//------------------------------// // Inspiration // Story: The Biography // by Manes //------------------------------// Inspiration was a hell of a thing to control. It’s one AM in the morning and still sleep hasn’t taken me away. I’m cursed with the ability to be up when everypony should be soundly sleep. How I envy them. I wish I could just sleep for a whole day and feel refreshed when I wake up. However, for the time being, I place my thoughts into this page. The balled up pages thrown to the in a moment of rage was a constant reminder to my writer’s block. So many unfinished stories that could have been great, destroyed by my muse quitting on them. Maybe it was the stress I had two days to publish my work. My agent made it perfectly clear she tolerated no tardiness. She would have a fit to find out the title was a blank page and the plot was whatever popped in my head. My future  was on the line. A cup of coffee and my mind pumped with caffeine, I just sat here. I thought I would be like other writers when coffee got into their system; ideas explode from their minds and onto the page. I wonder why I never had that ability, or if I could just write without the use of coffee. I thought if I wrote something my writer’s block would break. It helped some, but others weren’t so lucky. I fear I’m one of them. I’m on the brink of tears. I had no plot that didn’t scream rushed or confusion. The only plot that came into mines was my fat ugly agent. She was always on my case because she had trouble understanding I’m one of those slow pace writers. Even though I lived in Canterlot, I was a slob. My hooves slogged through a ocean of candy wrappers and plastic coffee cups. I always thought of cleaning up, but writing had always gotten in the way. Not that it was a bad thing, I just didn’t have time for other things. I guess I should see what’s outside and record my thoughts as I observe. I pushed away from the typewriter and walked towards the window as I peaked outside. At first, it seemed as if a something wiped out of all Canterlot. Nopony around to judge me, to see the guilty look of a failed writer. Images of the event of my struggle kept flashing in my head as some punishment to my current freedom. I shook my head and kept walked to the front door. A cool breeze brushed up against me when I opened the door. I shivered and grabbed my hoodie, pulling it on. I walked outside, closing the door behind me. I walked and looked around outside. Come on, bring me something interesting. Anything, I needed inspiration. Something! Why not inspire me with something worth writing about! My editors are going to delete my rants so who cares what I say? I’m a struggling writer who can’t find inspiration in the land of magic. Most of the well known authors like Lean Device had wrote most of her fiction about a mare who had done impossible things. Every time I looked at her work, a hint of jealousy clouded my judgement, always ending up calling her work a pile of poo and questioned why she had a fanbase. I was a nobody criticizing a somebody.  I strolled around, finding nothing during my journey. “Hmmmm.” What was that? That sounded like a hum. Normally such things aren’t important to me, but this one was. It held such beauty and loneliness. I couldn’t help wanting to dig inside this humming pony to get a better sense of them. Maybe this could be the spark I was looking for. My heart was pumping with excitement, or maybe that’s just the coffee finally kicking in. I ran across the corner where the hum came from and stopped at the beautiful sight before me. Her mane, light blue and distinctly lacking its ethereal nature due to an absence of magic, was wholly unkempt. Her midnight coat went with the night sky, her eyes had sparkled, and her face held so much emotion without even breaking a smile or frown. Who was she? How is there another Alicorn in Equestria? Maybe this was a dream to help me break the chains of writer’s block. Maybe this was a fragment of my imagination or some spirit guide to success. Maybe I was making this all up. It was helping. While it was not terribly cold outside, the mare showed no discomfort at all. She pretended the cool breeze wasn’t there. Her mind was elsewhere, like mine was.  Her mind was on the much more modernly built walls and corridors with what light was let in through the glass windows. Her face read confused and sadness, did she not recognize them? She had to be away for a long time. This beautiful mare hidden away from the public eye, but I couldn’t break away from my train of thought. I had to remember every moment this mare took, for she was my inspiration. Every corner, every turn, I followed. Funny, I wasn’t feeling tired like usual. I could run if I wanted to and not feel tired. I don’t know if it was the mare or the caffeine, but I kept moving. All she did was look away, which might be boring to some, but it was like a child wandering through a candy store. Never missing any detail she walked by. A couple of ponies passed by without any of them giving her a second glance. They pretended like she was a ghost, or probably felt they were too important to notice her. Maybe they were too busy with mooching off each other that they ignored everything around them. Or the worst case scenario, I’m going crazy. It seemed like that since I already the only one paying attention to her, but I know some ponies had saw her. I know it. I’m not crazy, I’m not imagining her because of the loneliness. She was real. It took me a moment to realize she was gazing at the moon. I wonder why, but something told me I already knew. A gleeful, genuine smile etched itself onto her face. She stirred for just a moment longer to feel a presence behind her. Clunk!  My heart stopped when our eyes met. Don’t break train of thought. She looked into my mind   with those blue glowing eyes. No, no! She knew the how desperate I was to write something I stalked her for inspiration! I couldn’t tell whether it was curiosity or if she was threatened by my presence. This had all the wrong context written on the walls for ponies to see; to them and her, I was stalking. I only I knew the true side. I needed this or else the dream of being published would be thrown out the window. It was about her, I needed to tell her story. Everypony needed to know. What was her name? I had to ask.  This was the moment I find that would change my life for better or worse. She was too beautiful to throw away, she turned me into a obsessed--no she made me more dedicated to my work. I don’t know whether she considered me worthy of writing something about. I was just a young writer, struggling with his flaws of success. She answered with a smile. “Ting!” I gasped as my head shot up. I placed his hoof onto my chest to check if my heart wasn’t beating too fast. My hooves scribed on the desk, knocking down a half coffee up, praying it on the wooden floor. My heart rammed against my chest like it was ready to burst. All the oxygen vanished. I couldn’t breathe. Deep breaths. Inhale. One, two, three. Exhale. I  repeated the technique a couple times until my heart returned a normal pace. I picked up the coffee and moved my close towards it, but I froze when my reflection came into view.  My black mane that looked like it had been ruffled up and picked hair-to-hair. My eyes didn’t have that pretty stallion glamor, and if they did, it was drowned by the bags under my eyes. I placed the cup down as my hooves rubbed down my face. I shook off my yawn as it escaped my mouth. I had forgotten I was also suffering from insomnia. The feeling of tiredness never leave no matter how many times I slept. I thought Princess Celestia was the only one. I heard stories of the a Nightmare Moon, but no physical description was told of her. Was this the Nightmare that terrorized me as a foal? She looked like no nightmare. She looked like a dream I didn’t want to wake up from. A knock from the door pulled me from my daze. It grew closer each passing second. I groaned as he lifted himself from the floor and went to the door, opening it without thought. I shielded his eyes with a hoof and tried to identify the shadow standing before her. The fuzzy blob stepped forward and into focus. A brown coated mare stood at the door away, her frown still seen through the light. “So I was expecting you to be finished after waiting for two days, and this is what I find?” She groaned. “You’re surrounded by trash!” She emptied her point by kicking a cup across the room." I gave you two days! Two! And you spend it sleeping!” I had no words to protest with. She was right, two days and I used it dreaming about a mare that might not even be real. “Why did I even give you… a chance.” She stopped talking as she looked over my shoulder. I thought she was about to give me a knuckle sandwich, but she reached for something instead. Riiiip! She had taken the pages from the typewriter. I didn’t know why, though; it was blank. No plot, no character, no ending. It was nothing, but she’d seen otherwise as her eyes darted left and right.  If she wasn’t scary before, she certainly was now, as she burst out laughing. Two unconformable minutes had passed and still she laughed her flank off. Thankfully, it finished when she huffed. “You actually wrote a story!” She squinted her eyes and tapped her hoof on the paper. “This is why I choose you. This!” She couldn’t wipe the smirk off her face. “I mean, this is gold; the ponies will eat it up. Well... I mean, I have to take out that stuff you said about Lean but all the other stuff could be savage.” Just as she filled my ego, she weighed it down again as she said, “The other stuff you submitted was… bizarre. I mean, your protagonist seemed a bit crazy. This—” she said, tapping at the papers, “—has original characters, this has a story. It might be short, but what isn’t these days?” She chuckled. “This stallion is a little obsessed, but this mare he follows is interesting. Did you got inspired over ma?” I tried to show any sort of response, but I couldn’t. I groaned when she slapped me in the back. “Be excited, man! You’re about to move up with the big ponies!” She wrapped her forelegs around me and gave a tight squeeze on my ribs. “Hey, maybe you finally hit your folks up with some great news, huh?” She let go and sighed. “ And just to think, I was about to give up on you.” As she walked away, she shouted, “And make yourself look likable!” and slammed the door. How rude. I sighed and took a hard look at this place. I wondered if this was the last time emptied coffee cups and balled up candy wrappers would become the floor. I couldn’t complain, though. It was nice for its price. I would be a liar if I didn’t have any attachment to it. I shook it off and picked up the pages. My eyes followed each word that I had written. The more I read, the more my mind couldn’t comprehend it.  My heart beating and hearing the words pour inside his head was hard to ignore. It seemed to come faster and faster each passing second. I couldn’t calm it , because  the words held such intensity. Page through page, my eyes ate all the words. A voice, my voice, kept replaying inside my head. She looked at me with those blue glowing eyes. A page turned. I only I knew the true side. I was an observer. And turned.    It was about her, I needed to tell her story. Everypony needed to know. What was her name? I had to ask. “The other stuff you submitted was… bizarre. I don’t know if you were on meds, but your protagonist seemed a bit crazy.” “This has original characters, this has a story.” A couple of ponies passed by without any of them giving her a second glance. They pretended like she was a ghost. Or the worst case scenario, I’m going crazy. I’m not imagining her because of the loneliness.        I kept turning until I had no more pages to turn to. All the words printed on here, came from me. I could picture like the words described; her genuine smile and her blue eyes. Only two lines I didn’t read yet. She looked at me and answered. There was no name. I flipped back and forth to see if I passed it, but there was no evidence of her name. I returned to the front page, where the title read clear as day. “The mare Who Wander The Night.” The pages dropped as my hooves as  I flopped back down in the chair. Was she a character? Did I create her? Was she actually real? How come I never heard of him? Out of all the question, why she choose me to be her ?  It was like she was unfinished.  I wanted to learn more about her, find out what happened to her, but she might even be real.  The wind blowing heavily was the only thing that made me feel not alone. I picked up the pages from the floor and placed them. I looked at the pages that held my muse. The plot,  character, my purpose. I looked at the coffee that I knocked over. The coffee cup hovered over the paper, titling it use a bit. It could see the liquid rushing to get out. As the liquid slowly slithered out the cup, my thoughts kept me from just dropping it. Did I want this? The dream wrote this, but it came out better than expected from a half turned on brain. It would be selfish of me to destroy this before the world could see it. It felt incomplete to me. The fiction story became a nonfiction Biography to me. I wanted to write about her life and publish it for all the world to see. The time of impact of accomplishing a well successful Biography trumped over the fiction. The cup moved away when somepony knocked on the door. The pony’s hoof knocked against the wood, sending out a sound throughout the almost vacant place. I wanted to move, my hooves were frozen in place. Luckily, the stranger knocked again, only this time, a familiar voice shouted, “You better not be sleep in there!” I walked to the door and creaked, peaking outside a bit. Celestia stood in all glory accompanied by two royal guards armed with spears. As if her presence at my house wasn’t enough, my agent stood behind them. Instead of her cheerful attitude brightening up the place, she had her head and remained silent. The Princess had a frown on her face." I take it you are the writer of who wrote that piece.” My tongue stumbled onto itself as she stared at him. Her amorous made me shake with fear. I Was an ant compared to her. If she wasn’t called Celestia, I would name her the tallest. She noticed my lack of response and sighed, dropping her frown. “You’re agent came to me to publish your work. I decided to visit you because I wanted to discuss the subject it’s on a rather….personal matter. “ I didn’t like where this was heading. I moved aside and let the ponies walked in. Celestia walked over to the desk and picked up the pages. Many authors had wanted to dig into my sister before….before she went away to try to get a better understand why she succumbed to the darkness.” She sighed. “Sadly all of their were rejected by me personally because I either didn’t want my sister’s life to be a story or their work could turn the public against me.”  She exhaled and shook her head." I think my sister deserves her story told so you could be seen as misunderstood not just by me, but by all of us.  They u should know the story of my sister. Not the fairytale this time.” I sat down and pulled up a chair. I levitated his old manuscript and tossed it in the trash. My agent looked at me with wide eyes, but she understood.  I  levitated a fresh pages into the typewriter. I  looked at Celestia. I sensed her having doubts about it by heavy breathing from her mouth. They didn’t hear it, but I did. One of the perks of being a writer. They never missed important details. I reassured her with a smile before he ring the typewriter. “Oh I brought you something!” She levitated a bag of coffee mixture. “You for for when you want to…” she stopped when I shook my head and pointed to the trashcan. “Oh, okay.” She hovered the bag over the trash and looked up as for confirmation. That was the end of the coffee mixture. I wanted my mind to be calm and at a slow pace for what I’m about to write. “You know what could help you write be? A clean scenery.” She started picking up all the coffee cups and candy wrappers that dirtied the floor. Celestia looked at the guards and gave them a nod to help the mare. It was time to reveal who the Princess of the night was before the fairytale became her origin. It was time to reveal her truth. It was time for ponies needing to be afraid of a name that wasn’t even her. It was time to craft art. My eyes opened up my mind cracked up with words. My magic surrounded the keys as I started crafting a title one would never forget. “The Biography of the Princess of the night.”