Whipstitch

by Pennington Inkwell

The Second Meeting

"Ah! Whipstitch! It's good to see that you're an early riser!"

In spite of being half-asleep, Whipstitch jumped almost a foot in the air when Celestia walked into the Grand Hall, and nearly tore the tapestry that she was working on with the sudden movement, as well. For a split second, the memory of Discord's defeat came back to mind with her voice, and she imagined that she was in some kind of danger. The feeling passed almost instantly, though, when she regained her senses.

"P-Princess! You startled me..." Whipstitch chuckled at her own folly as she turned back around to give a quick bow. "I wanted to get an early start so that I could have more leisure time later. Canterlot has some very... interesting characters." Eclipse had told her that their encounter should be a secret, and that he had planned on surprising Celestia later on with having made a friend on his own. Whipstitch had agreed, of course. It's not often that you manage to pull one over on the Princess! That's worth at least five points, even if I'm not fooling Pennington.

"Yes, Canterlot can be a very entertaining place sometimes..." Celestia nodded with a smile. "Perhaps I could recommend a place for you to have lunch?"

"Oh..." Whipstitch shook her head with half-closed eyes. "I actually was planning on joining another old friend of mine for lunch, Princess."

"Well, that's even better!" Celestia gave her a warm smile, showing no disappointment. "Good company is always the best thing to have, no matter where you are! If you get the chance, though, you may want to stop by a small place called 'Royalties.' It has some of the best daisy sandwiches in Canterlot!"

Whipstitch nodded, easily committing it to memory. Suddenly, from the dark corners of her mind, a question came. She hesitated to ask, but the Princess seemed as if it were impossible to put her out of a good mood, anyway. Definitely a "morning pony..."

"Your highness, may I ask you something a little personal?"

Celestia, who had been walking back to the door, stopped and turned back around with a small smile on her face. "Ask away. If I don't like it, I just won't answer!"

Whipstitch took a deep breath to banish any kind of self-conscious fear. "What was it like the first time? When you and Princess Luna imprisoned Discord for the first time? I spent a lot of time looking at the murals last night, and that one stood out to me in particular..."

The question did seem to catch the Princess off-guard, and for a moment, Whipstitch was sure that she would turn around again and leave. After a few moments of thought and a long sigh, Celestia sat down and smiled.

"You're right, that is rather personal. I'll give you the abridged version."

"Discord was an absolute tyrant. To him, ponies were like mice to a cat: fun to play with, but they eventually needed to be removed. He had tried to 'remove' Luna and I several times while we were searching for the Elements of Harmony, and slowly but surely, ponies were disappearing. When we had finally found a way to defeat him, Discord began to feign horror. He put on a good show, but we didn't feel any kind of pity for him after all of the ponies that he had made... disappear."

At this point, Celestia frowned. "The whole time, I felt as if he still knew something that we didn't. Like he had some kind of last ace up his sleeve. I never got over it, and I kept insisting that we double-check to make sure that he was secure..." With the suddenness of snapping out of a memory, Celestia smiled again. "I was right, in the end! Discord got free eventually. But, luckily, we had the Elements of Harmony to put him back in his place!" She rose to her hooves again with a smile.

"The guards told me that you were in the medical ward last night. Did you find what you were looking for?"

"Yeah, I was just trying to see if you were there. It sounded like the only one there was a sick pony behind some curtains."

Celestia eyed her with some small amount of suspicion, and Whipstitch wondered if she could see straight through the lie.

"Well, like I said, just ask a guard to take you to us, you don't have to go looking." When Whipstitch nodded, she finally walked out of the doors again. As soon as she had left, Whipstitch let loose the enormous yawn that she had been holding back. The yawn seemed to climb up from deep in her chest, and took its time finishing its work, sending shudders down her body as she stretched in a catlike manner. As her mouth finally closed again, Whipstitch looked down at her work, pondered it for a moment, then walked to the door. As there always had been, there was a guard outside of the door.

"Can you get me some coffee, please?" She asked, half-mumbling her words.

"Yes, ma'am." The guard replied with a curt nod.

"Extra cream. Extra sugar. I need four large cups." Whipstitch didn't wait for an affirmation of the order, pulling her head back through the door and shutting it, ending any sort of conversation over the matter.

After only a few minutes, Whipstitch heard a knock on the door. Refusing, in her mind, to let anypony else enter, she walked to the door and opened it herself. There was the guard, holding a small tray in his mouth containing four tall ceramic cups with thin plastic lids, each radiating steam from the top.

"Piping hot!" The guard mumbled around the tray.

"Thank you." Whipstitch smiled as she picked up the tray with her magic. Without another word, she whisked the tray inside with her magic and shut the door again, already pressing one cup to her lips.

"Eclipse! Eclipse Tumult!" A few hours later, Whipstitch had finished mending most of the threads that didn't need to be replaced in the tapestries and decided to take a much-needed change of scenery. Without waiting for any kind of accompaniment from the guards, she had taken off at a fast, caffeine-fueled trot down the halls, finding her way back to the medical ward with ease.

As she was about to enter, though, she was met by a different pair of guards from the night before, still standing in front of the doors.

"Good morning, ma'am." One said, quietly turning from his sentry-like position to look at her.

"Hello!" Whipstitch smiled, trying to walk past them. She found her way blocked by a firm hoof. "What? What's wrong?"

"Well, the Princess has requested nopony enter this room without her permission. Firm orders, I'm afraid."

Whipstitch's lips pressed into a firm line at the predicament. "But I was just in there last night!"

"Well, I'm afraid that Princess Celestia hasn't told us of any new developments, so you're not supposed to be in there."

"Well, I think that I may have left one of my favorite needles in there! I need it if I'm going to go any further in the repairs!"

The two guards looked at one another with uncertainty. "Well, we're not actually allowed in... either..."

"So you don't know what's in there? You don't know what you're guarding?" Whipstitch asked as she tried to walk around them again.

"We just know that the Princess asked us to guard it, that's all that matters to us." The guards stood resolute again, keeping their position and refusing to let her through.

"I know what's in there, guys, I really couldn't do any kind of damage!" When her argument fell on deaf ears, Whipstitch groaned, rolled her eyes, and stormed away back down the hall. Once she had turned the corner, though, she found herself in the same hallway, except without the guards. She blinked and shook her head, trying to understand what had happened. She turned back around and walked around the corner again, and found herself in the first hallway, complete with guards, both of whom stared blankly ahead, refusing to acknowledge her again. In her mind, she retraced her steps, and remembered exactly what hallways she had gone through to reach the medical ward. With a short nod to herself, she turned back around.

This time, the doppelgänger hallway was directly in front of her, at a direct right angle to the original hallway. Whipstitch continued to think for a moment, then shrugged and walked to the doors, pushing them open with one hoof.

"Lesson one! Perspective. An individual's perspective can be the greatest tool that you can wield, with or without the ability to manipulate reality!" Eclipse's voice seemed stronger, now, and Whipstitch grinned as she found herself back in the same medical ward that she had seen the night before, and the draconequus was still laying in the same bed, though his IV bag seemed to have been refilled. "Learning to see through the eyes of another lets you change what they see."

Whipstitch hadn't even said "Hello," but he seemed to already be giving things for her to ponder in silence.

"You're not talking about a spell, are you? Just managing to understand what someone else sees can be powerful, magic or no magic." She smiled as the truth of the matter set in. "So, you took the fact that I wasn't looking behind me to change what was behind me!"

"Anything is possible if nopony can see it." Eclipse grinned. "But that's more advanced. For now, let's stick to the basics." He reached under the covers, seemingly into some kind of pocket, and pulled out a lollipop. With a less happy expression, he tossed the sweet to her. Whipstitch caught it with her magic, and immediately noticed something. While the parasprite pop that Luna had given her had obviously come from the same source, this one didn't have the same dark grey wrapper. This one was wrapped in what seemed to be a doctor's prescription.

"What's this?" She asked as she unwrapped the candy and, with a gentle nod from Eclipse, popped it into her mouth.

"A parasprite pop, but on steroids. Just a little something I thought of this morning while you were working." Eclipse seemed more than smug as he watched her. "The originals are just flavored with a dash of chaos, but that little sucker has some punch to it! It's going to prepare your body to handle a new type of magic. It's not always going to be gumdrops and roses, but if you manage to eat that one all the way to the stick, your body will be fully prepared for our later lessons."

Whipstitch nodded, even as the lollipop turned sour in her mouth, nearly making her face turn inside out as she puckered her lips. "Ith tour!" She managed to mumble. "und i juth half to trutht yoo?"

"Well, aren't friends supposed to trust one another?" Eclipse asked, having absolutely no problem understanding her. "Here I am, bedridden and completely open to attack, letting a pony into my room!"

As the sourness faded back to the original smokey taste, Whipstitch rolled her eyes. "I told you I wouldn't hurt you!"

"And I have to trust you on that, so I am!" Eclipse rolled his eyes again, as if dealing with a child. "Whipstitch, I don't know much about friends, but I do know about trusting someone. And trust only builds as you act on it."

She almost spoke up with indignation as he rolled his eyes, but he had made a good point. Realizing that he was right, she changed the subject. "So, if you're like Discord, why aren't things floating upside down and stuff like that? I thought that you were the embodiment of chaos, but you've hardly been doing anything at all!"

Eclipse's brow furrowed for a moment, then his face lit up with understanding. "Oh, you mean like 'checkerboard hills and giant card houses' chaos? The type of chaos that could rip apart Equestria? Well, I could do things like that, I suppose, if I tried hard to unlock my full potential, I guess, but Discord always explained it this way..." With a snap of his fingers, the room transformed. The walls began to melt away, revealing Whipstitch's shop. Thread was scattered over the floor again, half-finished projects dotted the walls, and even Mephistopheles's hole was there.

"What would you call this mess?" Eclipse asked from his bed, motioning to the area around them. "Disarray? Cluttered?"

"Well, I suppose that I would call it... my way of doing things! It's not a mess, it's meant to be this way!" Whipstitch was beginning to wonder if Eclipse was just trying to insult her.

"Ah! So it's chaotic, but still organized." With another snap of his fingers, Eclipse changed the scene that they were standing in again, this time to the center of some great maelstrom. Whipstitch cringed as a cascade of flames flew up past her and into the vortex above, promptly followed by a flock of rubber duckies.

"This is sheer chaos!" Eclipse shouted over the cascade of noises that were sounding off in rapid succession. First there was a horn sounding off a sour note, then a wolf howling, promptly followed by a thunderous laughter... or perhaps it was the thunder itself laughing.

Waving his hands again, the illusion faded like smoke, and they were back in the hospital.

"Discord is like utter chaos, uncontrollable, powerful, and overwhelming." Eclipse settled back into the bed, his eyes still fixed on Whipstitch. "I'm more like 'organized chaos,' if you can understand such a concept. More docile, slightly more predictable, and perhaps even easier to influence with what's around me. Do you understand?"

"So, you're the Yin to Discord's Yang?" Whipstitch muttered.

"Exactly!" Eclipse grinned again, clapping his hands together in satisfaction and picking up a glass of chocolate milk that had materialized on the table next to his bed.

"That makes it sound as if the two of you are related..." Whipstitch cringed as chocolate milk sprayed out of Eclipse's mouth, raining onto the floor in front of her with a series of popping sounds. As he continued to cough, first bubbles, then a small storm of fireworks, and a large amount of peppermint-scented smoke came out of his mouth. After a few seconds of this coughing fit, he retched one final time, and one last object flew out of his mouth. Whipstitch watched as the object flew forward, then began to hover in the air. Whipstitch quickly identified the creature as one of the insects that had tried to devour her shop in the past: a parasprite.

The parasprite, on the other hoof, seemed only to be growing more confused, glancing first at her, then Eclipse, then back to her, and then back at Eclipse again.

Eclipse cleared his throat and snapped his fingers. The parasprite froze in place, then withered and shrunk into an apricot-looking fruit that dropped into his lap. He picked up the fruit and popped it into his mouth, chewing for only a second before swallowing again.

"I'm sorry. A little bit of my lunch came up there." Eclipse cleared his throat again, looking uncomfortable. "Yes, I'm actually Discord's little brother, if you can believe it. You catch on to things pretty quickly, Whipstitch."

Whipstitch shrugged with a small amount of satisfaction. "Well, it seemed to make a lot of sense. You sound like you knew him pretty well, and there's a strong resemblance between the two of you." When Eclipse nodded in agreement, she made another deduction. "So, you two are like the Celestia and Luna of chaos?"

The question seemed to surprise him, and his shaggy eyebrows darted upwards in suspicion. "That's a nice sentiment, Whipstitch, but we weren't rulers among our people. We were just another commodity of the land." He shook his head. "It's a long story, one that you really look too hyper to sit down and listen to."

It was true, caffeine was still coursing through Whipstitch's system, and she was beginning to sway from side to side to release some of the pent-up energy.

"Before you go, there are going to be a few side effects to that lollipop!" Eclipse leaned forward, trying to grasp her full attention. "The most serious of them will be dizziness, occasional nausea, and perhaps the occasional unpredictable fit of chaotic symptoms that I can't predict."

Whipstitch nodded, her attention quickly shifting to the lollipop again. "This tastes like raspberries now..."

"Well, just don't stop eating it until it's finished, which will be around ten tonight. After that, you can sleep off most of the negative effects. Then, we can start learning a little beginner's chaos."

Whipstitch nodded again, then began to trot to the door. "So, we're going straight to the magic? I mean, this isn't going to be like 'Kung-Fu Foal' or something, where there's a bunch of mundane lessons before we work our way up to the big stuff?"

Eclipse's yes narrowed in confusion, and Whipstitch realized that the movie reference had fallen on deaf ears.

"No, the best way to learn chaos is to make some, to be honest." The draconequus shuffled around in bed, trying to make himself comfortable again. "I want to go with you! I've been stuck in bed for days!"

"Well, just get up, then!"

"I can't..." Eclipse motioned to the IV in his arm. "If I get outta this place, Celestia will not be happy with me. She'll probably tie me down and force me to stay here until I'm completely healed."

Whipstitch nodded, grinning as she imagined the two fighting, with the tall white pony trying to pin down the draconequus. "That would be a sight..."

As she trotted out the door, Whipstitch found herself face-to-face with the two guards again, this time from the other side.

Just as they were just about to say something, a voice rolled through the hall, one that only she seemed to recognize as Eclipse's a few octaves down.

"She may pass..."

The two guards, now thoroughly spooked, said nothing as Whipstitch smugly trotted past.

"Ugh! Now it tastes like dirty socks!"

Comments

[Twidity]

Nothin wrong with this...nothin at all. Keep up the fantastic work

[Pennington Inkwell]

1996135 denver.mylittlefacewhen.com/media/f/img/mlfw8331-ohstopit-derpy.png

The REAL Whipstitch is LOVING this, so there will definitely be more soon!

[Twidity]

Yay! More reading material!

[Pennington Inkwell]

1996360 Well, if you want reading material, I woud advise you to look at some of my other stories, as well!