Chapter 4: Vulpes
The next morning . . .
"Steel, I'm hungry, make me food!" Lightning's plea as morning sun filtered through the windows in the workshop
"Ah Steel? Are you awake?" Lightning asked the form hunched over in front of the lathe.
"Wha-?"
"Did you fall asleep while working?" asked Lightning, barely holding in his laughter.
"Hey, I had to carry you around all day, and then make that Poison Joke antidote, and I was up carving out that sphere well after Luna had raised the moon, so yes I'm tired," mumbled Steel Script as he passed a hoof over his eyes.
"I don't care, make me food!"
"I need to keep working, this heart won't carve itself, get some cereal or something," Steel turned his attention to the two hollowed out halves of his sphere.
"But I ate all the Luna Pop's last night, and anyway, I want bacon."
Steel rolled his eyes as he picked up a small gouge and started to carve arcane runes into the halves.
"You spend far too much time with griffins and dragons. You shouldn't be eating meat. Anyway, I don't have any bacon, I never do."
"Freaking vegetarians, meat tastes good," muttered the disgruntled Pegasus.
"If you want bacon, you can go and socialise."
"But nopony likes me."
Steel Script looked at his friend.
"What happened while you were in Celestia's Guard? I remember when we first met as two colts in Canterlot, you seemed like a nice guy, but then you entered the military, and when you came back after Princess Luna's return, you just weren't the same, always drinking and moping, and then there's that scar, how, in blue blazes, did you get that thing?"
Steel suddenly found himself staring into a pair of red wells of sorrow and anguish.
"I'll only say this once: I don't want to talk about it, and if you push me again, I WILL follow you around with a thundercloud. I'm happy as I am, I don't need you to bring up the past when I buried it."
The pastel unicorn took a step back at the venom in his friend's voice.
"As you wish. Oats alright for breakfast?"
"Yeah, fine."
Steel left Lightning Flicker to his thoughts.
The sun had sunk beneath the horizon and the moon was casting its pale light from up high in Luna's dark and jewelled sky by the time Steel Script had finished carving the necessary runes into the two halves of the heart.
". . . of wateeeeeeeeerrrrrr! Right, now that that's done, I can start on the catalyst for the construction phase, which should trigger after the initial burst of magic . . ." muttered Steel as he started to grind up some Poison Joke and Heart's Desire in a mortar and pestle.
"Are you rambling to yourself again? You must be crazy 'cos talking to yourself is the first sign of madness," Lightning Flicker piped up as he lazily flapped his way in.
"You're only just picking up on my mild insanity?" quipped Steel in way of reply.
"No, I'm just pointing it out again. So what are you doing now?" asked Lightning, coming to a hover in the middle of the workshop.
"I'm mixing up Heart's Desire and Poison Joke to create a substance that will hopefully cause the Timberwolf to form around the heart. By the way, you might want to back up a bit," said Steel Script as he levitated the two halves of the sphere together, enclosing the Heart's Desire and Poison Joke powder in the centre. A beam of lilac magic shot from Steel Script's horn and enveloped the sphere, causing to start spinning. After a few seconds, Steel discontinued the beam and sat down, the heart still spinning in the grasp in his levitation spell.
"So what does it do?" inquired Lighting from his cloud.
"Just wait."
"Wait for wha-?" Lightning was cut off by a shaped hunk of wood hitting him in the back of head.
Pieces of wood were gathering and revolving around the Timberwolf heart, forming a muzzle, legs, paws, and tail. Slowly a lupine form assembled itself around the spinning heart, violet magic pulling the pieces into place.
"That's not a Timberwolf," said Lightning Flicker, staring at the creature that had been formed.
The creature had a thinner muzzle and face than that of a Timberwolf and stood a good three feet below the monsters that it emulated. The 'ears' were wider and the body slimmer, and the twigs that made up the tail were more numerous and appeared bushier than that of a true Timberwolf. Its eyes glowed with violet magic as it sniffed around Steel Script's hoofs for food.
Steel Script levitated a bowl of Poison Joke towards the artificial Timberwolf while simultaneously levitating a notebook and quill towards him.
"AH13 was successful," muttered Steel as he wrote his observations, "resulting subject is smaller and physically dissimilar to natural Timberwolves."
Steel and Lightning both looked down at the 'Timberfox' as it wolfed down the blue petals that lay before it.
"Intended diet enchantments succeeded, as Subject 01 appears to feed on Humor Herba without any immediate side effects."
"Does it do anything, or does it just exist?" asked Lightning Flicker, poking his hoof at the Timberfox.
"I made it to study it, nothing more."
"That's kinda mean, at least name it or something."
"It's a scientific experiment, to name it would be unprofessional" countered Steel
"Now you're acting like more of a dick than me."
"Fine. I'll call it . . . Vulpes," declared Steel Script, looking down at the newly christened Timberfox.
Lightning Flicker lowered his cloud down to Vulpes' level and started to stroke the Timberfox's back.
"Hear that little guy, your daddy decided to name you. I don't know what it means, but it sounds cool."
Steel rolled his eyes.
"Vulpes is the scientific name for fox. And I'm not its father."
And with that, Vulpes burped, two small, blue petals escaping is wooden maw and landing on Steel's nearby hoof.
"Oh, shit," sighed Steel Script.
"Why, what's wrong?" asked Lightning.
"Well, it just ate Poison Joke, and it burped on me before it could fully ingest the plant."
Lightning burst out into gales of raucous laughter.
Steel rolled his eyes and looked down at Vulpes.
"Next time, I'm going to try Heart's Desire petals."
"You can only find them in Ponyville and you're going to need to feed him sometime tomorrow or recharge his energy yourself. And you used all of the antidote ingredients today to cure me, so you're going to need more. Tomorrow is going to be fun." Said Lightning with unbridled glee.
"Glad to see you find my rather . . . unique . . . situation so hysterical. Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to bed, casting the spell to kick-start Vulpes took a lot out of me," yelled an angered Steel Script as he stormed out of the workshop and up the stairs to his bedroom.