//------------------------------//
// Chapter 2: Burn 
// Story: Madhouse 
// by Closer-To-The-Sun 
//------------------------------//

Yearling woke up. She looked around her surroundings, having to remind herself of the previous events. The blizzard, the injury, the broken leg and wing, and of course, her carepony. The smell of the vanilla candle gave her an unsettled feeling and the affects of the painkillers still made her body feel too heavy to move, much less trot.

“Oh good, your awake,” Snow Script said as she trotted in next to the bed. Her face had a smile on it just as Yearling remembered. Something seemed off.

“Yeah, I’m up,” the pegasus rubbed her eyes in an effort to wake her up more.

“Since you’re here, I do have a question for you, if you don’t mind, Ms. Yearling,” the white mare looked eager to ask.

With a yawn, Yearling nodded, “Sure, ask away. Not like I’m going anywhere.” She looked at her immobile leg. It was as if the fracture was mocking her.

“Well,” Snow Script started, “it’s just that we haven’t seen Daring Do for quite some time. I was almost worried about you forgot about her. She is my favorite character after all. The action, the adventure, the thrills, the mystery. Oh, to just live one day in her horseshoes would be just marvelous.” Snow happily muse about her love of the character as she swayed back and forth.

Yearling gave a small smile, “She….heh, is quite an action-packed character, isn’t she?”

Snow looked directly at the author with a large smile on her face, one that got under Yearling’s skin, “Oh, very much so! I just don’t how you came up with such a great character! The way you write her, she just leaps off the page! How did you do it?”

“Oh, heh,” Yearling gave a little chuckle, “I have my ways.”

Snow Script seemed a bit unsatisfied with the answer, but she still kept a smile on her face. “I understand, an author has to keep their secrets while making the magic, correct?”

Yearling simply nodded.

There was an eerie silence in the room for a moment before Snow Script asked yet another question, “I do have more question to ask of you, Ms. Yearling; when are you going to bring back the wondrous Daring Do? All of Equestria is waiting for her triumphant return to the pages.”

This question did somewhat caught Yearling off guard. She looked right back into Snow Script’s deep blue eyes, who stared right back into Yearling’s maroon eyes. “Well, you can’t rush authors, Snow Script. Writing is a process that can sometimes take months or years to finish. I remember one of my novels took close to two years from beginning to finish.”

“But we’re waiting for her to swing back into action!”

“Actually, I was on my way back to Vanhoover in this snow storm to deliver my rough manuscript to my editor. I have a new novel already in the works,” Yearling stated, “I was trying to keep it a secret for a while and give it as a pleasant surprise to everypony.”

“A new manuscript?” Snow Script pulled a stack of papers out of seemingly nowhere and dropped them on the bed, right on top of Yearling’s broken leg “You mean this?”

Yearling stared at the papers in disbelief, “My manuscript. I thought I lost it when I blacked out.” She was overjoyed to see it again, so much that she didn’t even care that her leg was hurting from the papers.

“It’s rubbish.”

She looked up to counter the statement but saw that Snow Script’s cheery disposition was nothing but a distant memory. Instead, she was staring daggers at Yearling as if that alone would get her message across. “You….You read my manuscript?”

“Yes….and it’s absolutely appalling! How could you write something so….so tiddlywinks!”

“Excuse me?”  Yearling didn’t understand what she was trying to say.

“You heard me!” She raised her voice and her eyes reflected her passionate anger, “I won’t let you have this piece of cockadoodie taint the glorious name that is Daring Do! I refuse to let this work go up on that bookshelf!” She pointed to the bookcase across the room. As Yearling thought, it was full of books she had written.

Yearling looked at Snow and the indignation on her face. She spoke calmly “Snow Script, this is just a rough draft of the new novel. You can’t judge it solely on how it is right now. That would like be judging a tree by looking at the seed it was and not the tree it will become.”

“I’m not going to be taking any sassafras from you!” The words fell on deaf ears.

“I assure you, it will be much more polished up before it gets published,” Yearling insisted.

“No. It won’t.”

Before she could ask what Snow meant by that, Yearling watched in horror as Snow Script take the manuscript and raised it a mere inches away from the vanilla candle. She let it hover there, almost as if she was taunting her. Her expression was dead serious.

“I figured it out. I figured out what you true purpose is. It’s to help you write a better novel. Maybe that’s my special talent….helping others,” Snow Script slowly lowered the manuscript down to the flickering candle.

“No, please don’t!” Yearling begged. She tried to struggle, but her body was still too heavy. The best she could do was reach in vain toward the papers, but it was all for naught.

The flames caught on to the pages, slowly burning the newest work of A.K. Yearling. She couldn’t speak or breathe as she watched the papers burn. It was as if someone had set her soul on fire and were gleefully watching it burn away.

“It’s okay, Ms. Yearling, no pony will have to know of your failing. It will just be our little secret,” the unsettling smile returned to Snow Script’s lips, appearing as if it had never left. She threw the burning manuscript away into the nearby metal waste bin.

Dumbfounded, Yearling continued to watch the papers turn to ash. All the work, all the effort, gone.

“Can’t you see that you’re lost without me.” Snow used her hooves to force Yearling to look at her, “If not for me helping, you wouldn’t be here, writing a much better novel.” She released her head and started to trot away toward the doorframe.

“Wait, are you saying I’m here because of you?

Stopping at the door, Snow Script had a sinister smile on her face and in her voice, “Now now, focus your attention on your writing. Together, we’re going to be writing the best selling Daring Do novel ever!” She slammed the door behind her.