//------------------------------// // Alternative memorys: 01 // Story: Ten Years Of Memories // by Flare Blacksmith //------------------------------// What rotten luck. Not only had almost every single lead been a bust, but we were low on supplies and our equipment was falling apart. Heck, coming across this town was the first stroke of good luck we'd had in a month. "Look on the bright side,” Whitetail chimed in with his usual optimism. “We've got at least ONE solid lead." "Unfortunately with neither supplies nor functioning equipment that does us little good." Leave it to Alcaeus to be a voice of reason. That just left me to be the one who had to come up with an answer to our problem. Because unless we found some new equipment cheap we wouldn't be able to afford food and I was not going to risk going into mountain territory without a healthy amount of supplies. Usually, this wouldn't have been too much of a problem, but our recent lousy luck put a severe strain on our funding. It wouldn't be the first time we'd had to take part-time jobs to make ends meet, but we were so close to a payoff it was frustrating not being able to reach out and take it. Usually, the first order of business was to carefully take a look at our options for supplies and where to stay the night, but with the money being as it was our options were pretty limited. As we moved through the crowds of overblown mountains of hair, we were able to find the market easily enough. The prices for food were actually pretty decent and more than a few seemed willing to haggle, always a plus. I just needed to make sure that Whitetail didn't try to spend all our money on sweets. I swear that boys sweet tooth will get him into real trouble one of these days. Alcaeus, on the other hand, seemed to be drawn to something else. It was a weapons stall owned by some old guy sitting beside it while smoking a large pipe. Now I'm not a weapons expert, but even I could tell that these were pretty well-made, probably as expensive as they looked to boot. Alcaeus lifted a battle ax and took a good look at it. “This craftsmanship is exquisite. I've never seen anything quite like it.” "Ya like it? Locally made. You’d be hard-pressed to find a better blacksmith in these parts." the guy's voice was so deep I could feel the ground vibrate underneath me. When he stood up, he was taller than even Alcaeus by a couple of heads and considering that Alcaeus wasn't exactly a small fly among his own people, that was saying something. "It's nice and everything, But we need to get our broken equipment replaced so I doubt we can afford it, my apologies." Alcaeus said as he put the axe back. The man scratched his chin and asked to look at some of the equipment we needed repaired. Alcaeus showed him a bag of what used to be our equipment and the sasquatch hummed to himself for a moment. "Now, if it's repairs you want, then It's the blacksmith herself you need. When it comes to repairing something she always offers a fair price. If anything she undercharges for her steel, not that I usually complain about such things." He said ending with a chuckle. Now THAT caught my attention, call me a greedy griffin if you want, but I'm always on the hunt for a good bargain. After paying for a new battle ax, one of the cheaper ones, and asking for directions, me and Alcaeus pulled Whitetail away from a young lady selling pies and headed out to look for the blacksmith. It only took us about an hour to find the place, after asking for directions multiple times, that vendors directions were not exactly the clearest. But of course, it was just our luck that the blacksmith was out to dinner when we finally got there. It was a relatively modest little house with a few obviously new additions added on. One must have been the workshop judging by the large chimney poking out of it, and the other a sales stall judging by the sign hanging by the door. When Alcaeus, me and Whitetail walked into the shop, however, we couldn't help but to stop and stare at what we saw. The entire place was nicely organized, there were sculptures and items of all kinds made from all sorts of materials. Whenever we stopped to ask for directions, we had only heard good things about this blacksmith, and the reputation was well earned from what I was seeing. Apparently, she just came out of nowhere one day and set up shop, some down on her luck kid with nowhere to go. Glass sculptures of varying colors, metal shaped into almost any type of tool you could imagine, stained glass windows, even carvings of stone. I'd never seen so much variety made and have it all displayed so well by one person. I went over to one shelf in particular, and saw something of interest. These were obviously earlier works, but as you took a look at each one, you could actually see a progression in skill. Stuff that was fairly decent for a beginner slowly became more and more finely detailed. Now I'm not going to say that they were the most excellent stuff I've ever seen, but they were definitely above average. The way they were made reminded me of clay pottery, like each piece was created by delicate hands. Everything I heard and saw up to this point was definitely giving me a strange feeling in my gut. It was the same feeling I had when I met my other two companions. But, I'd rather wait until I actually met this lady before making any judgments. Can't always judge a person by what they make, or vice versa. I learned THAT one the hard way. But like I said the big sign saying out to lunch meant we would have a while before getting to meet this lady. Whitetail mentioned he was hungry and I had to admit I felt like getting a bite myself. Alcaeus said he was willing to wait for the blacksmith to show up if we wanted to grab something to eat, but I didn't like the idea of leaving him hungry. Fortunately, a woodcutter came by to drop off some lumber, and we got to talking. Not only did he recommend a place to eat, but apparently that's the favorite place of the blacksmith. Two of my cousins with one stone. No, that wasn't a bird pun, I just don't like most of my relatives. Once we were in the general vicinity, our noses guided the rest of the way. It might’ve been because we'd been eating rations for a week, but the food smelled heavenly. The inside was pretty clean, and the people seemed reasonably civilized. Unfortunately, I had forgotten one, small, detail... I never asked for a description of what the blacksmith looked like! I couldn't believe I made such a newbie mistake! The other two probably wouldn't ever let me live it down, if it wasn't for the little detail that they made the same mistake. We sat down at the bar and ordered some food and drink. When I ordered some fish from the menu (to my surprise it was on there), and Alcaeus ordered some potato soup the barkeep muttered something about those must've been the favorites of foreigners. I guess whenever outsiders came to visit that's what they always order, go figure. While Alcaeus and I chugged back our tankards of cider, we failed to notice that Whitetail had ordered a couple slices of pie and accidentally ate somebody else's piece. I have no idea how he did that, but he did. And of course, that piece belonged to the biggest, toughest guy in the room. If I thought the weapons seller was massive, this guy was a mountain, and it was a mountain of muscle. "Hey, you take Darwin's pie!" When he stood up, he towered over all three of us. Whitetail tried to talk himself out of this situation “Hey, whoa, easy there big guy, No reason to get upset it was just an accident, I mean, it's not like you couldn't stand to lose some pounds anyway, you’re big enough as it is.” Both me and Alcaeus facepalmed the second it left his mouth. I had to immediately step in. "Okay, calm down big fella. No need to get angry. How about we just pay for a new slice?" Unfortunately, that was the last slice, and Whitetail's comment apparently upset his appetite. "Little pony make fun of Darwin, Darwin no like that. Darwin teach little pony lesson." I suddenly had a flashback to that one time I encountered a yak and if this situation was anything like that one… When he pulled his fist back all three of us got into battle ready positions, it wasn't the first fight we've had in a bar and we weren't going to let it be our last. But when his fist started coming down on us, somebody else caught it with one hand. It was a dragon, a small one, but a dragon nonetheless, female at that. Never seen one up close, always try to avoid one whenever possible. A smart explorer would tell you don't go around poking a sleeping dragon, or provoking one that's awake for that matter. She was covered in some strange looking clothing very similar to what everybody else was wearing in the village. Must've done it to blend in, not that it helped. "Come on, Darwin we've talked about this. Why don't we just sit down and calm down?" The dragoness attempted to diffuse the situation by speaking to the big guy in a calming manner. Too bad he wasn't in a listening mood. "No! Pony make fun of Darwin. Darwin no like, Darwin smash!" The Dragon attempted again to calm Darwin down, but it had the same results. Next thing we knew he was throwing punches in the dragon's direction and to our surprise, she easily dodged each and every one like they were moving in slow motion. On closer examination, the guy wasn't exactly speedy, but she was moving like she expected every single one of his attacks. I had a strange feeling that this has happened before. "Now, Darwin you know you can't beat me in a fight just calm down and-" when he picked up a table and threw it in her direction her attitude changed in an instant. The next time he threw a punch she not only caught it but used his momentum to toss him over her shoulder. "I said, CALM DOWN!" When he hit the ground, I swear the whole building jumped. I was expecting the fight to continue, but she knelt down next to him and asked him what was wrong. "Pony make fun of Darwin, said Darwin fat, Darwin tried to lose weight, Darwin been working out." I was half expecting him to start crying judging by the tone of his voice. "And the reason why he said that is because it's been working out so well for you! Look at your muscles, they're so big! And you're pretty tall, to begin with. We've talked about this. Whenever you think somebody is making fun of you, you shouldn't always respond with violence, okay?" The way she spoke was almost like she was talking to a kid in a non-patronizing way. She helped the big guy up and walked him over to us "Now what do we say?" "Sorry, Darwin has self-image issues." She nodded to him approvingly with a gentle smile before turning to Whitetail "and you?" She said, her smile disappearing in an authoritative tone. She was making it clear that this was not a question. Whitetail began to panic a little now that both a dragon and Darwin were looking straight at him "I, yeah, I didn't mean you’re big, I mean, you're huge, no wait, not huge, as in fat, huge, as in muscle! that's it, didn't mean it like, sorry." If it were any other circumstance, I would've found the idea of Whitetail being tongue-tied hilarious. The only other time you'd see him like this was in the presence of a pretty face. After sitting Darwin down and paying the owner of the establishment for the table he broke, she sat down with us. "Look, I'm sorry about Darwin. He's a sweet guy, but has a tendency to overreact when he thinks people are making fun of him." I sat down next to her, Alcaeus by my side and Whitetail occasionally shifting glances back at Darwin; hopefully, this would teach him a lesson about watching what he eats... Doubt it though. "Yeah, no problem. It was Whitetail's fault anyway." I said as both Alcaeus and I gave the aforementioned unicorn a sideways glare, but unfortunately, he was too busy paying attention to Darwin to notice us. Turning back to the dragon I figured some friendly introductions were in order "The names Grizelda, the big guy next to me is Alcaeus, and you already know mister puts all four hooves in mouth." The Dragon smiled and shook my talon "The names Flare, local Blacksmith." That got our attention, including Whitetail who had decided to open his mouth again "Blacksmith? But you're a Dragon." I was about ready to tell him to shut up before he started another fight, but Flare just looked at him in confusion. "Yeah, I'm a Dragon, and?" "But don't dragons usually care more about stealing stuff then making stuff?" I swear he's not usually this stupid, honestly. Yes, his mouth does have a tendency to get him into trouble, but not to this extent. Fortunately, Alcaeus decided to cut in before his recent case of complete stupidity got him killed... Most likely by me. "What he means is that we have never heard of a dragon artisan before and one of great skill no less. We've seen your workshop, and I must say you are quite talented." The dragoness seemed to swell with pride and became slightly bashful. She started talking about how she had worked on clay a long time ago, but only recently started working with glass and metal. She said that her skill was nowhere near an expert's level to which Alcaeus agreed but said that she had quite a bit of promise. Had to admit, The old man definitely had a way with words. As we started talking, we told her about how we were adventurers and explorers and some of our most successful excursions, as few as they were. She seemed quite interested in where we've been, she seemed particularly interested in Whitetail's homeland of Equestria and how we wanted to explore areas beyond it. At one point she got unusually quiet before asking us to look at something in the golden forest in exchange for a massive discount. Needless to say, I had developed a liking to the salamander. -+~<*>~+- The forest was beyond beautiful, it was as if it was made out of solid gold, like I had died and gone to Griffin heaven. We finally came to the cave she was talking about, but we found that it had been covered by a cave-in at some point. I could tell just by looking that the slightest attempt to dig out the cave would more than likely cause a second avalanche. Flare did not take it well, she looked utterly crushed, like this was the worst possible thing that could happen. She actually started crying and muttered something about it being her only clue. Couldn't help but feel sorry for the girl, whatever that cave was, it was something important to her. As we walked back to her workshop whenever one of us tried to say something she barely responded. When we finally got to her workshop, she just sat at a table with her face in her hands. On the way, we had talked amongst ourselves trying to feel out what was going on. Got to admit, this had us stumped. We knew the cave was important, but we didn't know why. Alcaeus was about to try to console her when all of a sudden she pulled her face out of her hands, looking at us with anticipation. “You said you heard stories of something similar to the pond correct?” We had? Looking back at it, all three of us had said something like that... Strange. I know for a fact it wasn't something all three of us came across in our travels but apparently it was something all three of us had heard about at some point. That feeling in my gut was back, it was telling me that this was no coincidence. When she asked about our future plans, I could practically see that something was going on inside that head of hers. She asked us for our broken equipment, and we finally got to see her talents firsthand. Any piece of metal that was damaged she blasted with her fire breath before actually molding it with her HANDS. She explained about dragons heat resistance and how for a short amount of time she could do things like this. In a matter of moments, she had managed to fix almost every piece of metal. The ones she didn't required more time, and she would need assistance for the nonmetal pieces. When we asked how long, she said she could get it done in a day if she was lucky but asked us to come back in an hour, so we decided to leave her to it. We agreed and decided to explore the rest of the town. Whitetail volunteered fetching supplies while Alcaeus said he would gather information. I had something else in mind, something about this Dragon was itching in the back of my mind, and my gut was definitely doing a lot of talking. My gut instinct was to ask her to come along, and I had the slightest suspicion that she was interested. But first I decided to ask around town about her. What I was able to find did not disappoint. Reasonably intelligent, curious, a little odd, tries to avoid conflict but is capable of holding her own in a fight. All around nice and friendly, if awkward at times. I couldn't explain it, but my gut was telling me to recruit her. I always had a good instinct for this kind of thing, don't know why, but I did. About an hour later we met up in front of her workshop, and it turns out Alcaeus had practically read my mind and had asked about the golden forest. To my surprise the locals mentioned an ancient legend concerning a connection to the Everfree forest in Equestria. My nose for treasure was itching, and I knew my luck had finally changed. There was more to this lady than being a simple blacksmith, and I wanted to find out exactly what that was. When we went inside, Flare looked like she wanted to say something. She stumbled with her words, but I was able to get a good ideal of what she wanted to ask, and it looked like I was right on the money. "Hey kid, wanna come with us?" I'll never forget the look on her face. To my surprise, however, she asked if she could sleep on it to make sure she was 100% committed. I guess she wanted to ask if coming with us was even an option before making any decisions, made sense If you ask me. We asked how long until our equipment was ready and she said it would be done by noon tomorrow. That night at a hotel, I couldn't help but lay in bed awake thinking about the newest possible recruit. All my instincts kept telling me we needed to bring her with us and it was easy to see why. I knew the girl was talented and she could save us a bundle on repair costs. But there was something else, I think what sealed the deal was the way she reacted to the cave. She was looking for something, and she knew she had to go out and find it. It was the same for all of us to some extent, we all wanted to find something, something we needed and I didn't want to abandon the girl to find it on her own. When I talked to Alcaeus and Whitetail they had similar opinions, Alcaeus said some of her sculptures spoke of an individual lost and looking for a path. Whitetail said she seemed a friendly and capable enough judging by the way she handled Darwin. We had all come to a similar conclusion, and to be honest something about that seemed odd to me. Not because we agreed, but because all three of us had the exact same gut feeling. There was something more going on, and my nose for treasure was itching like crazy. There was something special about this dragon, and I was going to find out what it was. At noon the next day, the moment we saw her walk up to us with more luggage than just our equipment ,I knew we had a new companion. As she waved goodbye to her friends in the village, I couldn't help but feel like this was a new beginning for us. If I had known back then who we actually had recruited, it would've blown my mind. But I don't think I would've changed a thing. Well, maybe one thing...