Written to Tears

by Kittyluvr

Chapter 1, Pools of excitement.

Novel Inkwell sat at his desk. He had just completed his story and was thinking up of ideas for another. What new ideas could he do to add on to the stories from his books? What mystical or romantic exploits would the legendary Rainbow Dash get in to? What problems would Applejack face? How about the spells of the famous Twilight Sparkle? How would they save her? Could he tell more tales of Pinkie Pie’s parties, or Fluttershy’s animals? Maybe he should write something about Rarity. He had never written about her. Novel never really liked her as a character.

He supposed it didn’t matter. They were fictional of course. There had never been Elements of Harmony, what a ridiculous idea! No pony could possibly exist like these mythical six. Still, writing stories about them was what he did best, and he needed a new one.

Novel racked his brain for a new story, but nothing came to him. Eventually, he sighed and gave up, climbing the stairs to his bed. Maybe it would come to him in a dream. About half way up, he tripped over his cat, Cloudy. Just then, an idea jumped into Novel's head, and he sat down to write.

The words flowed and he worked late into the night.

The next morning, Novel was rudely awakened by a mass of fur resting on his head. The weight of the fluff and the fat caused his face to be pressed closely against the parchment on his desk. Using what magic he had, he lifted Cloudy off of his head, and placed him onto the ground, where the cat purred, then promptly rolled over and fell back asleep.

Novel stared at the affectionate fluffball. It wasn’t that he was surprised that he had woken up in such a state, he had fallen asleep many times while working late into the night, and he usually awoke with the cat sleeping on top of him in some manner. No, he was staring at the black splotches that had appeared on the cat in the night.

Novel carefully picked up his cat, and took him up to the bathroom. There he started his bath going. He was proud of his recently installed plumbing, and was glad to not have to walk down to the town well. Rowan Oak was such a small town that not many ponies had running water yet, although most of the businesses had it and it had started to move into more residences.

Once the bathtub had filled, Novel unceremoniously dropped his cat into it, and scrubbed away all of the black spots, despite Cloudy’s protests.

Once he had finished washing off his cat, he began to trot back downstairs. He had been in the most interesting part of his story, and couldn’t wait to get back to it. That wasn’t what was nagging at his mind though. He was wondering how his gray tabby had gotten so ridiculously messy. He suspected his fireplace, and it’s fresh ashes, which he had yet to clean out from yesterday afternoon. They would probably have been warm enough for Cloudy to curl up in them and sleep.

He investigated his fireplace, but the ashes were relatively undisturbed. Confused, He sat down at his desk, still staring at the untouched hearth.
Giving up, Novel turned back to his desk. There he saw the answer to his question. The parchment with his carefully written story had a huge black splotch in the middle of it, next to his overturned inkwell. The dried ink had a clean spot in roughly the shape of his face. There were also lines in it, like bits had been wiped off with cotton. In the middle of the puddle lay his once red quill, now turned black with ink. There was a thick line on the left side of the splotch that was about the size of a pony foreleg. The top of the scroll, which he had tightly bunched up once dried, had been unfurled and rolled off the desk. Novel attempted to lift the parchment only to find the ink had soaked through it, and had practically glued it to the table.

As Novel attempted to scrape the useless scraps of parchment off the table, he heard a knock at the door. Novel turned to open it, but before he could reach the door a pale blue earth pony with a cream white mane burst through, nearly knocking Novel over. He stumbled to maintain his balance, before standing upright and turning to the Excited pony. "Hi Corncake. Why all the excitement?”

Corncake slowly turned towards him, mouth opening. “Wel-” Corncake cut herself off, bursting into laughter.

Novel tilted his head in confusion. “What’s so funny?”

Corncake sat down, still chuckling and snorting. “Nothing, It’s just your face matches your name.”

“What?”

“Well it has half your novel on it, as well as two thirds of your inkwell!”

Using his magic, Novel levitated over a small hand mirror and stared at the black spotted pony’s face. Then he looked back to his desk. Then back to the mirror. Then Novel sat down at lifted a rag over and started scrubbing his face. “So, what brought you through my door in the first place?”

Corncake bounced in place and almost shouted. “They’re coming!”

“Who’s coming? What are you talking about!?”

“Those ponies you’re always writing about! They’re coming here!”

“Are you feeling okay? You must be delusional, because they are fictional. How could they be going much of anywhere?”

“Don’t believe me? Look for yourself!”

Suddenly, there was a newspaper on in front of Novel. On the front cover was the headline “Heroes come to Rowan Oak!” with a black and white picture of two earthponies, two pegasi, one unicorn, and one alicorn underneath.

Novel, who had just gotten back up, fell back down to a sitting position. His jaw flopped open but he quickly shut it again. He then sat straight up, and looked his friend in the eye. “Did you fake this in any way, shape, or form?”

“Novel! What kind of pony do you take me for? I saw this on the way to work, and bought it. When my break started, I rushed over.”

“Then tell me, Corncake, how is this possible!?”

“You tell me! You’re the one that knows all about them!”

“Yeah! About them as fictional characters! I know nothing about their real personalities!”

“How do you know they’re any different from the characters you’ve written and read about?”

“I suppose you have a point. Ok.” Novel took a deep breath, his lungs filling with air and then propelling it back out along with all of his panic. “Ok. I’ll see them when they arrive, but I’ll just be part of the crowd. Nothing will go wrong. They’re just here for a visit.”

“Ok. They’re arriving tomorrow. Hope everything goes well for you.”

As Corncake left the house and carefully closed the damaged door, Novel sat very still. His mind filled with worries and questions that had never come to him before. The one that sat on the forefront of his mind, however, was perhaps the most important to him. Writing stories about these ponies was what he did best, but, could he continue now that he knew they existed? Could he write these stories about real ponies? On his desk, sat the unfinished and damaged stories, which he had put so much effort into.

Author's Note:

This is the first chapter of my first real story. Neither Novel nor the town of Rowan Oak is based on anyone. Novel's name was inspired by a name generator and the town is a pun off of Roanoke Virginia. It has nothing else to do with the town. Thank you for reading, and the next chapter should be soon.