Daring Do and the Gryphon's Goblet

by Sir Squidfish

Oatmeal-- I'm crazy!!!

Author’s note: I had a lot of trouble writing this chapter-- partly because I lost my story outline (I don’t think I’ll ever find it) and partly because of a whole lot of writer’s block. It seemed like every hundred words I wrote, I would get stuck. So I wrote a whole lot of oatmeal, trying to find my inspiration again. I couldn’t begin to put all of it here, so I’ll just give you some of the highlights:

1) The mare turned to walk away, biting her lip hard to prevent the stream of curses that threatened to pour from her tongue and engulf the entirety of Indianapples, neigh, of Equestria, in fire and darkness. She paused, searching. Why not? Her tongue grew to four times its normal length and her eyes turned red and slitted evilly. They wouldn’t help; they were worthless mortals. Time to make a sacrifice.
“O Tirek!” she roared, her jaws wrenched open to impossible lengths, “Accept this, my humble offering. May it be a sweet aroma in your tonsils, and may all know the might of your dark power!”
She pulled two objects, a staff and a knife, from her saddlebags, and leapt savagely at the terrified barkeeper. He had time for only one shrill, gurgling scream before she slashed his throat, kicking him to one side as she took some of his life blood with her hoof and smeared it under her eyes. Lifting the staff, she began to sway, chanting the Divine Words of a forgotten age. All about her, the buildings, the furniture, and yes, even the inhabitants began crumbling into dust as her voice rose in volume.
“Gnitir Wimak Ceheht Tahw!” She shrieked, her form now blazing in blue fire. A hurricane was forming around her, surrounding her, obliterating everything from her mind but chaos. A great darkness was forming around the mage as she screamed one last spell, its sound lost in the whistling storm.

A light, quickly stifled.

A red hoof carving strange and ancient patterns in the air.

A Darkness.

Daring Do woke up in a forest, trees, streams, and rocks as far as she could see in one direction and the ocean stretching away to her left, about one hundred yards away. She stood, perfectly balanced, both in body and in mind. She ascended into the utmost peak of the highest rock ledge and sat, poised and cross-legged on the pinnacle of the summit. She inhaled, and a blue mist sprang out of the rock and encircled her as she hummed long forgotten tunes.

She was at peace.

2) Once they reached the table and sat down, Daring immediately began grilling Glassy for information. Soon, he was screaming in tortuous agony as she extracted his eyebrows with a red hot curling iron.
“Tell me. TELL ME!”
The stallion broke down sobbing. “I can’t.”
“Why? Why can’t you tell me? Don’t you want to live?”
Glassy looked up, broken. “That jerk of a writer is stuck. He has no clue how he wants to write this scene and he’s sick and tired of writing right now. So I’m sorry, but I know nothing.”
Daring Do spoke softly, her eyes narrowed and her tone menacing. “Well I’m sorry too, because your ‘sorry’ just doesn’t cut it. I need info, and you don’t have it. So now you’re a liability, if you get my drift.
“What? Why?!”
The mare stood up and began pacing quickly. “I have no idea. So I think I will kill you now.”
She leapt at him with a squeegee.
The birds began to hum.

3)She ignored him, pulling a magnifying glass from somewhere behind her in order to study the markings on the coin more closely. Where did that even come from… did I create it? (insert Hoopy McGee spiel and tangent here…) RIP DANG IT RAINBOW DASH WHY YOU MANITOU NO INSPIRE ME!!!!!1!

4) When she got home, she immediately pulled out the calendar and began thumbing (“DANGIT! Ponies do not have thumbs.”) paging [“No.”] flipping [“Stereotyped… or maybe I’m just paranoid about writing generically… What do you think, Princess? Dang, the toy fell off the monitor again…”] hoofing… [“Fine. Let’s just go with ‘hoofing’. I don’t really care by now. It’s probably overdone but I’m tired and hungry and I want this chapter to end like right now. 100 more words? OK, 100 more words, then I’m DONE.”]

When she got home, she immediately pulled out the calendar and began hoofing through it.

[“What the heck did I just write? That sounds weird… or maybe it’s supposed to sound weird? Yeah, maybe people will just think I’m being snide and hip… Wutevs. I am now go to eat the foods.”]

5) …but then something caught her eye.
“Ah Hah! These animalzerallprediderz! Except for… Rats! I forgot what I was supposed to find… stupid writer.” Blah blah blah bappity bappity bappity ihatemylife iugfiaugfioasdugkasdgfuasdghiuhasdiugsdaiugiuasdiudsaiguasdiughiaudsgiuadiugadhsiuhakjshuehiuyyiubdsflsdaglf…

6) “IIIIIIIIIIIII’M STUUUUUUUUCKCKCKCKCKCK!!!”

7) A lone squid sat morosely at a dilapidated and archaic computer, more of a typewriter really, with a screen though, and a mouse. He typed meaningless jargon as his life disintegrated into a raging pool of oatmeal.
Why why why why why…
He was close. So, so close. He had only to find an ending now… This should have been easy. He wrote short. He had always liked short chapters… Maybe, he thought, I should have stuck to one-shots like before I became a pony nut. Or maybe this was actually easier? Maybe some ponies found it easy to just sit down and write. Maybe only squids got writer’s block. Or maybe I just got stuck like everyone else…? Or maybe I just suck.
I AM a squid… it’s kind of in my job description to suck.
Or maybe, maybe-- perhaps it wasn’t the oatmeal that counted so much as what came with it. Maybe it was what was on the inside that counted, after all.
The squid peered into the depths of his stomach with the aid of a scalpel. He strained his eyes to make out what lay beneath, what was at the very heart of his existence.
What he was.

And he saw a whole lot of ink and rubber.

He smiled as he truly grasped the meaning of his life, the universe, and everything. He blinked, then spoke into the oppressive atmosphere of the subterranean styg.
“I think I just wasted 251 words of my life.”

P.S. I just realized that I wrote almost as much of this as I did of the actual chapter. That’s probably just sad.