//------------------------------// // Chapter 5 // Story: Ink // by kudzuhaiku //------------------------------// The door had a tombstone on it, not the most inviting thing in the world. Twilight had hesitated before pushing it open, but once she did, Sumac went rushing through. She was a little envious of Sumac’s love of graveyards and his complete lack of fear of them. His nose was a little snotty and he still sniffled, but he had the resilience of youth. Already, he was recovering from the trauma of seeing his mother again. “I know this place,” Sumac began. “This is a happy memory!” “It is?” Twilight was dubious. This place was dark, dreary, and ominous. Many crows perched in skeletal trees and a cold wind teased her pelt while tugging on her feathers. How could this be a happy memory? This graveyard seemed to stretch in all directions forever and was shrouded in darkness. “This is the place where I met my friend, Pale!” Sumac blurted out, sounding cheerful and happy. “Who’s Pale?” Twilight asked. “And how did you end up in a place like this?” “Pebble.” Sumac said the word in the most casual sort of way. “Pebble wanted to practice her emergency jaunting skills so she grabbed me and jaunted in the Ponyville Cemetery. We ended up here, and Pale was very, very surprised to see us. He wasn’t going to let us go, he said we were going to have to stay here forever, and so I challenged him to a game of poker.” “What?” Twilight felt her brain shutting down. Sumac hadn’t lied, he wouldn’t do that, but his words were too strange to believe. “See, over there.” Sumac pointed with his hoof. Twilight sucked in wind when she saw an alicorn, but this wasn’t the first time she had seen a male alicorn. He was pale, colourless, sitting in the grass, hunched over and scowling. She saw a somewhat younger Sumac and Pebble also sitting in the grass, and both seemed to be enjoying themselves. How odd. Twilight wondered why she didn’t know about this alicorn and she began to comb through her memory, hoping to find something. A pile of matchsticks sat between the alicorn stallion and the unicorn colt. Sumac had a lot of matchsticks, and Pale had very few. A lot seemed to be riding on this game, and Twilight knew the futility of playing games of chance against Sumac, who had the magic of grift. Grift was a nebulous, difficult to define magic, but you knew it when you encountered it, typically by the frustration and futility one felt. Flam had it in spades, along with his brother, Flim, and Sumac was certainly his father’s son. “Call,” Pale muttered, and he set his cards down. “Four queens.” Grinning, Sumac revealed his own cards. “Four kings.” “Son of a bitch!” Pale’s wings shot out from his sides and he raised both front hooves high up into the air, shaking them at the sunless sky. A long, long stream of profanity poured from his mouth and Twilight suddenly understood where Sumac must have picked up some of his colourful vocabulary. Perhaps because of instinct, she covered the ears of the Sumac just beside her with her wings, trying to block out the string of vulgar expletives. “Fine, you may go, but you will never savour your victory. Sorry, standard procedure, but your memory of this must be wiped. I apologise for having to do this, because I find myself liking you. It isn't often that I get guests who want to play games with me.” “No,” Pebble deadpanned. “What do you mean, ‘no?’ Who are you to tell me what to do?” Pale eyeballed the little filly and gave her a stern scowl. “You are a very weird little filly, did you know that?” “The deal was, if Sumac won, you send us on our way, unmolested. No messing with our brains, Pale. Unmolested. Sumac was wise to include that in the verbal contract. Unmolested. Unharmed. Untouched. Keep your end of the bargain.” Pebble peered up at the much larger stallion with an expression that was just daring him to step out of line. “And don’t be a creepy pervert.” “Son of a bitch!” Pale shouted again, and this time, he fell over backwards into the dried, withered grass. He shook for a time, his legs kicked and his wings flapped against the dead ground. Then, with explosive suddenness, he started laughing. He laughed so hard and for so long that tears began to spill from his eyes. Once more, Twilight’s brain balked at what she was seeing. “What?” “You know,” Pebble deadpanned, “if you send away your visitors with scrambled brains, you can’t make friends. No wonder you’re such a depressing, moody grumplepuss.” With a snort, Pale rolled over onto his side, his barrel heaving, and he rubbed the side of his face against the dead, withered earth. He continued to chuckle a bit, but it was subdued now, and he looked thoughtful. A dry stem of grass tickled his nostril, and he sneezed several times, each time his tail flicking to and fro. “I bet it sucks for you,” Sumac said while he sat musing over his matchsticks. “It seems to me that you make ponies not remember you, but you still remember them, don’t you?” Pale’s chuckles ceased. “It’s better this way.” “Why?” Little Sumac’s head tilted off to one side. The pale pony did not answer, but just lay there, staring at the two foals. “I know a couple of immortals,” Sumac said in a low voice while he looked Pale in the eye. “I figure that my friendship means more to them than it does to me.” “How so?” Pale asked, his voice little more than a whisper. “Because.” The little colt looked over at his companion, Pebble, and then back at Pale. “Each moment they get to spend with me is precious. It won’t last forever. I won’t last forever. One day, I’ll be gone, they’ll keep living, and I’ll be a memory. So I try to be the best friend I can be so they’ll have the best memories of me. Twilight Sparkle gave me a friendship lesson about creating memories, and I kinda adapted it to immortals. I wrote a paper on it and Twilight kept it.” “That’s actually very touching.” Pale’s voice was raspy and sounded strained. “I framed that paper,” Twilight confessed in a whisper shared with the Sumac by her side. “I keep it in my private study, it’s right next to my graduation diploma.” “I could be your friend,” Younger Sumac offered. “I’ll even keep your secret. You could come and visit. We could talk about stuff.” The pale pony heaved a forlorn sigh. “I miss being around foals. So honest. So open.” Pale closed his eyes and wiped at his nose with his wingtip. “I was an uncle once. I watched my niece being born. Way back then, that wasn’t something that stallions watched, but I refused to leave my sister. She was crying, you see… and you don’t leave your little sister to cry. It makes you a bad brother.” In silence, Pebble rose, took a few steps over to where Pale was sprawled out, flopped down beside him, and rested her head upon his long, broad neck. Pale froze for a moment, his eyes now open but also blinking, his body went rigid, and then after a few tense breaths, he relaxed a bit. “I miss my nieces,” Pale whispered in a voice so low that Twilight almost didn’t hear it. “I taught Celestia to talk. She was a magnificent foal. So graceful. So wonderful. Well, until the Runt was born.” “Runt?” Pebble asked. “Celestia called her little sister ‘Runt.’ She was quite upset that she was no longer the center of the universe. Luna was frail… sickly. Eternity foaled early. That just happens sometimes I guess… but she had to give all of her time to Luna and Celestia was jealous.” Pale chuckled a bit, blinked his eyes, and added, “Sometimes, Celestia would walk up to Luna’s bassinet and nip her little sister on the ear. Luna had very powerful lungs for a foal born early.” “Eternity?” Little Sumac asked, and then everything froze. Twilight stood there, blinking, one ear bobbing up and down. She looked down at the Sumac by her side, and then her brain decided to be helpful, making the connection. “You know the name of Celestia and Luna’s mother, Sumac.” “I guess I do.” Sumac shrugged. “Pale has told you things, hasn’t he?” Twilight asked. Sumac squirmed. “Yeah, but I keep it a secret. Breaking a promise to a friend is the fastest way to lose a friend… forever. I broke a Pinkie Promise once and I’m never doing anything that stupid ever again.” The colt gulped and turned a little a more beige. “Pinkie Pie has ways and means, Twilight… ways and means…” Nodding, Twilight knew. For a brief moment, Twilight felt genuine worry about making any sort of vows or promises to Pinkie Pie, such as long term commitments… or binding vows involving relationships. The prospect of doing so was terrifying. Of course, that was a long ways off, if at all. They were only beginning to explore their relationship, experimenting at being more than friends. But Pinkie Pie certainly had those jiggly-wiggly thunder thighs… When the world’s colour began to drain away, it was now a familiar sight and Twilight hardly paid it any attention. The spectacle had lost its splendour. She was too busy studying her student, the little colt that had taken her friendship lessons to heart. Is this what Princess Celestia felt? Twilight had many students, and quite a few were fantastic. Exceptional. The world began folding, just as it had before, with everything returning to flat paper. Twilight thought about what she had just witnessed, and she was thankful that Sumac seemed a bit cheered up by remembering these events. Just as she was about to say something, her keen eyes noticed something out of place standing next to the door, the door which held no marking of any kind. A little folded paper alicorn. It looked very much like some origami alicorn and it was made from bone-white paper. With a wicker, Twilight walked over to where it was, and when she tried to pick it up, she found that she couldn’t. Sumac however, was able to pick it up, and he did. Together, they examined it with narrowed eyes, and much inquisitive squinting. “Let’s take it with us,” Twilight suggested, and she saw Sumac nod in agreement. Turning about, Twilight faced the door, which stood out amidst the vast emptiness. She walked in a circle around it, noting that it had no frame, but the door did have thickness. It was a little over two inches, and she touched the edge with her hoof. She gnawed on her lip for a moment, deep in thought, and then she turned to look at Sumac. “What if we didn’t want to go through this door?” Twilight asked. “There is no other door,” Sumac replied. Wickering, Twilight turned her body about, facing her backside to the door. She looked back over her shoulders, took aim while sticking out her tongue, and bucked the door with all of her might, which was considerable. The door fell over with a muffled thump and the rustle of paper against paper. To satisfy her curiousity, Twilight opened the door and much to her surprise, she found some stairs going down. Of course, the stairs were made of paper. Lifting her head, Twilight began to study her surroundings, and took note that they were well lit, though there was no sun. “Sumac, where is the light coming from?” “Well, actually, I’ve been thinking about that, and I believe the light doesn’t exist. We’ve been tricked into believing it exists, probably because we’re immersed in an engrossing story.” “Thank you, Professor Egghead,” Twilight replied, allowing a bit of her natural sarcasm to shine though. “The light isn’t real. We might not even be real. We’ve been crying tears of ink. For all I know, we might both be standing out in the real world, staring at this book. I wish Trixie was here, she’s better at illusion spells.” “I have trouble with illusions,” Sumac remarked. “You’re too honest.” “You are implying that my mother is dishonest, by extension.” “Sumac…” “Yes, Auntie Dearest?” “Quiet, you.” Grinning, Twilight stuck her tongue out, and she was overjoyed to see that Sumac had returned to whatever passed for him being happy again. Twilight returned to testing her environment, and she began to examine the paper beneath her hooves. It appeared coarse and a bit pulpy. She lifted a hoof, curious, looked around a bit, and then using her magic, she lanced her own frog. Hissing, she squeezed her tender flesh with her telekinesis, and much to her surprise, black ink began to ooze out. While she stood there, staring, reality began to ripple around her lifted hoof, it was like a stone being dropped into a pond. A droplet of Twilight’s ink trickled down to the paper floor and did not vanish, but left behind a stain in the paper. Twilight began to feel subtle shifts in her mind and her perceptions began to alter. A flood of knowledge poured into her brain, and she began to know things. The first door had been for both of them, of that there could be no doubt. The second door they had entered, that had not been for her, but Sumac. What was the lesson? Twilight wasn’t entirely certain, but she knew that Sumac would figure it out in time, because he was smart like that. The third door with Belladonna was not Sumac’s door, but hers, and she began to understand. It was as though a vast ocean of ink was pouring into her paper mind and writing millions of tiny letters all over the crinkles of her paper brain. As for this door, Twilight understood its purpose, as it now blazed within her mind. Eternity. But other things floated in the vast galaxy that her mind was now becoming. The Nameless One. Twilight Sparkle began to experience a powerful feeling of déjà vu that she found she was quite comfortable with. Ears pitching and pivoting forwards, Twilight focused on the tiny paper alicorn that Sumac was holding in his telekinesis. “You there,” Twilight said in her most commanding voice. “I demand to know what is going on!”