ENGINEERS CREATE THAT WHICH HAS NEVER BEEN

The Engineer had made it back to Basin, worked with Mauja and the Doctor before taking a little time to himself. One of the pleasant perks of this land was that he was not surrounded consistently by entitled equines or skyrats, and the break from the hum-drum word vomit of their statements of equality was most welcome. The black pup tumbled around him and squirmed, pouncing and hopping and trying to coax his metal machine into a program Ulrik had not installed. Instead, the cold, metal wolf stood and stared vacantly, ignorant to the world around it. It was a tool, nothing more. It held no soul. It held no life. It had no heart.

Ulrik had just been quietly chewing on some salty, winter grass, minding his own business and dreaming of fantastical things. What about a throne made of wings? Could he plug a pegasus and cook it? Would it taste like bird? How many equines could he stick horns on before they would tear them off? Could they tear them off without ripping brains out too? Well, that would all depend on how they were attached of course...

And then he saw the most disgusting scene he had ever laid eyes on. The stallion jerked his muscular neck up from where he was eating, grasses still hanging out of still jaws. A black, unicorn mare was whispering sweet nothings and having some sort of emotional conflict with the mopey beast he and Deimos had kept from escaping not too long ago. The winged beast. The interloper. The failure of nature and her evolution. A blight. A blight and a unicorn.

It was wrong, and at the same time, he couldn't stop watching or judging for that matter. Ulrik chewed the rest of his food and swallowed before approaching, cloven toes opening and closing from the muscular weight of his massive, shadowy figure. The long, leonine ballast behind him hung low on the ground as he watched the pair.

He came to stand close, watching. Bronze eyes never left the pair as he creeped. Maybe she would notice and actually feel shame. The stallion stared. And continued to stare. And he did not stop staring. Rhythmically did he breath, but the bronze gaze was locked, not distracted by a single noise or rumble or word. Ulrik heard the words. What a load of sap and lies. Before him played his personal, perverse soap opera, and he was awaiting the dramatic head turn before the Capulet and Montague shared their final kiss of death. The death part is what he waited for. He hoped it would get to that part soon.