“Okay, gotta think gotta think gotta think.”
It was the evening following Twilight's discovery that HUMAN fans believed a sequel was forthcoming. She'd contacted the book’s publisher straight away and asked him why they thought so. In his response the publisher said an advertisement for one was included on the book’s last page, and that its release date was kept vague for her sake. Twilight's next response was a rage fit in which she claimed their deal never included sequels. As she found out in his next reply, however, the contract she had signed to give him publication rights included a hidden clause stating he could request two more books. Furthermore, should Twilight fail to comply she’d lose all rights to her first book, including monetary gain. If Twilight wished to receive even one bit from HUMAN's sales, she'd need to expand it into a trilogy. Therefore, in her last reply Twilight stated she'd begin working on the next two books immediately.
This is why Twilight was currently pacing back and forth across her tree house, repeatedly saying “Gotta think” out loud to herself. After having almost single-hoofedly written an entire world into existence, she could surely construct enough material from said world for two more books; all she needed to do was gather her thoughts into a single idea to use as a base before building on top of that.
“SURPRISE!!!”
Twilight jumped at the sudden exclamation from nowhere. She knew it was Pinkie Pie, and she knew why she was here. She turned around to see the party pony wearing a blue polka dotted party hat and about a dozen balloons tied around her barrel. Twilight looked behind Pinkie to see the rest of her friends along with Lyra Heartstrings.
“Come on Twilight, it’s time for your I’m-now-a-professional-writer party,” Pinkie stated. “Everypony is SO excited for you and . . .”
Pinkie stopped talking when Twilight raised a hoof, gesturing for her to be quiet.
“I appreciate the thought Pinkie, I always do,” Twilight replied, “but right now isn’t the best time. I just found out I’m contractually obliged to write two more books or else I lose all rights to my work.”
“Speaking of that,” Lyra said, sticking her head into view. “What’s the sequel gonna be like? I loved, loved, LOVED the humans you created and I CAN’T WAIT to read more about them.”
Twilight looked at the mint green unicorn in confusion. "Any particular reason you're here Lyra?"
"What?" Lyra pouted. "Can't your #1 HUMAN fan join in on the festivities?"
Twilight tilted her head. "#1 fan?"
"Yeah, I know everything about your humans by heart. Go ahead, ask me anything."
"Okay," Twilight replied as her friends watched with interest. "What does B.C. stand for?"
"'Before Christ'," Lyra answered.
"Name the three countries of North America."
"Canada, U.S.A, and Mexico."
"What name is never used for inhabitants of the Islands of Vanuatu?"
"Roy Mata, the name of the ancient Melanesian chief who, after conquering the land, wished to unite all of its tribes. He ruled much similarly to Princess Celestia and kept peace between his subjects until he was poisoned to death by his brother and buried away from his homeland because it was feared his spirit would return to seek vengeance."
Everypony's jaws dropped. Twilight, especially, was amazed that Lyra could remember such obscure mentions from her book with no trouble at all. Twilight decided to take Lyra's word for it that she knew everything about humans by heart and could answer any more questions thrown her way. She didn't know whether to be unnerved or charmed at Lyra's apparent love of knowledge, but she shook away such thoughts and returned to the matter at hoof.
"Anyway, if I don't write two more books we won't be making a single bit off this."
“So?” Rainbow Dash asked while hovering. “You’ve got plenty of time for more work. Right now let’s just sit back, relax, and PARTY!!!”
Everypony started to cheer in excited response before Twilight cast a spell which silenced everyone. Upon realizing they couldn’t talk, they returned their focus to Twilight. She cancelled the spell and spoke up.
“Spike's asleep upstairs,” she said, then sighed. “And to answer you Dash, I never intended to make HUMAN an ongoing series; it was just a one shot to me. Because of that I'm lacking ideas for any sequels, and no sequels means we won't make a bit off even the first one. Now do you understand the trouble I'm in?"
For a few seconds after she finished, Twilight observed the various reactions on each of her friends: Rainbow Dash, Applejack, and Rarity had looks of worry on their faces, Fluttershy was timidly rubbing her hooves, Pinkie Pie was humming to herself with her eyes closed and a smile on her face, and Lyra was on the verge of tears.
. . . Wait a minute.
After pondering a few more moments, a wide grin burst on Twilight’s face, much to the concern and/or confusion of her friends.
“Uh, y’alright sugarcube?” Applejack asked.
“More than alright,” Twilight answered as she levitated several nearby quills and parchment rolls over towards everypony. “I just came up with an idea for the first sequel.”
Everypony gasped and wide smiles spread across all their faces, with Lyra’s topping them all.
Twilight continued. “After seeing everypony's various reactions to my news a moment ago, I got an idea. The first book detailed the human race as a whole, but it never really focused on individual humans and their personalities. So for the sequel, I propose we all write a vignette showcasing a human character of our own creation, describing how they're viewed among peers and what they think of them in turn. What do you guys think, are you up for it?”
At first, everypony was confused by Twilight’s idea. After some thought, however, it struck a chord with them all and wide smiles once again spread across all of their faces, with Lyra’s once again topping them all.
“OHMYGOSHOHMYGOSHOHMYGOSH, that sounds like a super-duper-totally fun enough to make everypony pass out-idea Twilight. I’d LOOOVE to write about a human girl that spreads joy and smiles everywhere she goes just like me. Though I wonder, would that be too obvious of a self-insert and would everypony start thinking I’m too egotistical for my own good. Nah, nopony co-”
Pinkie Pie’s rambling was cut off by Twilight as she used her magic to silence Pinkie yet again. Once Pinkie agreed to calm down Twilight undid the spell and resumed speaking.
“Okay everypony, submit your vignettes to me by the end of the week and I’ll revise them as necessary to make them professional without changing any content. Remember to make your character unique without making them a self-insert because Pinkie Pie is right in that everypony would get the wrong impression of you. Only once we're all done with this trilogy can we all party, agreed?"
Everypony nodded and one by one they each took a quill and parchment scroll from Twilight’s collection and left for their respective homes. Lyra was about to grab a quill and parchment scroll herself when Twilight stopped her.
“Sorry Lyra, but this is between me and my friends.”
Lyra frowned. “But I want to help out too.”
“I’m sure you do,” Twilight responded. “And I’m not doubting your creative intellect here or anything, but if I let any one fan contribute to my work it'd only be a matter of time before EVERY fan is demanding the same from me. You understand, right?”
Lyra sighed and hoofed over the quill and parchment scroll. “Sure Twilight, I understand.”
Lyra dipped her head down and began trotting toward the front door, eyes threatening to unleash a steady torrent of tears. It was too much for Twilight to take, so she resolved to end the conversation on a positive note.
“Lyra?”
Lyra turned to look over her shoulder. “Yes?”
“You can still write a story and give it to me anyway. I won’t use it in the sequel, but I’d love to read some HUMAN fan fiction. I suppose I’ll only be a real professional writer when ponies are willing to ripoff my ideas,” Twilight said with a chuckle.
Lyra smiled and raised her head back up. “Thanks Twilight.”
“No problem,” the lavender unicorn said as she levitated the quill and parchment scroll back over to the mint green unicorn. With that resolved, Lyra exited the library and began trotting home.
Twilight whistled and fell to the floor in exhaustion. After all the stress she went through today, she was mentally wiped out and needed some rest to recharge her brain so she could begin writing her own vignette. With a sigh, Twilight rose to her hooves and began the short walk up the library stairs to her bed, where she fell asleep as soon as she crawled under the covers and laid her head on the pillow.
“ARRRRRRRGGGH!!!”
Rainbow Dash let out an annoyed grunt and pulled at her mane with her hooves in frustration. She had arrived home immediately following the visit to Golden Oaks and gotten to work brainstorming ideas for her vignette to Twilight’s story. Two hours had gone by, however, and the cyan pegasus had yet to put anything down on the parchment. Luna had raised the moon by this time, and Rainbow Dash was starting to worry if she was truly up to the challenge of creation. After all, how could she be when she couldn’t even come up with the most important aspect of any character.
A name.
“HORSEFEATHERS!” Rainbow screamed as she slammed both hooves onto the cloud desk in her living room, causing the ink to spill over in the process, though she took no notice of it.
The trouble for her had been in the randomness of Twilight’s human’s names. Unlike ponies’ names which were chosen based on appearance, talents, interests, etc, humans (at least from what Dash could understand) put no real thought into making sure their names truly represented who they were, opting instead to pick any name suiting their fancy regardless of its meaning (assuming it had one). Dash would never admit it, but her tendency to use her body before her brain left the latter underused, one result of which being her trouble with the current task at hoof.
Rainbow sighed and stared up at the ceiling of her cloud home. She knew what she wanted her character to be like as a person; awesome, strong, friendly, and idolized by swarms of admirers (she hoped that nopony would see her character as a self-insert if she made it male). None of it would matter, however, if she couldn't come up with a name to call him by. Eventually, Rainbow got the idea to choose a name in the most random way possible; picking letters out of a bag.
Using an old burlap sack she had stashed away and some letter blocks from when she was a little foal (which were intended to be hoof-me-downs for her own foals when she found her special somepony), she ended up choosing the following letters: two C’s, two R’s, one H, one U, one S, one K, one I, one O, and one N. Now all that was left was to rearrange them into two name parts.
Dash spent another ten minutes rearranging the letters before a readable name sat on the desk in front of her: C-H-U-C-K for the first part and N-O-R-R-I-S for the second part.
“Awesome,” Dash said to herself. “Now to write up his chara-.”
Dash’s sentence was cut short when the cyan pegasus instantly fell asleep from mental exhaustion. The howling wind outside and her snores inside were the only sounds that could be heard around Rainbow Dash’s floating cloud home for the rest of the night.