My Alicorn, Mystery
My Alicorn, Mystery
By UniqueSKD
Unique stared at the blank white paper on the little wooden desk in front of him, tapping his chin with the phoenix feather he held in his hoof, his other hoof acting as a support for which he rested his weary head upon. The flickering flame of the candlelight brightened his face, illuminating the contorted look of frustrating thought and irritation plastered upon it. as the mechanisms of his mind worked away in a seemingly futile attempt to manufacture a single idea, one paragraph at the very least that would jump-start his imagination and possibly get him out of this writing funk he was currently in.
The pegasus ceased tapping his writing utensil against his chin, and instead began tapping the ink-covered tip against his paper, making a tiny blob of black appear and expand with every tap he made. He stared intensely at the ink blots, as if though doing so would somehow magically cause them to change shape and form letters, and then rearrange themselves into words and sentences and paragraphs, and produce a story themselves.
No such luck. The bank paper continued to taunt Unique, challenging the annoyed pegasus to write something, anything, knowing that he could not think of what to write. If the paper had a mouth drawn on it, it would be laughing at him right now.
"Daaaaah!"
Unique threw his quill down on the desk and buried his head into his hooves, grunting angrily as a feeling of defeat swept over him, which served only to intensify his already existent frustration even more. He dragged his hooves down his face with a groan, before flopping down on to his desk tiredly.
Unique wearily sighed as his eyes trailed down to peek at the blank paper sheet beneath his head, still teasing him, mocking him. An explicit remark entered his thoughts that he very nearly uttered out loud, before realizing how ridiculous it would have been to yell out obscenities to an inanimate piece of paper.
Unique had already known that the long-loved tradition of story-writing was not one as easy as most ponies thought it to be, but he had never known just how difficult it really was to actually write a story, neither. For some would-be authors new to writing stories, they would probably struggle to write their tales out of fear of harsh judgement and cruel criticism from those who read their works, while others would probably worry over their time and effort spent on a story being ultimately unappreciated and rejected by their targeted audience. For Unique, it was not these common hindrances that bothered him - it was that he just could not think of what kind of story to write at all. His mind had buzzed frantically with many an idea for plots and synopsis' to write, but which of those ideas to chose, which one was the best one for his first story, the pegasus did not know nor could decide.
Oh, how Unique envied all of those successful writers right now, who didn't have to worry about having the same dilemma as he did, or had shared his predicament, but were able to find that little bit of inspiration that helped them to break their mental barriers, and weave yet another fantastic best-seller.
How in the wide world of Equestria did writers like A.K. Yearling produce their collections of literature one after the other with ease, without so much as a pause, let alone a delay in the release dates of their works? The imagination and detail in her works, that were the famous and much loved Daring Do series, were some of the most amazing things he had ever read, to a point where they seemed almost authentically real and true. Unique had often wondered if A.K. Yearling and Daring Do were really one and the same pony, though of course he knew that it wasn't possible.
After all, Daring Do was only a fictional character born from the mind of a brilliant writer. And yet still...
Unique glanced back down at his paper. Still blank, still taunting him. Nothing new, just the same. Great.
Unique turned his head to inspect the clock that hung upon the wall to his side. What time was it, and how long had he been fretting at his writing desk? A quick glance revealed the position of the clock's hands. The time was shown to be a quarter past the midnight hour, and the pegasus had sat down at his desk at nine that evening. That meant over three hours of glaring at an empty, wordless sheet of paper, of absolutely no productivity whatsoever.
Unique suddenly jolted and sat upright in his seat, his ears perking up and his eyes widened with shock. The time was now a quarter past the point of midnight! The realization of that fact sunk in, and Unique immediately pushed himself away from his desk and sped towards the double doors which led outside onto his balcony, vaulting clear over his bed in his haste. He mentally berated himself for having not kept better track of the time. He hoped that he was not too late, that he would not miss it.
The balcony doors swung open as Unique forcefully pushed through them, making a loud thud as they hit the sides of the wall. Unique immediately raised his head up and looked to the sky, a blanket of darkness that entwined with thousands of stars in its stitching, with the centerpiece that was the magnificence of Luna's moon shining brightly upon the world below. The pegasus's eyes surveyed and scanned the open heavens, searching for any sign of movement, until at last out of the corner of his eye, he spotted something crossing the night sky, and as it moved into the light of the moon, Unique's face lit up, bright as Celestia's sun, at a most wonderful and marvelous sight.
There, flying high above the world, and illuminated in the light of the moon, was an alicorn familiar to the young stallion, once more embarking on a midnight flight. In the light of Luna's pale lit gem in the heavens, Unique could see every detail of her perfect and elegant form. Her coat was a wonderful shade of deep purple, from hoof to head to horn and wing. She also had many a strange marking tattooed around her body, their appearance and meaning, if they had any, alien and unknown to the young pegasus. Her long and luscious mane and tail were jet-black, and trailed behind the alicorn like twin shadows in the moonlight. Her lips were curved into a smile, and when she turned her head to watch a trio of bats pass her by, Unique could see her eyes, two differently-colored gems that glimmered like actual precious stones. Her right eye was ruby-red, while her left eye was emerald-green. While most would of a pony with different-colored eyes as strange, Unique found them fascinating, unique even, and the bright spark of life they had to them made them just heaven to look at.
The alicorn traversed across the sky, in the light of the moon, unaware of the pegasus watching her from his balcony below. Or maybe she did, and simply chose not to acknowledge him for her own reasons. Who in the wide world of Equestria she was, Unique did not know. Where did she come from, Unique had no clue. And where she was going, Unique hadn't the foggiest idea either. In fact, Unique knew nothing about the beautiful alicorn, other than that she appeared every night outside his home, close to and around the midnight hour, always coming from the east, and heading west to wherever it was she was going.
Unique reminisced to that one fateful Wednesday night many moons ago, when he first laid eyes upon her. He had been having trouble sleeping that night, and in frustration had decided to step outside onto his balcony to get some fresh air, thinking that it might do his weary mind some good. He had not been out open for more than two minutes, feeling the cool chill of the night air on his face, when his eyes trailed off to the side, and he had noticed something moving in the darkness of the sky. Out of curiosity, he had chosen to watch in awe as one of the most beautiful creatures he'd ever laid eyes upon made itself known before the illuminating light of the full moon.
Unique had only ever known of three alicorns - all whom were princesses - in his life, and so the sight of this fourth alicorn came as something of a great surprise to him that night. He remembered wondering for several days onward who she was. Where did she come from? Why had he not heard of another alicorn besides the princesses before? And where was it that the mysterious alicorn went every night? So many questions, and no answers for either of them. Unique recalled how he had asked townsfolk and passing travelers about the mysterious alicorn beauty, but they laughed at him and told him that only three alicorns existed, that he must have been imagining seeing her, or they expressed no knowledge of there ever being a fourth as far as they knew.
But Unique knew what he had seen, and his belief was proven true the next night, when he chanced a look outside his room, and sure enough, on a Wednesday night, up there in the midnight sky Unique saw her again, the same deep purple-colored alicorn, again taking flight through the darkness of the night, beneath a blanket of stars and constellations. And every night since then, the young pegasus would see her, racing across the sky, though where in the wide world of Equestria she went to, Unique could only guess.
Because he knew nothing about the alicorn, Unique had taken to calling her 'Mystery', for she indeed was mysterious in many a sense of the word. He didn't know what it was about the alicorn, but Unique just felt...at peace, whenever he watched her flying through the night. Her very presence up there in the heavens seemed to fill him with an odd but wonderful feeling of calmness and relaxation, as if just the sight of her had lifted the weight of his heavy burdens from his body as well as from his mind, and the pegasus could once again smile and be happy. He was drawn to the alicorn for some strange reason. He thought he might be smitten with her, or he just simply found her fascinating. Whatever the reason, he enjoyed the silent company of the alicorn, and had made it a habit of staying up till midnight every Wednesday just to see her trail across the sky.
In a way, Unique was sort of glad that no other pony besides him knew or believed in the existence of this particular alicorn. To him, this made her all the more special to him. In an odd sort of way, it made her his. Yes. He was the only one who knew she was real. She was, in a way, his alicorn. She was Unique's alicorn, his 'Mystery'.
As 'Mystery' began to cross high over the mountain range in the distance, Unique sighed dreamily and carried on watching, until she was once again out of his sights until another night. Gazing at Luna's spectacular stars for a little while, the white pegasus turned and trotted back into his room, closing the balcony doors behind himself. After his struggles with writing, he had needed something to distract him and take his stressed mind off matters for a while.
Of course. those worries returned the moment the pegasus sat himself back down at his desk, the blank sheet of wordless paper resuming its mockery of him. It was late, and he was tired, but Unique could not find the will to simply flop down onto his bed and enter the realm of sleep and dreams. He felt a need to make some sort of progress with his writing, just a few paragraphs at the very least, before he could answer his body's demands for rest, but what could he write about? What words could he put to the paper?
As he stared at the paper laid out in front of him, Unique thought back to each of those nights when he went outside to watch his beloved 'Mystery' soar across the blackened skies, how calm and collected watching made him feel, how beautiful she looked as she ventured to destinations unknown. And just as he thought of how lovely she still was this night, an idea came into his thoughts.
A brilliant idea, one that he suddenly began to curse himself for never having thought before. He had been struggling for an idea for his story, and finally, here it was. Why had he not realized this sooner?
Immediately, the pegasus dipped his quill into his inkwell, and for the first time that night, he put its tip against the paper, no longer mocking him. He wrote down his title, signed beneath it his name, and began to piece together the beginning of his first paragraph, a smile on his face as he silently thanked his 'Mystery' for her help and for her inspiration.
When he had written the first paragraph of his story, Unique picked up the paper, and by the light of the wax candle, he read it out loud to himself, making sure he had gotten it just how he wanted it, the way he wished it to sound to whoever would read his material.
"I stared at the blank white paper on the little wooden desk in front of me, tapping my chin with the phoenix feather I held in my hoof, my other hoof acting as a support for which I rested my weary head upon..."