Bronze Tiara

Chapter twenty

With her talons clicking back and forth to one another, Bronze sat in the chair and twiddled them about as her host resided across from her on the couch. Neither one had said anything since the guards had left, and Bronze was starting to worry if the princess was just thinking of creative ways to punish her.

“So-” Grace got out, before her fellow mare cut her off.

“If you’re going to jail me, or just out right kill me… both of which I more than deserve granted,” Bronze rattled off, as the brow to the mare opposite of her raised up with curiosity, “all I request is that it be done after seeing the colt wake up.” A gulp filled her throat, stammering herself for but a moment, “I know I have no room to make any appeals, but… I’ll go quietly if that is answered.”

Grace leaned back in to the cushions and crossed her legs, staring intently at the mare and making a near bead of sweat trickle down the back of Bronzes’ neck. She’d seen this mare go from the calm and collected head of her own army, once staring her own death in its face with a smile, to now one filled with worry over another.

“Hmm… who is that colt? Certainly went through a lot of trouble to help him.” The attentive princess looked over the various spots on a limb that seemed to not quite mirror its partner.

“You might recall that story I told you?” she asked, looking back on the memories made here at the castle, “come to think of it… in this very room actually.”

“Ahh that one… how you made your first limbs, and I was your drive,” the sneer in her voice stung for a moment to Bronze, but she couldn’t really blame the princess.

“Yeah… that one…” the metallic mare let the sting subside before she continued, “The colt that helped me back then, that’s the one lying downstairs,” Bronze put a name to the face so she’d remember. “Mister Marble? Mine owner of the one that was infested, ring a bell?”

“Oh him!” the lightbulb went off over her head, “I should have known you were the one that he said was willing to help… I do hope he pulls through; he seems like a nice colt.”

“Yeah… he is,” Bronze hadn’t realized it, but the grin that was growing on her lips was getting bigger by the second. “I had to help him somehow, for all he had done for me,” she showed off the limb a little more, letting the princess take in the parts of her she gave up, “I can always replace them… something though can’t be.”

With a stretch of her wing Grace reached over to the stand by the couch and pulled out a bottle with two glasses, cradling them in her feathers. Pouring some of the amber liquor in to both she offered to her counterpart. “If you would indulge me for a moment,” Graces’ eyes started to narrow to all the work Bronze had put in to herself since they last met. The newly decorated horn, the wings that rejoined her along the back, to the ornate limbs. To her Marble had given the mare more than just a few gems to work with, “how did you managed to get off your airship? Hell, myself and Iron barely did, and last I checked he took your wings.”

Swishing the liquid around in the glass, Bronze was hesitant at first but finally took a swig of the strong stuff. It had burned sure, but regardless she wasn’t about to start gasping in front of this company, “Teleportation spell,” she tapped the top of her horn to one gem with a talon, “uses a lot of juice at once sure, but in a pinch, it comes in handy.”

“Especially when you’re fighting your own automatons, I’d imagine…” Grace knocked her glass back in one go and earned an inquisitive look from the mare. “Oh, that I get from spending too much time with Iron.”

“Figured you two would get together…” Bronze rolled her eyes at the memory of their encounters.

“Well nearly dying has a way of bringing ponies closer, plus he’s really not bad once you get to know him,” she thought fondly of her stallion for a moment more, “Speaking of your little creations… they’re causing quite a stir around my country,” Grace poured another glass for herself and put the bottle away so as not to tempt her. “If you could turn them off, get them to stop, or outright destroy them it would be much appreciated.”

With the sweat returning to her, Bronze took another sip of her glass to give her a second. “It’s not that simple…”

A drop on the table brought the report that Grace had been looking through, and using her wing the mare flipped it open as the various pages described everything from the mine. “Then start… by making it simple.”

Here she was in the home of a country she once tried to attack, face to face with a mare she’d imprisoned, and who now had a trump card down in the medical bay that would keep her in check. Was there really anything the mare had left to hold in her deck? Losing any card to play by coming to the palace, Bronze stopped, took another sip, and got down to it.

“The dragon was one of the first ones I had created, after proving they could work, and it’s what commands them now, not me… sort of like a hive mind, and that’s their queen,” it seemed like a good idea at the time sure, freed up a lot of effort on her part to. Although now it’s biting the mare in the back side, “I had given it freedom more or less to make more automatons while I was busy setting my plans in to motion.”

“And judging by my reports it’s still making them,” Grace took a more delicate sip of her glass.

“That’s the thing… it was supposed to have stopped,” the princess now about coughed on that proclamation as the words left Bronzes’ lips, “After I sent out my last command, it was supposed to take control and use only what it had already to continue fighting… yet I keep seeing more and more of the advanced models…”

“So, it kept making more and more,” Grace stated the obvious they learned from the mines. Though, that raised yet another question she had been wanting to ask. “Why continue fighting though? What did you hope to gain?”

The chuckle that escaped her lips wasn’t intended to be one of humor, the mare had just asked herself that question far too many times recently, and it sounded just as stupid coming from another. “Wipe the slate clean… that was my original plan. Take revenge on those that took what I loved from me, and cause enough turmoil in those nations involved it would force them all to work together,” Bronze had thought about it far more now than she did even while making the plans, “Seemed like a good idea at the time…”

“The worst ideas usually are,” Grace admitted, having made a few of them herself over the years, “…what changed then?”

The countless faces of fear she saw with most creatures due to her creations played through her mind like a movie. Every drop of dread that their town could be next to get hit, and it wasn’t a guarantee those that served Seren would be able to help them. All of it painted a pretty grim picture for the mare in the spotlight.

“It didn’t bring anyone together… if anything it just brought terror and worry,” Bronze took another sip from her glass, wondering just how a mare like Grace could handle such a drink, “nothing changed, and when it didn’t, I couldn’t even look at myself anymore… I didn’t even want think what my parents would say to me if they were here.”

Grace watched as her cohorts’ face turned grim, and somewhere in the back of those eyes she swore a tear was starting to build. “What did you try and do afterwards?”

“Jump off a cliff,” she said as nonchalantly as if ordering a meal, and ignored the stricken glance from the princess, “though I woke to one soldier that had pulled me out, and saved me from drowning.” Even having survived the ordeal, she could almost feel the rush of water around her once more, which soon sent a shiver down her spine the more she dwelled on it.

“Not the best of decisions, though I’d wager it cleared your head a bit,” Grace smiled softly to her, causing Bronzes’ ears to splay back. “For what it’s worth…I’m glad it didn’t work.”

“…Why?” she asked bringing a confused stare her way from the princess.

“Pardon?”

“Why would you care if it didn’t work and I’m still breathing? After everything I’ve done, after everything I’ve caused?” Bronzes’ voice started to heat up, and confusion turned to a grin on the princess. Realizing it or not, her forelegs leaned up from the seat and on to the table across to her host. “I’ve leveled towns, helped murder thousands, and brought countries to war! Why would you care if I tried to off myself!”

The door cracked open as one guard poked their head in, at the ready to take the mare down. Though with the raising of her hoof, Grace hushed them as they returned to their post, leaving Bronze to continue her rant. “I’ve done so much in this world that’s irredeemable, and the creations of my own talons are still continuing my legacy!” looking down to her aforementioned appendages, Bronze wasn’t sure if she deserved to have them still attached. Everything that had been caused were the result of painting her own canvas with these instruments.

“You should hate me, you should be throwing me in a jail cell to sit until these fall off from rust, at the very least you should be shouting at me!” still true to her name, Grace sat there never changing an expression as she let the mare have her word, “but no! What are you doing? You’re sitting there listening to me yell and letting that damned smirk grow!” one talon stuck out accusingly to the princess, but the expression on her face didn’t falter, “How I ask? How is it you can seem so calm when the pony that has brought so much chaos is literally within hoofs reach of you?!”

“Because I’ve seen what you’re willing to do for another, and I know you’re trying to do better,” Grace answered her with the same demeanor and poise she was taught to do when but a princess in training. Just like that any heat the mare may have been giving off cooled in an instant, and the furious mares’ proverbial balloon burst at those regal words. “You’re not a bad pony, Bronze,” Grace laid a wing across the talons that started to dig into the table top, “…just got dealt a bad hoof.”

Bronze fell back in to her seat, staring at the one across from her. For a few minutes they sat there like that, Bronze dumbfounded, and Grace smirking at her. A confession like this would have been a slam dunk in any court throughout the lands. Yet, with all of her crimes on the table. One mare still found a way to rationalize it all for another.

Fumbling to herself, the mare threw one talon around in a tuff, almost begging, “At least throw me in jail or something.”

“Can’t right your wrongs from a cell.”

“So… that’s it?” her brow raised up further, trying her best to read the regal figure, “I’m off the hook? Just like that?”

“Hook? No, think of it more like on a tether,” the princess weighed out her options, “…you’re arguably the best bet I have at cleaning up this mess too, so admittingly that helps your odds as well,” Grace summed up, and awkwardly scratched the back of her head. Hoping this wouldn’t be another of those decisions that seemed like a good idea at the time. “But… you also have a promise to keep to that filly.”

Now it was Bronzes’ turn to scratch her own, “You would have had a very upset filly if you didn’t let me keep it…”

“True, but I doubt she would have built an army, made weapons of great destruction, and tried to start a major war just for some pay back against the crown… I mean that’d be crazy,” that shut Bronze down fast, as Grace chuckled at her own sucker punch. “Topaz did speak very highly of you though, told me all about how you’ve been fighting any of your creations that’s crossed your path.”

“And what was I supposed to do?” Bronze offered up something to try and justify her actions, “They’ve actually been hunting me as well, for much the same reason you just said… so if anything, most of those kills were self-defense.”

Tutting in her seat the princess took another sip from her glass, “slice it any which way you want… you’re trying to do better, and if that little filly can show as much admiration towards ya as I just saw, you can’t be as bad as you think.”

“Or she’s a terrible judge of character.”

Getting to her hooves, Grace signaled her fellow mare to join with a twist of her head, as Bronze walked up next to the princess and over to a map spread over a desk in the corner. Everything from the boarders of Seren, to the Gryphon Kingdom and the Diamond Dog Republic laid spread across the parchment. Dotting around the area, Bronzes’ jaw gaped at the rather alarming number of X marks across the lands as well.

“We’ve been keeping a track of where they’ve popped up, and there’s still probably many that don’t even get reported,” the Pegasus pointed with her wing to the mine Bronze had come from. “That’s the first time we’d ever seen the dragon one, and even now there hasn’t been another report of it… we don’t know where it could have gone.”

Looking at the map silently, Bronze scanned the numerous marks as she tried to see some sort of pattern, but nothing jumped to her, “And I’m assuming you want me to try and find it…”

“You’d think something of that size would be easier to locate,” Grace groaned from the lack of anything to give them a place to go off from, “never the less that’d be a start in the right direction for you,” she responded as she rolled the map up and set it to the side. “However, you’ve had a very eventful day, we can discuss the details in the morning…” she watched the mouth of the mare open to ask, and silenced Bronze with a feather to her lips, “I’m not putting you in a cell, not even to stay for the night… you have a pretty outstanding reason to behave here after all, and you should check up on him before retiring yourself.”

A cell might have been more in the mares’ mind for what she deserved. Although getting the chance to see Marble and Topaz did warm a part of her like a fresh charge of magic. It might have been reflex, or it could have been her softer side showing more. In either case, as soon as the princesses wing dropped, one of Bronzes’ own reached and wrapped around her counterpart. Bringing the sky-colored mare into an embrace, and lighting up her cheeks with a rush of blood.

Graces’ legs about froze up from the surprise contact, but feeling that a chuckle escaped from the metallic mare. “Calm down, I don’t have a knife to drive in your back,” Bronze relaxed her, really hoping one of the guards didn’t come in and get that impression, “I just wanted to say… thank you.”

Through her nerves returning for the time being, the stricken mare reached one of her own feathered appendages around returning the gesture, and meeting the canvas appendage in the middle. “While there are somethings that might be unforgivable… it takes a lot to get to that point with me, even when you count the kidnapping,” Grace answered causing her fellow mare to wince as the princess took every ounce of satisfaction from the devilish jab, ‘I’m really starting to turn in to him,’ she thought as they broke from one another. “Now go tend to your colt, we’ll see about getting some replacement stones for you tomorrow as well,” The mare followed up with trying to quell any remaining worry in her guest.

With her cheeks quickly matching her host, Bronze got herself back in gear with a mental kick. “I appreciate that as well, umm… princess,” she started to plod at the ground with a talon, “however, he’s ahh… not my colt,”

“Right…” the princesses eyes did a full 360 as her grin stayed firm, “and I said the same thing to you once, look how that turned out.”

***

The metallic mare creeped the motionless halls of the castle on her own, no escort to bring her back to the ward, and what looked like no guard that passed her paying her much attention as it was. To think word got around this fast in a castle almost reminded her of school in a way. Never the less, her hooves tip toed towards the door in the hall, and with a quiet talon turned the knob to look inside.

There the lights had been dimmed to welcome the approaching night, as the curtains had been drawn, a cover thrown over her impromptu entrance through the window, and the few magical lamps were toned down. Amongst the empty beds, save the one of the colt, one of the nurses that had helped her earlier went about her last minute checks before turning in for the night.

“Ahh you’re back,” the Pegasus said while she cleaned up some of the debris and trash made from the last-minute game of operation. “I had hoped you weren’t in any trouble with her majesty, wasn’t sure what I’d tell her in the morning,” the two of them looked to the lightly snoozing filly as she laid curled up in the chair by her father. A medical gown draped over her frame.

“Thank you for watching over her,” Bronze answered, wondering to herself if that tether would last after the danger was dealt with. “How’s he doing?” her eyes turned to the one that joined the filly.

Thru a sigh the nurse went up to him once more and checked over the work herself and her companion had done as Bronze left. “Honestly, I’m surprised he’s even got a pulse…” she held a hoof to his neck, steadily counting off the beats like she would with any other in her ward, “I don’t know how you did it, but he’s still alive in there.”

Alive didn’t say much about the lifeless looking body there in the bed. Bronze rested a talon on to his forehoof, and got a steady reminder of what kind of price she had to pay to be whole again. “Is he… is he warm?” her worried eyes returned to the Pegasus there, “I… can’t tell.”

The nurses’ sympathetic eyes looked to the mare and brought out a thermometer from her gown, and quickly popped it in the colts’ mouth, “hmm… and about a hundred and one, perfectly normal,” she put the tool back in her pocket for safe keeping. “He really turned around after you left and we got those blood bags into him. Now it’s just waiting till he’s ready to come back.”

“Yeah… that’s the part I hate,” she looked over his frame once more, particularly at the chest.

The stitch work of where the cut was made earlier was exquisite, undoubtedly years ahead of her own when it came to even sewing wings. Then again, flesh and canvas were two different things. Regardless, if that’s how the cut had turned out, Bronze could only imagine how well they put together the bones themselves.

“Told you I had more experience,” the nurse winked at her, reading exactly what she was looking at.

“Surely a lot more than me… thank you for keeping an eye on him as well, and for all the help earlier,” Bronze extended her good talon to the mare, “Bronze Bolt.”

The mare took her talon and gave it a shake, “Gentle Breeze,” she answered with a beam before looking over her patient, “and while I’d love to stay, there are a few other places I have to check stocks on before I retire for the-”

“Hmm?... Bronze,” Topaz started to shuffle from her chair, as her hooves reached up and rubbed her eyes, “You’re back?”

“If you need anything, I stay in the castle,” Gentle said to Bronze as she started towards the door, “just have one of the guards come for me.”

With that, and a thankful nod, Bronze went over to the filly in her seat and leaned down to her, “I told you I’d be back, didn’t I?”

“I know you said that,” Topaz even through her tired eyes, sighed to the older mare, “but when you said you hadn’t been the best of ponies, I didn’t know if you’d be in trouble.”

Bronze about choked on her words then and there, though with a notion of her head, the filly cleared the seat and got back up on the mares’ lap. From there mare looked over Topaz, and her father, glad that after a day like today they both were safe. Even if she had more work to be done now on her plate.

“Me and the princess… came to an understanding,” she replied without trying to give too much of her past against the crown, “Some of those things running around the country-”

“Those weird suits of armor?” Topaz cut her off.

“Exactly… those I had a talon in,” Bronze about waited for the filly to leap off of her lap and run, but the longer she waited, the growing anticipation she saw on Topazes’ face, ‘She hasn’t a clue just what I’d done,’ she thought to herself, “and the princess would be very happy if I were to help in clearing them out… so much so to forgive things in the past.”

Topaz was quiet for a few moments longer as she took in the information, while Bronze wasn’t entirely sure she really understood the gravity of what she’d done. Before finally, the filly looked up to her, “That’s awfully nice of her,” she beamed to the mare.

‘Oh-h-h you have no idea,’ Bronze returned the same to her, “Though she had heard I was trying to do better, and fighting them, from another source,” her eyes turned to the filly who tried to turn her attention to the ceiling instead, “Thank you for that… I doubt she would have believed me if I said anything along those lines.”

“Well it’s true!” Topaz shouted, almost startling the mare that held her, “You’d fight them any time they were in town! And really it was awesome to watch!”

Pure innocence… that’s all Bronze could see on Topazes’ own face. A face that hadn’t been stained with the dye of life and reality. One she hoped still would continue to stay clean with the awakening of her father. How Bronze wished she could return to those days when all she really had to deal with was the school yard bully… though now she found herself watching over that same colt in the night.

“So, what did you do to him?” Topaz piped up, as the mare turned to the fillies’ curious glance. Steadily she looked over the new scars that would adorn her father, and put a few things together, “I know he was hurt bad… and I’d just like to understand how he was hurt, might help me feel better knowing what you did.”

Locking up, the mare tried best how to put it so as to not pump up what she had done to more than it was… but what she did was remove the heart of the colt and replace it. How do you tone that down for young ears?

“Well… ahh you see,” ‘shit! I can’t just outright say her dads’ heart had been shot!’ Bronze continued to stammer, and strain, and bounce back and forth. Something that was likely going on in Marbles’ chest right now too.

Until that is, a single hoof placed itself on her chest.

Bronze looked at the filly as she smiled to her, “I’m going to be ten here in a few months… though dads always made sure I kept up on my schooling,” she admitted, remembering the many times he’d try to help with subjects he understood little of himself, “please Miss Bolt, just tell me, I’ll understand it… I promise.”

To hear he kept on her studies wasn’t that surprising in all honesty to the mare, to hear she had a good understanding enough of anatomy to even ask what she did during surgery, that’s there was the shocking part to Bronze. Never the less, she took a deep breath, sighed, and took another in figuring out best where to start.

“The thing that struck your dad went in to his chest, and grazed his heart,” ‘okay! That wasn’t the reaction I was hoping!’ the mare screamed at herself, as she watched the fillies’ eyes immediately turn to her father resting there in the bed, “No, no… relax… I helped him as best I could.”

“W-what did you do?”

“His heart was damaged…” Bronze started off, recalling the article she had read those years ago, “I learned there was a device some of the doctors in Seren were using to replace ponies’ hearts outright, and so I found one here in the castle to do so… and improved it a little to what would work better for him.”

With a raising of her talon, she showed the filly the crafted limb, now with several spots along it missing the gems she had placed. Topaz hadn’t noticed it before, but then again, she was beating on the mare after all. Now, she got to see just how far the mare she sat on had gone to try and bring her father back.

“You… used some of your stones?”

“Stones can be replaced… but I know very well a father can’t be,” Bronzes’ eyes turned towards the stone that made up the floor, and nearly found herself lost in the past.

Until the filly brought her back.

“That’s really sweet when you think about it,” Bronze turned her eyes to Topaz, and got to see another sign of the fillies’ mood lightening up in a smile.

“Oh, all in a day’s work,” Bronze started to chuckle, becoming more than aware just how much of her own fluids were starting to rush to her cheeks once more, “regardless… I patched him up the only way I knew how.”

Almost instantly the small hooves of the filly found themselves wrapped around the older mares’ neck, as she sat there and looked at both Topaz and her father in the bed. In time, her own talon found itself reaching up to meet the filly, and held her in the same embrace.

“Thank you, for fixing him.”

‘I only hope that I did,’ Bronze told herself as she leveled with the kin of the one she had a part in injuring, “I’m just glad I could do something.”

“How… how’d you know him before?” Topaz asked out of the blue, catching Bronze off guard at first, “I mean you said in the park he was a better pony now, what was he like before?”

‘Hmm there’s a mine field for you…’ the mare stopped and thought as she wondered just how much of his school life the colt had shared with her daughter. Getting more comfortable and scooting back to the seat, Bronze thought back to those years long in the past. “Your dad was kind of… mean, during that time, if I’m being honest,” she replied, trying to downplay the beatings she regularly got from the colt. “In school he was the local bully, had his friends who followed his lead, and they always seemed to pick on the smartest of ponies in their class…”

While the grimace she gave might have made it a dead giveaway, Topaz by this point had already put it together, “I’m guessing you were the smartest?”

“How right you are,” Bronze smirked, trying to push that part of her past back in to the hole from which it crawled.

Topaz however, simply looked from her and back to her father as he laid there, “I knew he wasn’t the nicest of ponies back then… dad had told me he was pretty mean actually,” for a second she broke out in to a yawn after the long day, “and that he didn’t want me to be the same way…”

‘Certainly hadn’t followed in his hoof steps,’ Bronze thought as she smiled to the filly, glad to see he was trying to give her a better role model.

“I just didn’t know you were one that he had picked on…” her gaze turned to the floor now after learning the whole story.

Something that Bronze stopped almost instantly with her talon bringing the little one’s eyes back up to her. “It’s in the past Topaz… me and him talked it out not too long after I came to town,” the tension in the filly died down a little as her body relaxed, “He hadn’t had the finest home life, and so he just took it out on somepony else… might not have been the best answer, but it’s all he knew…” a few more memories later, and the beam on her grew even larger, “besides, he helped me in a way he couldn’t have imagined later.”

“How was that?”

“Well… it all started one day at school…” she recounted the memory.

Bronze went on and told Topaz about her own dad, how he had been called to answer the nation, and how that had led to his loss. She could see it in the fillies’ eyes, the thought of losing her dad, and it reminded the older mare of when she got the news. From there her limbs were lost, and with that many months of difficulty. Up until, she learned of a lost art of magic, one she might be able to use.

Bronze left out the part about wanting to wipe the slate clean, and stuck to her fixing herself up more than anything. She didn’t need to be seen as a total monster by the filly, no matter what the princess might say how good she actually is.

“After explaining it to him a bit at school, I got an envelope with a gift of two small charged gems… just what I needed,” fondly the mare turned her gaze to that pony in the bed for that single act of kindness that sent her down a new path.

“And that’s how you fixed yourself up?” Topaz asked with wonder in her eyes.

“Exactly… that’s led to me getting back on my hooves, so to speak,” they both shared a chuckle, before another yawn from the filly broke the chat.

“You know… it’s funny if you think about it,” Topaz said as her eyes started to droop a bit more with every breath.

“What is?”

“He gave you a few gems to get you on your hooves, and you gave him some of your own to fix him back up too,” the filly rubbed her eyes, trying to fight back the weariness.

Bronze thought on it, and while it might have happened all those years ago. She guessed you could really say the favor had been repaid. With the ever-growing weary filly on her lap, the mare leaned back in the chair and brought the nurses gown up to both of them. “We should really get some rest, it’s been an… eventful day,” now it was the mares’ turn to copy the gesture.

Snuggling down to the Bronzes’ chest, Topaz curled herself up and pulled the gown over top her, “Yeah…” she shook her head, “you’re right I guess.”

Bronze on the other hoof looked down to the filly there on her lap who after only a few seconds, was softly snoring as happily as she could be given the day. No fuss, no wining about having to go to bed, not even a stretch.

The mare only could hope she would go out the same way, as she pulled the gown a little further up her waist, and made sure to keep the filly good and comfy. An ‘eventful day’ didn’t do it justice, and with her eyes closing, she let the soft breaths of the kin list her to sleep.