A soul to spare

“You know that she was not herself. She could not control what happened” Razor was following me as I was heading out towards the smithy to do some work.

“I know, but I can’t just forget what happened. Now leave me alone I have work to do.” It had been a few days since it had happened. Razor was trying to convince me to talk to Celestia, but I couldn’t. I refused to even look at her after what she did.

“It’s not just her fault you know, this would never have happened if you hadn’t switched the drinks.” That was the last straw.

I was fuming with rage at this point “So this is my fault huh? How the fuck was I supposed to know. I’m fairly new to this fucked up world, and you just expect me to know how things work around here.”

Razor was slightly stunned by my outburst and just stood there with his mouth open for a few moments before collecting himself. “I’m sorry, but I-” I cut off.

“No… just no. I don’t want your apology. Just leave me alone.” I continued walking towards my destination, leaving Razor behind. I wasn’t really mad at him; I just couldn’t stand how he defended her. After what had happened I simply needed someone *or somepony in this case* to blame.

When I reached the smithy, I noticed something unusual. Instead of Iron Hoof, I was met by Melandra in her pony form. She was sitting by the anvil with a large book on the table beside her; the thing was even bigger than me.

“Hello there Jake.” she said as she stood up. “How are you?”

“You know how I am. And where is Iron? I am supposed to work today.” I was just as mad at Melandra, maybe even more. Unlike Razor she knew about what would happen before it did, and she decided not to stop it.

“Iron lent me his forge today; I’ve got something important to teach you.” She turned to the huge book and began sifting through the pages.

“Then I’ll just take my leave.” I turned around to leave but in the blink of an eye Melandra was in front of me, with an annoyed expression.

“Are you still mad? Get over it already, most ponies would kill to have what you had with the Princess.”

Every breath I took sent small clouds of cold steam out, and the temperature in the close vicinity dropped several degrees. “So you are saying that I should have just enjoyed it, huh? She raped me, and you are all acting like it’s nothing. Worst of all is you; you knew that this would happen. But still you decided to do nothing. No, you even said that it might be amusing. What kind of a sick fuck are you?” Melandra’s expression dropped as soon as I said this, now she looked genuinely sad.

“… You are right, I am sorry. I had never thought that you would be caught up in it; you were supposed to be evacuated like the rest of the civilians.” She sat down and simply stared up into the sky. “Even if you did not get out, the guards are supposed to keep her busy until it wears off. There was never supposed to be any risk to you. ” this caught my attention.

“W-wait, you are saying that the guards were to keep her occupied” I started laughing, this was beyond messed up. “Two of those guards were the ones who gave me to her. They said that if she got me then they could go free.”

Melandra looked a little shocked by this “Have you told Captain Dash about this? What those two guards did is more than enough to get them kicked form the royal guard.”

“I would have but I have no idea who they are. Most of the guards look identical anyway.” It’s like Celestia had some sort of Cloning program set up.

“No but you did hear their voices did you not?” she had a point, why hadn’t I thought of that.

“Yes I did. Do you think that is enough to get them?” I hadn’t really thought about turning them in.

“It should be. You could just have Razor gather some of the guards so that you can point them out based on their voice. Or you could simply copy their voices and see if he recognizes them. “Now there was an idea I could get behind. I had been practicing my little voice trick. If I could remember it, I could copy it.

“Sounds like a plan to me. But on to the matter at hand, what were you going to teach me?” I decided to forgive Melandra; she had no intentions of harming me in any way. I’ll have to apologize to Razor too the next time I see him.

“Why don’t you come inside” she motioned to the smithy. “I got something to show you”

We walked over to the table where the humongous book was. “This is the Draconicon for the silver dragons. This book contains everything about us and more. It has belonged to many great dragons in the past, every one of them adding their own knowledge to it so that it may be passed on. Today I will teach you something that your other half added to it, the lost secret of enchanting.”

I could feel my excitement rising. Enchanting, if it were anything like it was on the video games back home, would be awesome. I also wanted to take a look at some of the other things in that book, but as I reached for it Melandra slapped my hand away.

“Not yet young one. I will allow you to read the section about enchanting but nothing more, not yet anyway. And you are under no circumstances allowed to tell anyone about what you read in this book” she said as she flipped the pages to find what she was looking for. “Do you know anything about enchanting?”

“Isn’t it about making magic items or something like that?” Melandra looked like I had just insulted her and let out a long sigh.

“If you want to oversimplify it, then yes. Let me explain it for you. Gems, as most know, are capable of storing magic for different uses. The ponies have used them for their own method of enchanting. They insert the gems in whatever they wish to enchant, like jewelry in a weapon. Then, after a magic user has filled the gem with his magic of choice the user of this object may unleash this magic through his item for the wanted effect.” I was doing my best to pay attention; it was very similar to what I had expected. She moved over to a chest and picked up a shield with a large ruby in the middle of it.

“The ponies however are mere novices in this art. Like this shield, the gem is currently empty but it could be filled with a reflective magic to bounce back projectiles or a shield spell to make it stronger. But the ponies’ way of doing this has its limitations. The spell stored in the gem only lasts for a couple of uses and therefore runs out quickly. We silver dragons on the other claw, have a way to make the enchantments permanent.”

“That’s awesome, and how exactly do we do that?”

She brought out three gems from the chest and laid them on the anvil. “These three gems have been filled with magic.” She pointed to each one from left to right. “The first one contains a simple heat spell, the second one a light spell, and the third one has a simple explosive spell. I want you to use these three gems to craft some enchanted items of your choice.”

I looked down upon the three small colorful crystals that were in front of me, and a few ideas came to mind. “So you want me to create three items with these?”

I could see her smirk “That’s not exactly what I said; you might use more than one on an item if you think that the two spells could work together. But let me show you how the enchanting preparations are done.” She waved me over to the book, “Look here, to make the magic that’s contained within the gems permanent we need to melt them and fuse them with the metal of the object that’s supposed to be enchanted. Normally if we melted the gems the magic would simply escape” she went over to the gems again and took a deep breath before releasing an incredible frost breath upon them.

She held it for a good minute before she stopped. “And there is the trick to contain the magic before you melt the gems. Your cold breath isn’t strong enough yet so you’re going to have to practice that. But now they are ready, so get to work. You can use the book to see what kinds of metal work well with what types of enchantments.”

I went over to the book and started reading as I thought about what sort of objects I should make. After a little while I decided to go with something simple, a short sword and a shield. I decided on using cloud-steel for making them; it’s a metal that’s created by infusing steel with concentrated cloud essence, making it extremely light but slightly less durable.

I used the remainder of the day and a good portion of the next one as well to craft the two items, as it was the first time I attempted anything like this. Melandra came and went as she pleased to check up on my progress and to scold me when I made mistakes. In the end it came out alright. It was a basic short sword, the only thing that might draw attention to it was the red edge the blade has. The shield on the other hand I was one of my better works. It couldn’t really be called a shield, more of a small buckler that was designed to be strapped on to the side of an arm or in most cases the front leg of a pony.

Melandra studied the two pieces closely before asking me to demonstrate how I enchanted each one.

“I used the heat spell gem on the sword, so that when you used it, it will be searing hot.” I demonstrated by picking it up and letting the edge of the sword lean on the wooden table. Black smoke quickly began to rise from where it touched. “For the shield I decided to try to use both of the remaining gems. I haven’t tested it yet but when struck it should provide a light explosion, effectively blinding the striker. Let’s try it out shall we?” I strapped it to my arm and held it up in front of me.

“Are you sure that you want to test it that way?” I nodded with a wide grin on my face. “Alright then, don’t blame me”

Melandra raised her hoof and struck the buckler… and nothing happened. “Well that can’t be right” I took the buckler off my arm, but as soon as I turned it around to get a better look at it, cracks started to form and a bright light shone from them before it shattered in an explosion of light.

“Aaaaargh, son of a bitch” My eyes were burning. Melandra on the other hand found this hilarious and I could hear her laughing.

“Why would you look directly at it when you knew what it was supposed to do. It seems you fused the two gems incorrectly tough.” she went over and inspected some of the scattered remains of the buckler. “It’s actually quite difficult to fuse several spells in an enchantment; you should keep practicing with harmless spells like those, who do no damage when it fails. The sword turned out nicely though. I’ll let you keep it, if nothing else you can sell it for a high price. Our enchanted objects are extremely valued.”

I stood up and rubbed my eyes. “Well it was interesting at least, but how about we head inside. I don’t know about you but I’m starving.”

Melandra just nodded in agreement, and after we finished cleaning up we headed back into the castle towards the dining halls.

Time flew past me the following days. I made peace with Razor and continued my training with him. Melandra acted a little unusual, disappearing for days at a time, but her business is her own so I didn’t dig any deeper into it. I was told that I was going to a small town called Ponyville to become their blacksmith after the last one disappeared. They didn’t give me an option in the matter but I honestly didn’t mind. I just needed to get away from Celestia, while I could now tolerate her presence and be civil with her I just… I couldn’t stay here. And so the day of my departure approached swiftly.

We were standing outside on the castle grounds with a chariot that was pulled by two pegasi in front of me. I was finally leaving for Ponyville; the only thing left was to say my goodbyes before takeoff. Joining me in Ponyville was two guards, one pegasi and one unicorn. The pegasi was Twister; I had gotten to know him a little better over the last couple of days. He would always be at one of the bars after his shift had ended and he turned out to be a really laid back character. He was a pretty cool guy and I was glad to have him with me. The other guard on the other hand, I knew nothing about. Every time I asked him anything he skillfully managed to avoid the question, all I had gotten out of him was his name; Moonlight Shimmer I think it was. There was something else bugging me about him though, he seemed really familiar for some reason.

“Didn’t you say that they were supposed to be here soon?” I asked. We were waiting for Melandra and Iron.

“For the last time yes, they are probably just around the corner.” Razor snapped right back at me, I think he was getting a bit irritated by my constant complaining. Iron had said that he had to take care of a little something before coming and nopony, except for Celestia, had seen Melandra today.

Celestia came over and sat down in the grass beside me. “Your house and smithy are located on the outer edge of the town, near the Everfree forest. I have sent word to the mayor about your arrival. The ponies may be a little unsure about you in the start because of your… unusual look. But I’m sure that they will warm up to you in time.”

“I still find that forest funny. It sounds exactly like back where I’m from, if you take away all the deadly and horrifying monsters that is. What about the materials for my smithy though, where will I get them?”

“There is a small family that owns… a rock farm I believe they called it. They have several mines and could provide you with the necessary metals and minerals.”

Their place is not too far away from Ponyville and they visit the town regularly, so I am sure that you can set up some sort of deal with them.” we sat there in silence for a bit before she spoke up again. “I’m sorry… I truly am. I know that you have heard it before but I will do anything to earn your forgiveness.” She looked at me with sad eyes, waiting for an answer.

“… I know that you weren’t in control of what happened, that it wasn’t your fault. I want to forgive you but I… I just can’t. Every time I look at you I see her, and it scares me. I know that I will eventually… just not now, I’m sorry.” I stood up and walked away from her, there was nothing else to be said, and to honest I felt a little disgusted at myself for not being able to forgive her.

It took another good thirty minutes before Iron and Melandra finally decided to show up. Iron had something on his back wrapped up, and Melandra was carrying the Draconicon along with a large bag.

Iron grabbed the long package he had on his back and threw in to me when he got close. “There ya go. A little gift from me.” I wrapped away the crude paper that whatever it was supposed to be was wrapped up in. it was a long pole, made of some sort of dark wood. “That there is ironwood kid. Figured ya could use it to make that there glaive of yours. You won’t find a better material to make the shaft with; it’s as strong as steel and weighs next to nothing.”

I tossed it up and caught it again, he was right the thing was light as a feather. “Thanks a bunch Iron, I’ll make sure to craft a masterpiece with this.” I put it down on the carriage with the rest of my belongings, not that I had much; Just a small bag with some pants and my enchanted sword.

“Ya better, that there was mighty hard to find.”

Melandra came forth next; as soon as she was within range I snatched her up and gave her a bone crushing hug.

“Let me go right now or you will regret it” I held on for a little more before dropping her down to the ground.

“Oh don’t be that way, you know you love it”

She didn’t dignify that with a response. Instead she held forth a small book to me. “It’s the draconicon. I have added all I can to it so now I pass it along to you.” She leaned a little closer and whispered something. “Since you will be the last silver dragon it’s up to you to decide, who you will pass our secrets along to when its time.” She pulled back. “So keep it safe as long as you have it.”

I couldn’t believe it, she gave the entire collection of their history and knowledge… but. “Thanks but wasn’t this book… you know, bigger?” I tossed it from hand to hand; it was currently the size of a normal diary.

She gave me an evil smile before shouting “Book grow”

As soon as those words left her mouth the book increased rapidly in size, I could feel its crushing weight pressing down on my poor body.

“Its normally this big but transporting it when it’s like that is unpractical so its owner can command it to shrink to its carrying state or grow to its normal. A thing to remember though when it’s minimized the knowledge you have access to is highly limited. Book shrink” I picked the book off my chest and sat up.

“Well I’ll try to remember that.” I said while holding the book up and inspecting it. “I can’t believe that you are giving this to me. So I am free to add things to this book as well?”

“Yes you are. It’s also magical so it will never run out of space. Be sure to continue to practice your abilities. They are also written in the book if you want to try something new. The Draconicon is now your responsibility but I also have something else for you” She said as she dropped the large bag that she had been carrying at my feet.

I opened it to find that it was brimming with bits and gemstones. While I had been grateful for the book I could only stutter at the sight of this treasure.

“A dragon has to have a hoard of his own, so I thought that I would help you out by giving you a small portion of mine. Just don’t go overboard.” Well I wouldn’t have any money problems for awhile at least. I closed the bag and hoisted it up over my shoulder.

“Thanks a lot Melandra I will make you proud… or embarrassed. It’s probably going to be the latter.”

She gave me a warm smile. “I’ll miss you young one.”

“And I’ll miss you too dragon lady” and with that I stepped onto the carriage along with the two guards that were accompanying me. The pegasi that was supposed to pull the carriage were fastening their straps by the looks of it.

“You ready to leave buddy?” Razor had come over, to give me another goodbye from the looks of it.

“Yea I’m all set, not that I had much to pack anyway.”

“I can imagine. I’ll try to visit you from time to time. Can’t let you mess things up too badly down there now can I?”

“I’ll hold you to it. Oh before I forget it, let me show you one more thing before I go. You remember when you told me that I should probably get a cloak or something because of my scars.”

“Yea, that would probably scare the villagers a little bit. You probably noticed all the looks that you got whenever you went into Canterlot. So have you gotten one?”

“Nope, I have something better.” I closed my eyes and began to concentrate to perform my transformation magic. When I opened them Razor had a slightly supposed look on his face.

“Y-you removed them.” he went around me to get a look at my back to. “All of them.”

I grinned at him “Sure did, I have gotten a little better with the transformation over the last few days and I managed to do this. It’s barely taxing at all and besides, I couldn’t go and hide my sexy body with a cloak now could I?”

He just laughed and shook his head. “Get going, before I throw you off the mountain”

I turned to the two flyers. “Alright gentlecolts, we are ready to go.” If I hadn’t seen it before I would never have believed that just two pegasi would be able to pull a carriage of this size with three passengers. But they are remarkably strong and with a running start they took us up into the air with ease. I was looking forward to many things, but mainly one: meat. I had gotten seafood while in the castle but that gets old after a while. Luckily Celestia had mentioned that nopony usually traveled into the forest that Ponyville was close to. I hadn’t actually gotten permission to hunt or anything but what they don’t know won’t hurt them.

“So, what’s the plan for when we arrive eh?” I hadn’t really been told much.

“The mayor is supposed to have gathered the townsfolk for a meeting so that they can all meet you at once, to introduce you and try to dispel any possible rumors that you are some sort of horrifying foal eating monster. After that you are free to do as you please. We will both be staying at a house in the town center when we are not patrolling the streets so it shouldn’t be hard to find us.” Twister informed me.

“That would probably be for the best since I am going to be living there.” I eyed Moonlight and the other guard a little “You have anything you want to add? Or are you just going to sit there like a statue.”

“Yea Moon come on, show a little enthusiasm. Didn’t you have some family in Ponyville or something? I would be thrilled if I was so lucky with the place I got transferred to.” this seemed to catch his attention and he looked up and stared out over the edge of the speeding carriage.

“…Yes … yes I do. It’s going to be good to see them again I guess.” Yea he wasn’t that much of a talker.

We flew for at least two hours before we began to close in on the little village on the ground. It was fairly small by the looks of it. But I could see that the meeting had probably already started as I could see a gathering of ponies in front of what looked to be a small stage.

“The plan was to land on the outside near my house so that we wouldn’t make that much of a commotion right?” Moonlight just nodded, unlike Twister who was rather talkative.

“Yea that’s the idea, that way you can load off your stuff before we go too.” I smirked evilly as we were now flying directly over the village.

“I have a different idea.” I stood up and looked down over the edge. *Man Equestria does not believe in hand rails or safety* I thought. The back of the carriage just sort of ended. “Hey Twister… catch up” I said as I let myself drop out over the edge and down towards the group of ponies below while laughing like a maniac.

I turned my head upwards to see that Twister had thrown himself out of the carriage too and was flying towards me; Moonlight on the other hand was just looking over the edge with an amused look. Twister wasn’t particularly fast by the looks of it and would probably not reach me, or rather the ground before me *this is going to be fun.* I thought as I tried to aim for the stage where the pony, which I assumed was the mayor; was standing.

I could feel the feather fall kicking in as I closed in on the stage, what was most surprising was that none of the ponies had noticed me until now. The look on their faces as I landed softly behind the mayor on the other hand was completely priceless.

“And so, the guards along with the new blacksmith from Canterlot should not be too far away. But while we wait for them, do any of you have any questions?” The mayor was asking the ponies in front of her.

The crowd just stood there completely stunned with wide eyes as I leaned forward to spook the mayor. But sadly Twister had finally reached me and decided to tackle me down from the stage before I had a chance to say anything. We landed behind it, completely hidden from the crown as I could hear the commotion start.

“By Celestia’s beard, what were you thinking?” He said while standing over me.

“What do you thi… wait what? What was that about Celestia’s beard, and how have I not heard anything about that before?” If there was some sort of spell mishap or something then I needed to recreate it… and take pictures.

Twister just looked at me with a stunned expression. “That’s not important. But seriously, you could have created total and utter panic back there. Especially since you sort of look like… you know.”

“What, a monster? Some sort of weird dragon mutant?” I snapped right back at him.

“Well… it’s true though. And ponies here are not used to different things, not like we are at the castle at least. Let’s take it nice and easy at least. Now I’m going to go up on stage and introduce you before you step forth. Alright?” I didn’t like to admit it but he had a point, scaring them senseless wouldn’t exactly have worked in my favor since I have to live here from now on. *Still, the look on their faces.* It’s hard to regret something when you were enjoying it that much.

I went over to the corner behind the stage and listened in on the last on what Twister had to say.

“- so we can guarantee you that we will make this town safe. And now as the mayor mentioned earlier, you are going to meet this town’s newest resident. Most of you already saw him when he dropped in and I apologize for that, but I can assure you that there is nothing to be afraid of... Jake, that’s your cue.” A thought struck *should I leave him there hanging? Nah, I’m not that much of an asshole*. So with that I stepped up onto the stage once more, this time even the mayor was paying attention.

“Hello everypony. Sooo this is a little embarrassing. You see I was told backstage that I have ten minutes to speak… unfortunately I only prepared for 6. So if it’s cool with you guys, I would like to just wait for 4….” I just let my arms drop as I stared out over the little crown of ponies like a complete moron.

Twister almost immediately walked over to me and hit me in the shin with his hoof. *Seriously what’s with ponies and hitting my poor shin? It’s done nothing wrong to you guys*

“Ow, son of a bitch… fine. Hello, my name, as I am sure that you already heard Twister here say, is Jake.” I really did not have anything more to say, so why not just let the audience speak. “Do any of you have any questions?”

*Dam that’s a lot of hooves* I thought as I saw most of the ponies in front of me raise one of their front legs. “Yes you” I pointed at a pony that looked like she was about to have a heart attack.

“W-w-what are you?” I am honestly surprised that she managed to utter a single word with how much she is shaking.

“I’m a dragon… sort of. Next question.” I pointed at a random stallion.

“Is it t-true that you are the new blacksmith?” along with this and the first question a lot of hooves had disappeared from the crowd. *I guess a lot of them were planning to ask the same thing*.

“Yes that is true. I am sure all of you know where the smithy is located” because I do not. “So if you need anything, don’t hesitate to stop by.”

The questioning lasted for a little while, and I was asked a lot of different things but the mayor decided that it had been going on for long enough and cut in.

“Everypony, I am sure that you still have questions for Jake here but it’s time for this meeting to come to an end so you will have to ask him those questions on his own time. So move along ponies, meetings over.” With that the ponies started walking away to them and theirs. “Now Mr. Jake, I can finally introduce myself. I am Blooming Orchid, the mayor of this sweet little town. It may be small now but we are steadily growing”. She was very colorful, both in personality by what I could tell and in her actual colors. She had an almost shiny green coat with her mane in a slightly lighter color of green with some lines of red running through it.

“Do you mind showing me the way to the smithy, since I am new in this town and all” I asked her, Twister had already taken his leave apparently. I didn’t see him around anyway.

“Oh, not at all. Come along, and if you have any questions about the town don’t hesitate to ask”

The town certainly had some charm to it. It had a couple of shops set up with some houses gathered around, even a train track running through it. There wasn’t really a station of any kind though, just a wooden platform for passengers to get on and off. It sort of reminded me of those Amish settlements I used to see on those weird reality shows back home. I even spotted a road that led up a hill to what I assumed some sort of farm by what I could spot in the distance. This small town still had a little bit of everything. *Yea, I think I will enjoy it here… and maybe liven things up a bit to.* I thought as we walked out of the town and towards my new home.