Round 4: What You Love (Luster Lock vs. Lilligold)
Prologue
A clack, a whir, and a clack.
“INFERNAL FERN,” read the title card in splotchy, childish hornwriting. A quill scratched on paper in the dimly lit room.
Clack, whir, clack.
“Fern made of fire! Didn’t last long, though.
FIRST USED: Lit fireplace, with The New Spell.
TRYING TO REDO WITH: Ugly torch, with The New Spell.”
More scratching, then clack, whir, clack.
A low table was pictured, behind which was a unicorn filly, light of coat and lighter of mane in the sepia. Young enough for her star-and-lily cutie mark to be wondrous, but old enough for it to be broken in. On the table lay a gnarled and cloth-wrapped bit of wood.
Clack, whir, clack.
Three quarters of the next slide were blackened and warped, and the rest showed the wide eyes and open mouth of the filly—possibly screaming.
More clacks and whirs, but the next three slides were even more damaged.
“TUMBLERWEED,” read the fourth. A moment passed, and then a sigh disturbed the silent air. There came a fervent scribbling, and then more of the normal scratching. Then the next slide was slotted in.
“Really cool metal vines, with a working keyhole!
FIRST USED: Lock on granny’s hope chest (NtS: Apologize!), with The Spell and The Other Spell.
TRYING TO REDO WITH: Padlock, with The Spell and The Other Spell.”
Yet more quill-scratching. Clack, whir, clack.
The same table as before—though scorched in the center—with the same filly behind it and a solid-looking padlock sitting on top.
Clack, whirrrrrr, clack.
“ZENBREATH SPROUT,” read the slide.
A growl rang out. At once, a pale green glow flared brightly and lit the patch of the room by the projector, then a series of lanterns came to life and finished the job.
A unicorn mare sat hunched over an open journal on the projector’s table, set up in the center of a small room—otherwise barren but for mostly empty bookshelves along one wall and the stacks of boxes along another. And the dust coating most every surface.
The mare, a lively pink excepting the dark bags beneath her eyes, reached a hoof forward and powered off the projector. With a screech of wood on wood, she stood from her stool and peered down at the projector’s carousel.
The spaces before the currently loaded slide were empty.
She growled again, sitting her star-and-lily-stamped flank back onto the stool. The quill on the table rose up in her magic, and as it started scratching away once more, she eyed the journal’s page.
How about a fruit that tastes different every time you bite into it? Bowl of fruit, with Spell #7?
Weeks and can’t stop making it taste like all at once. Move on.Flowers with perma-dew that doubles as a sweet juice drink? Hibiscus, with Spells #5 and #14?
Perfected in half an hour. Where’s challenge?
A phoenix-like plant that regrows after it gets burn
Called a pine tree, idiot.
Maybe a type of grass that sings when wind
No no no! Did last year and was utterly dull!
What if I could
A reedGardener’s Block Therapy
Maybe look through old trials for something to perfect?
1.
Onyxrock Pepper. Orig: mine vein, Spells #1 & #6. Redux: large gemstones, Spells #1 & #6.Failed to reproduce.
2.Wallow-well Moss.Perfected back then.
3.Infernal Fern. Orig: fireplace, Spell #3. Redux: torch, Spell #3.Mane is just how I like it.
4.Tumblerweed. Orig: grandma hope chest, Spells #1 & #2. Redux: padlock, Spells #1 & #2.Failed to reproduce.
5.
6.
7.
The mare stared at the page, eyes bloodshot but blank. The quill hovered, jittering slightly.
She flipped to a blank page and started writing.
Gardener’s Block Therapy (Cont.)
Inspiration vacation. Close Glimmering Gardens and block new commissions.
Tired of woods. Always woods around Elmshire, or deserts. Tired of Elmshire! Tired of country!
Tired of deserts.
Visit Equestria? Where in?Always a happy little town over there.
No more woods, no more deserts, no more happy little towns. Urban?
Elmshire is urban…Go to urban place.Go to reasonably urban place. Small city, not too crowded.Go get spark back.
What You Love
Free Writing
Okay okay okay, alright. Elmshire far behind. Can I write again? Think of plants? Am I creative yet? What have I done what have I done, well, I caught one of those fancy dirigibles. Way more bits than trains or a ship but last time I took a vacation was before I opened the store. Years Mother used to say treat yourself but I never
First time on a dirigible and it’s a beast of a thing all dark and it looks scaly and they might have used real dragon scales on the outside. I bet it’s just lifted with light gas or magic but I picture the insides like a hot air balloon from Tartarus fire roaring
The little mare held for dear life onto her mount, its roars and belching flames piercing the sky.
“Steady!” she called up from its back, but the wind was too strong to carry the command. It was all she could do to keep her hooves wrapped around one of its massive black spines.
She made the mistake of
She looked down to the world below, and marveled. Her dragon was bringing her over the sunny sands of the San Palomino. The mare had walked that land as a foal, soaked up its heat for days on end like a sword in a forge, and grown strong. That knowledge burning in her mind, she called once more, “Steady!”
The dragon checked its turbulence with a grunt, at last, and the little mare looked ahead, towards the green lands of their destination.
Equestria. It would be hers.
Something beautiful, but hard and dangerous. Try to get some dragon scales. And some nice, thorny sorts of roses? Spells #2 and #7?
Hoofington was chilly. It was well into the afternoon, but mist hung low about the dirigible landing pad just in from the city’s outskirts, and the skies were more white than blue.
A single-file line of ponies came down the great airship’s tiny staircase, many of them dressed in sharp suits or sober dresses. A few others were undressed, and all the rest wore only enough for the temperature.
A pink-coated, silver-maned, star-and-lily-marked mare in a forest green scarf reached the base of the steps. One hoof held a paperback journal close to her chest, the front cover of which read, “Property of Lilligold,” then, “a.k.a. A Unicorn,” then, “i.e. Open at Own Peril!”
Lilligold peeled the journal open as she walked, and she drew a quill out from her scarf with her magic and set it to the page.
Never tried turning something into a cloth or other textile kind of thing. Decorated so many weddings, but what if I could make a living dress material for a bride? Any colorful flowers. Might need a new spell.
Hoofington had no skyscrapers, no grand monuments. No towers and nothing towering. Past the loose cobblestone pathway in from the landing pad was a small commercial district, filled predominantly with squat, utilitarian brick buildings.
Color came in the form of signs, mostly, shining with neon and magic in shop windows or above awnings. Traffic was subdued but not negligible, and Lilligold pony-watched even as she moved deftly through and past groups of fellow pedestrians.
Formless neon flower(s), definitely Spell #3. Easy, though. Maybe a self-reshaping glass shell for it, too? Spells #1 and #7, with a little tweaking.
Lilligold was smiling brightly, scratching away at her journal without even having to look. Instead, her eyes darted all around herself.
To the busy intersection, carriages whizzing by. To the clothing outlet with the sparkling gowns on display. To the food cart selling a variety of aromatic teas. To the abandoned side street with the boarded up buildings. To the cheerful, bronze-painted street performer. To the dubious smoke shop with the tinted windows. To the toy store with the chintzy tune pouring out its open door. To the inky shadows in the cramped alleyway.
Her quill had eaten two full pages by the time she came to a break in the district: a bridge over a river that ran right through the city. On the other side appeared to be more businesses, though their signs were less elaborate and the buildings themselves were somehow even squarer.
But Lilligold’s eyes were wide as she crossed the bridge.
On its sides were fencing to keep ponies from falling (or leaping) to the water below, and on the fencing were hung a multitude of padlocks. Some were dark and basic, others bright and elaborately engraved. Some were cheap and tinny, others encrusted with gems. Some fat, some teeny, some sharp, some curvaceous. Many, many of them were in the shape of hearts.
Lilligold slowed to a stop as she took more of the sight in, and her expression slipped into blankness. She stood aside from the flow of ponies over the bridge, flipped back a few pages in her journal, and read. Then she skipped forward to a fresh page, raising the quill.
Temp. Notes
If you found these notes, stop reading here. This means you!
Tumblerweed.
Originally made from grandma’s hope chest’s lock, Spells #1 and #2. Tried to remake with padlock (unsuccessful).
Spell #1 = frame spell, tangible base material → plant. Probably didn’t cause the failure.
Spell #2 = manifestation of emotion/intention.Emotion or intention w/ padlock? Probably little to none. I think I bought it that day, just to try to make a tumblerweed? I didn’t care much about it, any rate.
Granny loved that hope chest (never apologized for uglying it up, you jerk). Gramper gave it to her, had lots of “memories” inside. That lock meant something, to her at least.
Protects something important.
Want to make a tumblerweed, probably need a lock somepony cares about.
She ripped the page from her journal with a hoof, tore and crumpled it up, and tossed the remains over the fence. A couple of passing ponies aimed scowls at her back, but said nothing.
Lilligold stared hard at one of the padlocks before her. It was simpler than most of the others—a heart, flat-fronted like it had been cookie-cut from a pan of steel, with a perfectly stereotypical keyhole in its center. Colored a glossy, even azure, and its clasp a polished silver.
Her horn’s glow suddenly flared a few notches bigger and brighter—but just as quickly diminished back to only its hold over the quill. She bit her lip, and she brought the quill down.
NtS: It’s not right to experiment on other ponies’ things without asking. You know this. Stop.
Lilligold let her journal float in her magic as well. She brought her freed hoof up to the heart-lock, lifted it, and tilted her head. The edge of the back read, in letters embossed on the metal, “Lock’s Locks, Ltd.”
“Welcome to Lock’s Locks!” said a high-pitched male voice the very second that Lilligold walked in the door. She winced and held her journal even closer, but turned all the same. She found an off-white, older unicorn stallion with a curly green mane and particularly glittery eyes, who continued, “I’m Block Lock, and I’d bet bits to bolts you’re new to the place. Anything in particular bring you to our store this afternoon, miss?”
Lilligold’s eyes roved over the shop and the other patrons milling about. It had a very focused design scheme, certainly: from where she stood could be seen many tall, matte gray, hardware store–like shelves stocked with a great many different kinds of lock paraphernalia—padlocks, chains, things with locks pre-mounted in them like knobs or small strongboxes, a selection of what looked to be precise little tools, and more.
Thin, metal plants that shape into tools on command! **Fourth-quarter project, all on its own.
All of it was very iron-and-steel, very cold and dark. Except—Lilligold started when she saw it—the swirling rainbow patterns of the entire western wall’s papering, and all of the colorful locks mounted on the great chain link fence that stretched across its surface. Most of the ponies in the store were concentrated there.
She pointed a hoof to it, saying, “I passed by a bridge, and—”
“Say no more, miss.” Block Lock, grinning, began walking towards the back of the shop.
Lilligold hesitated in taking her first step, but she followed a moment later.
“Hey, Ellie!” called out Block as they passed the edges of the last shelves and came to a more poorly lit portion of the building: a small work area off from the counter with the register. Two pegasus mares were bent over a large workbench there, bright lamps pointed down at locks their wings were working with.
The pegasus that looked up at Block’s call had a dim gray coat and a bluer, longer, and even more curly mane than him. Plus a cutie mark practically identical to the heart-lock back on the bridge, with an open clasp. She said, “Yeah, Pop?”
He nodded towards Lilligold. “Got another love lock initiate here. From out of town, I think.” At Lilligold’s blank stare, he added, “Bit of an accent, miss. And the bridges are old news by now.”
‘Ellie’ let the tools fall from her wings and onto the benchtop. She turned to the other mare, blue-coated and straight-maned, and said, “Leave mine alone this time, Ma.”
The older mare just sniggered, not taking her eyes or wings from her work.
Ellie came forward into the light, and looked to be roughly the same age as Lilligold—though of the two of them, Ellie’s eyes looked far duller, at the moment. Her smile was bright, though, and she extended a wing to Lilligold. “Luster Lock.”
Lillig
“Oops, um.” Lilligold’s horn flared brighter, and she hovered Luster’s wing firmly up and down. “Lilligold,” she said, putting a smile on as well. “So… not ‘Ellie’, then?”
Luster shook her head, and she started towards the western wall. “Ma’s named pretty much the same thing as me. Gets confusing.” The pair arrived at the chain link fence, and she turned back to Lilligold and continued, “So yeah, love locks. Haven’t heard of ’em, I’m guessing?”
Lilligold shook her head.
“All the rage a couple months back,” said Luster, “with all the other locksmiths around copycatting, but I've been at it way longer. Got popular when I finally got ’em classed as interactive art instead of vandalism—you’d need to check your own place’s rules on that, by the way.” A mock-stern glare. “Not liable, us. But yeah, point of ’em is they symbolize unbreakable love between the owners. You set one up someplace and get rid of the key.”
Her eyes wide, Lilligold said, barely above a whisper, “Perfect.”
Luster smirked. “Got a special pony back home, then?”
But Lilligold said quickly, “Luster, I have something of a queer proposal.”
“Er.” The smirk fell steadily from Luster’s face. “Not that I’m not into that, but if we’re talking love locks and, like, commitments, then I don’t know how it goes where you’re from, b—”
Face burning pinker than pink, Lillgold waved a hoof wildly about. “No!” she yelled, before shoving the hoof over her mouth. She lowered it again only after the other patrons stopped staring, and continued, much more quietly, “I meant a business offer.”
The smirk resurfaced. “Oh, right on. What’s the deal?”
“A short summary.” Lilligold’s stance went professionally rigid, as though there were a podium in front of her. “I own, operate, and stock a specialty agriculture store in my homeland. Magical plants, artistic and practical both, all of them my personal designs and breeds—and such a thing requires a great deal of experimentation.”
“Right…” Luster’s eyes darted down to Lilligold’s journal and back up. Her expression didn’t change, but her tone was a touch less enthusiastic as she said, “When you say ‘experiment’, you’re not glossing right over some freaky, cauldron-y stuff or something, yeah? Nothing super weird?”
“Not…” Lilligold frowned. “Cauldrons aren’t involved as a rule, and certainly not in my proposal. Why?”
“Because I think I know where this is headed.” Luster’s eyes were keeping a laser-focused watch on Lilligold’s face. “Listen, Lilligold, we sell top-notch locks here, and you wouldn’t be the first or even the fortieth eccentric pony to come in with some well thought-out story for why your shed happens to need a wagonful of ’em, or just the strongest lock in the whole—”
“Please stop.” Lilligold slipped her journal into her scarf and rubbed her hoof to her temple. “It’s nothing as nefarious as all that, I assure you. I keep my work very private, yes, but what I need the locks for… here.”
Lilligold looked about—no one but Luster was looking her way. The unicorn shut her eyes, and her horn brightened, magic swirling visibly along the pattern of its fluting. The air in front of Luster’s face glowed lightly and began to spiral just the same. The spiral spun faster, pressing into itself, and in a matter of seconds, the air in the field was a dense and visible thing.
Luster’s eyes widened, and in the next instant, the glow was gone and the air had taken a floral shape: a long stem topped with petals blooming in a spiral pattern, pinwheeling slowly. It began floating to the ground, more lightly even than a downy feather, and Luster reached out a wing, catching it undamaged.
“Free sample,” said Lilligold, opening her eyes. “It should last a few days, kept outside of any tightly enclosed spaces. Just do not get it near an open flame.”
Luster raised and lowered her wing, guiding the ghostly, delicate bloom through the air for a few moments, before looking back up to Lilligold. “This is the sorta thing you want to do to my locks?” Her eyes were fuller, more awake.
Lilligold shook her head. “As I was saying, my work takes experimentation. Your ‘love locks’ might be just what I need to complete an old project, and only after I can verify th—”
“What do you need?”
Luster’s eyebrow rose. “You just carry them around in there…?”
“It always pays to be prepared,” said Lilligold, shutting her journal and sliding a sheet of parchment and her quill across the table to Luster.
One that read, at the top, “Glimmering Gardens Official Oath of Secrecy.”
The storeroom of Lock’s Locks was much like the showroom, in that its lighting was fighting a losing battle against the sheer size and quantity of its shelves. More so, given that there were no windows. Still, room had been found for a pair of stools and a small table, from which came the room’s only sound: a quill tip scratching on parchment.
“Done,” said Luster, and her other wing relinquished its hold on a love lock, which fell to the table with a heavy clank. “And done. Now c’mon, lemme see it!”
Lilligold smiled and lit up her horn. The form and quill tucked themselves into the journal, and the lock—an orange and green thing, shaped into a side view of two kissing, closed-eyed pony faces—moved to the table’s center.
The glow turned intense. It was as though it was thickening, looking almost solid enough to be touched and felt. The lock rattled against the wood. Still, the magic expanded—Lilligold was grunting through gritted teeth, now. The lock was beginning to dent the table.
And then the magic winked out. Lilligold was lightly panting.
“That’s it?” said Luster, face deadpan. The lock was still a lock. “Did we really just waste that much time?”
“A failed experiment isn’t a waste,” said Lilligold, picking the love lock up in her hooves. “Though… I really did think I was on to it.”
Luster sat back on her stool. “On to what, exactly?”
Lilligold stared blankly into Luster’s eyes for a moment, then said, “I suppose you’re sworn to secrecy either way—I do hope you took note of the hefty fines, by the way—so there’s not very much harm in telling you. I suspected that there’s an emotional component to the process of making this breed. Somepony has to care about the lock. About it protecting something important.”
Luster blanched.
Running her hoof over the lock, Lilligold continued, “I saw your cutie mark. It’s you that makes these, correct? If I’d been right, the love and intention you imbue into them just through the act of creating them would surely—”
“Er.” Luster gave a dry, weak chuckle. “Since we’re already sharing secrets—” She held up a hoof as Lilligold’s mouth opened. “Yeah, yeah, whatever. You can have mine for free, long as you promise you won’t go blabbing to my parents—it might break their hearts, and I couldn’t do that to them.”
Lilligold shut her mouth, and she nodded firmly.
Luster steepled her primaries, fidgeting. “Well, they think the same thing you probably do. That I got my cutie mark making my first love lock, or whatever—and I did get it right around then, and it probably does have something to do with why it looks how it does, but…
“I got my cutie mark by picking a lock, not by making one.”
Silence settled back into the storeroom’s air.
“So…” said Lilligold. And after a moment, “Your special talent is picking locks?”
Luster winced. “Yeah and no.” She sat forward on the stool again, setting her hooves on the table. “Thing is, when I was a filly, before my parents trusted me to take care of myself, we had double cylinder knobs installed on the shop’s doors—locks not just outside, but inside, too. This one night, some school friends want to go to some bad concert, and I tell myself I need to go with them—any excuse, right?—and so I bust out. And then I just walk around Hoofington, feeling the night air on me, and I get my mark. Don’t even go to the concert.”
She sighed and continued, “Next day, my parents think I was up late working hard on my love lock design and got my mark like that. And I couldn’t set ’em straight—couldn’t say I think locks kinda suck, at least when they’re in my way.”
Lilligold placed the padlock back down on the table. “And these?”
Luster’s ears fell apologetically, and she said, “I really don’t care about them, past that they’re a lot more fun to make than a standard kind of lock. Artsier. They’re… just a good outlet, you know?”
Her hoof sliding over to touch her journal, Lilligold gave a small nod. “But they’re not what you love.”
“Right,” said Luster. She stood up from her stool. “I guess this means…?”
Lilligold nodded more firmly, picking her journal up and standing herself. She looked to Luster, and said, “We don’t have any further business. I apologize for taking so much of your time.”
They made their way to the door, Luster waggling a wing and saying, “Nah, it’s no big thing.”
The showroom was empty of other ponies; darkness had fallen fully outside.
Lilligold smiled, shaking her head as she walked. “It was inexcusable.” Past the shelves, at the front door, she added, “In fact, I insist on a proper apology.”
Before Luster could get a word out, Lilligold’s horn was surrounded by magic. It expanded, thickening to opaque, and coated the front door’s knob. A tingling filled the air, and built.
And then wiry, dark vines sprouted out around the knob’s lock. They reached and spread, all along the door, fattening as they went. Coil after coil wove about one another, until at last, every vine had reached the floor or part of the doorframe and braced itself there, hard. The glow faded.
“No matter your feelings on locks,” said Lilligold, quietly, “there does indeed seem to be something in this shop worth protecting.” Lilligold turned her smile on Luster, and continued, at normal volume, “This free sample, at least, should be much more permanent.”
With wide eyes, Luster produced a small key from within her wing and fitted it into the ‘doorknob’. She jumped as the vines suddenly retracted exactly opposite how they’d grown out.
Lilligold opened the door, stepped out, and breathed the air. “Have a good night, Luster.”
She started away, pulling out her journal.
Epilogue
Luster moved between the shelves, snuffing out lanterns as she went. The pitch black outside the shop windows took a firmer and firmer hold on the room. She reached the work area, where her lamp was putting out the only light on the floor, and she approached the workbench.
The lock she’d been struggling to restore earlier in the day sat shining beneath the hard light. Pristine and fully assembled.
Luster sighed, smiling. “Damnit, Ma…”
She sat at the bench, taking the lock into her wings. Eyeing it. Running her feathers along it. Just holding it. Holding it.
Another sigh.
She set the lock down and drew open one of the bench’s underside drawers. Out came a paper and a pencil, and she placed them beneath the lamp.
Dear Guys,
Next time I talk to you, I know you’ll tell me you felt it coming, and you get it.
Bye for now. Probably for a real long time, for this one.
Love you both to bits. Be safe.
~ Ellie ~
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I guess we can publish these now? They wouldn't let me before.
6387664
Who wouldn't? Is there some rule against it because they were up in another form, or something?
AW SHIT SON YEAH
6387724 Yeah, since it was the same story posted in the compilation. It was Space Cowboy that handled it, but he asked Obs about it before he made his decision.
Interesting stuff. It feel very different from your usual writing style n_n