Mechanical Might

My name’s Martin Greeves, I’m white, about six foot two, and in a position I never thought I’d be in. I’m on another world, and working for royalty. I love my job. It used to be a hobby back home, but now I can make a living off of it. And I’m doing it for princesses, too! And my friends said it’d never be a useful skill.

I make and repair Guard Armor for their Majesties, the Princesses Luna and Celestia. I also make their weapons, because apparently I'm better than most unicorn blacksmiths. Their magic messes with the enchantments that need to be put on each individual piece. Because of this, the previous smiths had to over-temper the armor, making it far too brittle. A disputed fact that I proved when I took a chest plate off one of the guards and smashed it on the floor.

After that, I made Luna a beautiful tempered-steel helmet, and had it enchanted to let her hair through. She tried to make me the Royal Armorer, but Celestia disagreed, saying that the guard's armor needed more work than an incomplet set for themselves. I like Celestia as a friend, but holy crap!

It's like they never mixed metals before. All I see on the guards is iron. Iron armor, iron spears, iron swords. And they wonder why I laugh at them, although I really shouldn't, seeing as I'm technically one of them.

That's right, I'm a guard. I don't belong to Luna's Night Guard, or Celestia's Solar Guard. I really didn't want to belong to either of them, until they told me I could only get paid for my work if I was an honorary guard. So I made them a deal.

You're looking at the only member of the Twilight Guardians (yes I know she has a student named Twilight). They decided to make a special guard division for me, and one of the rules for the new division is that we (I) can only be commanded by both of the princesses, meaning if Luna asked me to finish her armor, I could say no and not get in trouble. But, if Celestia was with her and they both wanted armor, I’d be forced to do it.

The bad news about being a Twilight Guardian is that I need my own armor set. The other guard’s enchantments make them look alike, but since I’m all alone, I’ve been given free reign, so I guess that’s good. But I only have a vague idea what I’m doing.  Do you know how hard it is for a blacksmith hobbyist to start making an entire armor set? And I’m making this to be a royal guard, so it has to be perfect the first try! No pressure or anything.

But that’s not the least of my problems. No, this armor set’s going to be made of titanium. I don’t even have to manufacture it either, they have titanium ore here, and they don’t even use it! Their reason is that only dragon fire can melt it, and I've already made the armor for a right arm, from the gauntlet to the pauldron. It's sitting on the mantle over my forge, 'cause I have nowhere else to put it. Apparently, doing the scientifically impossible makes you famous enough to have everything within two hundred miles want to apprentice their kid to you.

I’ve gotten about five new apprentices a week since I started working in the castle, and each one brings their own skills. I had a brown colt a few weeks ago who thought his talent was metal working. A young noble woman came to my forge asking me if I could fix her broken necklace, and since that’s not what I do, I turned her away. He thought I was being extremely rude, so he went to go see if he could fix it.

Last I heard, he was starting his own jewelry business, and the wedding’s in about a month. Go figure.

Anyway, it’s about time for a new apprentice, seeing as I kicked the last one out yesterday, so I’m just waiting for-

"Greetings, Sir Martin. We hope we are not interrupting thee."

And there she is. I don't know why, but Luna's always the one that delivers my new 'apprentices.' Maybe Celestia doesn't want to see their hurt faces when I say what I inevitably will.

"Hi Luna. Let's see, this is apprentice number thirty-seven, isn't it?" I don't even look over my shoulder at her as I continue re-shaping a helmet.

"Number thirty-nine, actually. She was sent from the Drakenridge Mountains." I can hear the unspoken plea in her tone, so I shove the mostly-shaped helm back into the fire and turn around. I can honestly say I'm suprised now.

There's a teenage dragonness standing in my smithy's doorway.

She's mostly black with a few purple scales dotting her hide, and the reddest eyes I've ever seen. And I looked in the mirror after drinking an entire bottle of vodka once.

Not my best day, but anyway.

She huffed when I saw her eyes, a small puff of dirty grey smoke rolling through the air. "And what are you lookin' at?" She sounded like someone miss-tuned a harp and jammed it down her throat. Probably sound better when she's older, if I can base her off human women.

Glaring at her, I turn around to grab the white-hot helmet with a pair of tongues, returning to hammering at it. "Name," I grunt out between blows.

She snorts again, and I can practically feel how annoyed she is. "Darkridge." Well, could have guessed the Dark part.

"Well, you two are getting along amiably. We will take our leave of thee. May thee both have a pleasant day." Luna sounds more annoyed than anything else as I hear her teleport, leaving me with the draggonness.

I sigh as I take the time to finish the helmet's shape before sticking it back in the fire. "Alright Ms. Darkridge, I have two rules in my forge. One; do what I say when I say it. Two; never, and I mean never, touch that." I point at the completed section of my armor, resting on it's little stand over the raging fire. "If you follow those rules, there won't be any problems. When our day off comes around, you can do whatever the hell you want, but while you live here you follow my rules. Got it?"

It's always best to get my rules out of the way fast so they're not questioned later. The first is fairly obvious, because even a dragon can get hurt in here if they don't know what they're doing. The second is more personal.

I put my sweat and blood in that unfinished armor, and I don't want anyone to mess it up. Each piece has a little bit of me in it, to bind the armor to me. I found it in an enchantment book I found in the Royal Archives. There's a bunch of other enchantments on that armor, but the one that holds it all together is the binding spell.

"Sure, whatever." Darkridge walks over to one of my workbenches and reaches for the shelf above, reading the titles.