//------------------------------// // Chapter 7 // Story: Ink // by kudzuhaiku //------------------------------// The book looked withered, ancient, and old. The bindings appeared to be crumbling a bit, the cover was cracked, and the yellowed, faded pages had seen better days. The spine was damaged and the title of the book had been scraped off, leaving behind scars and curious scabs made of ink. Twilight opened the book, and it opened to the end, where the present happened to be. Not many pages were left. “An old mare lies dying, approaching her last breath,” she read aloud. Frowning, she looked down at Sumac, and saw worry on his face. After a moment, she returned her eyes to the book and continued, “She eagerly awaits her guests, her final guests before her brother comes to claim her. One of them is her Champion, the other she has high hopes for.” “Pale is coming,” Sumac said, his voice a soft, sorrowful whine. “I mean, I’ll be happy to see him, but these are awful circumstances.” Twilight did not even need to ask. Before the question rose into her mind, she had her answer. She knew what needed to be done to reach Eternity… the Nameless One. Her orange tongue slipped out from between her lips, and she stared at the spine of the book she held after she had turned it over. The title of the book had been carved away, destroyed, and this book needed a new title. She closed it, and the crushing weight of sadness settled upon her withers. Either her name or Sumac’s name had to go there. But there was still time before committing to such an act. Twilight lifted the book, stretched it out, making it longer and wider, until the book was the size of a door. The book-door hovered above the floor, now glowing with a faint light, and ink bled from its pages, the precious blood of purpose. With a gentle nudge, Twilight pushed the door open, and glorious light came spilling out. Beyond the door was a peaceful looking paper cottage made of paper stones, a peaceful, serene, pastoral paradise made of paper. It was exactly the sort of place that Twilight expected. Tears of ink rolled down her cheeks, and she knew that she approached the end. The end of this adventure, the end of a life, and, if she and Sumac did not come to consensus on what to do, the end of the world, perhaps. It was Sumac who went through the door first, fearless as always… Twilight Sparkle wasn’t the least bit afraid of paper cuts from the blades of paper grass that crinkled beneath her hooves. She approached the cottage and with each step taken, she felt more and more peculiar. She was coming home. A place she had never been before was home. This place was familiar, and she had spent thousands of years here. Her brothers stopped by for tea and conversation once in awhile. Paper posies, petunias, and violets waved at her from their window boxes. “Twilight, I’ve been here before,” Sumac said as he charged ahead. She started to say something, started to reply, but Sumac reached the door and threw it open. The colt didn’t bother to knock or even announce himself, he just walked in, and Twilight quickened her pace, hurrying to catch up to Sumac. Reaching the door, she paused, and felt her heart thumping in her throat. There was a single room with a table, a few cushioned stools, a couch, and in the corner was a bed, which Sumac was climbing up onto. In the paper bed was a paper mare with her head resting upon a fluffy paper pillow. She was smiling, but it was a weak, pain-filled smile. Seeing it caused a cold steel spike to pierce through Twilight’s heart, and she gasped. “Hi!” Sumac said to the paper mare as he made himself comfortable on the bed beside her. “My name is Sumac Apple and this is my aunt, Twilight Sparkle. Sorry it took so long to reach you, but you made it difficult.” Twilight started to sputter, shocked by Sumac’s somewhat scolding accusation, but the old mare began laughing. It was a wheezy sound, a bit phlegmy, which was odd, and it rustled like paper rubbing together. Once more, as many times before, Twilight didn’t know what was going on. The events of life left her confuzzled on so many occasions. “You’re just in time,” the old mare said, “to make my last moments a bit more bearable. Of course, it was you coming here that killed me… had you been delayed, I would have lingered just a little bit longer in this state of near-death.” “I’m sorry.” Sumac’s apology was heartfelt, and his ears sagged. “You shouldn’t be.” The old mare tried to lift her head, but failed. She struggled to breathe and the sound of crinkling, rumpling paper filled the tiny one roomed cottage. “Look at you. Such a nice colt. Lemon Hearts has saved both you and your mother from a terrible future, just as I knew she would.” “Trixie?” Sumac’s face wrinkled with concern. “A mother will go to great lengths to protect her foals,” the old mare replied, and she heaved a troubled sigh. “She’ll do things. Sometimes, terrible things. Awful things. I’ve done incomprehensible things to protect my daughters.” “Why are you dying?” Twilight blurted out, and her own words startled her. “Tsk, tsk, tsk, Twilight Fronking Sparkle.” The old mare’s tongue clucks fell upon Twilight like striking blows, and she flinched each time it happened. “You know why. Why, if I could get out of the bed, I’d spank your little purple plot with a wooden spoon for trying to weasel your way into an easy answer. That does not become you.” “I’m sorry!” Twilight bleated, and she stood there in the doorway, her heart thumping in her barrel in the most painful way. Knowledge lept into Twilight’s mind, a book manifested, and she began to comb though its pages. It was the book with no name, the very book she held, but she wasn’t reading it with her eyes. With concentration and focus, the answer to her question manifested, and she felt her heart being squeezed by the now unwanted knowledge. “Radiant Hope came here!” Twilight shouted. “A long, long time ago… she came here, but she wasn’t powerful enough on her own. She used… she used an amplifier, a crystal focusing rod.” Twilight felt her mouth go dry. “It had some of Grogar’s soul hidden inside of it, because somehow Grogar knew that she would seek you out someday. Radiant Hope came here hoping to find a way to save Sombra…” “And Grogar’s essence came into my realm, tainting my ink. I began dying for the second time that day.” The old mare’s head sagged into her paper pillow, and she closed her eyes. “He had already destroyed my body, and he found a way to come and finish me off long after he was dead. He is a powerful enemy, the worst this world will ever face.” “For her crime against life itself, Radiant Hope was cursed with life, and Sombra chose to share her punishment,” Twilight whispered while she shook her head, and she had trouble comprehending the punishment, as Radiant Hope had not gained an immortal’s perception of time to go with her immortality. It was just about the most awful thing she could think of to do to a pony. Black, inky tears began to spill down Twilight’s cheeks once more while she pondered this terrible fate, sentenced to life. “Pale will be here soon,” Sumac announced. “Both of you are beginning to converge.” The old mare’s eyes opened and she struggled to take a few more ragged breaths before she said, “Even the illusion of life is persistent. I haven’t needed to breathe in years, but I can’t seem to give up the habit. Every part of me was created to preserve life… and I just… can’t… let go…” “One of us must become your replacement.” Twilight stepped into the room proper and shut the door behind her, now recovering some of her grace as well as her presence of mind. She moved closer to the bed, fearful, no, not fearful, terrified, because her mind was becoming a confusing jumble of memories that were not all hers. “To become me, one of you must go back to the beginning of my book. You must see what I have seen, experience what I have experienced, you must walk the many paths that I have walked. The only way to become me is to shadow me, following me as I become who I am. It will be a long journey.” The old mare’s horn flicked with a faint, feeble light, and she lifted Sumac’s foreleg with her magic so that she might have a better look. “You have adorable little socks!” The colt blushed, but said nothing. “He can’t see them,” Twilight said, being helpful. “But they’re so obvious!” the old paper mare replied, wheezing out each word. Her barrel rose and fell beneath her paper comforter, and she pulled Sumac’s foreleg into her own, holding him with her paper fetlocks. “Oh, to feel the life of another again. It’s been a long time.” She clutched his foreleg, allowing it to rest upon her barrel, and a look of peaceful contentment settled over her tortured face. Twilight’s mind was abuzz with knowledge, some of it from the past, some of it from the present, and perhaps most curious of all, the future. She was beginning to think… with ink. The old mare was hiding something though, Twilight’s intuition told her that the Nameless One was preventing her from seeing certain outcomes. Why? The pages were blocked, the books remained shut. “You had to destroy your name.” Sumac’s voice was now deeper, a quirk of adolescent fluctuation. “A long time ago, you had to destroy your name and make ponies forget you. Very few remember you now. It’s weird, but I understand why. I can see books inside of my head if I try real hard.” “My name couldn’t overshadow my eventual replacement. I knew the day was coming, one way or another. The taint had to end with me. Taking up my name would mean taking up my tainted mantle.” The old mare sighed, a rattling sound, and she looked up into Sumac’s eyes. “Pale is a hard pony to be friends with, isn’t he?” “Oh, I dunno, I like him.” Sumac shrugged. “You are kind, colt… so very kind. You are the son of Lemon Hearts.” The old mare was now struggling to even wheeze, and her voice was growing faint. “Come closer, Twilight, so that I might look upon your face with these old eyes.” Doing as she was told, Twilight leaned over the bed, her mind overflowing with all manner of knowledge. She looked into the eyes of the old mare, the colourless, featureless paper eyes with no detail. The paper of her eyes was wrinkled and a bit tattered looking, but everything on the old mare looked old and rumpled. “It should be me,” Twilight said, her voice soft with sorrow and worry. “I’m more suited to this task. As an alicorn, I am far more suited to follow in the steps of another alicorn. Sumac should not be the one to bear this burden.” “Is that so?” the old mare asked, and she began to chuckle. Moving with terrifying supernatural speed, the old mare reached up one crinkly foreleg, the paper tearing from her sudden, unexpected movement. Ink began to pour from the rip, and she booped Sumac on the nose with her paper hoof. The colt went cross-eyed, let out a startled cry, fell over backwards, and tumbled off of the bed, which was now stained with ink. The Nameless One howled with laughter, shaking both her and her bed. On the floor, Sumac squirmed around and shouted, “Auntie Twily, I feel really fronking weird!” More ink flowed from the tear in the old mare, and it began to pour down the side of the bed now, soaking into the paper comforter. Twilight watched in horror, knowing what was about to happen to the old mare. She was bleeding out, spilling out the remains of her life. Booping Sumac was the act that killed her, and had Sumac not arrived, she would have lingered on the verge of death for quite a while longer. “AAAAAAAAAAARGH! TWILIGHT!” Sumac, now standing up, wobbled on his legs. His sides tore open, like paper tearing, and black ink spilled from the wounds. “OOOOOOOOH THIS FEELS SUPER-WEIRD!” While the colt spoke, paper began to protrude from the wounds, little curls of parchment with sharp points. The Nameless One continued to laugh, a hysterical howl, and her frail body rocked from side to side in her bed. The ink pouring from her tear was slowing now, and Twilight stood there, stunned, shaking her head, her lips moving, forming the word ‘no’ over and over, but to no avail. More paper emerged from the holes in Sumac’s sides while the colt danced in place, mewling with panic. As the paper began to uncurl, forming feathers, wings began to take shape. The colt howled in terror as the old paper mare began coughing while she laughed. Black ink flecked her lips and her legs began thrashing in the bed. With a gurgle of bubbling ink, the mare once known as Eternity was no more, having failed to live up to her namesake. Her book vanished from Twilight’s grasp, and was returned to its shelf. With her passing, Twilight felt it. Magic was dying too. All magic. The well of magic, the font of magic, it would go dry. What magic remained in the world would radiate for a time, but eventually, it would deplete, and magic would cease to be. There was a crinkle of paper from Sumac as his paper wings flapped, and Twilight was too overwhelmed to do much of anything, as she reeled from the sudden death of what made who and what she was. Twilight made a decision, the most horrible decision she had ever had to endure in her life. Turning about, she faced Sumac, and watched as his paper wings began to transmogrify into bone, flesh, and feathers. Still under the magic of the convergence, she knew that Sumac would resist her, and Pale was on the way. “Sumac, I’m sorry, but I have to go.” Twilight looked into his eyes while he thrashed about, still adjusting to his new body. “No!” Sumac, fighting to keep his balance, snarled in defiance. “You have Seville and Pinkie Pie! You have your entire school! All of Equestria needs you!” “And I will be there,” Twilight replied in a calm voice. Thinking with ink, she realised that Sumac had failed to grasp how this ended, how time was more of a loop. “Sumac, my beloved nephew, I have to go away.” “NO!” Twilight felt her body being seized with powerful magic, but she shrugged it off. “I’m not letting you do this to yourself!” Sumac shrieked. “Thousands and thousands of years without end, without your friends and those you love! Let it be me! Let me do this!” Once more, Twilight felt the tingle of magic creeping around her body. “Do you really want to do this?” She narrowed her eyes at her nephew. “Do you really wish to carry this burden?” “No, but I can’t bear the thought of you doing this, and I won’t let you!” Sumac’s wings were now all flesh and blood, and the rips in his sides had closed. Black tears rolled down his cheeks, forming inky puddles on the floor. “You’ve done so much for me! Let me do this for you! You can be with Seville and Pinkie Pie! You can be a mom! My life means nothing compared to yours!” Sumac’s magic had grown by leaps and bounds, and Twilight could feel the crushing constriction all around her. Words flowed through her mind, whole sentences, paragraphs, and she knew that her nephew was going to try and cripple her, breaking her wings and legs if necessary. She wasn’t mad at him—no—she was proud of him, and she loved him for being so selfless. The door opened and a pale pony appeared in the doorway. Twilight shrugged off Sumac’s magic and then, feeling a keen sense of regret, she paralysed him, but only just a little, just enough to make her point. “Sumac, I have to go away, but I promise, when you step out of this book, I’ll be waiting for you. I love you, and as your aunt, I must do what is best for you.” “NO!” Sumac tumbled to the floor, collapsing in a heap, his wings fluttering against his sides. “NO!” His horn glowed, but nothing happened. “I HATE YOU FOR WHAT YOU ARE DOING!” Ears sagging, Twilight’s head dropped a little, and the words stung more than she would ever admit. “I love you for what you tried to do,” she replied. “I have to go away now. Magic has to be restored before there is a crisis. I must do what must be done. I have to go away, back to the beginning, so that I can become what I choose to be.” “Don’t do this,” Sumac begged, shaking his head from side to side, using what limited movement he had to try and convince Twilight. Millions of words, many of them bearing fresh ink poured into Twilight’s head, and she struggled to deal with the rapid expansion of her mind. “Your friend, Pale, I think he needs you—” “I need you!” Sumac whined. “If you’re stuck in the past, I won’t have you!” Blinking, Twilight realised that Sumac still did not understand, he did not see. He was too emotional and far too distraught to be logical. His ability to cogitate had been impaired. Relaxing her will, she withdrew some of her magic from him, lowered her head down, and kissed him on his snoot. While she lifted her head she said, “I promise, I’ll be waiting for you when you come out of the book, Sumac.” “Pinkie Promise?” Sumac looked up at his aunt with pleading eyes while his new wings flapped against his sides. “Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye—OW!” Twilight squinted and danced around on three hooves while keeping her injured eye squeezed shut. “Every time… every fronking time! Damnit damnit damnit!” “It hurts to commit to things,” Sumac said, his voice breaking and his ears sagging from his aunt’s profanity. “I have to go away now.” Twilight rubbed her eye, wincing, and she glanced over at Pale, who had a stricken expression on his face. “Mister, your sister… she had to play one final prank before she left. She died laughing… that’s the final words in her book, if that is any consolation.” Pale offered a grief-laced smile, and gave Twilight a nod. “It means more than you know.” Eternity was now little more than a paper husk, a parchment replacement of her former self. Upon her first death, she became less than eternal, losing her name, and then she had died a second death. Twilight knew that her second death was far more enjoyable than her first, and this was comforting somehow. Much to Twilight’s surprise, Pale did not go to his sister’s remains, but instead, kneeled down upon the ink-stained paper floor to comfort Sumac, who lay weeping in a heap. It was time to go, time to go away, time to retreat into the past to follow in Eternity’s footsteps. More than words were pouring into her head, but new books were being added to her library. New lives had just been born, and there were new books to be filled with words. Every life was a story, and every story was a book. “My sister is no more,” Pale said to Twilight while he hugged Sumac. “The Nameless One is now gone, her book finished. Who are you and what have you become?” I ᴀᴍ ᴛʜᴇ sᴛᴀʀ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ᴡɪʟʟ ғᴏʀᴇᴠᴇʀ sᴘᴀʀᴋʟᴇ. I ᴀᴍ Tᴡɪʟɪɢʜᴛ Sᴘᴀʀᴋʟᴇ, Lɪɢʜᴛ ᴏғ Fʀɪᴇɴᴅsʜɪᴘ. And with that, Twilight allowed herself to vanish, to be pulled back into the past so that she could start anew at the beginning, and as she faded away, she knew that she had a promise to keep. After all, one of the most important friendship lessons she had learned was that breaking a promise to a friend was the fastest way to lose a friend, forever. The number of alicorns in the cottage was reduced to two.