A Lonely Life

by duvagr007

Chapter Six: Mammal Whisperer

Chapter 6

Zap!

The effects of Twilight's spell left Inkwell dazed and disoriented for a few moment before regaining his senses. He looked around the small building he found himself in and immediately noticed a multitude of small animals ranging from birds to bunnies. One bunny in particular stood out to him. Mostly because it was standing in front of him, its head a few inches from his own wearing a very angry looking scowl.

"Who are you, and what do you want with my Fluttershy?"

"Gah!" Inkwell jumped back at the sound of the rabbit's voice. He wasn't expecting it to be able to talk.

"What's wrong Inkwell?" Twilight was standing behind him with a concerned look on her face.

"I... the rabbit it... y-you didn't hear him?"

"Hear who?"

"The rabbit!"

"Oh, do you mean my Angel bunny? He isn't very welcoming to new faces so if he bothers you, just let me know." It was Fluttershy who spoke up this time, carrying a bag of animal food out of a closet that she had apparently just been inside of.

"It's not that, h-he spoke to me! Like, as in actual words.!"

"Wait, back up. Are you saying that Angel spoke to you, and you understood him?"

"That's exactly what I just said!"

"Hm... that's peculiar, maybe you can communicate with animals since I turned you into a cat. Try talking with him."

"Um... okay?" He turned to the rabbit in front of him and attempted to talk with him. "Uh... hi, I'm Inkwell, what's you-"

"Angel, now answer my question cat! What do you want with Fluttershy!" Inkwell was surprised that such a small little body could hold so much aggression.

"Um, I just came here to get some fish. And I'm not technically a cat. I'm a pony that got turned into a cat."

"Likely story chump, but I'll believe you. For now. I'll be watching you." At that, the small rabbit hopped away giving Inkwell a glance back over his shoulder. Inkwell turned to face Twilight and began the rather strange process of explaining things to her.

"Well that was interesting."

"What? Did you talk to him? What did he say?"

"He wanted to know what I wanted with Fluttershy, and told me he would be watching me." Inkwell was still a little unnerved by the words of the little white rabbit, despite its inferior size and strength. The rabbit had a rather threatening and intimidating presence about him. He wasn't quite sure whether or not to just shrug it off as an empty threat, or actually take the small ball of 'cute' fluff seriously.

"Well that's... interesting. I never knew he was so assertive. Are you sure you and Angel are a good match Fluttershy?" At the sound of her name, Fluttershy's head appeared out of the closet she was in.

"Well, n-no, not really. But, opposites attract... right?" The timid pegasus gave a bad poker face and continued her food gathering duties inside what seemed to be a rather immense closet.

"I guess so... Fluttershy, how do you even fit in there?" Twilight slowly approached the closet and moved to peek inside. "I mean, how big could it..." She trailed off as she looked inside the closet. Inkwell, being curious now, jumped atop her back and looked inside himself. What he saw left him speechless.

What he had originally presumed to be a small closet turned out to be a large, underground where-house. It had a spiral staircase leading to the ground and spanned off for a few hundred feet in either direction. Rows of shelves occupied the otherwise empty floor space, leaving about three feet between each shelf. The shelves were all labeled food, toys, medicine, etc. and sported boxes filled with the items of the shelve's respective labels. Inkwell had no idea how in Celestia's name the pegasus was able to fit all of this under her house, let alone how she had afforded it.

"Wha... how..." Was all Twilight was able to say before she fainted from the sheer and utter shock of it all. Inkwell hit the ground with a slight thump and a soft 'ow' when he fell off Twilight's back. Fluttershy appeared out the corner of his eye after being at a shelf labeled 'meat' carrying a bucket of fish.

"Oh no! Twilight, can you hear me? Twilight!" Despite her 'screaming' into Twilight's ear, the purple unicorn remained unconscious. Fluttershy set down the pail she was carrying and brought her friend over to her couch. She lay her down as gently as she could, and turned back to Inkwell, who was promptly eating a piece of fish he had pulled from the bucket.

"W-what should we do Inkwell?" Inkwell glanced up from the fish he had been eating and gave her a reassuring smile.

"Don't worry Fluttershy. Twilight will be fine, now how about we go feed those animal fiends of yours?" He took another bite of fish," but after I'm done with this fish, I'm starved!"

______

Twilight blinked her eyes open and looked around. She was still in Fluttershy's cottage, but nigh had fallen, and Luna's moon shone through one of the windows. This meant she had been out for quite some time. She got up and walked over to the kitchen where she could hear voices and the sounds of a board game being set up. She rounded the corner to see Fluttershy, Inkwell, and Angel all getting ready to play a game of Monopony: Canterlot Edition.

"Oh hey Twilight, we haven't started yet, would you like to join?" Fluttershy's tell-tale kindness shone through at her offer, but Twilight politely refused.

"No thanks Fluttershy, I'll just watch. How long was I out?"

"About five hours actually. I gotta say, I never thought anypony could pass out for that long out of sheer shock from a situation." Inkwell rolled a pair of dice with his paws as he said this. Twilight wondered how he managed it, considering the size of the dice. Inkwell moved his piece as Fluttershy took the dice and spoke.

"Well, Twilight can tend to over exaggerate things from time to time. There was this one time she freaked out over a letter." The dice stopped moving and Fluttershy moved her piece, landing right behind Inkwell. Angel took the dice and began his turn.

"A letter? Was there something wrong with what it said or something?" A small thump was heard as Angel slammed a paw on the table squeaking something out. Twilight looked at the dice and saw that the rabbit had gotten 'snake eyes' as the phrase went.

"Long story. What did Angel say?" Twilight gave a curios look to Inkwell, the only member among them who could speak Equine and mammalian.

"You don't wanna know." He glanced nervously at the small rabbit, wondering where he had learned such a word.

"It couldn't have been that bad. What was it?"

"Listen, I'm religious so I'm not repeating what that rabbit said." Twilight and Fluttershy both reached the same conclusion at the same time. Twilight gasped in shock and Fluttershy scolded the rabbit, sending him to his room. Then Twilight gasped again, this time in realization.

"You're religious? What religion?" Inkwell stopped in the middle of moving his piece at this question, and looked to Twilight.

"I-It's not a problem is it?"

"No, just curious is all, I don't usually meet ponies who have a specific religion." Inkwell gave a sigh of relief, and answered her question.

"Well, if you must know, I'm Celestian." He turned back to the game and finished moving his piece.

"Which means?" Inkwell sighed, he was dedicated to his religion, but he didn't like talking about it that much.

"It means I worship Celestia as a deity, not just a princess. We pray to her and when we die we go to heaven. There's a lot more to it, but that's the basics." Fluttershy was moving her piece when he finished, and she was now a few squares in front.

"Maybe I should write to the princess about religion. I'm sure she'd love to hear about it." They sat in silence for the rest of the game of Monopony, with random comments as to how it was going every now and then. Twilight and Inkwell left back for the library at around eleven at night. When they arrived, spike was on the floor laying his head on a book.

"Spike," said Twilight as she gently nudged him awake. "C'mon wake up, what did you find?"

"Huh... oh, take a look at my pillow." He pointed to the book he had been laying on and went upstairs to his bed. Twilight picked the book up in her magic and read the page it was open to.

"Hm, let's see...AHA! Found it, Inkwell hold still." She turned to him and her horn began to glow with magic. Inkwell felt his body become encompassed by it's glow and he lifted off the floor a few inches. There was the same 'pop' as last time and the spell stopped. Inkwell looked himself over and saw he was back to his good old self again.

"Whew, glad that's over with. I thought I was going to have to be a cat forever." He and Twilight laughed a little and he started to leave.

"Hey Inkwell?"

"Hm?"

"Do you wanna go to... never mind, probably not."

"Where, wanna go where?"

"I dunno, I was thinking after the party tomorrow you would like to see the greatest city in the clouds."

"What?"

"Cloudsdale, it's going to be very close to Ponyville tomorrow and I was wondering if you wanted to go and see it with us. Me and my friends I mean."

"Um... I'd love to but... can't only pegasi walk on clouds?"

"Normally yes. But I have a spell that can let us walk on clouds too." He smiled and gave a small nod.

"In that case, yes. I will definitely come to Cloudsdale with you guys." He walked out and headed back to Rarity's house. When he got there, everypony had already gone to sleep, and he was careful not to disturb them as he did the same.

Authors note: Sorry this one took so long. I could say my editor took a little longer than expected or something like that, but thats not the case. Truth be told, I'm lazy so... yeah. Anyway, as for the whole Celestian bit, that was as close as I could come to Christian (my religion). Also, yes they are going to Cloudsdale, and this is actually where they find out a very important part of Inkwell's life. On that note if anyone likes Dumb-bell, Hoops, or Score, you shouldn't. Cuz they're jerks. If anyone DOESN'T like those three, then you will love that chapter. Take care now, bye-bye then.