//------------------------------// // Waiting for a Spark - Unfinished Chapter One // Story: Short Scraps and Explosions // by shortskirtsandexplosions //------------------------------// I've already talked extensively about this story in some stupid blog. Meh. Not much else to say except... it goes nowhere. It was also something of an experiment to see if I could write short, minimalistic prose. I think I failed. Also angsty Twilight Sparkle. When Lone Star woke up, she forgot what she was dreaming about, but it didn't matter. She greeted the pale rays of a Monday morning sunrise with a sigh. Sliding out of bed, the unicorn trotted across her empty apartment and prepared for a busy day of classes. Breakfast was simple: a bowl of oats and celery. She packed a daffodil sandwich for later in the day. Squinting into a bedroom mirror, the young filly regarded a lavender blur staring back at her. Quietly, with ritualistic lethargy, Lone Star clutched a brush in the crook of her hoof and smoothed the violet streaks in her mane. Grasping a pin, she pulled the length of her hair into a bun, exposing her slender neck. Finally, she reached into a drawer, removed a pair of glasses, and planted the spectacles on the bridge of her nose. In the mirror, a violet-eyed unicorn came into focus, staring back with an eternally deadpan expression. There was a black knob resting at the end of the pony's horn. It was a black cap made out of arcane metals, and Lone Star had memorized the tiny runes etched into it like the back of her hoof. With a lonesome breath, the unicorn shuffled to the front end of her tiny apartment. She took her daffodil sandwich, along with several textbooks and a bundle of written scrolls, and slid them all into a pale saddlebag. These, she slid over her flank with practiced ease. With a last-second adjustment of her eyeglasses, Lone Star opened the door to her apartment, locked it behind her, and stepped out onto the echoing streets of uptown Canterlot. The cobblestone paths leading up to Princess Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns were filled to the brim with young ponies. Between several alabaster storefronts full of Canterlotlian antiquity, the brightly-coated colts and fillies trotted leisurely to their first classes of the day. They broke out into random conversations that filled the dazzling avenues of the royal city with gossip, politics, and laughter. Nopony talked to Lone Star. Her spectacled eyes swam memorized patterns across the sidewalk cracks that led to her early morning astronomy class. Ascending to the third floor of the grandiose college building, Lone Star sat in the middle of the room. That Monday was the scheduled turn-in for the semester's final essay. Every other unicorn shuffled their astronomy papers magically, using kindergarten level telekinesis to slip a monogrammed seal over their written reports. Lone Star took an extra minute to seal her paper, rolling the parchment up and applying the finishing touches by bare hoof and mouth. She finished in time to hoof over her thick bundle of writing to the passing professor. The essay had taken the better part of three consecutive evenings for her to finish. She breathed with a nervous shudder, the knob at the end of her horn bobbing awkwardly in the classroom air. The professor gave a brief and unimportant lecture about the Wednesday's study on Canis Major. Astronomy class ended, and Lone Star shuffled out along with every other pony. Navigating the cluttered hallway full of trotting, murmuring unicorns, the lavender filly made a bee-line for her class on Ancient Sorcery. The day's topic was on Second Age Empiricist Lunar Enchantment. It was the one moment in the day when Lone Star felt most awake. The class ended far sooner than she had hoped, and in a slow shuffle she made her way to the front lawn of the campus, where she sat alone beneath an apple tree and ate her daffodil sandwich over an old book written on the topic of the Aurora Borealis. She heard laughter and giggling. Lone Star glanced across the lawn to see a young filly playfully shoving away a flirtatious stallion. The two ponies giggled, their coats turning red, as the midday Sun shone over their bright and happy coats. Lone Star returned her gaze to her book, but for some reason found the words hard to keep track of. After lunch, there were three more classes: Advanced Spatial Geometry, Sub-Equestrian Sociology, and finally Intermediary Neo-Alchemy. During the last course, Lone Star worked alone, having an entire laboratory bench of materials at her disposal. She was so engrossed in transmuting a block of stone into granite through enchanted chemicals that she hadn't realized the rest of the class had cleared out until the professor cleared her throat and gently urged the young filly to finish with her experimentation. The abrupt end to her lab work threw Lone Star off balance, so that she stumbled homeward in an awkward gait, her nose scrunched up as she smelled the lingering scent of chemicals wafting off her lavender coat. She was residually aware of posh Canterlotlian citizens giving her a second glance through her peripheral. Her cheeks went red and she hurried her hoofsteps until she was safely upon the threshold of her apartment. Once safely inside with the door shut behind her, Lone Star slumped to her haunches, letting all of the sights and colors and sounds of the day filter out of her in a long and shuddering exhale. With a limp hoof, she pulled the pin out of her hair and let her long mane flow free. There were too many hours left in the day. She strolled liquidly through the cramped apartment, not bothering to strip of her saddlebag until she was halfway to her bedroom. The afternoon was spent primarily at the kitchen table, performing homework and scheduling the rest of the week. With expert precision, Lone Star stood before a white board hanging on the wall. With a marker clasped between two teeth, the unicorn scribbled neatly the itinerary for the next few days to follow. Everyday was ordinary, except for Saturday—which was marked with the illustration of a crescent moon. Lone Star briefly paused to stare at it, and a sad lump formed in her throat. Night came far too slowly. Lone Star took a bath under dim lantern light, spending an extended period of time in the hot basin of water. Cleaned three times over, she eventually stepped out, dried herself, and headed for bed. Planting her glasses back into their respective drawers, she extinguished the last candle in her apartment and slid under the covers. Everything was dead silent, and Lone Star's violet eyes were wide open. She tried to go to sleep, but every second that the silence persisted, a distant and imaginary ringing sound bled into her ears, as if the walls of her apartment were grinding against each other. With a meditative breath, the unicorn student eventually forced her eyes shut, performing several rudimentary geometric calculations in her head, mentally preparing for the homework she had to complete over the next thirty-six hours. Tuesday morning arrived as anticlimactically as it ever did. Again, Lone Star was certain that she had dreamt of something important. She tossed away any notion of nocturnal visions as she tossed the bedsheets off her and got up for the day. After eating breakfast, pulling her mane into a bun, and slipping on her thick glasses, Lone Star hoisted the saddlebag over her spine and sauntered once more onto the ivory streets of the sepulcher city. Her classes were hardly interesting on Tuesdays and Thursdays. First she attended a course on Equestrian Statistics, then two separate classes on Arcane Biology that were so similar that she hardly believed she actually paid for both of them. The fourth class was on Draconian Physiology, which actually kept her interest for a spell. The fifth class, a course on Equestrian Politics, would have been completely uneventful, hadn't the professor suddenly broke into tears before the entire classroom while going on a tangent about Princess Luna. Lone Star felt her heart beating hard for the first time that afternoon. It almost felt like the awkwardness that had stabbed her upon waking up, as if something dreadful was missing to have made her pulse race so much. Whatever the case, the professor swiftly composed herself, and the class ended on a neutral note. Lone Star no longer had an excuse to be distracted. After her courses were finished, Lone Star took a long detour on the way home. There was a tranquil hum to the dying afternoon, as if the cloudy heights of Canterlot were mourning a deep loss that only she knew about. Everypony around her was smiling and chattering about one cheerful thing or another, and in a broad glance they all appeared to be missing something. Lone Star said nothing, for she knew that she would be at a loss to tell them just what the grand secret was. She didn't understand it herself; she didn't understand a lot of things. One thing was sure: there was homework to be done. Lone Star wandered home. For hours, she sat at her kitchen table, pouring over geometric equations and reading tome after tome on Equestrian history. Slumber came only when she let it. Her bath was a short, blissfully hot thing, and suddenly she was back beneath the covers in the darkness, assaulted from all sides by the dreadfully ringing silence of her tiny home. There was no more homework to be completed, so for sanity's sake the unicorn pretended she hadn't finished it to begin with, and she repeated the mental exercises in her head until sleep was veritably forced upon her. Wednesday morning rolled through her bedroom window. Lone Star said nothing to the shadows. She ate. She did her hair. She put on her glasses, and walked out the door. On her way to the college campus, she passed by a series of Canterlotlian citizens dressed in plain black robes. She watched as the mournful unicorns marched in a cold parade towards the East Wing of the Royal Palace, telekinetically levitating an array of tiny flames before them. Under a murmur of reverent chants, they made their way into a heavily guarded chamber flanked by banners bearing the image of a crescent moon. For the second time that week, Lone Star felt a sad lump forming in her throat. It grew all the heavier when she realized that she had actually counted the consecutive occasions it had happened. With a cleansing sigh, she swiftly trotted her lonesome way to astronomy class. The essays had been graded already. Lone Star was actually surprised with the professor's swiftness in that regard. A chorus of mixed cheers and groans filled the room as several unicorn students were unveiled their latest scholastic fate. The lavender unicorn fidgeted in her seat, gripping the desktop with firm hooves. The teacher's assistant sashayed down the rows of desks with a swish of her blonde tail hairs. She was snickering and casting a sly smirk by the time she reached Lone Star's seat. When Lone Star received her graded paper, she realized why. Her score was well within the sixty percentile, hardly passing. It was the second time in her entire college career that she had gotten such a dismal score, and the filly felt as if her heart was about to burst out of her numb chest. The professor spent the rest of the hour lecturing on Canis Major, but Lone Star could barely pay attention. She burned holes through her desktop with twitching eyes as the wheels turned in her beleaguered mind, attempting to figure out what horrible mistake she had made to receive such a disastrous grade. She hadn't even realized the class had ended when the professor's voice broke through her cloud of thought. “Miss Star?” She jerked, startled, nearly falling out of her seat. Gulping a dry throat, she gazed pensively up at her teacher. “Y-Yes, Doctor Sundust?” “No doubt you are angrily vexxed to have received such a low score as that which I gave you, young filly,” the elder stallion remarked with a wave of his horn. “Erm... H-Hardly, sir. I'm not at all angry. I-I just—” “If you pay attention to my notations, Miss Star, you'll see that I found almost every one of your focus points to be on par with the subject matter of your essay. The report was almost completely devoid of errors, which is remarkable for a pony of your age—with or without your obvious limitations...” Lone Star bit her lip, feeling the weight of the metal knob pulling on her horn after hearing the professor's last few words. “I... uhm... I-I'm glad that you think so, sir—” “But the primary requirement of the assignment clearly stated that the report should not exceed twenty pages. You turned in thirty-six pages, Miss Star.” The educated stallion adjusted his own spectacles and gave the lavender unicorn a pitiable stare. “While I respect your diligence and effort, you must also learn that many scientific organizations out there that could utilize your talent beyond the classroom will require brevity as much as if not more so than poignancy. You have so much potential, Miss Star. Learn to focus it, and you will achieve far better results.” “I was only endeavoring to fully explain the difference between Ursa Major and Ursa Minor—” “Focus, my dear. Without conciseness, where would the greatest minds of Equestria be today?” Lone Star exhaled long and hard, bowing her rune-capped horn. “Yes, Doctor Sundust. I understand.” After classes, after a shuffling canter home, after the sun went down, Lone Star stood alone in her kitchen, plastering the failed paper across a wooden cabinet, so that it was in open view from almost every angle of the tiny apartment. She stared at it; she had to stare at it. It was her entire life, enveloped in thirty-six pages, splashed all over with red ink corrections like so many wincing creases in her furrowed brow. Gazing at it long enough, her vision blurred, and she saw beyond the shadows of her room—like staring into the missing gap of a forgotten dream—and momentarily saw two withering plants in the quivering arms of a sobbing equine. With a forced blink, she once again stood in the frigid confines of her lonesome kitchen. The bath that followed was a swift, unnerving dunk in warm waters. Lone Star shivered her way into sleep, immune to the silence engulfing her. She clutched the bedsheets tightly to herself, imagining that they were limbs that didn't belong to her. Thursday morning arrived, and Lone Star got up faster than usual. She remembered suddenly that beyond classes, beyond lunch, beyond the rigid routine of college courses, a trip to the library awaited her. On the way out, nearly dropping the glasses on her nose, she was once again stabbed by the burning red image of the dangling paper off her kitchen cabinet. Under the cold kiss of a gray morning, Lone Star doubted very much that she could possibly forget her failure, even if she had buried it in the heart of the Canterlotlian Mountains. Ponies laugh at her horn Library trip (Look under 'Twilight Sparkle') Looking through telescope Looking through telescope at ponies Princess Luna Trip to park Sobbing to sleep Letter and green flame