No Good Deed
Her hooves crunched against the snow-dusted ground while dark, stormy clouds gathered above. She pulled her hood down as the town came into view. A sign in the distance read Lynville.
She quickened her pace. This is it. This is the place.
She trotted along the well worn road into town, her eyes scanning the surrounding buildings, searching for clues for where to go. Ponies glanced at her curiously, but made no move to bother her. All the buildings looked similar, made from stacked logs and wooden shingles, with only a few having signs denoting shops and the like. She hadn’t thought to ask where he lived.
As she rounded a bend in the road, a larger log cabin came into view. A red plus adorned its front, right above the entrance. There, she thought. The building stood out from the rest, with glass double doors and tall windows. A comforting orange glow emanated from within.
The door swung shut behind her, a whoosh of warm air replacing the crisp bite of the outside. A large stone fireplace dominated the side wall, its flames crackling pleasantly. The worn faux-leather couches flanking it sat empty, save for the lone mare stationed at the front desk, casting a curious glance her way. She approached.
“Hello, I’m looking for Dr. Anon. Is he in right now?” She hoped that she wouldn’t have to make an appointment, but if so, she could wait. There were enough bits in her saddle for a few nights at a tavern.
The mare blinked owlishly at her. “Dr. Anon? Uhm, I don’t think we have a… Oh.” She sighed. “Anon isn’t a doctor here. We would love to hire him, but he’s turned down all our offers. Was there something else you needed help with?”
What? She pursed her lips in confusion. He’s not a doctor? But…
“Do you know where he lives?” she instead asked. “I was… hoping to talk to him.” If what the family said was true, then he was her best chance. She had to find him.
The mare’s expression flattened, her polite smile vanishing. “Ma’am, Anon doesn’t wish to be disturbed. It’s not my place to tell you where he lives. If you need help with something, I’m sure our staff can–”
Tempest interrupted her by pulling down her hood.
No they can’t, she nearly screamed, broken horn on display.
The mare’s mouth fell open. And then her brows knit together, forming a conflicted expression laced with… pity. Tempest bit her tongue. If the mare wouldn't offer the address, then she would just have to search house by house. The town wasn't small, but it wasn't big either. She could get it done in a day or two.
The mare suddenly slumped in her seat, sighing in resignation. She raised her hoof and pointed at the entrance. “His house is on the edge of town. Head up the road until you reach a hill… can’t miss it.”
Tempest left without a word, a bitter taste in her mouth. It was always pity that got to her the most. Fear she could understand—it was what she had grown used to working for the Storm King, but pity? It… brought unpleasant memories.
Outside, the roiling grey clouds had grown, a veil of rain beginning to fall. Ponies hastily ran past her, eager to escape the light showering. She raised her hood. The rain pitter-pattered softly against it, while her breath frosted in front of her as she walked, the cold biting deeper everywhere the water touched.
The plodding of her hooves echoed in her ears as she followed the path the mare had indicated. Just as she had said, there in the distance, she could just about make out a modest log cabin sitting alone atop the hill. It was far, with an arch of pine trees framing the dirt road leading up to it. The windows glowed with light.
Tempest paused as she looked at it. Why am I doing this? After all this time, why was she still searching? Hadn’t she accepted herself? Hadn’t she accepted that nothing could give her back what she'd lost?
All she was doing was re-opening the wound. Allowing it to hurt again. Nothing good would come of this. Nothing. Depending on others had only brought her pain and disappointment. This would be no different.
So why? Why was she allowing herself to hope again?
Her breath quickened. Against her will, her legs began to move, taking her towards the cabin.
It isn’t going to work.
Her legs shook, picking up speed beneath her.
Nothing ever does.
A memory surfaced, unbidden and unwanted. It was of her, when she was just a filly, staring up at the somber faces of doctors. She remembered their voices. Their words. Their empty platitudes.
“...nothing can be done…”
It was always the same.
“...nothing can be done…”
No matter where she went.
Ragged, icy breaths tore at her chest. Soon, she was galloping towards it, but she was still so far away. The storm growled above.
“...nothing can be done…”
“You didn’t even try!” she shouted, voice cracking. The pouring torrent swallowed the sound. Her blurring vision had nothing to do with the rain.
When finally she stood before the large wooden door, she felt like no mare at all. It was as if she were just a filly again, sitting in front of yet another hospital, waiting to be told that nothing could be done.
Tempest squeezed her eyes shut and took a shuddering breath. Raising her head to the sky, she let it wash away her tears, her hood falling around her neck in the process. She would not meet him as some pathetic foal. She refused. Her pride would not allow it.
Once her breathing had calmed, she slowly raised her hoof and knocked.
In the basement of his home, Anon worked. Mechanical tools, books, and scrapped parts littered the tables around him. Countless prosthetic limbs hung from the walls; some resembling human arms and legs, while others were of pony and griffon appendages. In front of him laid an arm, his latest attempt at granting himself sensation. The top panel was opened, revealing the threads of magical fiber acting as tendons, and the central shaft of metal engraved with the new rune sequence.
Runes were… frustrating. Interesting as well, but mostly frustrating. All magic seemed to follow loose rules that he could not for the life of him determine with any level of certainty. Runes were no different, but they were at least better. In many ways, it was like programming in his home world, with each symbol representing an instruction—a method—where you gave it the variables it needed and it would perform the desired action in a sequential fashion. But in many other ways, it was more like… like writing a book, or a passage, where each sentence was a function—a grouping of instructions designed to fulfill a specific task—and you were simply telling the story of how it happened. It felt so easy sometimes.
But issues arose when the words you needed simply did not exist. There was no ‘feel’ rune, no ‘touch’ rune, no ‘nerve’ rune. There was not even a ‘brain’ rune; the closest thing to it being the ‘mind’ rune, but that one only served to take inputs from the mind and transmit them to other runes, not the other way around. It was like trying to write a scientific paper with the vocabulary of a child.
Anon brought his prosthetic hand closer and mentally activated the laser within the pointer finger. He had a number of alternative prosthetic hands, each designed for specific tasks relating to his work, but this one was his ‘Enchanting Hand’. He snorted.
Truly, a fountain of creativity, Anon.
Focusing, he carefully guided the digit in a series of nearly imperceptible movements, drawing the final series of runes. One of the exceptions to the ‘passage’ analogy was that you could still reference variables, or ‘characters’ as some of the textbooks referred to them as, in disconnected sentences elsewhere on the object. You could even have them entirely isolated. In this case, he had five ‘contact’ runes engraved on the ends of each finger, connecting to a ‘link’ rune and a ‘self’ rune located on the central rod. Theoretically, it should allow for a muted sense of touch, if nothing else.
Finished, he mentally shut off the beam. Unstrapping the enchantment prosthesis, he set it on the side table and reached for the new one. Not bothering to put the panel back on, he balanced the limb on his knee and awkwardly strapped it to his shoulder.
Moment of truth, he thought.
He sent the mental command for it to angle itself towards the table. Palm an inch above the wooden surface, he ordered all five digits to lower themselves. The tips tapped lightly against the wood.
…
Nothing.
Anon let out a long, suffering sigh. He leaned his head back in his chair and closed his eyes, listening to the storm outside. Both arms hung limply beside him.
Another failure.
Why was he even surprised at this point? It never worked.
It never will.
Anon grit his teeth. No... I have to keep trying. I have to. Sitting up straight, he reached for his copy of Thaumaturgic Enchantment Vol 2. Perhaps he had misinterpreted the ‘self’ rune, or maybe there was anoth–
knock knock
Anon stilled.
Tilting his head up towards the ceiling of his basement, he frowned. Someone was at his door. Who would possibly walk all the way out to his house in this weather?
…
An uneasy feeling settled in his gut. Anon stood from his chair with a creak of wood and made his way up the stairs. Entering his living room, he walked to his front door and carefully brought his eye to the peephole. It was hard to make out much through the rain and darkness, but he could see… what looked like a pony, with a drenched mane, a purple coat, and–
Anon clenched his jaw. A broken horn.
Knock Knock!
The mare beat her hoof against his door once more. He briefly entertained the idea that she wasn’t here for what he thought she was, but her expression… And so soon after he had made the filly her leg?
“Doctor Anon? I-I wish to speak with you!” the mare shouted over the cacophony of rain.
Anon knew what she wanted from him. He knew that tone of voice. That quiet desperation. He had heard it before.
He didn’t know what to do.
Anon had only accepted the noble family’s request because he knew his work was still better than pony-made prosthetics. That the daughter would at least have the best possible replacement she could, even if it wasn't perfect. But he had nothing for a horn. Absolutely nothing. He didn’t even know where to begin. If he couldn't manage an arm or a leg, how would he ever manage a horn?
I can't...
“...Hello? Anyone?” Her voice wavered. It was barely audible over the storm.
Something in his chest ached. His hand slowly raked down his face, trying in vain to distract himself from the guilt eating at him. It didn’t work.
He didn’t have the heart to refuse her—he just couldn’t. Either way, she would realize he couldn’t help her, even if he said no right now. No good deed goes unpunished, and the crushing weight of her despair was to be his. If he were a braver man, he would’ve opened the door and told her in no uncertain terms that he couldn’t fix her, just to get it over with.
But Anon was not a brave man. And so, he would choose to delay the inevitable. Allow her to believe that he was her savior, until she inevitably realized he was nothing but a liar that couldn’t even save himself.
Knock Knock!
The mare banged against his door, more insistent. More desperate. “Please! I… I’ve heard of what you do! You’re the only one that can–!”
He opened the door before she could finish that damnable sentence. The cloaked, dark purple unicorn took a step back in surprise, staring up at him with wide, green-blue eyes. They shone against the light from inside his cabin, reflecting his own silhouette back at him.
She hadn’t expected his appearance. He wondered what she had been told.
The mare’s expression hardened, stepping closer, preparing to speak. He raised his hand to interrupt her. The real one.
“Let’s talk inside.”
The rain was bad enough, and he wasn't about to have this conversation in it. Without waiting for a response, Anon turned around and walked back into his living room, making his way past it and into the kitchen to start some tea. The mare was soaked and probably freezing. This far north, the weather was much colder, and there was only so much pegasi could do. He heard her trotting inside behind him.
“Thank you…” she murmured.
Anon could feel her eyes crawling across his broken body.
The mare’s name turned out to be Tempest. Her horn had been broken over a decade ago when she was just a filly, and she’d been searching for a way to restore it since. She’d heard about him from Canterlot—the prosthetic foreleg he had made for that noble family’s daughter had apparently been featured in the newspaper—and from there she had looked deeper into it and asked the family directly where they had gotten it. They pointed her in his direction.
Anon rubbed at his head. Because of course they did.
Tempest remained silent on his couch, awkwardly looking around the living room, trying and failing to hide her glances at his arm and leg. The tea in her hooves was probably cold by now.
She spoke, “So… can you do it? Can you fix my horn?” The hope in her voice was agonizing.
It was such a simple question. The answer swirled in his mind, his tongue only needing to speak it.
“I don’t know,” he decided. It was true even, but only technically. A veneer of truth, wrapped in comforting lies. His specialty.
And yet, the unicorn across from him leaned forward with wide, hopeful eyes, grasping at his answer as if he had said yes. “It’s possible then? You think you can do it?! I-I don’t have much in the way of bits, but-but I can work. I’ll do whatever you wish, please just—”
“Stop,” he said, holding up his hand once more. He needed to word this carefully. “I did not say yes. I’ve never tried fixing a unicorn horn, and I don’t even know where to start. Ponies would have more experience than me on that front, and given how much they love their magic, I imagine it would be a bit higher in priority than other things.”
Anon sighed. “What you’re asking me to do is to find a solution to a problem that has existed for longer than I have. That has been examined by some of the greatest minds pony-kind has to offer—including an immortal sun goddess—and find an answer that they couldn’t. I appreciate your confidence in my abilities, but…” he trailed off.
Anon could see her eyes glistening with every word; the subtle tremble of her lip marking the first crack in her carefully crafted mask. An old, old mask. A few more and the dam would break. He wasn't sure he could survive that.
“...But I will try,” his traitorous tongue said.
Anon watched as the cracks froze, then glued themselves back together using his own damn words. The scarred mare leapt at him. Dark purple hooves wrapped tightly around his chest in a hug that he didn't deserve.
Stop, he thought.
The mare sobbed into his chest, a broken sound from a broken soul. It reminded him of himself.
Please stop, he begged.
But Anon said nothing. His arms raised of their own accord and slowly wrapped around her, stroking gently through her mane. His false hand burned.
He would try.
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11889132
As you wish.
Ooh I like this, I don't see too many people touching on tempest or her pain.
I love this! Tempest is so underused. I also love the prosthetic story angle you have going on
We're so back. I love the emotions in these chapters, keep up the great writing man.
Now the only question, will you do a proper sequel? Show the trials and tribulations of him trying to figure out how to make a prosthetic unicorn horn? Tempest probably still knows something of magic, maybe she could help him. Hrmm....
The madlad is back.
So, how to fix a horn?
Unlike antlers, which are temporary structures (grown and shed on a regular basis), horns like to stick around. Similar to antlers, though, they have a highly vascular core. After all, them's be bones on the inside. Horns can be thought of as bones with a hardened, keratinized shell. If the unicorn's break occurred within the bony interior, severing the marrow, then things are looking bad. I assume, since it is Tempest, that the injury happened more than a few days ago and she does not have the other end.
As the fast blue mouse says, "that's no good."
Not to mention whatever fictional anatomy our author has cooking in their head. Buuuuut, if the break is only on the outer shell, then maybe our poor unicorn has some hope.
I'm interested to see what Owl has thought up to get around this problem... or maybe Anon doesn't solve it? That would be delightfully tragic >:)
i.redd.it/omal4ia8prw41.jpg
I wasn't expecting an update but you managed to do it in the best way possible.
11889239
Most likely. Or at least I want to.
Another awesome, well-written chapter. This story deserves its spot in the Featured box.
My only little nitpick is "pegasuses." I just googled it, and while a few sites say that's okay, most say that it should be "pegasi." As long as you don't capitalize it, either one is fine by me.
11889298
Pegasi sounds better, so I'll go ahead and change it. Thanks for the feedback, and glad to hear you enjoyed the chap!
A promise to try is infinitely move valuable to the one needing aid than telling them it can't be done. Some of the best innovations in the world came from someone refusing that answer. Hopefully Anon can come up with something, even if it is just a more accurate pointer for her wild magic.
11889305
This is what got me through my own dark days. As someone who genuinely has been through what Tempest is going through, I understand her emotions at the end. A person trying means they care enough about you, the one who is asking to think about it. That can be the hope that keeps someone alive.
Fantastic.
This could shape up to be a interesting story, or it could end right there keeping an open ending.
O U C H
U
C
H
Perfectly written, as before. Fantastic job, word-smith. Keep going.
I really want to see where this goes. :)
But if it ends here I won't complain.
Love this line! So caught up in the moment that he didn't even realize the sensation. Wonderful stuff, can't wait to see more from you.
11889697
Ngl, was starting to wonder if anyone picked up on that.
Or why it didn't work at first.
I wonder if Anon will get what he wants by the end, but not the way he anticipates. His limbs back.
He will help others to the best of his ability and equestrian magic will decide "Aight, you cool fam", and miraculously fix him because he put other peoples wellbeing before his own.
Though whether he gets fixed or not, I hope he gets closure and peace.
This is so good! I love this!
I wrote the same thing in the comments for the first episode, but I still have to say it again. Masterpiece.
Loving every word of this, yet feeling sad that the tag 'complete' is attached to it.
Still ... this chapter can serve both as a book end, or as the prelude to a whole lot of magitech research done by a non-Equestrian native.
I also find it interesting that he was distracted from the 'burning feeling' that his prosthesis gave as feedback.
Thanks for the update! I'll be now tracking this gem!
11889957
I've chosen to leave the tag as complete since every chapter after the first is a "bonus" chapter in my mind. I am very much willing (and planning to) add more chapters, but my goal is to have each of them end off on that "this could serve as an ending" feeling you mentioned.
I'm looking to continue Tempest's story properly however, so there's a chance the next few chapters (if they get written) will lack that feeling. If that comes to pass, and folks feel that the "complete" marker is misleading, I am willing to change it.
11889933
Your words (and everyone else's) motivate me greatly, thank you <3
I adore this. Magitech research by a human, with his own reasons for pursuing it? Love it.
Empty platitudes, you say? Tempest's backstory is basically a deconstruction of "Focus on what you can do, not on what you can't do." - "Oh, 'what I can do' is violence and destruction? Might as well do that." It would have been hilarious if her breaking point was hearing that one time too many.
11889246
Tempest's raw magic blasts suggest that the horn doesn't generate magical energy, but rather focuses it like a radio antenna. So creating a prosthetic horn would likely be a matter of finding a material which conducts magical energy in a manner similar to horn, which would probably involve a high degree of trial and error.
11889305
11889342
That and you have Tempest's remark about Equestria wasting its power on fancy parties when it could be put to "far greater uses". It's generally assumed that she was talking about military power, but it could just as easily refer to medical research - if more resources had been put there, some meaningful remedy might have been available to her younger self (or Scootaloo, or Stellar Eclipse, or Snowdrop, or what have you).
11890077
Interesting idea. I wonder what an "error" would look like in one of these trials as she tries to focus energy with a magical prosthetic. I'm smelling... burnt hair from magical explosions?
Yay! More magic prosthetic development!
Let's see what Anon can change that Magic alone coild not.
11890093
Or sparkly shrapnel from a prosthesis that couldn't handle Tempest's full power.
Please keep going! I love this!
Fantastic, at least 300 people want more
Oh, my. Do continue, I wish to see where this journey will lead.
This broke a few heartstrings. I can imagine what Tempest is feeling, hearing someone say that they will try after everyone else has turned you away is an unbelievable feeling.
11889816
I mean... Twilight now has two limbs she wasn't born with so...
11890077
Where is Stellar Eclipse from?
11890286
Yeah, if they are on the ball tests will be with her stump stuck through a hole in a large sheet of armor-steel (including enchantments?) Mounted to.stick up vertically from the floor. If they AREN'T on the ball, after the first time it happens they WILL be!