Bronze Tiara

Chapter nine

Opening the door to his home, Marble lifted Bronze once more and set her down on the couch in the living room. Topaz rushed in past his feet, and in to the kitchen, eager to get something to eat after the rather eventful day out with her dad. The colt meanwhile just shook his head with a smirk before turning his attention back to the mare.

“Let me get something for her to snack on before dinner, I’ll be right back.”

“Oh, you don’t have to rush or anything,” Bronze brushed off, still feeling a little odd about how hospitable he is. With her stump held up for him to see she let out an unnerving giggle, “I’m not going anywhere fast.”

With a snicker, the colt went to go help his daughter out, leaving the mare to wonder for a moment what he had in store. The semi broken mare looked at the wreck of her body and all it had been through, now with a bullet wound to boot. Kicking herself slightly for not holding on to one of those rifles, Bronze figured she would have been able to make it a better peg for her if she couldn’t get a talon up and running. At least it’d have more functionality than the previous one.

It didn’t take long till soft hoofsteps sent her ears up, and Marble joined her once again, “A couple sliced apples and peanut butter should hold her over… hopefully.”

“You don’t have to worry about me,” Bronze tried to protest, as the colt gestured her to follow him. Down the hall she went, now finally seeing pictures of him and his daughter, something she had missed when she first woke up that morning, “Get dinner made for her, I’ll make due with one talon, I have before.”

“You don’t like to sit idle; I remember that much about you,” he said from over his shoulder as he opened a door to the back part of his house, “This should help you keep your hooves occupied… so to speak.”

Walking in with him Bronze looked around the room at what she could only describe as a home away from home for someone like her. Just like she grew up with, and like she had seen at the store, there were work benches lining along the walls that had installed cabinets and open shelves holding all sorts of goodies for a tinker to get in trouble with. While in the center resided a small forge, and crucible to go along with it.

It was a dream come true, and perhaps if the cards in her deck were played differently. The mare may have had this in her own home to enjoy as much as she might want, though she’d have to install a cot inside given how much she’d probably be living in such a place. Past the colt she walked, Marble hanging back at the door and watched as her eyes lit up with wonder and amazement.

“The area at the shop I may work in from time to time, when it comes to different designs,” Marble spoke as he walked in the room more with her, “Though this place I like to tinker with some of my gems and jewelry when I don’t feel like going into town.”

“It’s… wonderful,” Bronze could feel the saliva building up as she took in the site.

“It’s at your disposal.”

From those words alone the mare stiffened like a board, and her eye started to twitch. Just like that, the stallion before her had given the keys to her own castle, and a means of making herself whole once more. She may be thankful for the offers and care that he’s given her, but at the end of the day she was more or less a stranger to him. In this life or her old one as a scared little foal. Something wasn’t right with this stallion, or at the very least there was something he wasn’t telling her.

“Why?” she asked, waiting to gauge his answer for how much truth might be in it.

“Call it thanks,” Marble took a seat on a stool and crossed one leg over the other, “you stopped those things from attacking, who knows how much they would have done had they not been put down.”

“That had nothing to do with you though,” she pointed out the crack in his logic. Yes, it was the right thing to do, and him involved or not she would have still done it. If only to try and right some of her wrongs, “you weren’t in danger, and if anything, they looked to be getting mopped up by the soldiers rather well. In time at least.”

“I may have not been in danger, but Topaz could have been,” he pointed out, “if they weren’t stopped with your help, there would be little stopping them from going through town and eventually reaching my shop.”

“You would have left,” Bronze shot down that excuse too. Sure, protecting his daughter would have been his top priority, but Marble wasn’t going to hang out at the store the whole day, especially if he saw that the automatons were coming his way. “The moment you saw they were getting near you would have lifted Topaz like you did me and darted,” she narrowed her gaze in to his own. The colt’s eyes might be a sight of their own, something he certainly grew in to over the years, but they wouldn’t stop her now, “Marble… What aren’t you telling me? You haven’t seen me for years, and we weren’t what you’d call friends back then. Why are you doing this, for me of all creatures.”

It took a few seconds, but with a deep sigh all the composure of the colt left him in that moment. His shoulders lowered, his head fell, and it even seemed that his hoof started to shake as he took in a deep breath to sort out his words.

“…Because I’m sorry,” Marble said under a breath that she just barely picked up.

“You’re going to have to be a little more specific,” she repeated herself like she had said in the store. Raising up his head with a touch of her talon to look at him, the warm smile on her face she wasn’t used to showing, ushered him a bit as she waited for him to find the words.

“I don’t have to be actually… I’m sorry, for everything,” once more he looked away from her, almost seeing the very mistakes he had made all those years ago before his eyes. “For how I treated you, for how I hurt you time and time again, for how after your dad passed I couldn’t even so much as say ‘I’m sorry for your loss’. I had to wait till you were working on your plans for an opening to even talk to you, and even then, I could tell you wanted to dart away.”

He sighed and shook his head, before a small chuckle escaped his lips, “You had every reason to want to run then, yet in no time you were telling me about your plans for your legs and how to make them work… giving you those gem shards was about the only thing I could do to begin to apologize.”

At a loss, the mare through a clenched throat found only a few words, “It’s… in the past…” Here was her tormentor all those years ago, now finally apologizing for everything he had done, and she didn’t know what to say to him.

“For you it is, but it still stuck with me for years,” Marble took another breath, and checked the door out with a glance to make sure Topaz wasn’t around, “I never got along much with my Pop, and my Mum didn’t care much for me either, I was just a mouth to feed to her and she resented having me probably, my Pop just was a little zealous with that belt of his,” with the words finally finding their way to him easier, the colt relaxed the tension that had built up over the years, “Yet Topaz loved them, and they loved the idea of having a grandkid more than a first born themselves… she may have been devastated, but I wasn’t sad when they passed.”

His eyes finally returned to the mare, “You though…” he gestured, and all but forced Bronze to take a step back, “up to a few years ago, I at least had the option to say hi to my parents. Where I hated mine, you loved yours, and they loved you,” the colt wasn’t close enough to her to visit her home, but he still knew how they took care of her, “yet at the end of the day… you’re the one who lost them too soon, and I got to keep those I resented… where’s the right in that?”

A knot gripped itself around Bronzes’ throat. She may have dealt with beatings from him when they were younger, and had only the smallest bit of power when she finally stood up to him, but she never thought the loss of power he had when he went home. Giving her misery was the only thing that gave him joy, because all of his was taken away when he walked through the doors to his house. It didn’t make it right in her book, yet she had a family that cared about her…

‘…What did he have?’ Bronze asked herself for the first time after all those years.

“You went through more shit in life than I ever could, and I was the cause of a lot of it too,” he let one tear fall down the side of his cheek, “who knows what would have happened had I not been a fiend and become a friend instead… maybe your cards would have been different, maybe your life would be, all I know is it wasn’t fair to you…”

“Life’s not-”

“Fair, I know… but that doesn’t mean I couldn’t have evened the odds,” Marble got back up to his hooves and held his gaze at Bronze, keeping the sincerest face he could muster, “I said not to think of fixing things around here as a punishment, to think of them as righting a wrong. Yet, in reality, it’s me trying to right the wrongs I did in the past by helping in the present.”

With that Marble used his horn to open various drawers and cabinets for the mare, bringing out several tools in the process as he laid them expertly on the workbench next to him. Turning his attention away from her, he looked over what he set down. He knew the tools of his own trade, but if making a work of art like hers was anything similar. Then these should start her off on the right hoof.

Punches, pliers, wire, gem fragments, whole gems, and various sizes of copper, brass, and steel sheeting. All of it laid now in several heaps along the workbench. He had seen her taloned limb a number of times, and from those times he put together a little of what she’d need.

“I’m going to get dinner started before Topaz starts trying to make it herself… and I certainly don’t feel like cleaning up that mess,” Marble chuckled at the prospect, having dealt with it before a few times, “Why don’t you-”

A pair of warped legs wrapped around him as he had turned back around to her. Bronze may have been holding an entire dam’s worth of tears in from different times lately. Yet, hearing him say those words, the simple sincerity of him owning everything he did and now trying to do the same thing she wants to do, right the wrongs. That broke it in one go, as she let it all come out and started to sob once again like she had at the waterfall.

They ran down her cheek, the tears that fell to the floor to meet the one he had parted with. If she thought getting an apology from the colt would have only occurred in her dreams, hugging him as she balled certainly would have also been reserved for the dream scape as well. Alas though, here she was, in his work shop with her limbs enveloping him… crying like a foal.

“Thank you… Thank you so very much,” Bronze managed to get out between sobs, as Marble just held on to the embrace and let her spill it all, “you’ve done more for me with this than you could possibly imagine.”

“It’s the least I could do…” Marble smiled as she welcomed his embrace, and gently rubbed his hoof along her back as a tear or two fell.

“No… it’s so much more than that,” Bronze finally let go of him and tried to clean herself up, hating the new found sappiness she was experiencing lately as she wiped her talon under her eyes to dry them. Though to little avail, ‘I guess getting almost blown up will soften a pony a bit,’ she snickered in the back of her mind.

Marble just stood there and smiled at her attempts to get rid of them, as he just shook his head and made his way to the door. “Why don’t you get started, I’ll bring a plate in for you whenever I’m done… you’ll probably be at this for a bit.” With a last chuckle the stallion walked out of view and down the hall.

Bronze however, leaned around the corner and just watched him go, still unable to get rid of the smile on her own face as she counted her blessings. The chance to be whole once more, that’s what he had given her. The best gift she could have asked for, and one that he wrote off as chump change. As the mare sat on a stool in front of the bench, she remained determined to not throw it all away… like she’d nearly done before.

***

With a yawn Topaz rolled out of bed, reluctantly ready to start her day. It was a Saturday, and although she’d love to have remained in an entangled mess with her sheets for another few hours. The filly couldn’t find it in her to keep her eyes shut any longer.

Trotting out of her room with her mane in a mess, she quickly ran in to the bathroom to freshen up before even daring to step hoof any further in the house. Listening closely to the sounds outside the bathroom door, all seemed quiet as if she may have been the first one to arise. Though as she went down the stairs, Topaz saw where her father had curled up for the night.

Passed out on the couch with one of his books still in his hooves, the colt opted to use the literature as a make shift pillow under his head propped up on his hooves. Topaz meanwhile couldn’t help but grin at her dad. The number of times Marble had found her in a similar position couldn’t be counted with all the gems in his store, so when the tables turned it was always a welcome giggle for the filly.

Using her magic, Topaz picked up a blanket from the edge of the couch and brought it up over her dad to keep him comfortable. Just like he would have done for her. Though a small ticking behind her drew the filly’s attention further down the hall, radiating from the workshop. Inching closer and closer, with every step the young mare heard it more clearly, till she finally reached the door and nudged it open.

There sat a truly magnificent site for her young eyes.

Bronze sat calmly on the same stool that Marble had left her on the night prior, albeit without the cloak this time around. Making the fine adjustments to her newly made talon to replace the stump, the filly marveled at the ornate gems that dotted along its shell. All of which seemingly glowed with a sparkling hue in the light of the room as they remained charged.

Holding a screwdriver in the other talon, Bronze slowly opened and closed the talon making that ticking sound that had drawn Topaz to her. As she tightened a screw on one of the joints to control the level of resistance in her grasp. Too tight, and it’d take more energy from the gem to control. Too loose, and she’d waste energy keeping it where she wanted. Grabbing hold of the screw driver in the new talon, Bronze rolled it around in her grasp as she gauged the dexterity.

“Perfect…” she murmured.

“That’s amazing, Miss Bolt,” Topaz said from the doorway, making the mare almost fall out of the stool.

‘Marble needs to get you a bell,’ Bronze chuckled to herself as the filly approached, “Why thank you, Topaz,” she said as her company this morning sat down on the workbench in front of her and looked over her newer creation with the utmost of intrigue.

Looking between the two limbs all together, Topaz noticed a new similarity, “You changed out the gems from your old one?”

Bronze held up her older limb and let the young mare look over it in comparison to her newer one. Indeed, the mechanical mare had stripped out the older lesser pure gems and crystals to make way for newer fragments and whole gems that would better suit her. “Purer gems hold a better magical charge, more difficult to control, but still doable in some cases,” she taught the little one, and worked all her digits along for Topaz to see, while the emeralds pulsed with life, “plus they’re less prone to… overloading.” She grimaced at the memory of being thwarted in the past.

Though it wasn’t just the gems that had been changed out between the two. The metal plating along the leg that had been damaged over the her most recent events, now was finally restored to its former glory. Across other areas, fresh copper sheeting had been fastened to the appendages overtop the steel structure, helping to link the brass plates that had been buffed once more to a near mirror polish.

Even across her body there were new changes. Her own horn had been glossed, and improved, now with a back plate of sheened brass to closer match the bronze frame for which she was named. While along its shaft the previous gems had been swapped out all the same as her limbs, these ones just fragments given the size she had to work with. A few emeralds, a ruby here and there, even a smaller sapphire planted at the very tip.

“Now I have a few more, better, tricks up my sleeve,” Bronze tapped the end of her horn and watched the filly wonder curiously.

With a wink, the mare brought out a thin piece of brass as she took aim with the horn itself. It didn’t take much, she had used the spell on a number of occasions, this time though it had a bit more power to it. With a flash, a small icicle flew from it and lodged not only in to the soft metal, but started to spread a thick frost over the plate itself.

Surprised, the filly almost fell from her place with the leap she took, but once the shock passed. Topaz only looked upon the horn now with a renewed sense of awe, “That’s just… so… cool, literally,” she nickered for a second.

“Oh there’s a few more I could do, but doing them takes a lot out of me,” Bronze glossed over the finer points of how she does what she does. Though a young mind will always be curious.

“So… how do you have different spells?” she saw the ambient glow of those in her horn flicker from the energy pulsing through it, “I mean you couldn’t have enchanted them in the first place yourself, so how’d you get them?”

‘Clever girl…’ That was one Bronze hadn’t gotten asked often, most would just be awestruck at the fact she could even cast them, “Well there are ponies who if you pay them, will charge a gem with a certain spell… but that can just be expensive at times,” a few memories of cornering unicorns from her past and forcing them to charge her gems crossed over her mind, she never killed any of them sure, ‘just an awfully good scare.’

“Once it’s imprinted on the gem, you can keep using it, so long as it has energy,” with a talon she pointed to a few of the clearer gems that dotted along her new and improved frame, “Plus, if you put the original rune of the spell inside where ever the gem is placed, it helps to maintain its strength,” sure enough behind one of the emeralds in her limb, Topaz could see the rune etched into the metal.

Similar runes a unicorn would have used to learn a new spell, or to make casting one easier on the user, and here this mare turned the entire study of magic up on its head. Using them in a way that so many others before her hadn’t worked out how to do.

The filly may have not noticed from her point of view, but on the back of the mare there was work done as well. The torn and shattered hinges that once connected her wings to her frame had been reworked once more. Covered with a thin plate on each joint, and attached with just a screw or two. Bronze may not have a pair of wings to attach at the moment, though if she were to get that far in to the repairs of her body, she still had the connections to do so.

To Topaz, she looked like an entire new mare. Quite literally built from the ground up, now without her cloak, she could get a look at the gem encrusted nut on her flank for a cutie mark. A rather fitting stamp given her nature.

“How do you get them to work?” Topaz asked as she saw the glow from the gems across her body, brighter this time as she stood closer.

“That… is a very peculiar spell,” Bronze broke down, unsure how much the filly knew of the magical arts. So, for the time being, she kept it simple, “basically the gem is charged with energy, and with the right amount of will, one can command it to move whatever the gem is attached to.”

Steadily holding the limb in her own hooves, Topaz admired every inch of the creation that the newcomer to her home had put time and effort in to. “It looks beautiful, I had no idea you could do that sort of thing with a few gems and metal,” she beamed up to the mare, “I’m glad you stopped wearing the cloak, these are too pretty to hide away Miss Bolt.”

With a light blush to her cheeks now greeting her, Bronze held up a talon and quelled the filly, “and you sound like your father,” the newly made mare smirked, and booped the end of Topazes muzzle.

“She gets it from somewhere,” Marble said from the hallway as he walked in, having heard his daughter laughing as he approached.

Though as he approached the mare on her stool, it was as if he was meeting her for the first time. The colt all but locked up his legs at the sight. Even with the light bags under her eyes, she looked like a totally different mare than the one he found trying to break in to his store. Her limbs were polished up, her horn was cleaned, and besides when she stayed the first night. Marble was finally seeing her without the cloak.

“They’re… gorgeous,” he smiled warmly at her, ushering in a fresh wave of blood to the mares already rosy face.

“Oh… just stop,” Bronze rolled her eyes away from him, hoping that the warmth in her face wasn’t as obvious as she thought it was. Holding out one of the avian like appendages for him to look at, the mare did feel guilty about one thing, “Though I hope I didn’t use too much of the supplies you had in here,” she cringed for a moment, knowing how the work she put in to both her limbs, her horn, and the back hinges might appear fulsome.

“Nonsense,” Marble held up a hoof to her as he looked over all Bronzes’ hard work, “I did say it was at your disposal, and I have plenty of raw materials.”

“Miss Bolt, do you think you can teach me how you made them?” Topaz asked with the best impression of a puppy she could manage.

It was a request she hadn’t gotten before, and one she never thought there’d be the opportunity to give out. Given her track record, this art was something that some may argue was best left in the history books… but as she looked back to the filly, with a face like that, could she really say no?

She was willing, but that decision was really in someone else’s hooves. “That would be up to your dad, though I doubt he’d have a problem with it,” the mare glanced at him as she waited to hear any objection. With Marble silent, she looked to the filly, “Besides, I’d love to show somepony the tricks of the trade… it’d be the first time I have actually,” Bronze smiled at the opportunity to teach another the rather lost art that she had been perfecting over the years.

With a squeal, Topaz jumped on to the lap of the mare and wrapped her hooves around her, “Thank you Miss Bolt! I can’t wait.”

Bronzes’ eyes shot open from the contact, and somewhere it felt as if one of those gems burst all over again. Still trying to register the reaction, all she could manage was to pat her talon on the fillies back, and caught the rather smug expression on the girls’ father, “It’s… quite alright there, though you don’t have to keep calling me Miss Bolt.”

“Oops! Sorry,” Topaz said as she jumped back down to the ground.

“Dear why don’t you go wait in the kitchen, I’ll get some breakfast ready for you in a bit,” Marble said to his daughter, and with a growl of her stomach the filly darted from the room with a grin about her face. The father himself, shook his head as he watched leave from sight around the corner, “Wow… just, wow.”

“Quite the little girl you have there,” Bronze said as she propped her head up on a talon, and her host leaned against the workbench, “I wouldn’t have thought I’d get that much of a reaction from her.”

Marble kept his smile, though from the mares’ view something seemed to deflate a bit as he spoke once more, “Topaz has a number of friends out in town that she goes to play with, and even stay with if I’m traveling.” With a sigh, the stallion picked up the screwdriver and mulled it over between his hooves, fidgeting as he went, “though there isn’t really an older mares influence in her life, somepony to teacher her little things, as you’d expect with what happened to her mom.”

Seeing the point behind his words, Bronze simply nodded. She was lucky to have a mother such as Aurora, something she took for granted on a number of occasions while she was younger. After talking with Marble the night prior about his relation with his parents, it was something she should have held a little dearer. To grow up without one parent for a period of time she had experienced, just as Topaz was.

“You lose a part of your childhood with only one parent,” she answered to him, understanding the longing in the fillies’ heart for another there.

“She seems to be fond of you so far though,” Marble chuckled, watching as the mare once again rolled her eyes at him.

‘Worst role model in the country if she knew the truth,’ Bronze thought in the back of her head, before thinking of a less incriminating response, “I’m new around here, young ones are always fascinated by the unknown… usually this kinda thing would scare most her age,” She answered matter-of-factly to the stallion. Though thinking on his words, it would be a shame for her not to teach the young mare a thing or two, “that said I wouldn’t mind teaching her somethings regarding hoof work… while I’m still welcome here of course.”

“And you have no reason to not be, if you’d like to stick around,” Marble answered, nodding to her as he started to take his leave, “Besides, it’d be nice to have the company.”

Company, wasn’t the first way the mare would have described herself. The last time another had thought of her as such, she put a sword in their chest. Yet, it was a thought that the mare found herself drifting towards. Alone out in the woods, or here where she could still try and do some good… not really a tough sell.

‘Till he learns what I’d done,’ she scolded herself, and swiveled off the stool.

Though as Bronze stepped on the ground, her hind legs gave out on her a bit as she stumbled. The colt took a few steps back as she braced herself against him, and with a shake of her head her bearings straightened out. “I’m good, I’m good,” the sluggish mind of a sleepless night finally started to catch up with her. With the rush of adrenaline from working on her passion leaving her in seemingly one go.

“You didn’t go to bed at all, did you,” he called her out on it immediately, having pulled a few all-nighters in his time before and knowing the signs all too well.

With no response from her, and only the simple act of her turning her face away. Marble did the only thing a stallion could. Picked her up, and carried her off to bed. This being the second time in less than twenty-four hours, Bronze wondered if it would start becoming a habit. Though with her charged limbs now working better than her own body, she had little to complain about.

Reaching the guest room that she resided that first night in, Marble pulled the covers down with his magic as he lifted the near lifeless mare off his back and on to the bed. “Ugh…” Bronze groaned as sleep finally smacked her in the face.

“You’ll be right as rain after a bit of a nap, don’t worry,” he assured her, and looked at her once more.

The gems that littered her body all gave off the same glow that he had always known from charged stones. Though with little charge likely left in her from the fighting yesterday, and from crafting new ones entirely. The colt had to wonder but one thing.

“How did you charge the gems in the new limb?”

Bronzes eyes shot open as she pushed herself up, and with no other way to put it, she told him the truth, “Well… I kind of had to pull some of the charge from my other talon and horn,” she held up the old prosthetic. Energy still radiated in the gems, but the mare knew it wasn’t nearly at its full potential, “But I’ll make due, I always-”

“You… don’t have to…” he said softly to her, drawing the mares’ eyes up to his own. The ocean that he seemed to hold in those orbs grabbing her once more, as she was forced to look away from the small hurt that they displayed.

Picking up her talon with his hoof, Bronze watched as the stallion held it to the edge of his horn and let the magical energy jump from one body to the other. When she tried to take it from him back in the store it was difficult, his body seemingly fighting her the whole time. This time around, with him giving it up willingly, if her limbs could speak, they would rejoice in the gift that he quite literally bestowed upon them.

The mare was thankful that her jaw remained her own, otherwise if that was a prosthetic, she probably would have to pick it up off the ground. “Did you really just do that?” she asked, even after just witnessing it herself.

“Well, it was going to need to happen sooner or later… it’s the least I can do,” he pointed out, having heard from the horses’ mouth how she can run out of energy. With little pain in his head from the loss of magic, Marble carried on, “besides, better get it from me than one of those suits of armor.”

An eerie titter escaped both their throats as he started to back out the door, each of them not looking forward to seeing those things again, yet one of them knowing she’ll likely not see the last of them.

“Get some rest though, please,” he nodded to her, “you need it after yesterday.”

“Of course,” she returned the gesture to him as he stood at the door, “And I’ll say it a million more times if I must, but thank you.” With that and a smile, the lights went out in both the room, and the mare as she hit the pillow. Glad to sleep off some of the tired night from a putting herself back together again.