The chapter that comes before the other ones
"So. About this whole... 'writing dialogue' thing."
There was a sound of creaking; as a chair tested the limits of just how far back it can be leaned upon without depositing its contents onto the ground.
"Turns out, it's actually pretty difficult."
And then came a second, rather similar sound, of the same chair rocking into place.
"I mean, I don't really know how to make any of this sound the least bit natural at all!" Continued Alan, rocking back once again on the distressed piece of furniture. The increasingly annoying noises eliciting an irritated grunt from across the room.
"And what exactly are you intending to get out of blathering on about it?" questioned David, palm growing ever closer to face.
"Well it's just so haaaaardddd!" whined the smaller man, leaning his head back against his precarious chair and letting his long red hair hang down. "I'm starting to think about maybe just having all my characters be mutes." He paused, eyes pointed at the grey ceiling. "Or maybe I can just have them SAY the dialogue sucks?" He leaned back with yet another loud creak. "Is that too meta?"
In another time, perhaps the dark haired man sitting across from Alan might have snapped his pencil with the growing sense of irritation. However, this is the digital age; their little writing space hadn't seen a piece of actual stationary in weeks. However, smashing a keyboard isn't exactly a viable alternative. Those things are just a tiny bit more expensive to replace than a stick of graphite.
The result of this was that instead of causing property damage, David instead opted for something more in the realm of personal injury. His head hit the desktop with a soft thunk and a grumble of discontent.
Taking this as enough input to continue his assault on desk furniture and his friend's nerves, Alan proceeded to push his thoughts into the air once more.
"Now I just need an idea on just how, oh how, I could possibly get them out of their boring, dull, boring lives and into the big big story stuff that comes laterrrrrrrr..." His tongue curled as he held the final consonant far beyond the point of no return. That point being signaled by a polished black shoe sailing past his head and, impressively, into a waste paper basket.
"Can you please stop talking!" exclaimed the amateur shoe-tosser. "I am doing my very utmost to build a story that people will actually enjoy! And my ability to do such a thing would be significantly improved, were it not impeded by your constant whining!"
While one might expect dear David to be frothing at the mouth or sweating profusely with rage at this point, the outburst was more one of a general frustration than actual anger at his companion. This was likely a good thing, as sweat dripping down his unusually long nose tended to bring fits of laughter to anyone who witnessed it. Something about the combination of looking exactly like a bouncer with a fake halloween witch's nose just made the whole thing absurd.
Anyway, that is rather a moot point since it was not happening, depriving the world of that particular joy for now.
"I thought maybe they could be brought into the adventure by some kind of amazing guide, who'd then die after taking them to the new world... Or something," drifted over from Alan; as he did a rather good impression of someone who had not noticed a shoe zipping past his head. The effect was spoiled somewhat by him leaving his poor chair to rummage around in the bin. Though, in this case, rummaging is perhaps the wrong word. Even if there were anything in that bin, the shoe would just be on top. But it was empty. Another victim of the peculiar drought of physical writing materials in their habitat.
In an instant that was much shorter than reading an entire paragraph explaining such a thing; Alan was making his long way across the room. He meandered over to David, and held the black shoe towards him. He smiled. "So, anyway. Since you've been planning soooo long." The smile widened to a point just below 'distressing' "Have you actually started writing ye-?"
The 't' that would have closed off the question was lost in the sonic boom that the second shoe created as it zoomed past. A few strands of bright red hair fluttered to the ground as the shoe bounced off the ceiling. It turned, end over end with the grace of a ballerina, staying in the air far longer than physics would expect. But soon enough, the inevitable occurred.
In one last smooth movement, it dove into the bin.
Both men turned to look at it, their faces running the personal gambits of smiling and shock. Points will not be awarded for guessing who had which expression.
Silence reigned for a good minute or so as Alan grinned a smug grin and retrieved the second shoe. David closed his eyes and decided that focusing on all this was probably just going to hurt his brain. Thus, he moved his seat beneath the slowly moving fan in the centre of the room, taking slow breaths.
Once his shoes had been returned and he'd taken some time to not be completely enraged, David decided to give his friend the benefit of the doubt and spoke once more.
"So. Do you really want any advice about your story? Or is irritating me your only goal here?" He folded his arms.
"Are we not going to talk about the shoe thing?" Alan giggled and flopped back into his own chair. He gave an exaggerated eye roll when he got no response and finally replied almost normally, "fine~ Yes, I do really want your opinion on this." He paused. "And also a wheelie chair. This one sucks."
David gave a dismissive snort, folding his arms, but unwilling to fall to this particular bait. "Go on, then," he sighed. "What's the narrative issue this time?"
"Weeeeellll, like I said earlier," began the redhead. "I'm trying to decide..."
A moment of silence passed.
And then another.
"Hello? You still with me?" David waved a hand in front of his friend's face.
It was quickly batted away, "shhh! I was doing a dramatic pause!"
Another sigh, but no comment.
"I was trying to decide..."
The gap was even longer this time, but this particular method of annoyance had apparently stopped working.
"How the protagonists end up in another world!"
VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV
Equestria. At some point in time. Possibly now.
The castle was made of black stone. The curtains in the foyer were black, the tables and chair were black, the tea cups were black and the charred bones leading up to the throne room were black too. It would probably have been intimidating, if it weren't so very edgy.
A loud crunch echoed through the structure, followed by some louder cursing.
A unicorn stallion, his coat a slightly less boring deep purple colour, attempted to scrape pieces of crumbling bone from his hooves; having accidentally stepped on one of the skeletons.
"Is cleaning up the dead adventurers really so hard?" The stallion grumbled, aiming his distaste at the room around him. "Eugh."
He maneuvered around the remaining pile of bones up the black stone steps to stand before the thick (black) wooden doors that separated the throne room from the rest of the fortress. While there was no sign literally declaring it to be the throne room, but something about the way the doors reached around 40 feet high and was covered in intricate carvings of terrible things being to innocent pony peasants; gave a slight hint.
As is tradition in large evil castles, the hinges on the heavy door hadn't been oiled in decades. The end result of this was an excruciating shriek of metal ringing out as the unicorn opened the door. It took quite some time to bash it open by throwing his shoulder into it over and over; but he managed it with only a few large bruises and grunts of pain.
Sweat dripped down his muzzle as he panted his way into the room. He wiped his brow with a shaking hoof to clear his vision before finally taking in his surroundings...
He was being stared at, quite menacingly by the huge unicorn made of bones that was directly in front of him. A pair of glowing black eyes met his own.
He coughed.
"Personal space?"
The statement made the skeleton take a step back, before it suddenly straightened its posture and attempted to look intimidating again. Its mouth flew open and it spoke.
"Who dares!?" The skeleton's teeth flapped about in what was likely an attempt at a snarl, ruined somewhat by the lack of lips.
VVVVVVVVVVVVVVV
Back to humanity for a moment.
"Why do I have to put up with you again?" Groaned David, a hand on his forehead. His eyes were shut for the foreseeable future, blocking out the sight of Alan having climbed up onto his table and gesticulating manically with his arms to make some kind of point.
"Because you love me," retorted Alan, taking a moment between monologues to respond. "Anyway, the point is that you can't just have your characters show up in magic land without saying why these days." He sunk into a sitting position and kicked his feet back and forth in the air. "There has to be, like, some deeper meaning behind it." He tilted his head back and let is mouth hang open for a while. "Or you could have it happen in the middle of having them talk about going to another world..."
"What makes you think that's such a good idea?" David's fingers drummed on the table. "I thought you were working on a book, not some paltry attempt at a satirical television show."
One could almost hear the eye-rolling coming from his companion, "books are allowed to be funny too, David."
"Allowed to be. Yes. They are allowed to be funny. But it takes actual talent to make that happen," was the reply.
"Are you implying something?" Alan shot a faux accusing look across the room, followed with a shrug. "Besides, not true. Books can be even funnier if you're crap enough." He giggled quietly to himself. "Have you ever read 'My Immortal?'"
David stood up, planting his hands on the desk with a thud. "You spent about an hour reading it out to me. You don't get to ask me that question." There was irritation in his voice, but he wasn't shouting.
"You can't tell me that wasn't funny~," said the irritant, still determined to poke this particular bear.
The slightly exasperated sound of a man slipping back into his seat accompanied the reply; "I would have appreciated it more without having every instance of 'draco' replaced with my own name."
"I don't think life would be nearly as fun without reading out those sex scenes with my little replacements." Alan giggled somewhat girlishly to himself. "But we were talking about transitions to other worlds."
VVVVVVVVVVVVVV
"-never get out of this place alive..." Went the bone unicorn, completing a ten-minute long diatribe about how powerful and evil a dark necromancer she was and how the night lord 'Sanguinox' (apparently her name) would not put up with the insolence of ponies wandering into her black castle of black blackness.
The stallion, had tuned out some time ago; but the short moment of silence seemed as good a time as any to introduce himself. He slowly un-slumped himself from the daze he'd fallen into and forced his body into something approaching a disciplined official stance.
"I, am the c-court High Enforcer." He blurted out with an awkward attempt at an authoritative voice. "And by the power invested in me by the princesses. You are under arrest."
He pulled a pair of hoofcuffs from his cloak, letting them dangle in front of the necromancer's expressionless skull of a face.
"Please do come quietly."
They stayed silently locked in position with each other for some very long feeling moments before he tried again. "A prison cell is a lot nicer than the obligatory eternity in Tartarus you get for re-"
"What kind of pathetic weasel is this that stands before me!?" screeched the bone-icorn, with black fire burining in her eye-holes. "You would truly insult me by treating me as a petty thief? Are the Princesses truly blind that they would send a child to die at my hooves?" She thrust a hoof skyward, in a gesture reminiscent of one standing before a lectern and a crowd of enraptured devotees.
Sensing another monologue coming on, the 'High Enforcer' decided to interrupt before she could get going. "Miss, I know how very evil and scary you say you are" -he took a deep breath- "but you are the third black necromancer I've had to see to this month. I just want to see somepony actually make this not..." -his hoof stirred some imaginary dirt- "exactly the same way as everypony else."
VVVVVVVVVVVVV
"Why is it so important to you that this transition you keep talking about should be done in a stupid way?" No longer quite so irritated, David was trying to give his friend the benefit of the doubt by looking attentively up at him. It did take some effort to ignore the way he walked around on the desk, but it was manageable. More or less.
"Because I want people to remember it." The patient aura was met halfway this time.
David scratched his chin thoughtfully for a few seconds before responding, "you don't think it will just annoy them?" He rolled his hand at the end of the question.
"Not if you do it right," came the slightly smug reply from beneath a cliche tapped nose. It made David give a half-hearted laugh, but he didn't bother to shoot it down this time.
"Alright then. Why don't you go ahead and tell me how you'd do it 'right'."
Alan's lips spread into a smile.
VVVVVVVVVVVV
A swirling vortex of energy ripped apart the throne room, dragging stone and detritus into a spiral in the air. Scattered shocks of lightning spread from the centre, radiating red light at each point of contact with the ground. It lit up the room and threw an illogically huge shadow over the enforcer from the looming skeleton. While bleached skulls are unable to convey any emotion except dull surprise, the way the flames in her eyes extended several feet into the air above her may have been an indicator of perhaps being ever so slightly displeased.
The stallion, for his part, hadn't moved an inch. He lifted the cuffs up once more, having to yell to be heard above the maelstrom of chaos and dark magic ripping itself into existence.
"Won't you please reconsider!?" He coughed, not prepared for this much strain on his vocal chords. "This isn't going to help anyone you know!"
Perhaps the lack of ears did have an effect of the necromancer's hearing, she seemed far too pleased with explaining herself than actually answering some fairly reasonable comments. "This, my mentally challenged little slave of alicorns, is my magic." She grinned. She was always grinning, but this time she meant it. "A summoning spell. A great portal of power you couldn't possibly im-"
"Yes, I can see, very portal-like," he interrupted. "But if you would just close it and be reasonable-"
"Couldn't possibly imagine!" She yelled, repeating herself. It rather tipped one off to the fact that she could hear the stallion. Passive aggression is perhaps ironically rather unsubtle like that. She also appeared to be shaking violently, the bones in her chest rattling like a xylophone in a washing machine.
"In mere moments, monsters beyond all reason will be pushing through and devouring you like the thick bodied morsel you are!" She pointed at the enforcer's belly as she said this. It was very rude.
VVVVVVVVVVV
"So first," began Alan, his long fingers steepled together. "First we want to see our main characters being all main character-y and arguing to each other about stories." He rolled his head around, thinking. "See, like I said before, we want it to happen while they're talking about going to other worlds."
"We?"
"You'll want the same things I want, I promise." He shook out a hand. "Anyway, anyway. So if we want our characters to be arguing about going to other worlds, they either have to be, like, children, or talking about stories."
David chimed in again, "can't you think of any other reasons?"
"If I say those are the only reasons, those are the only ones, now keep up. The train is in motion and all that." Alan smiled a wide smile each time he replied, unphased in his own excitement.
VVVVVVVVVV
The stallion currently known only as 'High Enforcer' walked slowly forward, dodging stone after stone as they were torn from the ground by the aetherial winds of the summoning spell. His ears folded back flat against his head. She isn't going to listen, he thought. They never do. He growled, a sound completely inaudible beneath the twin distractions of the screaming portal and the cackling bonicorn.
She, for her part, had somehow maintained her full volume tirade about the various attributes of her spell. It was a wonder anypony could find so much to say about themselves; but that was one of the powers of that very special kind of mania that created criminals of her stripe.
One more time, he mentally prepared himself. I give her one more chance to be different. Just one. He tried to focus on the possibility instead of disappointment. She could be the interesting one... I guess.
VVVVVVVVV
"Once we have our little protagonists arguing about other worlds, we can start building the other half of the hook."
"Ok, I'll bite. Tell me what the 'other half' is," David said, bemused.
Alan seemed to be rather enjoying getting attention without criticism while it lasted, grinning almost continuously while he continued to explain himself. "The other half..." He look down, looking the other man in the eye. "Is setting up a portal."
"A portal?"
"A portal." He nodded, "one in that other world. Being created by one of the denizens."
VVVVVVVV
The giant portal was bordering on deafening so close to the necromancer. 'High Enforcer' couldn't hear his own voice as he spoke, but he shouted at the top of his lungs regardless.
"Please! Just think, for once!" His horn sparked into life, a dull green glow tracing its spiral, "this is stupid!" A sickly actinic glow burst from the darkness around the stallion, breaking Sanguinox's concentration for a moment.
"Don't even bother, wretch." She tried in vain to spit. A strange and yet familiar series of hoof movements and chanting on her part caused the grand spell to grow in intensity, making it even larger and even more overwhelmingly monochromatic. It was black, she was black. Everything was black except the splash of green that marked the stallion's spell. "It's already too late! I will not yield. The creatures will come!
VVVVVVV
"And they will talk about how great their portal is. A-and they'll say how evil and amazing whatever comes through will be," giggled Alan, tripping over his words slightly.
"And so what? So it seems like the most trite and obvious non-twist ever?" David had leaned back a bit, letting Alan have the desk while he tried to rationalise. He didn't feel like picking up his shoes again. Besides, throwing them left scuff marks that he would likely regret later.
"So they'll big up the comedy. They'll yell at each other and they'll say," -he held his hand in front of his face, opening and closing his fingers as if manipulating a sock puppet- "'Just stop being so stupid!'"
VVVVVV
"Just stop being so stupid!" cried the enforcer, the green glow around him flowing into a series of regular spheres about two inches in diameter.
"Oh, just give up, child. You're out of your depth." A choking sound vaguely reminiscent of laughter poured from her clenched teeth, "you can stop with that pathetic light show of yours."
A thunderous crack rang out from somewhere within the portal, redoubling those laugh-like coughs from the necromancer. "Not much longer before they come..."
VVVVV
"So the 'they' being referred to here is the real main characters of the story?"
Alan continued speaking with his hands in reply, putting on a squeaky little voice. "Well duh!" He quickly took a deep breath, moving dangerously close to his companion and spoke once more.
VVVV
"You have seconds, seconds, to bow down before me and at least die with some dignity"
A bead of sweat rolled down the enforcer's forehead.
VVV
"And then!"
"... And then?"
VV
The portal opened.
V
"The new world..."
...
David pushed Alan gently out of his face. "You don't have to get so close just for explaining an idea." He feigned dusting off his jacket and looked up again. "Why are you so overexcited anyway? Too much sugar?"
The response began with a long sigh, followed by the slump of something roughly human shaped falling into a sitting position on the floor.
"I'm just tired of not doing anything. It's been four hours now, Dave, we can't keep pretending everything's normal." Alan gestured at the hitherto unmentioned corner of the room.
Where once was the door in and out of their little office space; there was now a softly swirling oblate vortex. It surrounded and emanated from a single thin, vertical line that remained perfectly black regardless of the angle examined. The aura around it was more difficult to examine in terms of colour, it appeared to the two men to be constantly shifting between a blueish black to a whitish gold. In reality it was simply a colour beyond the cones of the human eyeball, so the human brain just broke it down into an outdated meme.
"You can't tell me you're not curious about the space vagina," continued Alan. "Not again, anyway. I know you were lying the first time."
David looked over at the thing in question. "I'm really not." He stood up and looked his friend in the eye. He spoke again, keeping his tone even, "the normal reaction to things that don't make sense is to get far away from them, not stick your hand in it like you think there's gold inside."
"Ugh, you just have no inner child." The taller man sidled forward and put his hand on David's shoulder, pushing him back into his seat. "We'll deal with it even later then, fine." He sighed while his companion nodded agreeably. "But only if you finally tell me what your super amazing story is about. I mean, if you even have an idea."
"You think that just because-" A brief glance at the word document with nothing but blank pages stopped the sentence midway. "- Just because I haven't written much right now, that I don't have a story at all?"
Alan stretched his arms out behind his head in a faux relaxing gesture common more to used car salesman types than someone trying to appropriately break bad news. "Well, not to put too fine a point on it... But yep. I totally do think that."
VVVVVVVVVV
A single, distressingly long and completely unidentifiable limb reached out of the open portal, groping at the air like a blind man for a light switch. It was quickly followed by another, equally incomprehensible extension; though this one was covered in a great deal of viscous off-white slime.
This went unnoticed by the pony enforcer, as his own spell had just completed. Around twenty softly glowing spheres floated in a neat little orbit around his horn, dancing up and down as he shook with apparent effort. Wordlessly he looked up at his necrotic target and took a deep breath.
Sanguinox spun her skull back to the little pony after having cackled herself dry from the appearance of the otherworldly protrusions from her portal. "Time's up, pawn! I'm so, so sorry I have to do this to y-"
A single sphere vanished.
Her skull shattered with a thunderous crack. Shards of bone blasted through the back of her hood and ripped it to wretched pieces.
For a brief moment, the flames of her eyes remained stationary in the air, as if not having had time to come to terms with the sudden loss of the sockets they belonged to. Whether they shrunk due to lack of energy or sudden realisation was impossible to tell; but it did coincide with every remaining sphere winking out of sight.
The stallion let his breath gradually leave his lips in a long sigh, mostly drowned out by the sound of an entire skeleton exploding into fragments.
Piece by piece of the former necromancer broke apart, without much ceremony beyond the festive clattering of shards falling to the stone floor.
The portal too, made its exit. It didn't even have the common decently to spectacularly detonate or leave screaming into the abyss. It simply winked out once the necrotic energy sustaining it gave up the ghost.
He let his eyes fall upon the remnants of bonemeal and rags that had until recently been roughly pony shaped. "I guess you weren't anything special either." He stomped his hoof, quite petulantly, but he was alone and thus beyond the judgement of his peers. Another sigh of dissatisfaction didn't really help, but it made him feel a little better as he sifted through the pile of ex-villain. "Come on, I know it's here somewhere. Nopony is that unoriginal without the book."
He didn't find anything in the pile; though now his hooves were covered in off-white dust. Not an amazing addition to his style. More the kind of thing for foals left alone with a bag of flour than a grown stallion. He snorted in growing agitation and kicked the rags aside, before clip-clopping his way through the wrecked hall to the throne in the center.
It was quite a breezy journey. Just about the entire roof had been lost to whatever eldritch plane the portal opened into, leaving the entire room open to the night air and a sky full of shimmering stars. This was fairly convenient; as the light of the full moon gave the enforcer something to see by. The broken black throne lay mostly empty, bathed in silver light. It was mostly empty, due to the presence of a single object resting on the seat. A book.
He lifted it in one hoof and read the stylised title of the work: 'Neat Skully's Beginner's Guide to Necromancy and Otherwordly Jollies'
The cover was decorated like a foal's book, with a simple cartoon of an excited looking colt wearing a black cloak and a wide grin pointing up at the title. In a large bubble in one corner, it boasted: 'Amaze your friends! Shock your enemies! This book will teach you everything you need to know about communing with the recently un-alived and much, much more!'
Needless to say, every word inside it was utterly and completely illegal.
"I knew it."
The enforcer let out a defeated sigh into the empty room.
"Always the same."
VVVVVVVVVV
A few minutes of teasing and a few further minutes of polite begging from Alan had lead to him standing in the center of the room. He loomed in the least threatening way he could manage over David, who sat in front of him and tried not to look too annoyed.
"Okay, so, "Alan began, cracking his knuckles loudly. "Start at the beginning for me. Tell me your story. I promise I won't say anything mean unless I really want to." He held his hand to his chest in a symbol of trustworthiness that went completely ignored by both parties.
David bit his lip, but gave in to keep his acquaintance from thinking further about the 'space vagina.'
"Okay. Since you're so insistent." He took a deep breath while Alan shifted to stand behind him. "It's a story about dragons."
"Dragons?" Repeated Alan, resting his hands on his companion's chair. "Sounds very traditional fantasy."
"Just because dragons are traditional doesn't mean I have to put them in a traditional setting." David cleared his throat,trying to ignore Alan's grip on his chair. "I was planning on a more contemporary setting. Dragons appearing in a modern world and dealing with that." He paused. "They would have to be brought there by a summoner, of course."
"Yes... Of course," said Alan, gently moving the chair forward. "And you were, what? Planning on showing how much fun they have being great dragon friends?"
David cocked his head, "not as such..." The squeaking of the wheels under him went unnoticed as he collected his thoughts. "My plan was something more along the lines of them becoming the greatest threat humanity has ever known."
The wheels squeaked some more, leaving furrows in the carpet. "Well, obviously. They are dragons. Waaay better than tanks and planes and stuff."
"They are if they're intelligent," David responded. "That's the reasoning behind needing the main character in the first place."
The squeaking stopped. "Oh yeah, who's that?"
"Well, it's-" David suddenly stopped, opening his eyes wide and shouting "What are you-"
"Too late~" Alan smiled as the chair disappeared along with it's occupant into empty space.
There was a short moment of silence.
"Oh right, guess I should go to."
He laughed.
VVVVVVVVVV
The hole affectionately known as the 'space vagina' closed after the second man leapt into it, leaving the room with as sound not entirely dissimilar to a burp through a tin can. The room was left empty, aside from the computers and waste paper baskets and... well quite a few things really.
But it was empty, anyway.
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