//------------------------------//
// Talk Is Cheap, But Worth A Lot... 
// Story: Whipstitch 
// by Pennington Inkwell 
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	Whipstitch let out a long sigh as she looked at her travel bags, several of which were now filled with her own hair, as she finished her packing. It was time for her to leave the castle, and the Princesses had already bid her farewell, but there was still one more person that she hadn't said goodbye to.

But how do I find him? She wondered, looking around the room. Think... Perspective. That was lesson one. How could I change my perspective to bring him here? On a thought, she closed her eyes, blocking out any thoughts of what her surroundings really were. She tried her hardest to picture herself nowhere, but the same nowhere as Eclipse. It was a twisted way of thinking, mostly due to the fact that Eclipse had to be somewhere.

But from my perspective, he isn't anywhere... Maybe if I-

"Feeing better, Whips?"

Pennington's voice shattered her concentration like a brick thrown though a glass window.

"Oh, sorry, did I interrupt anything?" He sounded almost as if he were trying to taunt her, but she could never tell where his usual smugness crossed over into sarcasm unless it was with obvious intent. "I figured that you were done working..."

"Penn..." She whispered, keeping her temper in check for the sole reason that he was in Canterlot entirely for her sake. "Please... If I put up a sign, read it."

With a mock salute, Pennington chuckled. "So, anyway, I was thinking about staying over in Canterlot for a few days, so I thought that I would let you know that I wouldn't be able to join you on the train back to Ponyville this afternoon."

"That's okay! I heard that Scorching Quill was having a book signing tomorrow, anyway, so I figured that you would be staying..."

Pennington's face changed to an expression of suspicion, then relaxed again. "Yeah... Not to mention, Lily said that she was going to have to buy ramen faster than I could eat it... So I've been issued a challenge!"

Whipstitch rolled her eyes as he changed the subject. The two of them both knew that she knew the secret that he was the famous author, simply working under a pseudonym, but they continued to act like she didn't. It was an unspoken rule between them.

"Well, just don't make yourself sick, and if you do, send me a picture so I can laugh at you..."

Pennington rolled his eyes as he walked back to the door. "Yeah, right... See ya, Whips!"

"Later, Penn!" She called in return. As he disappeared again, Whipstitch let out a long sigh, letting her tension flow away and a calm focus settle in.

Once again, she closed her eyes, trying to imagine herself in that same etherial world of nothingness. If Eclipse is nowhere to be found, I have to go "nowhere." She let the power of her thoughts overtake her senses, washing her away into the space between places. After the feeling seemed tangible enough, she opened her eyes.

The entire world had turned white. It wasn't just that the objects and walls around her had turned white, but she was standing in the middle of some sort of empty world. There was nothing: no sound, no objects, no wind, just her. Curious, she took a slow step forward. There was some kind of ground under her feet, like a seamless white tile, that let her walk forwards.

"So, apparently, this is nowhere..." She muttered as she picked up her pace. "Charming." After a few minutes of walking, she noticed something amidst all of the nothing: a tall figure that could only be one of two creatures, and one of them was locked in stone. Excited at the prospect of success, she moved a little faster, trotting towards the draconequus. "Hey, Eclipse!"

He didn't seem to hear her, carrying on with whatever it was that he was doing.

"Eclipse! Over here!" She called again, noticing that the area around him looked slightly different: there were objects around him, as if he were standing in a wallless room. The objects were the same pearly white as the rest of the world, however, and he continued to keep his back to her. As Whipstitch grew closer and closer to him, color began to fill the objects around him, and the world began to grow smaller. By the time that she had reached him, she was no longer in the nothingness, but instead standing in some kind of bedroom, complete with dressers, a forest mural on the walls, and a large bed that would fit a draconequus's body. Eclipse himself still didn't notice her, being more focused on a letter that he was reading.

"Ecliiiiipse...." She drew out his name in a singsong tone, happy to have found him.

"AUGH!" Eclipse jumped into the air in fright, nearly impaling his mismatched horns in the ceiling. In his fright, a bolt of energy shot out from his, scorching the ground in front of her.

"Hey! Whoah, Eclipse, it's me!" She shouted, jumping backwards to avoid another bolt of energy. "It's Whipstitch!"

Eclipse spun around, grabbing his chest in shock. "Don't... DO THAT! You scared me half to death!" On cue, he looked to his left, where a pony in a dark cloak and holding a large scythe was quietly staring at him from underneath a large hood.

"I said half!" Eclipse calmly waved away the apparition, which walked away through the wall, giving Whipstitch a chill.

After a moment, he looked over at the door to the room, which was shut tight. "How did you even get in here?"

"Chaos!" Whipstitch held her head high in pride of her accomplishment. "You were nowhere to be found, so I looked in nowhere until I found you!"

Eclipse blinked in surprise. "You mean... You not only used chaos to find me, but to move yourself magically?" He scratched his head lightly. "And you figured it out on your own?"

"Well, it was all a matter of perspective, really!" Whipstitch shrugged, refusing to show how giddy she was from the compliments. It was almost like receiving compliments from Discord himself. "Just like you taught me in our lessons... The ones that you really don't want to stop teaching me..."

Eclipse's smile fell a little as he gave her a slightly chastising look. "You mean the lessons that put you in huge danger just a few days ago?"

"That's over, now! Really!" Whipstitch moaned as she gestured towards herself. "Look at me, I'm fine! It was because of that stupid lollipop, you said so yourself!"

Eclipse's eyes narrowed as he scratched at his chin. "Well, you should have told me that you were from Fairytrail, to begin with..."

Whipstitch sighed in frustration. "I didn't think that it was important!"

"You didn't think that it was important?" Eclipse smacked himself loudly on the forehead. "Do you even know your own history?"

Whipstitch took a deep breath, slightly irked at the allusion to being ignorant of Fairytrail's past. "Of course I know my history! It just so happens that it's the history of the entire city, as well! Let me give you a crash course, shall I?" She walked over to a chair at a nearby desk and sat down. "Fairytrail: the city at the base of the mountains on Equestria's northern border. Started because the area was home to a rare resource: enchanted gypsum, a mineral capable of stopping chaotic magic cold! It was this valuable stone upon which the city was built, quite literally! The enchanted gypsum was the reason that Fairytrail was one of Discord's last targets in his attack to rule Equestria more than a thousand years ago. The city was the only place capable of restraining his power enough for ponies to fight back at him, and so he laid siege to them for months on end! Eventually, one pony was willing to go out and face Discord alone, one-on-one. Her name was Threadmane, a unicorn capable of doing almost anything with a needle and her own hair as thread." Eclipse looked as if he wanted to say something, but Whipstitch ignored him. "The battle raged for days, and by the time that everything was said and done, Threadmane had fought Discord to a standstill. Both sides retreated, leaving Fairytral victorious, but at a terrible cost. All of the ponies in Fairytrail had been left with a curse, whether intentional or not, that once a year, their bodies would change and warp into strange and twisted forms, some beautiful and some disturbing... Some even dangerous or life-threatening." She stood up again, having grown darker and more serious over time.

"I am a twenty-seventh generation daughter of Threadmane, one of the hoofful of direct descendants left, and I know my own history. I know what legacy stands behind me, and I know exactly what I am capable of: anything I desire." She walked right up to Eclipse, who was beginning to fidget nervously under her intimidating glare.

"So, if you would be so kind..." Her serious face melted into a pleading stare as she looked up at him, hoping to catch him off-guard. "Please teach me more?"

Eclipse blinked a few times, then let out a long sigh. "You know, I was going to mention that there was a strong family resemblance... Fine! We can continue our lessons!"

"Yes!" Whipstitch jumped up, grabbing Eclipse in a hug. "Thank you! Trust me, you're going to regret this far less often than you're not!"

Eclipse cringed when she jumped at him again, and stood stiffly while she hugged him. When she released him again, he relaxed only slightly. She furrowed her brow in confusion at his reaction.

"Are- are you afraid of me?" She asked, taking a step forward.

"Well, not afraid. Just nervous. Ponies make me nervous." Eclipse spoke quietly. "If I were to be completely honest, it's nothing personal, but you and the Princesses are the only ponies whom I would feel somewhat comfortable around, and even then I'm always on my toes..." He shrugged quickly. "You kinda came out of nowhere a few minutes ago, so I'm still a little nervous!"

Whipstitch nodded. "Well, I'll try not to sneak up on you again... And as for being less nervous, I do have one idea! There's one thing that I always stop to see whenever I'm in Canterlot: Discord's statue. Would you mind taking me to see it?"

Eclipse tilted his head in confusion. "You... want me to take you to see Discord's statue?"

"Well, yes! If you were his brother, you must have known him better than anyone! Besides, there have got to be more things to do out there than there are in your bedroom..."

Eclipse took a deep breath, finally relaxing completely again. "Alright, we can do that, but this time, I'll take care of the transportation." With a snap of his fingers, the two of them vanished, off to the maze in the Canterlot Gardens.












Whipstitch and Eclipse walked quietly in the maze, trying not to draw much attention to themselves. ponies often visited the gardens around the maze, but very few ponies ventured inside for fear of getting lost. It had originally been created as a challenge to any pony who wanted to try their hoof at a constantly-shifting maze, but the rules of no flying and no magic being allowed had combined with the utter difficulty of the maze to instead create a massive waste of time and magic that nopony entered very often.

This chaotic place was, ironically, where the Princesses had decided to place Discord's statued form, at the center of the maze. Somehow, Eclipse seemed to know exactly where he was going as they walked together, leading her in what seemed to be endless twists and turns. The silence was almost painful, so Whipstitch tried to think of something to say.

"So... where have you been these past few days?" She asked quietly.

"Oh, you know... Around." Eclipse thought for a moment. "You know, I found this really fun game called 'Space Invaders...' Luna and I kinda got sucked into a marathon championship."

"You've been playing video games this whole time?" Whipstitch's jaw dropped as she looked up at him in amazement.

"Well... I also went to my first party, but that was a near-disaster! Almost let loose a cotton candy storm that could have covered all of Canterlot out of sheer fear..." He shook his head.

"A party? I wish that I could have gone!" Whipstitch sighed. "And a little chocolate rain wouldn't hurt Canterlot, if you ask me..."

Eclipse shook his head. "You're certainly one of a kind, Whipstitch..."

"I try!"

"Well, after that... Well, Discord played a few tricks of his own on me, to be honest, even from so far away..." He seemed to become sadder at the thought of whatever it was that had happened. "He made me doubt a few things that I shouldn't have, but all of that is over, now. Celestia, Luna and I all worked through it together."

Whipstitch smiled. "So, you really do trust them?"

"Yeah, I do." Eclipse gave her a wide smile. "Now, my biggest worry is finding where exactly I fit in here... But I guess that will come in time!"

"Well, I'm glad you're staying. Equestria needs more chaos!" With a chuckle, Whipstitch grew silent as Discord's statue came into sight, still frozen into a horrified pose by the Elements of Harmony. She exhaled slowly, taking the sight in as well as she could and trying to re-memorized every detail.

"So, why the fascination with my brother?" Eclipse asked, sitting himself along the edge of the circular courtyard.

"Similar interests, sheer admiration, just the routine stuff, I guess..." Whipstitch shrugged as she slowly walked up to the statue, and began to pace circles around it. "Being from Fairytrail, most ponies that I knew when I was growing up had learned to coexist with the chaos in their lives, my grandmother even brags about her 'time of the year' because her hair glows with a blinding light for a week, then turns into pure gold... But me, I've never learned to control or to even remotely like what happens to me... I guess it was the fact that every account that I ever heard of Discord, aside from those that talked about him as a villain, made him seem as if he had a perfect understanding of the chaos in his life, and that he even reveled in it! I always wanted to be able to control what happens to me well enough to that point of actually enjoying it, or at least not hating it with every fiber of my being..."

"If you don't mind me asking-"

"I do." Whipstitch cut Eclipse off before he could even ask the predictable next question. She sat herself down at the base of the statue to talk to him, leaning against one of Discord's legs as she sat upright to look Eclipse straight in the eyes. "But I will say this much: I'll kill. I've done it before, and if I don't have some semblance of control, I will again. I have to barricade myself inside of a cave or something to stop myself from killing other ponies." She gave a forlorn sigh. "If I could learn the secrets that you and Discord seem to know as sheer instinct, then maybe I could understand how to change my own condition into something good! But for now, I'm stuck living with myself and my guilt."

Eclipse nodded quietly, looking up at Discord's statue with tears in his eyes. "See, Dizzy? Ponies aren't all bad..."

Whipstitch smiled and looked up, as well. "Anyway... That's why I wanted to learn about chaos so badly... Sorry it came out in a big, weepy confession."

"Don't be. Big, weepy confessions are always the truth." Eclipse smiled, looking back down at her. "I'm ready to go whenever you are."

With a nod, Whipstitch followed him back through another hallway in the maze, trusting his judgment on where to go. She felt ready to go home, now. She was finished with Canterlot, for now.

"How are we going to continue my lessons if I'm in Ponyville?"

"Well, the majority of them should be you experimenting on your own, but I'll send you letters with specific instructions now and then..." Eclipse was no longer teary-eyed, but instead seemed to be growing more cheerful. "But, I need you to send me letters describing what you do and what kind of reactions you get so that I can steer you in the right direction! Got it?"

Whipstitch nodded, a smug grin breaking out across her face. 

"I can't wait."