Sunset read the sentence, nodded, put down the journal, climbed down the ladder from her bed, then wandered over to her closet to pick out what to wear.
She then froze in place upon realizing just what had transpired.
With a wide-eyed gasp, she scrambled back up to the bed, and reopened the book. She grabbed a pen and furiously scrawled her response:
"Does Twilight know?"
The book's page shone for several seconds before a plain and simple, "Nope." appeared. Sunset was about to write back when the page shone again, and another two sentences followed. "I mean, hundred percent chance of her finding out when she sees this. Is erasing a thing with this book?"
Sunset chuckled with a half-smile. "Nope."
"Of course not. Also, just remembered I'm writing this with a quill and ink. Wow, I really did not think this through. Maybe if I hide—"
"Do not hide the journal, Starlight. Also, keep in mind that everything you're writing right now is an indelible and undeniable record."
No reply followed—at least not with words. Sunset wasn't sure, but she thought she saw a couple of dents appear on the page, one after the other. They disappeared just as quickly, however. Maybe it was her imagination. She wrote some more. "Why do you have Twilight's journal, anyway?"
"She said I could use this for emergencies," Starlight wrote back.
Sunset tensed. Her intuition had been right after all. Instantly, she went into Business-Handling Mode. "Got it. What's wrong? Who's in danger? What villain's threatening Equestria this time? Or is one coming to my world?"
Several seconds passed. "No bad guys, Equestria's fine. Nothing to worry about there."
Sunset deflated, doing her best to not get angry. Still, if there was one thing she hated, it was her time being wasted. "Starlight. Get to the point."
And Starlight did. All of them. At once.
"Sorry Sunset I'm so sorry sweet Celestia I am really messing this up I honestly don't know what to do here I thought hey I'll just get the book that lets me talk to Sunset she'll get it and it'll be fine but I didn't have any plan beyond that and this was a dumb idea forget any of it even happened I'll just close the book and wait until Twilight comes back in a month"
"Wait, hold on." Sunset interrupted Starlight's torrent of hoofwriting. "A month?"
"Oh. Yeah. She's overseeing the construction of an annex to the Friendship School a few towns over. She'll be away for a while. The other faculty are running things just fine, and I should be joining them, but..."
Sunset decided to take a stab in the dark. "This emergency's with you, isn't it?"
A whole book-glowing minute passed before Starlight's reply. "Can I come over?"
Sunset nodded. "I'll meet you at the portal. Give me an hour, though, yeah. It'll take me about that long to get dressed and ready."
"Okay. See you soon. Also... thanks."
Sunset closed the book, sitting silently in her room.
It appeared Captain Celaeno would have to wait a while longer.
upvotes
Lonely Starlight is lonely? Not sure wat happen.
Alright, let's see where this goes.
9695417
Votes/heat are disabled for this one, yeah.
This is off to an interesting start, Bookish! Eager to read the next chapter!
Well I'm certainly intrigued. Hope Glimmer is okay.
9695431
I admit I'm curious as to why.
Some of those hundred thousand words surface! And starring the duo I crave, no less.
And then I immediately get a solid dose of sad Starlight I don't know what I expected
It's nice that the magically mirrored journal pairing spell has an "X is writing a message..." function.
is this like a drawing tablet where the book senses the quill's proximity to the page or is there a really big ink blot at the start of that N these are my questions
"Ratings disabled."
...Seriously?
I'm sorry, but... no. Just... just don't. Please don't.
I don't mean to be harsh (and I know I am terribly failing at it, sorry), but I can't condone this. Imagine every other story was like this. I'd be a nightmare. Don't let this spread. Why did fimfiction introduce this "feature"?
EDIT: See how 5 people downvoted this comment and one person upvoted in the last half hour? You can instantly tell how people feel about this comment - and this is how a voting system works. Ironically, the downvotes just prove my point.
This isn't meant as "hating" on the author (as I said earlier, I know I've terribly failed at "not being harsh" in my phrasing. Sorry! ), this is my general stance on fimfiction's "Ratings disabled"-setting. That should not be an option, it defeats the point of having ratings.
And again - imagine every other story was like this. It'd be a complete mess, and I wouldn't want that to happen.
EDIT 2: Ah, and it only occurs to me now after 40 minutes how I could've phrased this better:
"Please don't disable your ratings, this encourages other people to also disable their ratings, which is something we don't want, because then where would we be, if everybody did that?"
Or something like that. Errr.
Yeah, that would've sounded a lot less confrontational and still gotten my point across.
Obviously I can't comment in full until the story proper is finished but I'm already really intrigued by where this is going. Partially just on the level of format; you've experimented in this direction before (you did the chapter-by-chapter thing with "Lulamoon's Castle" and likewise the shorter-but-sweeter chapter structure feels like it owes at least a little bit to the EqG Summer Jobs series you did last year), but this marks the first time I can really think of where you've committed to an old-school short-but-sweet gradually-updated fanfic, of the sort I used to gobble up so eagerly as a teenager, which not only makes me nostalgic but also quite curious: was this always the plan or did you decide to break the story down in this fashion once you'd finished? But obviously the more important matter is the narrative, and even as we really only have the slightest of gestures in that direction thus far (oh but what gestures they are; I love your take on Book Hound Sunset, and as ever you play Starlight's anxieties so perfectly), I'm already eager to see how you develop them: the pairing of Sunset and Starlight is one you've never really engaged with thus far (even as you've featured them in stories together before) and I know they're like two of your ABSOLUTE favorites, and given that the potential for their dynamic is already so self-evident I'm very excited to see what a Master like you can do with it!
Gosh...a Bookish Summer Reading Project? What a splendid turn of events! 8D
So intrigued! I wanna see where this goes. Thumbs up from me! <3
Rattings disabled?! Owo
9695676
The voting system can also be abused (and frequently is), but that isn’t why Booky disables ratings.
For plenty of people, ratings are a huge source of anxiety not when they get more downvotes than upvotes, but when they don’t get any votes, because it makes them feel that their story is lifeless and uninspired, no matter what it actually is.
If there was one feature this site could do without, it would be ratings, because ratings are social media, and social media is cancer.
But do you know what isn’t cancer? This story! Glim Glam Bam!
First off, I'm greatly amused by Captain Celaeno and her pirate birbs being the stars of an adventure novel in the human world.
Secondly, I'm really intrigued by what's going on with Starlight. Hope you're not having a breakdown, Glim-glam!
Virtual up vote.
A reminder of my headcanon that Sunset may be the Princess of Friendship of the human world. She has to pick up all the Friendship Problems for which Twilight no longer has room on her schedule!
Ooh, Shimmy Glimmy Power Hour. This should be...
Well, it'll be entertaining for me, at least. Not sure how fun it'll be for the characters given the whole "crippling emotional vulnerability" thing, but we'll see where it goes from here. Also, brilliant canon combination by making Celaeno the protagonist of Lily's book.
Looking forward to more. Have an "I wish I could upvote this story" upvote.
I really appreciate that Starlight just vomits her stream of consciousness onto the page. What a nice bit of characterization.