“What’s happening, Frank? You’re work and drawings have become sloppier than usual lately. Not to mention a little… too detailed.”
“I’m sorry, sir. I’ve just been so distracted lately. You see… she has been talking to me so much lately I can’t concentrate.”
“Who? Your wife? Your girlfriend?”
“No. Her.”
“Who? A fia– you have got to be kidding me.”
“She just keeps getting into my head. I swear; I don’t know what’s going on, but I can hear her talking to me.”
“Nonsense! How can a simple drawing of a pony talk to you? Pure madness! I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to fire you unless you can come up with a better excuse for your behavior.”
“…I’m sorry I wasted your time. I’ll be leaving now…”
D.T. entered the drawing room that his new boss had shown him to. All throughout the room there were desks, each with a computer and each with a large drawing board next to them. About twenty or so others were already in the room, the only sounds in the room being the pervasive sound of pencils scratching against the pads and the sounds of computer keyboards and mouse clicks. Conversation was kept to a minimum as the supervisor led him to a desk towards the center of the room.
“It’s considered an honor to be working on the princess of the sun herself,” the supervisor said. “Everyone else in the office wanted the chance, but I needed someone with true talent. Those drawings you submitted were so close to the design anyways I figured it would be almost sacrilege to have anyone else in the position.”
“It certainly feels like an honor. I have been practicing day and night for this chance, for any position to be in, but this… it almost feels as though I am at the hooves of the royalty herself.”
The supervisor laughed a hearty laugh. “You’re eager, grateful, and determined. I like that about you, and I’m sure you’ll do well. Anyways, here’s your desk. I’ll have a few instructions coming up for positions and angles we’ll need for later episodes coming your way later this afternoon. Until then, feel free to draw whatever you please and if you come up with anything interesting, please send it to me.”
“Thank you. My pleasure. I’ll get started right away.”
The two shook hands and the supervisor left the room. D.T. sat down at the desk and oriented himself with the drawing pencils and the pad in the room and started immediately beginning a sketch, starting with the basic outline and proceeding onwards from there.
“Hey. You’re the new artist in charge of Celestia, aren’t you?”
D.T. looked up from his work to see a young man in front of him. He had a fine figure, with shiny brown hair and a pure white smile. His face didn’t have a single blemish on it, and D.T. felt he could see muscles on his arms. He was dressed in business-casual attire and almost had the air of being a model.
“My names Walter Holmes,” said the man as he extended an arm.
D.T. shook it nervously. “Pleasure to meet you,” he said. “And yes, Mr. Elwood hired me for the position.”
“I tried out for the position myself,” Holmes said. “They weren’t sure if I could get the proportions right. Got stuck here doing some background ponies as a result. Anyways, I have to get this scene ready for the next episode, but we’ll talk later, okay?”
D.T. gulped. “Fine by me,” he said.
D.T. spent the rest of the day finishing his sketch before scanning it onto the computer a few hours later. He was waiting for the scanner to finish when a young woman in a black dress with long black hair came into the room.
“Excuse me, sir?” she said as she approached him. She held a folder in his direction. “This is from Mister Elwood. It’s some of the positions he needs for the next episode from the writers.”
D.T. shifted nervously in his chair. Talking to girls had never been his thing. Even in practical, business associations, he had never been able to talk to girls. Especially one so pretty as this. D.T. shot a hand out and grabbed the folder with a quick “thankyou” before resuming his work, loading the scanned picture on to Photoshop.
“Hey there, pretty lady.” D.T. heard Holmes’ voice clear and crisp. “Mind getting me a cup of coffee, two sugars and a dash of creamer to make it as sweet as yourself?”
D.T. groaned at the display.
Surprisingly, it worked. “Oh, my,” the woman said, quite clearly blushing at the display. “Of… o-o-of course.” And she trotted off briskly.
D.T. leaned over his desk. “How do you do that?”
Holmes kept smiling. “Pay attention to them. They like being flattered with compliments. Even smaller ones. I suppose you wouldn’t know that, though, being so focused on your drawings.”
D.T. felt like he wanted to flip the table over, though merely grated his teeth and went back to sitting at his computer and absent-mindedly applying shading. He finished some smaller details before sending it off in an email to his supervisor labeled as “Starter Project” and said he would get started on some preliminary sketches that afternoon.
A few hours later, D.T. was in the middle of another sketch when the supervisor, Mr. Elwood, came into the room. From the look on his face, he was absolutely beaming.
“You have certainly proven yourself!” he said to D.T. “This introductory piece of Celestia is amazing! I mean, you have the highlights to her hair, the glimmer of the gold of her accessories, and the brilliant shading job… why I almost had the feeling she could have jumped right off the page if she wasn’t staring into the distance! Brilliant work!”
D.T. managed a small smile as he heard Holmes grumbling away at his desk.
“Anyways, you can just go ahead and fold up your drawing boards for right now; the first episode we need Celestia for isn’t really entering production for a few weeks, so take your stuff and just remember we need them in a few weeks.”
“Thank you, sir.”
It was nearly four o’clock. D.T. printed out a copy of the picture for himself and was reminded of the episode he had sent in a drawing to work on, of a miniature Trixie surrounded by ponies that included Twilight Sparkle and Luna. He had been working on applying for a position to draw Luna, but that position became taken and the head producers and animators had told him his drawings were much too good and he was to be for Celestia, as he had been the only one as of late who could draw her radiantly; the others were getting kind of dull and sloppy. D.T. left the office, taking the picture with him, and went home.
Home was a small, one bedroom apartment littered with other, similar pictures to the one he had recently submitted, all done in painstaking detail that had taken hours to complete. The best were framed; one of Luna highlighted by the moon, one of Celestia sitting on her throne, one of the main six cast members sitting around enjoying a milkshake similar to that one scene in the third season. He never thought it would be his life’s work; just a little hobby on the side. Today… it had become so much more.
But he was lonely. All this time spent drawing and he had no one to share it with. His parents thought it was silly, a grown man spending his time drawing characters from a kid’s show. The last time he had a ‘girlfriend’ she was taken aback by weird references and odd attempts at flirting that she had taken one or two steps too far from the original meaning. So, for now, the apartment was quiet and barren. A quick dinner from the freezer was all that was needed before D.T. settled down for a long evening of random sketches and reading an email sent from Mr. Elwood once again praising him for his work.
D.T. soon picked up the picture of Celesta and sighed, contemplating how much a frame would cost him. “Oh, Celestia,” he said longingly at the picture. “If only you were real, then maybe I could have someone to give me peace.”
But the picture didn’t talk back to him. It couldn’t, no matter how realistic Elwood said it was.
His home computer could. There was a beep signifying he had a new message. When D.T. looked up, there was a new message in his inbox. He opened it and read the message inside:
“It seems that I have a subject that is distraught and lonely. But do not fear. I have a plan. The next time that girl comes around at work, make sure you act confident. Boast about your accomplishments and how you’re working in such a prestigious position. Show her the drawings and how good you are; that is, of course, your talent, so play it up a little.
“But remember this most of all: so long as the sun shall cross the sky, you are never alone.”
There was no signature. There was no sender address. There wasn’t even a box to reply.
D.T. considered momentarily sending the email to spam or simply deleting it, but whoever it was knew about his interaction with the lady in the office. So he had someone who found his email; he couldn’t respond to it anyways and figured it was just a prank someone was playing on him.
The email beeped again. He opened the message.
“This is not a prank.”
D.T. looked around the room. Nothing had changed. No one had entered.
But Celestia was staring straight at him.
D.T. returned to the studio at eight a.m. the next morning feeling very well rested and ready to work. He cleared his mind and continued his work on the assignments that Mr. Elwood had given him. He worked carefully and paid as close attention to detail as he could on his work, at by the time the morning coffee break came around he was finished with the first sketch he had been told to do. With that, he got up and went to the break room for a coffee and donut.
The woman from yesterday was there, taking a small spoon and pouring a few cups of sugar in her cup. She didn’t pay attention to him until he stood there getting his own cup of coffee.
“Hello,” she said, mostly just to exchange a greeting.
D.T. took a breath. “Hey there,” he said as confidently as he could. “What’s your name?”
The woman looked shocked, but interested. “Jamie,” she said.
“What a pretty name you have, Jamie,” D.T. said. “Such a pretty name.”
Jamie blushed and her face went beet red.
“Must be boring working as an office aide, huh? Not like me, drawing a character for a kid’s show so well they hired me specifically for the job.”
Jamie’s face went redder than before and she huffed. “I’m fine with my job, thank you,” she said as calmly as possible. She briskly walked towards the exit, running into D.T. and causing him to spill his coffee and creating a hot brown stain on his shirt. D.T. padded the stain with a towel before returning to his desk with another cup of coffee, absolutely fuming.
Jaimie returned to the workstation later, this time with a folder for Holmes. “Hey there, pretty lady,” Holmes said. “You know, I envy you. You get to take it slow.”
Jamie blushed and smiled. “Not really,” she said. “I work non-stop running errands and taking notes for Mr. Elwood. It’s… actually rather busy.”
“Oh, but the big shot stuff must me much more interesting than having to sit in the same room all day.”
D.T. was just about to say something when his computer beeped. He pulled it up to find another email with no signature or sender address.
“Don’t listen to him. You’re worth more than him.”
This time, there was a reply box.
D.T. typed out: “Who are you? And how do you know who I am?”
There was a pause for a minute, then the anonymous sender sent back a reply.
“I am the sun. Whoever should be active under the sun is under my watchful and ever-present eye, and I will help those who are in need.”
“You’re advice failed me. She rejected me and got mad at me.”
“I never said it would work, only that I had a plan.”
“…who are you?”
“So long as the sun shall cross the sky, you are never alone.”
The reply box left. D.T. closed the internet and was about to go back to his drawing when he noticed his picture of Celestia he had drew the previous day was now sitting on the computer as his desktop.
At the end of the day, D.T. felt tired despite the sun still being high in the sky. Another sketch had been worked on and was nearly finished besides some cleaning up, but Holmes had ended up asking Jamie out on a date and she said yes, after which he proceeded to brag about it to the rest of the artists the rest of the day; leaving had been D.T.’s only source of relief. He walked out of the building and went over to his car, a small white sedan, and fired it up with the radio on silent before pulling out of the parking lot and heading onto the main highway towards home, the sun shining brightly down on him and feeling pleasantly warm compared to the cool of the studio.
A shot of teal and pink crossed the rearview mirror and settled in the back seat. D.T. gripped the wheel tighter and continued facing forward, hoping he was just seeing things. Then game the glimmer of gold like a crown. D.T. pressed the accelerator down harder, going a few miles above the speed limit to force himself to focus on the traffic ahead of him.
Suddenly, the car’s steering wheel started to glow yellow and the car slowed back down to the speed of traffic. D.T. slammed the accelerator, but the car didn’t even rev. He pulled up the parking brake, but the light wouldn’t go on; soon the yellow glow surrounded the brake and put it back down. The car was still going in the direction he needed it to go, but the fact that he was suddenly powerless against whatever was blocking him was more than enough to cause him to burst out.
“Please, stop! I beg you! Please!”
“Stay calm, my faithful subject,” came a calm, regal voice.
The response was enough to elicit a scream much unlike that would normally come from a grown man. “Who… who are you? I demand that you show yourself!”
“Turn around,” came the voice again. “You are in capable hooves.”
D.T. didn’t turn around, instead he kept his hands on the steering wheel and looked in the rearview mirror. There she was, sitting in the back seat of his sedan. The radiant white fur and rainbow mane couldn’t hide it, nor could the golden accessories or the purple eyes that now stared back at him.
“Celestia…” D.T. said in awe.
Celestia smiled. “I have been watching you for quite some time, my faithful subject,” she said in her calm voice. “And it saddens me to see you in such a lonely state. But don’t worry. I shall make it where you are lonely no more.”
“How did you get here? You’re… you’re not supposed to exist in this world!”
Celestia kept smiling. “Just because I cannot control the sun here does not mean I am not allowed to visit every once in a while. You are, after all, approximately where Canterlot is in my universe.”
“Well, then… what was the big deal with sending me the false advice.”
Celestia’s smile faded, but only slightly. “Did you really think you had a chance with her? Let me tell you: you would never have had a chance with her in a thousand years.”
“And that’s another thing: what’s with the whole thousand year thing?”
Celestia ignored him. “There is someone out there who is better-suited for you, someone you need only to recognize is there for you and will be there for you always.” She placed a golden hoof on his shoulder. “Just trust me and let me show you.”
It, admittedly, was a tantalizing subject. “Yes! …wait, I mean no! No! I am fine on my own!”
“That’s not what your experience with the office aide Jamie showed.”
“Stop watching me! Stop stalking me! I am fine! Leave me alone!”
“I shall not leave one of my subjects in a position where they are unhappy.” Celestia’s voice was sterner now, more demanding. “Let me help you.”
“I take it that wasn’t a request.”
“I take it you won’t accept my help.”
“Not at the moment. Not when you suddenly pop into my life and know everything about m– aaaaaagh!”
D.T. quickly pulled his hands off the wheel; the sun had suddenly lowered so that it was shining directly into the car, blinding him and causing the steering wheel to heat up immensely. D.T. shook his hand and tried to shake it off, but the burn didn’t go away. It hurt to touch anything in the car and it even hurt to move his hand an inch as the heat radiated off the steering wheel.
“You should know that a princess never takes ‘no’ for an answer.”
“You… you bastard…”
The car suddenly came to a stop. D.T. hadn’t realized it, but Celestia had controlled the car and led it back to his apartment complex and had parked it in his usual spot. The heat finally receded from the steering wheel and his hands and the glow vanished.
“I shall make sure to keep in touch and see if you should reconsider the offer.”
There was a flash of light, and Celestia was gone.
D.T. was lying on his bed. He had remembered he was dozing off a few minutes ago, but now he lay wide awake on his bed in a light shirt and a pair of sweatpants. More than that, he felt hot as though he had turned on his heater, but he didn’t need the heater in the middle of summer, so… why was it so hot?
“Come with me.”
D.T. sat up on the bed and looked at his door, where the voice had come from. There was a faint white glow coming from underneath it. D.T. took a quick look around the room but found no one there. A shadow moved under the door, then stayed there.
“Come with me, or I shall wake you up again.”
D.T. got off the bed and opened the door to find the royal princess pony standing in front of him. She was much larger than he imagined, her head standing just above his own and making it so he had to look up slightly to see her. The pony began wandering off down a long hallway filled with ornate stained glass, including that of a draconiquis, of six different ponies summoning a rainbow glow, of a unicorn and an alicorn surrounded by a heart. D.T. followed the pony barefoot into the large hall, feeling the cold stone followed by the warm and soft feel of the decorative rugs underneath his feet. The clopping of the pony’s hooves ahead of him was muffled by the carpet as she led him outside the hall and into a hallway.
It was a bright day outside as they went down the hall. D.T. went over to one of the large windows and looked out to see a large, apparently very rich city with some of the elite ponies walking its streets.
“Canterlot…” D.T. said in hushed whispers.
“Come with me,” Celestia’s voice rang out and echoed in the hall. “I have much to show you, and little time to do it in.”
D.T. pulled himself away from the window and followed the royal alicorn down the halls until she led him into a large room with a fireplace, a large four-poster bed, a large window facing out towards the Canterlot streets, and a large glass roof overhead to let the sun in. The room was decorated with a large amount of sun motifs and D.T. had a very good guess as to where he was. He felt he knew it for sure when the door closed behind him with a resounding thud, and was also quite sure he couldn’t open that door by force.
“I never liked seeing a subject become unhappy,” Celestia said in a warm, gentle voice as she walked over to the window, leaving D.T. in the middle of the room. “Whenever a subject became unhappy, I would always find ways to make them happy again. It’s my duty as princess of Equestria, you see, to maintain the balance of harmony.”
D.T. said nothing.
“I watched you for a long time,” Celestia said, turning back and slowly walking over to D.T. “I saw you going to work every day at a boring job and figured you needed a better one. I saw your talents and created the position for you. I made it so you could take that job and do what you wanted to do. But… even after I got you the job, I saw you were lonely, and loneliness is a much harder thing to fix.”
It was hard to believe. “You were the one who…”
Celestia nodded.
“I have a proposition for you. Come with me. Come and live here in Equestria, here in Canterlot with me. I shall make sure you have friends to be by your side. I shall make sure you have everything you ever wanted. All I ask…”
Celestia took off her crown and placed it in front of her.
“…is that you take me to be your own.”
The idea was absurd.
“No.”
Celestia frowned, though her voice remained the same. “Take it. I insist.”
“Never.”
Celestia sighed. “All that I have done for you, and yet you still reject me.”
“It was all for your own benefit.”
“Never. I only do things that make my subjects happy.”
“You have tormented me over these past few days, and now you torment me in my dreams. I find nothing to be happy about here.”
“I would give you whatever you wanted. I would make sure you had whatever you wanted whenever you wanted it. I offer you a place at my side, as one I would love and cherish, and you decline the generous offer I have set before you.”
“That is correct.”
They sat there for a long while, each looking at the other.
“I suppose… you leave me with no choice.”
Before he realized what was happening, D.T. saw Celestia’s horn touch him and felt the burn of the flames of the sun itself on his hand. The pain was tortuous, but he couldn’t pull away; Celestia’s magic had locked him in place and all he could do was shout in pain as the alicorn’s magic coursed through him.
“I had done all I could to make you happy,” Celestia said. “I see I have no other choice. By the time you leave work tomorrow, you will have one more chance: either willingly give up everything and come to Equestria to be with me, or I shall forcefully bring you here myself.”
Everything happened at once.
The glass roof shattered.
D.T. felt himself leave the ground at high speed.
The sun came nearer and nearer and nearer…
The blinding light faded away and D.T. found himself in his bed again. He looked over at the clock to find it said four in the morning.
A pain like a burn on his hand registered in his mind. He looked down at the palm of his drawing hand and found that there was a mark there not unlike Celestia’s cutie mark. When he looked at the picture he had drawn two days ago, the entire background was covered in red flames and the only character in the frame was Celestia, now looking at him straight on.
D.T. returned to work at eight the next morning and sat down to continue the sketches. He started out carefully and paying attention to every detail, making sure that everything was just right. The picture came out quite well and was almost ready to go and be approved by Mr. Elwood.
Jamie walked in, but D.T. ignored her. Holmes started chatting her up, but D.T. was too busy with his drawing. Something was not right. Something was… missing, yet something was there that should not have been there. And it was quite apparent with D.T.’s hand that not all was well.
D.T.’s hand was flying furiously across the page, surrounded by a yellow glow. His feet were stuck in place underneath his chair and his other hand attempted to stop the damage his other hand was doing to the sketch, but it was no use. Celestia’s eyes went from large and welcoming to little more than pinpricks. The warm smile that she wore on her face turned into a manic grin, and her teal and pink hair became shades of a dull pink. The controlled hand tore the paper aside and onto the middle of the floor and D.T. turned to the next one and gave it the same treatment, tearing it aside minutes later and starting work on a new one.
It was only when the third one hit the floor and Mr. Elwood came in to examine the work that he saw the damage that was being done and the yellow glow that surrounded D.T.’s hand.
“Someone stop him!” Mr. Elwood cried out. “He’s been possessed!”
“Not my fault, sir!” D.T. cried out in response.
Holmes stood up from his desk and grabbed the hand that was being controlled, but it merely launched him aside and into another one of the artist’s desks before resuming the work, this time in drawing a picture of this same Celestia that had been going on for four previous drawings and placing D.T. on her back with a yellow glow around him as though he was placed there by magic. At the bottom of the page, D.T.’s possessed hand wrote out the following words:
“So long as the sun shall cross the sky, you are never alone. So long as the sun shall cross the sky, your body and your heart shall always be mine.”
Mr. Elwood nearly fainted from surprise. “So… Frank wasn’t lying.”
“What happened to Frank, sir?” D.T. said as his hand threw aside that drawing and started another one.
“I fired him. He said that Celestia was talking to him. But I… I never took much stock in his words. I should have started sooner.”
“Are you going to fire me, sir?”
“No. I shall transfer you to work on drawings of Luna. I… I’m sure that Holmes here could easily take over your position.”
“Honored to, sir,” Holmes said.
Without warning, the glow receded and D.T.’s hand dropped limply to the side.
“You may start your new positions immediately and from your current desks,” Mr. Elwood said.
D.T. nodded happily.
Holmes smirked triumphantly.
A few hours later, D.T. had finished his first drawing of Luna that showed the princess of the night smiling at him. A short while later, he could have sworn he heard a cheery laugh coming from the direction of the painting and saw Luna wink at him, and he felt proud of himself.
The same could not be said of Holmes.
The room suddenly became very quiet, with not even the scratching of pencils. D.T. stopped sketching and turned around to see a very familiar face in the doorway, but its gaze was not focused on him. Instead, the figure took long, slow, deliberate strides down the center aisle of the studio until it came to a stop at Holmes’ desk; Holmes was shaking so much the entire room could hear his desk vibrating beneath him.
“So…” the voice said, gentle and warm, “you’re the replacement?”
Holmes gulped.
“Come with me. I have an offer to make you, but your only choice… is to take it.”
Holmes was surrounded in a yellow glow and lifted onto the back of the towering alicorn. The magic glow soon surrounded him and Holmes began to scream as he found he couldn’t move. The alicorn soon shot out the door and all the artists ran to the window to watch as the alicorn took flight and carried the screaming Holmes into the blinding sunlight.