//------------------------------// // Sepia // Story: the Writing Games // by ArtichokeLust //------------------------------// Twilight paced randomly around Rainbow Dash's couch and looked about the room. It was like she was looking for something, but was too lazy to move more than a few feet. Yet she seemed too alert for laziness. No, the look she had on her face was much closer to a skilled soldier sharpening their sword before battle than the average couch potato. Suddenly, she braced her legs and leapt into the air, landing with catlike grace onto a very specific spot on the couch. The rightmost two of the three cushions—or, Twilight’s leftmost—shared her burden equally. She cleared her throat. Then she tilted her head and cleared her throat again. Something obviously wasn’t quite right, because she cleared her throat a few more times. And now she took notice of the couch, staring down at it. Maybe one cushion carried a little more of her weight than the other. So she crawled forwards a little, then backwards, then— Rainbow Dash raised an eyebrow, bemused. “I thought we were talking about stories, but if you’ve chickened out to play charades… are you a cat?” she smirked. Twilight looked down and chuckled at herself a little. “Sorry.” She looked up, grinning slightly. “I just had to make sure I was in the perfect story-telling position.” There was an edge to her voice that told Rainbow Dash she wasn’t about to go easy. She smiled at the couch and patted it. “And here I am.” “Great.” Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. “Is your body finally ready for your perfect story?” Twilight grinned. “The question is: Is yours?” “Walked right into that one…” Rainbow Dash laughed to herself. “Chapter 1: the Abandoned Lair” Twilight spoke. It wasn’t quite the Canterlot voice—in fact, it was almost completely calm sounding—but her voice filled the room all the same. The Sepia pony absent mindedly picked up the wrench from a nearby surface and tapped it, needlessly adding to the symphony of rhythmic clicks and whirrs around him. The copper and golden shapes—touched with red—that spanned the massive chambers sang back as they moved through their given patterns in an incomprehensible dance, never sleeping, and only ever resting for a half a second. The Sepia pony felt small when he realized that he would never understand the blocks of metal regularly spaced around him. Even trying to would probably drive him as insane as the pony who built the place. So he was glad that wasn’t part of his job. No, instead, he trusted the finer details of the how to his good friend and partner, Silk P. Rose, or, as he liked to call him, Smarty Pants. The only thing Sepia needed—no, wanted—to understand, were the stains of red around him. Why did this incomprehensible machine look as if it were bruised and bleeding? “…So,” Sepia—for that was his name—began, “who beat up the clockwork?” Silk cracked a grin. “Very funny.” But he frowned as he looked off at the ‘bruised’ walls of the machine. “But I feel like I just laughed at a funeral.” Sepia frowned. He may not have known where all the red came from, but he wasn’t naïve. He knew a lot of ponies had to have died. He stared at the closest piece of metal. “But… How?” He asked. Silk looked around at different gears, doing that thing where he pieced things together in his mind, but it seemed like even he was at a loss. “More like what,” He said. “What could possibly be worth all this?” Sepia looked at his friend, worried, and he noticed a subtle squinting and hardening of his gaze. “Smartypants,” He warned. Silk looked over, glared, and shook his head. “I’m sorry, but I have to know.” He jumped atop one of the copper blocks and started scanning the room... Sepia jumped up and chased after him. “You know there’s never a good reason! Every time somepony askes a criminal why they did what they did, it’s always for a stupid reason. He was in the way! She didn’t pay up! He knew too much! She didn’t love him!” Silk looked back as he hopped across the labrynth, and Sepia could see the look on his face. There was a grimace, as if Silk regretted the blood around him; as if he were the reason it was there. “You’ve never created. A common criminal does things quickly for stupid reasons, but an engineer devotes his life for something. There has to be a reason behind this!” Sepia huffed as he chased after his friend. When did he get so lithe? “Then why don’t you ask him when we catch him. I’m sure you can wait a few days.” Silk hesitated for an instant before jumping again. “Because he’s dead!” ‘What?’ The question rang through Sepia’s mind. Steel was dead? Why was Silk informed before he was? He shook his head. He couldn’t let surprise cost him time. “When did this happen?” He asked. But Silk ignored the question as he dove behind one of the countless blocks. Strange, it was as if he knew exactly where he was going. Sepia dove and landed behind Silk on the ground. He was about to drag his partner back outside, slap him straight, and ask what in the world got into him, but something stopped him. Silk was crying. The always-smiling, happy-go-lucky genius Silk ‘Smartypants’ Rose was crying as he connected various wires together. It was just wrong. It was like seeing adamantium break. “I’m sorry.” Silk paused his work to wipe the tears out of his eyes. “I just have to know—“he connected one last pair of wires with alligator clips”—why would my brother do this?” With all the wires connected, he flipped a switch, indiscernible from the rest of the machinery. Sepia’s eyes widened and his pupils shrank. “What?” The machine whirred, and all went white Rainbow Dash gaped at Twilight. That couldn’t be the end of the story! “What? No! What happened to them?” She said. Twilight smiled. “Don’t worry, there’s more.” Her stomach grumbled and she smiled sheepishly. “But I think we should take a break first.” Rainbow Dash’s own stomach growled in response, as if it were communicating with Twilight's. She smiled wryly. “Okay Twilight, I guess you can take a break if you need to.” Rainbow Dash flew over to her kitchen, opened her cloud fridge, and pulled out the meal of heroes. “Leftovers!” She cried triumphantly. Twilight smiled and shook her head as she followed Dash into the kitchen. Rainbow Dash flew over and tossed the heroes’ meals into the microwave, entered the secret combination (3, 0, 0, start), and watched as lightning bolts cooked them to perfection. She tossed one meal to Twilight, who caught it in her magic as she hopped up to the cloud table. She threw her own meal to her own spot, opposite of Twilight. Twilight popped the lid off her soup container and sniffed. “Mushroom,” she identified it before taking a large sip. “So,” Rainbow Dash said, right before she stuck a straw into her soup to drink the excess fluids, “You think you can continue the story now?” Twilight smiled. Both of them knew she had already won, but it wasn’t about winning anymore. “Right.” Rainbow Dash smiled knowingly. It was never really about winning. As long as the game wasn't rigged, she preferred good competition to just beating everypony. Why else would she compete with Applejack so much when there was a good chance she would lose? “I said,” Silk repeated, “I have to know why my brother would do this.” He stared right at his long-time friend with wet-eyes. But his friend was looking past him. Sepia stared at the shiny, clean copper and gold walls and blocks of machinery. There wasn’t a drop of blood anywhere. “Well, I guess this was meaningless too.” Silk frowned. “Wipe your eyes, Smartypants.” Sepia said. And Silk did. When he could see again, he looked around in awe and disbelief. But the most amazing thing was right in front of him. “Steel?” He asked. “Steel!?” He repeated giddily. “What?” Apparantly Silk was wrong: Steel wasn’t dead. Sepia turned around and jumped on the pony not too far behind him, pinning him to the ground with a hoof to the neck. “WHAT DID YOU DO TO THEM?” He screamed. Steel stared back at him in shock, too scared to move. “WHERE DID THE BLOOD COME FROM?” He screamed again. Steel just stared back at him, now both scared and confused. “What?” “Why?” Sepia leaned in and was now muzzle to muzzle with Steel. “Why did you kill all those people?” He glared. Steel tried to crawl out from under Sepia, but the stallion was too strong. “I don’t know what you’re talking about!” “Liar!” Sepia stomped right next to Steel’s head. “Do you think I’m an idiot?” Suddenly, Sepia was pulled back, and he felt himself put into a headlock. “He’s telling the truth!” He heard Silk behind him. “Are you kidding me?” Sepia growled. He just saw this place filled with blood. Silk must have been more distraught than he thought if he believed his brother was innocent. “I just saw—“ “I know what you saw,” Silk said, “but it isn’t real.” He sighed. “Not anymore.” Sepia frowned. He knew exactly what Silk was talking about, but it was just too preposterous to believe. And apparently Silk knew that. “Steel,” he called, “how’s Silver doing?” Steel instantly went from pushing his back against a machine in fear and confusion to smiling dumbly. “Oh, she’s great!” Sepia’s body went slack. That was impossible! Silver died weeks ago! He remembered Steel at the scene with that hard gaze. Any mention of her after that would have him screaming and throwing things. Steel looked back and forth between his brother who was smiling and crying for some reason, and Sepia, who was staring at him in awe. “What?” Silk dropped his partner and wiped his eyes. “I think we should go for a walk,” he said, “we’ve got a lot to talk about, and I don’t know if I want to meet my double.” Twilight drank the last drop of her soup. “So, how was that?” Rainbow Dash stood on all fours with all limbs outward and breathed in. “That—“She grinned as she took a more nonchalant stance. “—was pretty good.” She tilted her head, “But I feel like I still don’t know what’s going on. I know they went back in time but…” “Yeah.” Twilight shrugged. “I’d say that was more like the first half of the first chapter.” Twilight stared at her utensils for a few seconds before yawning. “But I’m a bit tired after eating all that soup.” Rainbow Dash perked up. “Oh! You’ve gotta try sleeping on a cloud!”