Violet felt her muscles relax as she glided her quill across her paper. The elegent swoops and swirls of letters seemed to float effortlessly from her mind and onto the page. A beautiful image there, a metaphor over here, maybe a simile or two right between the two... Everything else in the world was foggy, and the soothing scent of ink and creativity filled her nostrils and motivated her to write even faster.
She suddenly felt a prickle on the back of her neck. It caused the fur on her arms to stand up and an uncomfortable shiver to run up her spine. What was wrong? Did she not like what she wrote down? She reread the sentence... Nope. Perfect. The prickling continued, and was now followed by the disturbing sound of heavy breathing. She felt the skin above her hooves start to sweat and her tail to start to twitch at the creepy feeling.
"Hmmm... I think you should make her a little less sarastic..."
Violet jumped, causing her magic to fumble with her quill. The aftermath was nothing more that a sharp crease in the paper where a smooth line of ink was meant to be. She didn't know whether to be thankful for the fact that the ink didn't take, due to the crease taking a sharp turn in the opposite direction as intended and the fact that ink would have surely filled the crevase without a consideration of Violet's feelings, or angry with the fact that the crease existed in the first place.
Violet turned her head towards the sound. She nearly brushed her muzzle against Cloudy's in the process. Uncomfortable and startled by the sudden close up of her best friend, she quickly moved her head back a couple of inches to avoid any embarrassing mishaps. Cloudy, oblivious to her friend's discomfort, continued to read the last couple of lines before turning her head to Violet's and uttering an all to cheerful 'Hi!'.
Violet pushed her best friend off of her back and restraightened her papers. "You know," She said with a grumpy tone. "When I said I was going to write you a prequel chapter,-"
"Three. You said you would write three." Cloudy interrupted.
"I kind of expected you to let me finish them before you read them." Violet finished.
Cloudy whined. "I'm sorry! It's just that it takes so long!"
"It's only been three hours! And I've already written a dozen or so pages!" Violet said in her defense. Cloudy groaned, clearly not likeing those numbers.
"You need to listen to me more." Cloudy said, remembering an earlier conversation. "You should just drop out of school, and focus on your writing. It's not like we're going to use the knowledge of how to calculate the volume of a sphere in our everyday lives."
Violet sighed. "I've already agreed to wear my mane down because of you. I think I should tone down the taking or- I mean, listening for a while."
"You love the fact that your mane is down, and you know it." Cloudy said smuggly with her hooves crossed. "You got so many compliments today!"
She couldn't argue with that, though she hardly wanted to admit it. Today was, quite possibly, one of the strangest days in Violet's life. This morning, she had woken up in an unfamiliar home, and had gotten ready for school like a starlet pony. Cloudy's routine was freakishly detailed and overdone. Shower, mousse, style mane, a small spray of coat shiner, perfume, and the brutal process of braiding her extremely thick mane. Cloudy and her mother practically begged Violet to let them style her mane for her, and Violet, not knowing what else to do, agreed to let them do it.
Now her mane, no longer in a ponytail, was softly hiding her shoulders and the back of her neck in an elegant example of waves. Violet, regretfully, admited that the process of achieving this look was easy. And it was! She simply washed her hair with a shampoo Mrs. Sugar provided, and kept her mane in a bun until it was time to go to school. To bad though, because after saying how easy the whole ordeal was, Mrs. Sugar insisted that Violet keep the shampoo, and Cloudy demanded that Violet never where her mane in a ponytail again.
Violet groaned, but told her friend that she would wear the manestyle for 'a while'.
At school today, ponies noticed. Shimmering shot her a couple of deadly looking glares, a couple of fillies stared at her and asked her where she got her mane done, and some colts simply stared. It caused Violet to have a permanent blush throughout the entire school day. Both from modesty and embarrassment.
The walk home was even more awkward. The entire time Cloudy had a huge smile on her face and kept mumbling 'I told you so..' under her breath. A one-sided argument sprouted form that, with Violet being the only one who was arguing, and the somehow it ended with the two of them going to Violet's house for her to write. Cloudy spent a majority of time in Violet's room making comments about her bland, gray walls and the lack of creative personality that clearly had potential. She also snooped through Violet's chests and drawers, finding some more unfinished stories, a couple of the sketches Violet drew of her characters that she created, a few of the dresses her mother begged her to wear, and a 'depressing lack' of blue material.
Now, back in the present, Cloudy looked at Violet with the same grumpy expression Violet threw at her.
"Just...write!" Cloudy pointed at the half-written paper in an exaggerated motion. Violet felt her lips curl in a small smirk of amusement.
She went back to writing. It took a while, but she finally seemed to have gotten used to using her quill while her typewriter was right next to her. At first it sat there, looking lonely and betrayed, making Violet feel guilty for not using it. Cloudy wanted her to use a quill, because for the first couple of minutes of her using the typewriter, the sound of the keys and and the paper needing to be slided was enough to make Cloudy batty. And now, Violet and her typewriter seemed to be at an agreement. She promised to use it once Cloudy went home in a couple of hours.
A couple of minutes passed, and Violet was startled once again by Cloudy rustling in the background. She turned on her chair, only to see a way to excited Cloudy holding a large and neat bundle of Hearths Warming Eve lights.
Violet glanced at her closet. To her mother's often expressed horror, her closet was practically empty. If she was going to accessorize with anything, it was going to be jewelry, and even then, not much. Clothes... were out of the question. And so, her bare closet was used for storage space. Boxes of junk, trinkets, and holiday decorations included.
Before Violet could deny permission, Cloudy was on the move. Within a blink of an eye, all around the room lights dangled randomly from her molding.
"How... how did you...?" Violet asked, her mouth hanging open in shock at her friends speed.
"Years of practice." She answered bluntly. "What? It takes skill to hang up all of those scarves."
"I don't even... where did you get the nails? Hoof-tacks?"
"I had a couple on hoof."
"O-okay..." Violet kept staring at the lights, still unable to believe they they were there. Cloudy happily trotted over to Violet's massive mirror, and with a happy grin, plugged in the lights in the outlit behind the piece of furniture. All at once, tiny lights filled Violet's vision. They twinkled and shined. Casting a warm yellow glow throughout her room. The entire space around her seemed to be filled with stars.
"Told you it had potential." Cloudy said, admiring her work.
Violet, after a couple of moments of enjoying the images around her, went back to writing. The lights seemed to fuel her motivation to fill the pages. Soon, the 'first' chapter of her story was complete. Cloudy quickly grabbed at it once it was finished.
"Hey, mom would love it if you came over for dinner again tonight. Are you capable?" Cloudy asked.
Violet remembered seeing one of her parent's numerous notes taped to her front door. Yeah, she was free.
"That sounds amazing." She said quickly. She packed up some extra parchment and ink in her bag, a sketchbook, and just a simple library book to pass the time.
"Woah... I just invited you to dinner, but you act like I'm asking you to spend the night again." Cloudy said as she watched her pack.
Violet blushed. "Well, I... just thought..."
Cloudy laughed. "Of course you can stay the night! We can make it a regular thing, if ya want!"
Violet felt her ears perk up again. "That would be awesome! Thanks Cloudy!"
Both of the friends left the house laughing, excited for what their friendship held for the future.