you have yours… and I have to say, you’ve excelled at them just fine.”

“Why I appreciate it there, Bronze,” he thanked her as they went through the house, “My customers seem to be rather satisfied too.”

“And the other employee at the shop sure knows how to doll a mare up,” Bronze tittered, drawing a curious glance from the colt.

With no elaboration from the mare, the colt let it slide, “That said, I do have to leave in a few days out of town,” Marble said to her as they stepped in the kitchen. Now devoid of a little one running around. The parent of the two could only imagine what kind of trouble his kinfolk is getting in to, as he talked to his counterpart, “usual periodic excursion I make out to one of my mines that supply the gems and ore for my stores. Check up on them, see how things are, that sort of overseer work.”

“That’s what happens wh-… Wait…” Bronze finally caught up to her own thought, “Your mine? Stores?” she paused in the middle of the kitchen as those words went on repeat, “how much have you been up to since school?”

Marble stopped there and grinned back at her. Knowing that she never really understood how much his family was grounded in the trade of things shiny while they were younger. “Ahh… how about save that for the trip?

Once again, Bronze raised a brow to him, “Trip?”

“Well, I’m seeing if you’d like to join me on the train ride there,” Marble said as he brought out a few ingredients for a veggie stew. Potatoes, celery, carrots, and onions that he had just picked up laid across the counter while the colt chatted, “It’d be boring to stay here for the day or so I’d be on the rails, and Topaz usually stays with one of her friends while I’m gone, so it gets you out of the house… who knows, could be fun.”

Chopping the vegetables with the knife held expertly in his horn, Marble waited to hear from the mare in response to his offer. Though after several seconds nothing came, looking over his shoulder, Bronze did something else to his surprise. Using her own talons and a knife, the mare started cutting up the other items just as he had, wearing but the surface shadow of a smile on her face.

Slicing neatly though an onion, without even a tear in her eye, Bronze kept her eyes on the blade while mulling it over. Though that wasn’t a decision that took long, “I’d love too honestly… It’s been a while sense I did anything just for, fun, let’s say.”

Returning the gesture, and scooping up the ingredients from her cutting, Marble placed them all in a pot as he added water and vegetable stock from the fridge, “Wonderful, I can show you around the production areas and such… something that will probably get your own gears turning.”

With a titter from her, Bronze set about cleaning off the table of anything not needed for dinner. Various painting supplies, likely from Topaz while she slept, a few cups of coffee that had lingered from Marble previously that day, and even the towns paper she stacked on the counter nearby. Within a moment to herself as she watched her talons go through the motions, the mare froze at the realization of her actions.

‘I’m cleaning up… for dinner… with my previous tormentor, and his daughter,’ Bronze about pinched herself with a talon to make sure this wasn’t all a dream, as she started to operate almost on instinct when it came to the daily life of normal citizen. With a deep sigh, the mare simply shook her head as she thought about what had happened in such a short time.

She went from running through the woods on three limbs, to fighting her own creations and wild life out in the forest, trying to end it all and let gravity take her pain, stealing gems to try and rebuild herself. To now having some sense of self, or at the very least a goal, even after everything in her previous life fell apart.

‘What the hell did I do to deserve this?’ she asked herself, looking back at the colt in the room, as he added other ingredients to his stew.

“… If I may, of course,” Marble said as the mare caught herself up with his question.

“Sorry about that…” she blanked out for but a moment, “day dreaming, what was it?”

“Oh, I was wondering… about your back,” Marble asked once more, looking to the wounds that she had patched up, “What happed there?”

Thinking how to best put it, Bronze didn’t see any real reason to lie about what she had accomplished. He’d already seen what she could manage after all, “Those were from another set of… appendages I had created.”

“What? Like wings?” Marble started to snicker, though that was only met with silence from the mare again as it began to dawn on him, “wait, you’re serious?”

“Well… they weren’t perfect,” Bronze thought of the various ways they could have been improved, something that few likely saw in them given how impressive they were.

The design could have been refined for sure, more streamline and such. The gems used certainly should have been of a purer value, that would have made her even faster in the end. Then there’s the weight, she could have used a lighter metal to build them like copper. Never the less, they got her off the ground, a feat that few could touch.

“Far from it, but they were glorious,” Bronze thought in her own little world. Lost in her mind she once again relieved soaring through the air on her own power for the first time.

Having left the DDR’s chief after discussing further plans, she leapt out a window, and just before hitting the ground those wings flared out in all their might to keep her from smacking into the surface below. Sure, before she had taken test dives from the tops of cliffs with water below them, if only to give the chance of breaking her fall should something not go right.

However, leaping away from the chief and into the open air was the purest moment of bliss she had felt in a long time. A sense of true freedom where nothing could touch her, the wind rushing past her face, and the breeze caressing her body as she went through the air. Almost as if she’d been with them since birth.

It was something no earth pony had every experienced, and something she wouldn’t forget any time-

“What happened to them?”

Soon.

Marbles’ question brought her once again back to the real world she lived in, as the crushing failure from before painted itself across the fore front of her mind, “They were, lost… in a crash.”

Sure, they weren’t lost in a crash, though they might have well been. Having been torn from her body by another, just as her airship was about to detonate and scatter her automatons around the land. The mare had her wings clipped not too long after one of her talons had been blown off by the same colt, yet another slice of her removed. Feeling them being pulled from her shoulder blades like real wings. Bronze quivered while a tingle went up her spine, as she felt the burning in her shoulders from where they used to connect.

“I’m sorry… to hear that,” Marble lowered his head, not being able to say much more to sympathize with her.

He never lost a limb, he never had anything taken from him of that sort from his very body. The closest thing would have been his parents, though he never was on the best of terms with them to begin with, so it mattered little. His wife was the only other link he could have had with her pain. Though hers was physical, his was emotional. As he looked to her from his pot, the colt had to just admire the one before him. Whether she saw it or not.

Here was a mare who had lost so much. Parents who loved her, as much as she did them. Her limbs in a tragic accident when she was younger, to be replaced later on by her own skills. Even then, they weren’t set in stone, as she had her body literally torn away from her yet again over the years. Time and time again Bronze had been knocked down, and dragged through the mud. Yet, with every punch the mare got up, wiped the blood clean, and kept going.

‘You’ve been through a lot,’ Marble looked at her in reverence, ‘and you still keep pressing on.’

“Ahh… Marble?”

“Yes?” he shook his head to get his thoughts in order. Still having the various thoughts of approbation dancing around.

“What’s that look for?” Bronze asked as she scooped the excess cuttings from the veggies in to a trash bin.

“Nothing, just wrapping my head around the idea of you flying,” he looked back at her, while mixing in the pot various spices, “a rather wonderous thought, if I might say.”

With a rosiness tint returning to her face once more, Bronze held back her tongue while she helped him out in the kitchen as best she could. Fighting back the yearning to be in the sky once more, like her bloodline never intended. It was a dream she would have loved to have again, but it was something that could hold off for now. She was standing on her own four limbs again, that was something far more to be thankful for.

“Why thank you,” she took a curtsy, proud of at least one of her achievements, “It truly was a wonderful feeling, while it lasted that is…” with a sigh the mare finished setting the table, tossing about the different ideas of how she could improve the design of those appendages she had lost.