//------------------------------// // 9 - Walking // Story: Spilled Ink // by Fiddlove Enfemme //------------------------------// We chatted for a while in the library, though soon enough the others slowly excused themselves to go off and do other things. Applejack was the last to leave, though before she did there was something she had to give me. The two of us were alone at the table in the library, still covered in magic textbooks. Starlight had just disappeared to another room for... something. She hadn't exactly been very clear on what it was, so I think it was just an excuse. "Well Ink Blot, there's no other way for me to say it so I'll say it plain." said Applejack I nodded for her to continue. "When Granny heard about how much help you were, she insisted on compensatin' you. This here purse has your share of the payment from the shipment." she placed a small coinpurse onto the table. It was packed to the brim. "You didn't have to, the deal was for food and shelter." I replied. "Ah told her you'd say that, but she wouldn't budge. That's why I was hopin' to run into yous at the Senior's Hall. But there's one other thing ah should mention," Applejack said. "If you need someone to talk to about some of th' things you've remembered, don't hesitate to come talk to me." "I will." "Ah don't think ah've told you this, but mah parents passed away when ah was young. Pa game me his favourite hat, an' it's somethin' ah remember him by." she smiled. I could sure have used something like that. Family heirlooms. "Well, at least we have something in common." I tried to deflect dryly. "In a way, yeah. Ah'll see you around?" Applejack asked. I nodded, and she made her way out of the library. Funny. When I'd left my family the last thing I'd wanted was something to remember them by. Now all I wanted was to remember them, to remember who they were, to remember their faces. Right now I could only remember very specific moments, feelings, actions. All I had to go on for my grandparents were the taste of cobbler and the sound of music and their presence. For my own parents I had even less, more so the lack of presence. This was getting depressing. I needed a distraction, some other kind of goal to strive for. Maybe find a job. Maybe I could find an apartment to rent, so I'd have a reason to work other than boredom. The Apple family was always an option, if they'd have me. It felt like I had nothing at stake. I had a place to stay for the time being, almost indefinitely in fact. I doubt I would ever get anywhere close to starvation with the connections I'd very accidentally made. Money I could mooch and very carefully budget whatever Applejack had given me. I don't think I really cared about money insofar as it was used to get something to eat. I probably had a much more extensive safety net than I realized. But it didn't feel real, it felt sort of numbing. To make sure this was real, I pricked myself with the pointy end of one of the claws. Ow. A small drop of blood welled up from the grievous wound. Yep. Real. I didn't want to do any more than that because it would quickly become something morbid and even more depressing. It simply was not a bridge I wanted to cross, ever. No matter how bad things got. "Oh, did AJ leave?" asked Starlight as she poked her head inside. "Yeah, just a few minutes ago." I said. "That's too bad, I was going to put on tea. Have any plans for the rest of the day?" I thought for a moment. "I don't know. Is it still raining? I might go for a walk if it isn't." "The rain stopped about half an hour ago," Starlight yawned. "Anyway, I'd better get back to my paperwork. It needs to be done before the new school year." "No, you're coming for a walk." I shook my head. She frowned. "I said I'm going to do my paperwork." "When does the new school year start?" I asked pointedly. "The break ends next weekend, but I'd prefer-" "You've been working on those papers ever since I got here. If you're not working on those papers, you're either at the school doing your job or you're here, passed out at the kitchen table after working on the papers until ungodly hours of the night. The few times you haven't been doing those are when you're trying to help me out. Take a break, and take a walk with me." I snapped. "These papers are important!" Starlight snapped back. "So is your mental health. Your weekends are supposed to be for you and your own, not for the stuff you should have had the time to do during the week but didn't." I countered. "This is a unique and temporary situation, once the paperwork is done and the new school year starts everything will be back to normal!" she defended. And just like that, I had her. "A so-called "unique and temporary situation" that you yourself complained about extensively the other day. The way you spoke about it implied that it was not the former and instead both a recurring and frustrating problem!" She sputtered for a moment, trying to string together a few words. "There is no shame in taking a break when you're overstressed and overworked," I continued in a softer tone. "You said so yourself that you don't know how to deal with all of this. Now it might seem counter-intuitive, but the road to better productivity is paved with taking time away from your work. Taking time for proper RNR. Stop spending your nights at a table with a cup of coffee and a stack of papers that never seems to get any smaller. Sleep in your own bed, normalise your sleeping schedule. Start by coming and taking a bloody walk." Starlight frowned at me, upset that I'd caught her up in what would otherwise have been an innocuous lie. "Fine. I'll go for a walk. But I'm not going to enjoy it." Today, I felt like doing something different than my norm. No walking through town for me, even if I was doing it with Starlight in tow. I wanted to go for a walk in the woods. Not very deep, but far enough that all that was around were trees and bushes. Anticipating that it might become a bit of a hike, I packed some granola bars and some rope, along with a few other things that would be useful into the old green saddlebags I'd been borrowing. Compass, a few metres of rope spooled around a brass tinderbox, a whistle, box of matches as backup, roll of twine, needle and thread, adhesive bandages, big medical scissors, waterskin, pillar candle - a big one. You know, office supplies. "Those're my old saddlebags." Starlight commented. "I wanted to go for a walk in the woods today, so I hope you don't mind me borrowing them to carry some stuff. Emergency supplies in case things get hairy." "Emergency supplies? Why would we need emergency supplies?" she asked. "In case things get hairy, which would therefore qualify as an emergency according to the transitive property." I replied sassily. "Oh, so you're going to be sassy today? Two can play at sassiness." Starlight rolled her eyes. I smirked a bit. "Well, technically it has the same rules as roulette, so any number of people can play." "You're a gambling colt?" "Gambling is a bad habit to get into." "Good. Lending to gamblers is an even worse habit." Starlight said. Without anything to say to that, I waved for her to come along with me. It was nice outside, now that the rain was over. The sun was beginning to peak through the clouds, warming up the air somewhat. The rain had cleared the air of even the residual smells of civilization, and all that remained were the earthly smells of nature. It was a vaguely sweet scent. Delightful. The nearest proper woodland footed the mountains to the north and west of Ponyville, but extended nearly to the farmlands directly west of town. I could have gone to that one I'd first woken up in, but it was too small, and the only other close forest was on the other side of a river that I didn't want to cross. It took about 20 minutes moving at a steady pace along a narrow road that twisted around the edges farmer's fields for us to actually reach it. When we got to the forest's edge, I felt like a sort of weight had been lifted from my shoulders. A weight I hadn't noticed until it was gone. I placed my hoof against the white bark of the nearest tree, running it along the surface, feeling its texture. In the canopy above us, its leaves rustled softly in the breeze. They looked like they were dancing on the wind. "Do you know what kind of tree this is?" I asked Starlight. She looked at it and thought for a moment. "Birch?" she ventured. "Poplar. You'd be forgiven for confusing it with a birch because they're visually very similar, especially as saplings. But, you can always tell the poplar from the birch by looking at its base. Down here, the white turns to a craggy grey," I explained softly. "And you can tell the birch from the poplar by looking at how the bark of the birch naturally peels away in places. To make double sure, you can feel birch's almost papery texture." "That sounds familiar." Starlight responded with disinterest. "Birch is a good wood for burning. Burns long and hot, if you ever have a choice for your firewood pick birch over almost any other kind of wood. And, if I remember correctly, there is a technique where you can take the bark and make canoes out of it." "Wait, what? Canoes?" Starlight asked incredulously. "Yep, canoes. It was a technique used by the... well, it was used by someone. A big group of them, actually. It helped form the lifeblood of... something. I can't remember what it was, but I still know it was pretty useful. They'd find a tree of suitable diametre, cut into the bark deeply enough to let them peel the outermost layers off, then dry it for a season. If they did it right, they'd get a piece of bark that was waterproof and usable for all sorts of things. But, because you couldn't find a tree large enough to make a single canoe out of, you'd need to harvest quite a few trees." I continued. It was useless trivia, especially now, but I was on a roll and wanted to try and eke out as much memory as I could. "I can't imagine how they'd make a canoe out of that." "Once you had the bark, you needed to sew it together using peeled spruce roots, and build a frame to hold the birch bark in place and create the interior of the canoe. It could be a little touchy, but everything would usually come together under the supervision of a competent canoe maker. The holes where it'd been sewn would be patched with pitch, which provided waterproofing. In the end you had a robust vehicle for water travel that was light enough for two people to carry from waterway to waterway if need be." I finished. Starlight looked at me curiously. "That was informative yet entirely useless to either of us." "Something tells me I knew a lot of informative yet entirely useless things. Mostly the fact that I keep remembering informative yet entirely useless things," I shrugged. "Who knows, we might need to make a birch bark canoe someday, and I'll be able to walk us through it." In actuality, making the canoe with traditional methods would take most of a season, not to mention the time to locate and prep the necessary materials. While I had the theoretical knowledge, I didn't have the practical knowledge of the process and how it worked to ensure that everything went smoothly. For now, us poor souls would have to walk around on our own four hooves instead of riding in style down a river full of rapids. But what a walk it was. I had a gut feeling that I hadn't done something like this for a long time. Foraging ahead through the underbrush, looking up and marveling at the height of the trees, watching and listening to the sounds of the forest itself. The leaves rustled softly, squirrels chittered, bird twitted. In the distance I saw the more skittish wildlife studying us, evaluating us. They asked themselves, "Friend or foe?". I certainly wasn't a foe, but if one of them took offense to our presence I wasn't going to back down. I didn't have a knife, but I did have three claws on my left hoof, and a full set of chompers. If, say, a black bear were to arrive, I could drive it away. A grizzly bear though, if one of them showed up it would be curtains. "Have you ever come out this way before?" I asked Starlight as we came to a wider stream. I only half listened as I tried to figure out the best way across. "Oh, loads of times. Fluttershy actually lives somewhere around here." she answered. "She's one of the ones you were going to introduce me to, right?" "Yeah, but she can be pretty shy sometimes." I chuckled slighty. "I suppose it's in the name. What does she do?" "She's all about animals. Likes them a lot more than she does most other ponies, in fact. She'll keep to herself and take care of whatever creatures need the most help, only going into town for supplies and special occasions." Starlight said. "A bit of a hermit, then. Living alone with only the forest dwellers as your friends... I could get behind that, but only if I didn't have any other responsibilities." I commented. "She doesn't exactly live alone." Starlight smiled. "A common-law partnership kinda deal?" I asked. I decided to cross the stream using the sizable fallen log that straddled the banks. As I made my way across, I balanced from side to side, feeling how the log shifted. Starlight scrunched up her face. "Sort of? It's complicated. He kinda transcends most terrestrial laws so it's hard to figure out what applies to him." "I would ask, but I think I'd get better answers from the guy himself. Do you think they'd mind if we dropped by?" "I don't think they would, assuming they're home. I'll just need to orient myself real quick." she nodded. As I watched, she enveloped herself in a bubble of magic and steadily floated upward into the sky through the canopy. After a brief survey of the land she lowered herself down beside me and pointed. "It's about a kilometre this way." she said. "Lead the way." I smiled. Picturesque. That's how I would describe this little cottage. It perched on the top of a little bluff and was accessed by a little bridge that arched over a stream. Around the back, there was a fenced yard, but the fence seemed to be more of a suggestion than a barrier. At one point the original building had been in the same style as the rest of Ponyville, but little additions and changes had given it a character all its own. It had a... flow to it that a lot of more conventional buildings lacked, what with their squared corners and polished gables. Yes, it was the same creamy brown plaster and timber framing, but the roof had been enveloped by greenery, and climbing vines and other plants spindled up the outside walls. All that, of course, was overshadowed by the wildlife. The sheer amount of birds that were nested in the trees around it, in the roofing material, in little bird houses, was breathtaking. Cardinals, bluejays, whiskey-jacks, redpolls, chickadees, woodpeckers, and those were just the ones I knew the names of. In the stream below the bridge, there was a family of otters. A few chipmunks poked their heads out of their holes in our passing, greeting us. "Lots of critters around here. Fluttershy really has time for all of them?" I asked skeptically. "Yep! And she knows each one of them by name." Starlight nodded. Though I was still skeptical, I nodded in agreement. "That's the mark of someone who cares." The moment we stepped up to the door, something felt off to me. It was like a... whispering from behind my brain. It unsettled me, put me on edge. It continued as Starlight knocked at the door, and only faded as I heard hoofsteps up to the door. "He is here," was the last thing I heard from the whispers before they disappeared completely. What the hell did that mean? "Hi Starlight." came a quiet and subdued voice, belonging to a yellow pegasus with a pink mane whom I assumed was Fluttershy. "Hi Fluttershy. Are you busy?" Starlight asked. "Oh, not really." Fluttershy replied. "Do you mind if we come in? I'd like to introduce you to someone new in town." There was a brief pause. "Um, sure!" she said. Starlight entered the cottage, and I followed. The inside of the main sitting room was quaint and cozy without being stuffy. There were little animal beds scattered everywhere, as well as a few of those cat climbing towers. There were small dens and nests and holes in the walls where animals had made their own homes within the home. Despite how many creatures lived here, nothing was disorderly or unkempt. I couldn't have named them all, but from what it seemed they all kept to themselves and left any disagreements they had outside the cottage. From his perch at the top of a tower, a white rabbit looked down on us disapprovingly. "Fluttershy, this is Ink Blot. He's new in town, and he lost his memory so I offered to let him stay at the castle. It's a long story but to break his curse he needs to make friends. We were out for a walk and we were in the area so we decided to come by and see if you were home." Starlight introduced me. "Hello." I said to Fluttershy. "Hi." she said back. "Ink Blot, this is Fluttershy. She loves animals, and she's one of the ones who originally stopped Nightmare Moon and then did a whole bunch of other things, like coming to my village. Thankfully she's forgiven me for the time I removed her cutie mark with magic." "I hear you're pretty reserved." I commented. "Yeah." Fluttershy replied. "Would you like some refreshments?" "Tea, if you please." I humbly requested. Fluttershy gave us a small smile and disappeared from the main sitting room into a side kitchen. The white rabbit hopped down to the ground and followed her, looking back at me with a frown. "That rabbit doesn't like me." I chuckled. "The only pony that Angel does like is Fluttershy, and that's because she's the one who feeds him. With anypony else, it ranges from tolerance to outright hate." Starlight smirked. I was about to respond with something, but another voice that seemed to come from beyond time and space cut me off. "And that's enough of that." it rumbled. Everything froze. None of the animals were moving. Starlight had been in the middle of taking a breath. Everything around me was absolutely silent. "Wha-?" I stammered before there was a flash of light and a strange creature appeared on the couch across from me. "Hello, Ink Blot. I must say, you're here a lot earlier than I'd expected you to be." said the creature. It was... an amalgam of bits and parts from a number of creatures. None of him made sense. It was like someone had chopped up a bunch of animals and glued together a bunch of random pieces to form an entirely new creature. "What are you? How do you know my name?" I asked with hostility. "What have you done?" "Oh, right, that whole memory thing, I'd better introduce myself again. I'm Discord, almighty spirit of Chaos and Disharmony!" the beast said, now suddenly wearing a fancy suit with a top hat, which he doffed in my direction. I frowned. "Wait, I knew you?" "In a way, yes! In this reality, no! We had a mutual friend, who I allowed to tap into my energies from time to time. You'd love him, always going on about doing the right thing." Discord snapped his... claws... and an old timey camera phased into existence. He put one of his arms around me, made a peace sign, and the camera took a picture. He took the picture, and stepped through a door that I swore hadn't been there before returning near instantly with a developed photograph. "Here, take this to remember our meeting by." the strange creature said as he stuffed the photograph into my left saddlebag. "I don't understand. Did you do this to me?" "Oh no, I had nothing to do with it. In fact, don't bother asking me to help with it because I can't. I may be a spirit of Chaos, but I still have to follow the rules, you know?" "Rules?" "Oh, you'd hate it being as powerful as me, especially with the new administration us supreme beings are under. No sense of humour what-so-ever! All they ever seem to care about is making sure the scales of Chaos and Order are in balance. Whenever some-draconequus like me tries to have a bit of fun, they send someone over to fix the books. Really makes you feel like a cog in the machine." Discord lamented, changing his dress to that of a beleaguered officeworker, his soul crushed by the piling failures of his life. Like a scene from a movie, for a moment he longingly held this old sports trophy that had a statue of himself in miniature on it. "Can't you tell me a little more about myself, since you know me better than I do right now?" I asked again, trying to word the question carefully. Discord thought for a moment, then summoned a filing cabinet that floated a foot off of the ground. He opened it, browsing for something. "You sure are taking your time with it." I muttered. He laughed heartily. "Oh, you don't need to worry about time right now. I've got us in a frozen time loop. Every five milliseconds we jump back 5 milliseconds back in time. I made sure to take an instant where Starlight's blinking and Fluttershy's busy in the kitchen for our little chat. Ah, here it is! A file all about you, which contains everything I'm allowed to tell you about. Look how thick it is!" Discord tossed the file over in my direction, where it landed on the coffee table, face open. The very first page was simply my name, INK BLOT, written in a large and bolded typeface. Below that was a thick black line. I opened it to the next page: THIS PAGE LEFT INTENTIONALLY BLANK. So I went to the next page. It was covered in horizontal black lines. All of it. I flipped again. Black lines. Again. Nothing but lines. There was no way it could all be covered up. I wouldn't believe it. I couldn't. I flipped through about twenty more pages, all exactly the same; horizontal black lines from one margin to the other. There was nothing here. God damn it. "Oh, I'm sorry Ink Blot. It looks like everything's been covered in black ink. Your file is almost completely classified. And not even by me! If I had the option, I'd give it all back to you just for kicks. But no, the administration requires that I give you nothing more than vague hints and poorly crafted foreshadowing, especially with a situation as unique as yours. Spoilsports," Discord said with mock concern, his face appearing on the page I was currently looking at, the lines rippling with his words. "I'm only allowed to properly manipulate ponies and people under my own jurisdiction, though if we get technical you are currently under my jurisdiction. It's just that anything I'd want to do with you has so much bureaucratic red tape around it that by the time I'd actually get through it, you'll have your memory back!" "Then what's even the point of talking to me like this? In a self-sustained loop of time?" I asked with a sigh. Discord smiled devilishly. "Because there is no point, my dear Ink Blot! In fact, when this ends, oh, let's say whenever I get bored of talking, it will be hard to tell if this moment ever happened to begin with! It's just a lazy way of acknowledging you without having to actually do anything about it! Though, I suppose I can warn you about one thing." "What?" "You memories aren't exactly what they're cracked up to be, as you probably guessed already. A lot of pain and loss and heartbreak, emphasis on the pain. There's some happiness there, but you'd really be better off if you let yourself forget about everything and move forward with life. There's lots of mares who'd fall head over hooves for a guy like you! Think about all the beach babes throwing themselves down in front of you at a chance to bask in your tragic backstory! Think about the beach babes, Ink Blot!" Discord urged me, before ending our conversation with a sneeze. I barely had enough time to blink before time rushed back into place. Everything started moving like normal, and Starlight frowned for a moment before muttering something to herself. Discord, however, was nowhere to be seen. It was like he'd never been there at all. We didn't stay very long for tea, it was getting close to sundown and tomorrow was the last exam day. No matter what I had to say about the amount of work she was taking upon herself, there still were responsibilities she couldn't shirk. The two of us were walking back in silence along a well worn dirt pathway. It was just like Discord had said, if he'd actually said it. That whole event seemed so otherworldly and unfathomable that I'd hardly have believed it happened at all... if it weren't for the photograph he'd stuffed into my bag. What the hell did it all mean? Everything he'd said was both entirely bizarre and oddly cryptic. A lot of it seemed like straight up nonsense, but maybe if I thought about it long enough I'd find meaning or insight. "I'm surprised Discord didn't make an appearance." Starlight said as we were walking along a drystone wall. "What?" I asked, snapped out of my thoughts. "He usually likes to mess with anypony who comes to visit, does all sorts of weird thing. Good thing it's mostly harmless, and he values his friendship with Fluttershy too much to do anything that would put it in danger. Mostly harmless." "Oh, that makes sense." I replied, not quite paying attention. Starlight glanced at me. "Are you alright?" she asked me. "Yeah. Thinking. About stuff." I sighed. "About your past?" "Yeah." I shrugged. The skies were a distinct tint of orange, and all was still. The afternoon sun had dried up most of the rainwater, and now that it was evening the wind had died down somewhat. Ahead of us, a single tree stood at a crossroads. It was probably about 15 years old, based on how thick the trunk was, and its limbs were heavy with berries. The tiny fruits resembled dark blueberries with a tint of red, but I knew what they were. "Do you know what kind of tree this is?" I asked Starlight as we came close. "Not really. I'm pretty sure the berries aren't edible, if that's why you're asking." she said. I half smiled. "This is the saskatoon tree, sometimes also called the serviceberry. The berries are completely edible. In fact, I used to eat them all the time." Without waiting for a response from Starlight, I reached upwards with my left hoof, balancing onto my hind legs, stretching for the berries. I wobbled for a moment before finding my balance, and brought the claw mechanism closer before carefully closing it with my other hoof. Slowly, I pulled a single berry from the tree and lowered myself back to the ground. I sat down and looked at the berry in my claws. It was ripe, without any bugs in it, without any blight. Perfect for the eating. "My grandparents had a few trees that grew wild on their property. They had other wild fruits too, like raspberry and pin cherry and a few hardy apple trees. When we were staying with them, we would go out and pick and pick until the bushes and trees were all bare, then my grandpa would make it all into jelly or jam or even cider. I always loved to help them out, because you couldn't do things like that in the city anymore. They lived on the outskirts of town, where everything was greener and you could breathe properly," I smiled fondly, but the smile soon faded. "Maybe they were far enough out that when everything..." Starlight frowned. "When everything... what?" "I should have been there for them. But I wasn't." I said sadly and closed my eyes. Tears were welling up, and I didn't want to see them. "Did something happen to them?" Starlight questioned, more than a little concerned. My eyes snapped open, the trail of memory suddenly halted on by a dark presence. I could almost see it now, the fog lifting away as I reclaimed what I could of the memory. "I think so. I don't know what it was for certain, but... it was something horrible."