//------------------------------// // A Failure is Only a Setback (Jan 26 2021, "Rejection") // Story: Speedwriting Anthology // by AuroraDawn //------------------------------// Sweet Pepper sniffed into her cocoa, oblivious to the world around her. A single teardrop rolled down her burgundy nose and dropped down into the rapidly cooling beverage, denting the huge stack of whipped cream that made drinking with a clean muzzle impossible. She looked down with bleary eyes, watching as the multicoloured sprinkles smeared and blotched with every blink, and then sniffed again. Clean Rag, the owner of the little diner in Canterlot that Sweet Pepper found herself in, walked up to the pegasus and placed a plate down in front of her, before sitting down herself across the table. Sweet Pepper ran a hoof over her eyes, mopping up the ick as best she could to see what it was Clean Rag had given her. Before her was a chocolate cream pie, with yet another stack of whipped cream that threatened to collapse like an ancient tower built on unstable foundation. Sweet Pepper sobbed once, letting the hint of a pained smile crack through her trembling muzzle. “No charge, Sweetie. I ain’t ever seen no one cry into a cocoa before, so it’s gotta be rough. Eat first, then let’s talk.” Sweet Pepper muttered a raspy “uh-huh” before swiping her long and messy orange mane out of her eyes. She tried to smile harder at Clean Rag, though her sky-blue eyes were strained red and complained at the movement. Picking up a fork, she took a piece of the pie with as much of the cream as she could manage and shakily brought it to her mouth. She chewed, an act entirely unnecessary seeing as it was a cream pie, but took a long minute to savor the bitter milky chocolate and sweetly complementing pastry. It was good, and after she swallowed, she leaned back and met Clean Rag’s worried gaze. “Helps, don’t it?” Clean Rag said consolingly. “I’ve never seen you like this. What happened?” “They uh… they rejected it,” Sweet Pepper said, dropping her gaze back to her cup of cocoa. She picked up a spoon and started stirring it, mixing the cream in absentmindedly. “After… after all of last year and this winter, all the… the research and writing… They sent it back. Flat no.” A sob came out of her like a hiccup, and she finally picked up the warm mug and drank deeply from it, leaving a white cream mustache to dry on her nose. “No mentions of rewrites, or minor changes, or uh... I uh… I can’t reapply.” Clean Rag reached across the table and held Sweet Pepper’s hooves in her own, pressing them together on the mug. “Oh, Sweetie, your fan club? That was what you were writing for in here every Sunday, right?” “Mmhmm,” Sweet Pepper replied, gently tugging one foreleg before leaving it in the embrace and wiping her eyes again with a wingtip. “It was actually, uh, it was for the publisher. Looking for ghostwriters for the Daring Do series.” A frown creased the unicorn’s brow. “Now I know you’re a fantastic writer, Sweetie! The bits you’ve shared with me, the effort you went into writing and rewriting just to get each paragraph right, the nights you’ve spent here, writing furiously until we closed…” “And none of it mattered,” Sweet Pepper cried, before breaking out into a new fit of sobs and sniffs. Clean Rag waited a moment for the pegasus to catch her breath, and then gently lifted her hooves with the mug still held. Sweet Pepper took her cue, and drank again from the cup, draining it. “Not one bit,” she continued hoarsely. “I love that series so much, Ms. Rag, I do, I live it and breathe it and dress it. I’ve taken so much of them and put that into myself. Those books are part of me, but…” She trailed off, bringing her head up to look out the window at the drifting flakes. A dirty slush had started to build up on the sidewalks, a symptom of a city winter that had overstayed its welcome. The world outside was grey, muffled, cold. Sweet Pepper felt much the same. “But I can never be part of them, Ms. Rag.” “Well, Sweetie, I reckon that’d be a mighty large waste of your talent.” “...Excuse me?” “You’re a good writer. A darn good one, Sweetie. And I’ll tell you, those publisher executives couldn’t tell a good story from an Earth pony’s fart. I think you went and wrote a book that was too well written.” Sweet Pepper managed a more believable laugh, but her grief had only been replaced with confusion. “Ms. Rag, I don’t understand. They rejected me.” “Because they knew if they published your book, all their other ones would look bad by comparison, and their other ghost writers would be out of a job. You don’t need them, Sweetie. You’ve got yourself, and your passion. In fact, I’m so sure’a it, I’m gonna make you a bet right here and now.” Sweet Pepper shook her head, taken aback. “Oh, no, I really couldn-” “I bet you, Sweet Pepper, that you’re gonna write a best seller of your own, under your own name, by this time next year. And if I win that bet, you owe me for that pie there. If I lose, well, I suppose you’ll have to live with the fact that you conned a pie outta me.” She held a hoof out, beaming wildly at the bewildered pegasus. Sweet Pepper looked at the offered hoof and, after cleaning her face one final time with a napkin, nodded with determination and shook. “On one condition though, Ms. Rag,” she said while shaking. “Oh?” “You let me order one more cocoa before you close.” “I think,” the unicorn said, returning Sweet Pepper’s weak smile with her own signature grin, “that can be arranged.”