“Oh, there you all are,” Rarity announced as she walked up the stairs into Pinkie's room. “Have any of you seen Twilight this afternoon?”
Applejack continued to recite lines to Spike, while the others turned to look at the new arrival. “I haven’t seen her since this morning since, well, you’ve probably heard by now,” Rainbow Dash said, blushing a bit.
“We’ve just been writing a story here to help cheer her up,” Fluttershy offered.
“Oh, that seems like a fine idea,” Rarity nodded. “She was just in a terrible mood, and I don’t think even the emergency spa treatment helped her completely out of it. We were going to do lunch, but she just seemed to disappear.”
Applejack had finished her part but scratched her chin. "That's odd. She didn't show up to help some chores around Sweet Apple Acres, either."
"Oh, she probably got herself lost in a book again," Rainbow Dash offered. "You know how often that happens with Twilight."
The others all gave a knowing nod.
“Wanna see what we’ve got so far?” Pinkie asked with glee, pushing over a few of the first parchment sheets they had written.
“But of course, dears. Let’s see here.” Rarity reached down with a hoof to lift up the paper, but a spark of magic shot up from the paper as soon as contact was made. Rarity gave a sharp yelp and quickly pulled her hoof away in shock.
The whole group had turned to look. “You okay there, Rarity?” Applejack asked.
“This paper,” Rarity said urgently, her magic levitating the page up to her face. “Where did you get this paper?”
“Umm, it was just sitting on the table in the library.” Spike shrugged. “Why, what’s wrong?”
Rarity frowned as she used her telekinesis to inspect the page from all sides, “Twilight was telling me about this parchment. I fear it may be the special delivery of magic-infused paper that Princess Celestia had sent her to document her magic studies.”
“‘Magic-infused’? Oh, ah don’t like the sound of this.” Applejack said.
Rarity has started gathering up all the loose pages of the parchment into neat bunches within her magical grasp. “I don’t know all the details, but she had mentioned something about warning Spike about the paper, something about unknown effects of dragons and the parchment’s magic.”
Spike sat stunned, and then turned to his claw, where the quill was still hanging over the last sentence he wrote. He quickly pulled it away with a shout. “Oh, no! I didn’t know!”
Having all but the current page in the stack, Rarity quickly scanned through the story so far. “Oh, dear, oh, dear...”
“Uh, Rarity, do you think—” Fluttershy asked.
“I’m afraid that instead of actually writing Twilight a story, you’ve written Twilight into the story.”
The others gasped with shock.
“Wait, wait,” Applejack broke up the muttering of the other mares. “Ah’ve never said a thing about Twi!”
Fluttershy shook her head. “Me neither!”
“I certainly didn’t put Twilight in my story. Why would I want to put her in the way of a Daring Do story?”
There was a moment of silence. The others turned to Pinkie, expectantly.
“Um, I might of mentioned Twilight at the very start...” Pinkie eked out, her giant smile faltering under the intense stares of the others.
Rarity continued to look through the pages hovering in front of her. “You may have not have mentioned Twilight, but, she’s all throughout this.” Her magic lifted the last page that Spike had just finished, showing it to the others.
“Hey, that’s my part, but—” Applejack leaned closer to read Spike’s claw-writing. “Wait, ah never said that!” Her hoof pointed to the final line that read:
Twilight turned to the sky and screamed. “Oh, Celestia, is there anypony out there that can help us?!”
Pinkie pushed Applejack out of the way. “Her name’s all over the page!”
Applejack had carefully read through the text. “That’s nothin’ like what ah I described. Ah mean, there’s the Lone Silver and all, but she was just goin’ to stop that bandit gang. There weren’t anythin’ about Daring Do, Pinkzilla, or Flutterina!”
“I need to check this!” Rainbow zipped over to where the pages were still levitating in Rarity’s magical hold, and started flipping through them. Pulling one from the front of the stack, she scanned over the page. “This is completely different! Sure, I had Daring Do racing from the Grimacing Griffons, but this isn't anything like I had told.” Letting the page loose, she turned in mid-air towards Spike. “You did that on purpose!”
Spike was taken aback. “Hey, no way! You guys asked me to take down the story, and that’s just what I did. I do that for Twilight all the time when she has me write out her research papers—I just get a place where’s there’s only me, the quill, and the paper. I don't know what the words she's actually telling me, just that I get them down on paper right.”
“Don’t be too quick to blame poor Spikey-wikey,” Rarity offered, still studying the pages intently. “I’m not well versed on such magic, but he may have been unaware that Twilight was written into the story.”
“Oh dear,” Fluttershy gasped, holding her hooves to her mouth.
“But how did our stories come out so differently than what we said?” Pinkie asked, having looked over her part of the story. “I would have never had Pinkzilla chase Twilight like that!”
Rarity mulled the question for a moment, her brow furled in concentration. “Unfortunately, Twilight’s the expert in magic, but I would say at first blush that with Spike’s dragon nature and the magic contained within the paper, your subconscious put those in there.”
“I’d never want to have Twilight troubled like that,” Fluttershy asserted softly. “It couldn’t have been that way!”
“Ain’t no way I’d do that to my PFF!” Applejack nagged.
Rarity shook her head. “No, none of you are to blame either. It’s just a bad set of circumstances. But I’m certain your subconscious was guiding this.” She turned towards Rainbow Dash. “I may not be as into your ‘Daring Do’, Rainbow, but she seems far more, what’s the word... ‘boastful’... than I recall.”
“Er, well, I might have gotten carried away...” Rainbow grinned sheepishly.
“It’s the same with these other characters. They may not be you, specifically, but they all seem to be exaggerated versions of your individual personalities.”
“But we never said anything like that!” Pinkie protested.
Rarity continued to flip through the pages held in her magic aura. “I remember Twilight saying something about why the parchment was special, reading on the user’s thoughts to aid in transcription. Perhaps with Spike's dragon nature, it was the paper itself making him write it out that way."
Spike was looking between his claw and the unused stack of parchment, his eyes wet with tears. "I vaguely remember feeling like something was guiding the quill, but I had just chalked that up to being in the zone. Oh, Twilight, I didn't mean to!" He dropped the quill and grabbed at his tail to comfort himself.
Rarity set the compiled stack of papers down. "Cheer up, Spike. At least we do know is that she’s still safe—relatively speaking, of course, and what’s her situation right now.”
Rainbow flew above the group, treading the air above them with anxiety. “But if she’s in the story, how can we get her out?”
Rarity shook her head. “I’m afraid Twilight’s the only one that will know that.”
“Maybe there’s some way we can communicate with her?” Pinkie asked.
Rarity mulled the idea over. “There might be something, but Spike, since it is your dragon nature that is likely causing this to happen, you’re going to have to write for me, okay?”
Spike let go of his tail, and picked up the discarded quill. “Of course, Rarity, just say the word.”
Twilight had not woken up this morning expecting to be escaping a pack of militarized griffons on top of a stopped train with the aid of an adventurous archaeologist and a masked hero, while trying to protect a defenseless tea maiden, all while a gang of bandits and a giant pink monster were all on their tail. She stood back, with Flutterina cowering behind her, as Daring and the Lone Silver took turns pummeling the griffons that got close on either side of the train car roof. “I don’t know how this could get any worse,” she mumbled aloud.
“Twilight, can you hear me?” Daring asked in a rather flat voice. The adventurer had turned to face her, seemingly oblivious to the violence going on behind her.
“Of course I can hear you, you’re right there!” Twilight shouted in frustration, watching the advancing griffons carefully cross over the length of train cars. The Lone Silver had taken down another group of Grimacing Griffons, but their advancing numbers were starting to weigh against her.
Just as Twilight was about to nag Daring for not replying, the adventurer spoke up. “Twilight, it’s me, Rarity.” Again, her voice was monotone, and lacked all the excitement she had shown previously.
“Yeah, right, you’re Rar—” Twilight stopped herself, realization dawning on her. Daring hadn’t known any of her friends, why we should she suddenly know Rarity, of all ponies? Somepony was trying to speak to her! They heard her cry! “Rarity, is that you? What the hay is going on?” Twilight asked impatiently, staring into Daring’s face.
Spike’s claw jerked with sudden movement, dragging the quill across the paper. “What’s happening?” he asked nervously, carefully not to disturb whatever force was controlling his arm.
The five mares had closed in around where he was writing, watching the scrawling develop into words. “Just keep calm, Spike. Let the magic do its work.” Rarity carefully instructed him.
Fluttershy read the message out to the group as they were inked onto the page.
“Rarity, is that you? What the hay is going on?” Twilight asked impatiently, staring into Daring’s face.
“She can hear us!” Pinkie gasped.
Rarity nodded. “Spike, go ahead and write down what’s happened. Let’s see if she has any ideas. Just make sure to have Daring say it so that Twilight will hear it.”
“Right!” Spike quickly refilled the quill and wrote out a lengthy paragraph that summarized the situation. He then moved the tip of the quill to the next blank spot on the parchment, and held it steady.
If they weren’t already close enough, the other five mares nudged in tighter around Spike, watching the tip of the quill expectantly.
“Oh!” Spike gave off a short gasp as he felt the quill move under its own power, allowing to drag his claw across the page. It took a minute for the scrawling to end.
“...and so we’re trying to figure how to get you out of the story,” Daring Do finished off. Twilight remained enraptured by the adventurer’s words, trying to unravel the details herself. The present danger that they were in were distant concerns for Twilight.
Twilight harrumphed to herself. “I knew I should have done something with that paper.Too late for that now...” She shook her head, continuing to pace. “I remember reading about a unicorn that lived centuries ago, gifted with this magic. He used it to create stories by living in them but I just can’t remember what the cantrips were.”
A moment passed before Daring responded, speaking for Rarity. “It sounds very dangerous. Can you not recall any of the warnings?”
Twilight strained to remember the book she had read, but the faint memory kept out of her grasp. “Auggh, it’s been so long! All I can remember is that once he was in the stories, he had to complete—” Twilight stopped in her step, her face lighting up. “That’s it! We’ve got to end the story!”
“‘...We’ve got to end the story!’” Rarity read off the page for the other.
“Well, that’s easy!” Rainbow Dash said proudly. “Spike, just write ‘And they lived happily ever after, The End.”! We’ll be done!”
Rarity shook her head. “It’s not that simple,” she offered, pointing to Spike’s claw that was still drawing out text on the page.
Twilight looked directly at Daring, “And don’t you think that just writing down ‘The End’ will be sufficient, Rainbow,” she nagged. “It’s got to be proper ending!”
Rainbow blushed. “Oh, I guess that’s true—wait, how did she know I was going to say that?”
Applejack chuckled. “It doesn’t take that much of a genius to know you’d have said that.”
“Hey, guys, there’s more!” Spike announced, his claw having paused on the page. They all peered at the text.
“I need to know how you would have all ended your stories,” Twilight asked.
Fluttershy spoke up first. “Well, I’d like to have been able to have the biggest and best animal tea party ever known.”
Rarity nodded to Spike. “Go ahead and let Twilight know, Spike.” Spike nodded and hastily scribbled out what Fluttershy said, as the others started to speak up.
“Daring’s got to escape with the Lunar Grail, of course.”
“The Lone Silver needs ta capture the bandits and turn ‘em in!”
“Oh, and Pinkzilla will finally get full on sweets!”
The scratching of quill-to-paper took but a few more moments to complete. A hush came over the group as they watched Spike’s arm for any sign of movement. They gasped as one when it started to write out the next line.
Twilight pondered for a moment, considering her friends’ intents.
“Well?” Rainbow blurted out. “Isn’t there more, Spike? This isn’t the time to stop!”
Spike used his free arm to point to the quill. “I don’t think so.”
Fluttershy put a hoof to Rainbow’s side. “Dashie, let Twilight think. She’ll figure a way out.”
Spike let out an urk as his arm jumped to a new line on the parchment and started to write. The ponies all held their breath as the sentences took form.
“Okay, it may be bit convoluted, but I think I know how to end all four of your stories. But you all need to concentrate on your own endings. If what you’ve told me is true, this isn’t going to work without your help.”