Autumn searched long and hard for anything to add to her list of things duller than the cultures of the Mane Dynasty as she watched a clock tick second by second, counting every single millimeter she inched toward her book bag and out of class. So far, she had two things: the professor teaching the subject, a prehistoric pony in his own right who smelled strongly of must and plastic, and counting the holes in the ceiling tiles. At least after two tiles, she had found an equation that allowed her to calculate an exact number, which was done in the free space beneath her short list. Although it wasn't making "Pre-Pony Civilizations 103" any more interesting, it was something to take her mind off of everything she had learned a few hours earlier. She began making a list of all the things more interesting than the Mane Dynasty to pass the time instead. Autumn didn't know what it was, but it always seemed like English and History had the magical properties of putting her to sleep. Mathematics and Applied Science were interesting, engaging, and most importantly, dynamic. History was completely static. There was no new perspective, no interesting way to look at a fundamental law that turned everything on its head. How anypony could get through it was beyond her.
Fighting back a yawn, Autumn stretched, looking around the cramped classroom. There were all of sixteen ponies in the class, not including herself. Six colts, nine mares, and a pony she wasn't entirely sure about. The black leather and exposed, muscular chest inclined her to believe the pony was male, but the piercings, eye and face makeup, and purse inclined her to believe otherwise. Overall, it was a toss-up. If only someone would---
"Miss Fairbreeze?" The ancient colt leading the class had finally gotten her attention.
"Yes?" Autumn did her best to be polite, sitting straighter in her desk.
"Can you recall the cash crop from last week's lecture that shaped the trade routes with Indo-Giddyap and the Sirish Islands?"
Autumn hadn't the foggiest, and to be frank, could hardly care either way. "Surely it is in your notes?" He gestured to the papers on her desk, Autumn unsure if he could see their contents or not. "They appear quite thorough."
"Um..." Autumn searched her mind for any strands of information she could recall from any lecture period. "... Was it..."
"Textiles," came a voice from the back, "Particularly the dyes used in the dark colors of robe and hat material."
"Excellent." The professor nodded, creaking back to the board, "Couldn't have put it better myself."
Autumn flinched as class resumed. She had a sinking feeling she knew all too well who had spoken up to save her. She dared not turn around, because she knew all too well that he'd be watching her. The scrawny pegasus in the back of the room, third seat from the west wall. Starshine had informed her that his name was Leo, a transfer from a private liberal arts college. Just thinking about how much information she knew about him made her flesh crawl. What really prickled her skin though, was how much exactly he knew about her.
Cream, personable and helpful as she was, answered any and all questions he had about her when he approached her. No doubt he knew literally everything about her, and was going to confront her with some kind of "common ground" nonsense. The scene playing out in her mind made Autumn queasy. What would she say? Starshine wasn't here to bail her out of this one; she was foraging alone. What if he attacked her like Professor Ruby, some darker intention in mind? She couldn't bear to think about it. No doubt it was a fluke she was able to escape her professor, but an agile colt, one who felt confident enough in his own physical prowess to try out for the jousting team no less, would surely overpower her.
How would she get away? He could fly. All she had was her brains and her book bag. That was it! Her book bag! That's what she would do. If he came within five feet of her, she'd let him have it, right in the face. Starshine would feel terrible about forcing her to fend for herself, and Autumn would assure her that she didn't need some boy stalking her about the school. It was foal-proof.
Primed now for a sprint for her life, Autumn prepared herself to leap from her desk for the door once the second moved its last few ticks. With a leap that cleared almost half of the small classroom, she raced for the door as soon as the shrillness of the bell reached her ears. Pumping harder than she ever had before, she huffed and puffed down the hall, taking a left, down the stairs, racing past Starshine as she opened her locker, spraying the contents of Starshine's open bag all over the hall. Frustrated and exasperated, Starshine shouted at her in Autumn's wake.
"You have to make real friends eventually!" Heaving a sigh, she began to collect her things from the floor. Leo, slowing from his trot at the disarray, stopped to assist her.
"She'll have to get over this melodrama eventually," Starshine said to Leo, looking up at him. "She's being ridiculous. I have no idea where this is coming from."
"It's okay," Leo tried to give his most charming smile, "I can take a guess."
Locking the door of her private study behind her, Autumn heaved and huffed as she retreated back into her Grandpa's chair. The serious bust of her grandfather seemed almost disappointed.
"What?" She responded to its look, irritated.
The pale eyes stared, unblinking. Have you even met this lad?
"I don't care. He's creepy." Autumn hadn't even considered that she was conversing with the inanimate bust of her deceased grandfather.
The pale eyes stared, unblinking. A friend or two couldn't hurt.
"Quite the contrary. You weren't there. They can hurt quite a bit."
The pale eyes stared, unblinking. Friendship is important, Autumn.
"I don't need ponies around me. 'The greatest tool is knowledge'? Remember that? Friends hold you back."
The pale eyes stared, unblinking. I think you are holding you back.
"I know what ponies are like. I know what they do! Books don't hurt you, or take your money, or stab you in the back, or pin you to walls!" She was shouting now.
The pale eyes stared, unblinking. Do you not know how to make friends?
"You weren't there! You don't know! It was horrible!" Memories of the boarding school before her foster home brought stinging tears to her eyes.
Writing furiously, the door barricaded with a tipped chest of drawers, Autumn raced through her books as she scribbled on an entrance exam. She stopped only once, at a pounding on the door. A masculine filly cooed through the shut door.
"Come on out, Autumn, we know you're in there."
Tears spattered the exam as she did her best to stay as silent as possible.
"You have a lot of homework to do. We have essays do tomorrow, after all."
Autumn cringed at the bruises speckling her back and face. Their stinging and stabbing reminders from hours before was motivation enough to get out of this hell-hole.
"Autumn Fairbreeze! Open this door this instant!" A much older voice rang through the door. This one made Autumn freeze with fear.
"We're afraid, Ms. Bucksly. She's been in there for hours."
"Thank you, girls, you may leave. Autumn Fairbreeze, I will call the fireponies if you don't open this door this instant!"
"I don't want that. I don't want friends, I don't want to meet colts my age or go anywhere or do anything!" She sobbed into the chair, tired of running from Leo and tired of running from everything.
The pale eyes stared, unblinking.
"Why did you leave me, Grandpa? Why?"
Leo listened, leaning on the door until he had heard enough. I guessed wrong. Moving up from his position, he passed soundlessly across the hall to another private study. Taking a large metal key from his bag, he stuck it into the hole, it moving past the tumblers soundlessly. The tag on the end of the key tapped against the door as he turned the key clockwise. Suddenly and without a sound, a white light framed the door, glowing out from behind it and around the frame. Leo, already accustomed to this phenomenon, swung the door inwards and shut it quietly behind him, the light evaporating into the dimly lit hall.
Autumn awoke, stiff and uncomfortable from her position in the large chair. She pulled her face from the cushion, which was stained from what she assumed was her tears. Looking up at the clock, she heaved a sigh to find it was almost eight o'clock at night. She needed to be home in a half an hour. Stretching and collecting her things, she moved for the door. Giving her neck one last crack, she shut the door behind her as quietly as possible as to not disturb the colt reading at the table next to the door. It was only after moving twenty or so feet that she stopped dead in her tracks, realizing who it was that put his book away, and stood to greet her.
"Can we talk for a bit?"
"No." Autumn, too tired to run, moved with a purpose, ignoring anything that came from Leo's mouth.
"Can I show you something then?"
"No."
"Why don't you stop and list---"
"No." He sighed, turning to his right and moving through a locked door using his Key.
On Autumn's left, a door to her chemistry professor's study opened, and Leo stepped out of it, Key in hand.
"Now listen to---"
"No." He turned and went back through the door into the room. A few seconds later, a door directly to Autumn's right opened, Leo stepping out of it, attempting to get her attention with the same degree of failure.
This process continued until Autumn's march was halted by Leo, who came out of the door leading out of the "Quiet Study Chambers" into the literal library.
"Let me pass." Autumn was angry and didn't want to listen to anything Leo had to say.
"Fine." Leo turned to the side and let her pass into the door he opened with his Key.
Autumn moved past him, stopping when she found the library she spent most of her time in was replaced by an empty room. She turned, her facial expression quickly changing. She barged past Leo back out into the hallway and found that she had, in fact, gone the right way and that the door Leo stood by was, in fact, the door to the main antechamber of the library.
"Will you listen to me now?" Leo moved into The Room and looked back at her.
"What did you do with the library?" Autumn couldn't wrap her head around it.
"Nothing. Will you come inside and let me talk to you?"
"Only if you let me go home. Immediately afterward. Five minutes."
"Five minutes it is, then."
Cautiously, Autumn moved through the door, framed with light, and Leo quietly shut it behind her.
The Room was rather large and empty, aside from an old bed and a pair of chairs. Dust clung in odd rectangles to the floor where Autumn assumed furniture used to rest. A large window covered most of the east wall, overlooking a glade of trees and a babbling brook. The sun sat outside this window at some hour after noon.
"I don't get it." Autumn looked around while Leo brought the two chairs closer together, "Why is it so empty? And why did you make it look like mid-afternoon outside?" Leo looked at her like it was a silly pair of questions.
"They took everything. And I didn't make the room look this way; this is just the time when The Event happened."
"Who's they? And what event? You aren't making any sense." Leo paused at this, sitting on the chair in front of Autumn.
"Wait... you don't know? Like you don't know anything?"
"Anything about what?" Leo chuckled to himself at this.
"You really don't know? You are Burgundy's flesh and blood and you know nothing?"
"No! I don't know anything! Grandpa told me nothing and didn't want me involved in his research. I know nothing at all!"
"Okay, okay, I'm sorry. I just figured... since you have the Ink Pot and all, you might have had some sort of plan or something."
"Nope. This was just very important to Grandpa. That's why I have it."
"Okay..." Leo put a hoof over his eyes and gestured to the chair, "We better start from the beginning. Have a seat." Unsure of how exactly she was to get out of this bizarre place without hearing him out, Autumn sat in the uncomfortable wooden chair.
"What you have there... that Ink Pot, I mean... it's an Object." Autumn nodded.
"I know that already. But what does that mean?"
"All of the Objects belong in this Room. This is The Room where all of the Objects come from."
"Why take them? What good does a moving Ink Pot do you?" Autumn was surprised to find that the Ink Pot was completely motionless when she removed the lid in an attempt to give a visual example.
"Objects don't work in The Room." Leo didn't share in her surprise. "This is where they belong."
"Belong? What do you mean? How did The Objects or whatever get their properties. I've been to the dean about it, and she said it wasn't magic."
"You told the dean? What did you tell her?" This was big news, apparently.
"I don't know... she had more to tell me than I had to tell her. Why? How about you start making sense." Leo nodded, looking out the window.
"Alright, alright. I'll start from the beginning. This room, if you haven't already noticed, it's not normal, see? This room isn't actually part of reality at all."
"What? Then how are we in it, right now?"
"Nobody knows for sure how exactly this happened or how exactly it works. It's all theoretical."
"We are in a theoretical room that doesn't exist." Autumn said flatly in disbelief.
"Believe what you want, I'm only here to fill you in and get you up to speed. Anyways, we think this Room existed at one point, and then mysteriously ceased to exist. We call this The Event. Some people think the laws of physics simply broke, and this is their way of compensating. Some people think a Goddess died in this room." The air suddenly became quite serious at the talk of death. "All we know is that The Event caused The Room to cease to exist, and everything that was in The Room became Objects."
"What do the objects do?"
"All kinds of things. Every object is different and has different properties and behaviors. Let's see... you have The Ink Pot, but you already knows what it can do. I have The Key." He held up his large metal key, tag hanging off the back of it. "The Key goes to the room. Any door that has a door knob and a lock goes to The Room."
"That's how you brought me here?"
"Right. There's..." Leo searched his memory, "There's The Quill. Dangerous. The Quill can heat things up. Can boil water in a kettle with just a few scribbles."
"What does that have to do with quills?"
"What does scooting have to do with ink pots?"
"Point taken."
"Most of them don't do anything special. Like The Easel. A painting easel? It leaks. A little less than a gallon of clean water drips off The Easel over the process of a day."
"What's the point of that?"
"Who knows? Not only that, but objects do different things when you bring other objects close to them. Like the easel? If you bring The Lamp to The Easel, it gives you a kind of foresight, let's you see the future?"
"That's surprisingly more useful. How many objects are there?" Leo shrugged.
"Some people feel well over a hundred. I personally haven't the foggiest."
"Over a hundred?" Autumn's imagination ran with all the different things that could have been in here. A question came up in her mind, though. "What does this have to do with me?"
"The Objects... they attract each other. Like, they want to come back together."
"Want? Are The Objects... alive?"
"Again, all theoretical. Some people say it is all tied back to the Event. How do you think it was so easy for me to find you? All you have to do is follow your stomach." Autumn remembered the sickening feeling she felt and the odd sense of foreboding she had around The Ink Pot. "Anyways, there is a group called the Order of the Reunification."
"Like a church?"
"Hardly. The Order has devoted their lives to bringing all the objects back into The Room. Supposed to change the world or something."
"Is that a bad thing?"
"No. What's bad is they will do anything possible to get a hold of any Object they can get close to." The more she heard, the less Autumn liked her Grandfather's research. It didn't make any sense, and above all, sounded very dangerous.
"I'm here because I wanted to warn you, because I think the Order is coming for The Ink Pot next."
"Why my Ink Pot?"
"Your grandfather was a Scribe. He made Object Maps. Meaning he discovered object combinations and recorded them. Scribes to this day are very difficult to come by. Anyways, your Grandfather held onto the Ink Pot very closely because he felt that you could use to it find specifically where The Room is."
"Or is supposed to be?"
"Right. He felt that using The Objects, you could find where The Room should be, and that has particular significance."
"What else did you need? How did you know my Grandpa?"
"Burgundy was certain you needed The Lamp, The Ink Pot, The Train Tickets, and The Photograph. He founded a group that dedicated itself to collecting all of The Objects... and destroying them."
"Destroying them? Why?"
"Think about it. Some people think these are pieces of God. What would you do for your own personal piece of the pony that made everything?" Autumn hadn't thought of that.
"This is a lot heavier than you think it is. People have died for their Objects. I'm trying to help you. Burgundy felt you would be the one to take up his stead in collecting, and destroying all of the objects." It was here that Autumn stood and walked to the door.
"Sorry. Grandpa kept me as far away from his work as possible. You must be mistaken. Time's up. How do I go home?" Leo, good to his word but still feeling defeated, explained.
"Just imagine where you want to go when you open the door."
"Take me home." Autumn said aloud to the door. Opening it after this, she found that she was across the street from her house, very late.
"Be careful. Autumn."
"I don't need your help."
"...Fine." It was with this that the door to The Room (which was also the front door of Autumn's neighbor's house) swung shut, taking its soft glow with it, leaving Autumn confused and exhausted in the dark on her street.