Following the white pony
Twilight was reading books in a library. Which almost comes without saying, even if it was Canterlot royal library and not a certain tree in the middle of a certain town. It would have been just another normal day in the life of the newly crowned princess of Equestria if not for one particular book amongst all the others that she discovered.
The peculiar thing about the book was the fact it wasn’t shown in plain sight like most of the others, but had been forgotten on the shelf, quickly hidden by other books probably because of a lack of place at the time. Given the very old age of the Canterlot royal library, and how that library had been extended several times across the ages, it happened from time to time for a pony to find some misplaced book, stuck in the shadows.
Twilight had found this one after having extracted almost three layers of books from the old shelf she had taken interest in. She looked at the cover and saw no title, or any note whatsoever, which awoke her curiosity.
Having reached the bottom of the shelf, she stopped her research there for the moment and put the other books back in their place. Then, she took the new found book with her and went to a table where she laid her discovery. It was covered in dust that she blew away. A little thrilled by the possibilities, she began to open it. But before she was even finished lifting the cover, the book as well as the table trembled violently and a white cloud of smoke emerged, blinding the alicorn for a little moment as if she had suddenly been immerged in a very thick fog.
It took some time for Twilight to recover. She quickly looked around, but saw nothing anymore. There was no trace of the white smoke, just as there was no sign of any unnatural phenomenon anymore. Her scientific mind found a satisfactory enough explanation, something having to do with the hallucinogen capacity of old dust, leaving her free to read the book.
She found the title inside. It was named “The theft of a lifetime”. Eagerly, Twilight began to read, but felt quickly disappointed. It was a pretty good story altogether, just not what she had expected. It could have been best described as a very “generic” story, lacking both, in Twilight’s opinion, in originality, at least for a secret hidden forgotten book, and in epicness, given the title of the story.
She read it entirely nonetheless, just because she liked finishing what she had begun. At some point, she had the feeling to read the very first book of a pony who had just begun experimenting with the way of the words and the narrative structures. She even noticed, as a last disappointment, that the author had forgotten or just straight up decided not to write a “the end” after the very last sentence of the story.
Twilight closed the book with a feeling of frustration. Still, she didn’t care enough to find why she was feeling that way. The book had been entertaining enough for her to think she hadn’t been totally losing her time reading it and that was all that counted at the moment. She put it back on a shelf, respecting the nonexistent classification system of the royal library, and began to walk away, as it was already dark outside, the sun having disappeared almost twenty minutes ago.
But she heard a loud noise behind her and turned back, just to see the book on the floor. She slightly cursed both her inability to correctly put a book on a shelf and the shelf itself for being unable to keep a book on it. Of course, while cursing, she diligently put the book in place, and made sure it was very well stored, unable to move in the slightest.
Once again, she began to walk away, with more satisfaction this time for having showed so much care for the library’s order. But her ears caught the same noise as before and she knew even before seeing it that the book had fallen on the floor. It had. It was laying there, almost taunting her, saying “I won’t stand still, you’ve got to do better than that”.
She put it back two more times, even putting it behind other books, but each time she turned her back the book was on the floor, along with those who were on its path. It was becoming kind of nerving and a little creepy. Twilight tried to figure out how she was supposed to handle a book that doesn’t want to go back on a shelf, but never had to find any answer to that question as, before she could pick it up once again, the white cloud of smoke came out of the book and passed between her legs.
Immediately, Twilight decided to follow the smoke and, turning around a corner of a shelf, she saw the white cloud changing its shape, turning into a pony, or at least a ponymorphic creature as it was still completely white and had no mane, tail or eyes. Still, it turned its head in Twilight’s direction and seemed to look at her. But when she advanced one of her hooves, in order to come closer and try to establish contact with the creature, it began to run away.
Twilight followed as fast as she could. The creature took her through one of the exit doors, then down a stair, and from corridor to corridor, she led the alicorn outside. One recomforting fact was how it seemed the creature would almost wait for Twilight to come before fleeing again. And the alicorn quickly realized she wasn’t pursuing the creature, but was following it where it wanted to bring her.
She saw the creature, who was easy to follow as it was almost glowing in the night, enter a house, or what looked like a house in the dark of the moonless sky. Without thinking twice about it, Twilight entered the house too, rushing through the door and hoping the journey would end there, as she was slowly going out of breath.
Silly Hop
“Excuse me, but shouldn’t you have knocked before entering my house?”
Twilight was almost blinded by the light. But as her eyes were able to adapt, she saw she was in a big room, full of papers laying everywhere and books of various shapes all over the walls. She saw a stallion unicorn who had obviously been working at his desk before she entered the room and who was now looking at her with a very tired and surprised but nonetheless gentle look. However, before she could care to answer the very valid question of the stallion, all of Twilight’s attention got attracted by a single flower, the sole flower in the entire room, on the table in the middle of the floor. That single little flower had such a power because it looked like it was the only source of light there was, Twilight seeing no torches anywhere, and seemed to provide not only a way to see, but also warmth and comfort. There was something incredibly powerful about that flower that Twilight couldn’t explain.
And she didn’t get a chance to, as she was pulled back from her contemplation by the stallion who really wanted to know why she had been in such a hurry to enter his home.
“I’m sorry.” Twilight replied. “I was following a white creature that looks like a pony.”
Or course the stallion looked at her with a little concern in his look, as her explanation wasn’t making a lot of sense, but ignoring that, Twilight asked:
“Have you seen it? Where did it go?”
“Miss,” the stallion replied, “You’re the only one who has entered here tonight.”
He stopped there to cough, giving Twilight time to look around more and realize that she had, in fact, lost the creature’s trail.
“So…” the stallion began once again, being done coughing and having put on a scarf, “Who are you? And why are you wearing fake wings?”
“My name is Twilight Sparkle.” the alicorn replied. “And those aren’t fake wings.” she explained, deploying both of them to prove her point.
“A pegasus!” rejoiced himself the stallion. “I haven’t seen a pegasus in a long time. But I don’t go out very often. My name is Silly Hop - I guess it’s because of my personality - and I’m very happy to meet you Twilight Sparkle. Even if I don’t understand why you’re wearing a fake horn. Are you trying to pass as a unicorn?”
He began to laugh saying those words, but his laugh got interrupted by a big sneeze. He took a handkerchief and blew his muzzle.
“I’m not a pegasus.” Twilight replied, finding the idea quite humorous. “I’m… well…”
She had never really thought of what she was before that moment. In her mind, she was still a unicorn, just with, well, wings. She didn’t feel like an alicorn. Also, she didn’t want to say she was a royal princess because she wanted her interlocutor to keep on seeing her as his equal, as he had very obviously no recognized her.
“I’m a unicorn who grew wings.” she said, “With magic.” she added, as it wasn’t entirely false to state it that way.
Silly Hop seemed to like the idea of a unicorn wanting to use her magic to grow wings and asked questions and questions for Twilight to answer about the reasons she had had for that. The alicorn decided to change the subject to try and answer some of her own questions. And as the creature was gone, she attacked another subject she hadn’t solved yet.
“Excuse me, but I would like to know something about your magic too. What did you do to that flower to make her provide both light and warmth?”
Silly looked at the table at which Twilight was pointing with her hood, saw the flower and replied:
“I didn’t do anything. It’s just a flower. I don’t even know where it comes from. I don’t really do magic, at least not with my horn.”
He coughed a bit again, but stopped quickly. Twilight looked at the flower again too and noticed this time that it was just a normal flower. In fact, there were about ten torches lighting up the room as well as a fireplace that was providing all the warmth needed, even if the air was kind of cold for the season.
In other words, everything looked completely normal. It was just the home of a very sympathetic pony who had been collecting books his whole life by the look of it. But there was no weird creature anymore and no mystery to solve. Twilight thought she should leave, but she felt it would have been a little impolite after having burst in like that. Furthermore, she was beginning to get interesting in the pony’s books collection as he wasn’t living that far away from the royal library and could have just went there to satisfy his need to read.
She decided to ask him why he was storing so many at his home.
“Because those are my very own books.” Silly Hop answered with a great deal of pride. “I’m an author, I’ve spent my entire life writing every book you can see here.”
Twilight looked again with this new information and suddenly understood how amazing that was. There were so many books all around the room that it made her feel dizzy. Silly Hop had been able to write so many of them and he still looked very young. She began to understand the stallion a little better. He had probably spent his whole life inside his house, writing every second of every hour he was awake, satisfying the incredible urge to create new and unseen worlds, adventures and characters.
She looked at him again, only to see him blow his muzzle and change his handkerchief.
“That’s incredible!” she said very genuinely, making Silly Hop blush. “You really wrote all those books?”
“I did.” he replied, smiling. “They are my gift to the world. Well, to be honest, it’s the only thing I was ever good at, so I didn’t get much of a choice there.”
Twilight looked at Silly Hop cutie mark, but didn’t see a quill or a book as she had expected to. On his flank were a piece of paper that looked more like a house plan and a brick. It didn’t even need interpretation at this level. It was an architect cutie mark. She noticed it out loud, but Silly Hop quickly replied, laughing:
“You wouldn’t imagine how many ponies have told me that. But it’s an author cutie mark, I know it and I’ve even proved it.”
He said those words pointing out to all the books he had written, making, in Twilight’s opinion, a very good argument for his case. And even if the alicorn was feeling tired, after all the chasing, the emotions, and just because it was very late at night, she was feeling she hadn’t lost her night at all.
“Mister Hop?” Twilight asked with hope in her voice.
“Yes?” answered Silly.
“Would you mind if I took one of your books with me to the cast… to my home? I would like to read one, please.”
She could have covered Silly Hop in gold and not have gotten half the smile of gratitude and half the red his blushing was. He tried to act cool, but he not only accepted to lend a book with joy, and a lot of coughing for that matter, but also began to try and find what would be the perfect book to lend to her. He went all around his collection, creating a big pile of books that he finally gave Twilight.
“I hope you’ll find one of those interesting enough.” he told her, clearly worried about what she was going to think of his work. “They are from the best I’ve made.”
And looked back at his desk and then added, after a quick sneeze:
“I wish I could give you my master piece, but I haven’t finished it yet.”
Twilight’s curiosity jumped on the word “master piece” and decided she had to know more about it.
“It’s kind of a special story.” Silly Hope replied, happy to explain. “I’ve been working on it since ages. I think I was already working on it when I first began writing. But I’ve never been able to finish it. It's kind of strange to be honest, I feel like I should have had finished it a long while ago...”
Twilight thought he was going to stop there, but he suddenly added, with excitement:
“But at last. I’m working on the last chapter! Well, I was before you entered. But I’m about to finish it. You cannot imagine how impatient I am to finally end it.”
Twilight was able to imagine it, as Silly Hop, giving his name its entire signification, was jumping up and down in excitement. He was looking just like a child, with the same innocence in his look. And he, in fact, went to his desk, seemingly inspired, to write again, forgetting Twilight’s presence in his home.
The alicorn decided to let him do his thing and to go back to her suite at the castle to get some well earned rest, taking with her the pile of books Silly Hop had given her.
The theft of a lifetime
It took Twilight some time to find her way back to the castle, because it was still near to pitch black outside, which forced her to magically create some light, and because that same light was forcing her to carry the big pile of books, being too tired to try and perform two spells at the same time.
Still, she managed to come back somehow and just fell into her bed, sleeping right away.
She got woken up the next day for a reunion with the other princesses she had forgotten about because it hadn’t been planned to begin with, and began a long crazy day figuring out a solution for the problematic of Equestrian history as taught in school, given that, depending on the teacher, pegasus, unicorn or earth pony, the content had a tendency to change slightly in favor of each of the three types of ponies.
Having to face the frustration of having made no progress whatsoever and totally exhausted, Twilight finally came back to her room as Celestia and Luna were lowering the sun and raising the stars.
She first let herself fall into the bed to catch her breath again. She tried to relax, but the memories of all the nonsense and sort of stupidity that had been said during the day was still haunting her. She needed something to take her mind off and she saw the pile of book from the day before.
It was just perfect.
She took the first one, opened it and prepared herself to read it. But she quickly closed it, not sure what was going on.
She took another one, opened it to read it, but faced a problem once again that prevented her to.
She tried a third one, who appeared to be exactly like the two others. In fact, all the books had the exact same problem, making them absolutely impossible to read. And Twilight’s mind couldn’t accept such a problem. She even tried to open each and every book again just to make sure she wasn’t dreaming.
Then she just thought it had to be one big joke.
So she took the books and rushed out to find Silly Hop’s house and discuss with him what was happening and why he had given her those books in particular. At this point, she didn’t know if she was frustrated, angry, surprised, concerned or just scared.
She lost herself in Canterlot, to the point where she had no idea anymore where she was at all, bumped into the wall of a house that she suddenly recognized. She would have found the coincidence to stumble upon the exact house she was searching statistically impossible, but her entire mind was only concerned with the books she was holding.
She entered and saw once again the wall covered in books, the flower in the middle of the room and Silly Hop who, suddenly realizing someone had entered his home, turned back and welcomed her.
The only difference Twilight could have noticed, but had no time to, was the fact the air was freezing in the room and the fireplace was simply gone.
“You really don’t like knocking on doors, do you?” he said, joyfully, but unable to hide the fact his voice was deformed and the fact he wanted to cough almost at every word he was saying. "I was about to write the very two last words of my master piece." but as excited as he was to be about to finish his life's work, he was even more eager to know something. “So…” he began asking, also unable not to show how impatient he was: “Did you read any of the books? What did you think?”
“That’s why I’m here.” Twilight replied, almost frightening Silly with the serious and somewhat aggressive tone of her voice. “I couldn’t read any of the books you gave me. They are blank.”
Silly Hop stopped moving, literally stunned by what he had just heard.
“What?” he asked, turning even more pale than he already was.
“There is nothing in your books! Not a single word, not even a trace of ink! Those are just blank pages.”
A silence ensued, during which Twilight was trying to simmer down and Silly Hop was trying to just process the information.
“What?” he asked again, this time with a very clear fright in his voice and some accent of despair.
Twilight shown him the books. He opened the first one and, just like Twilight before, saw only blank pages. He opened a second one, that was also made only of blank pages. There were no story, no characters, nothing. Just paper and the emptiness it was holding.
Silly Hop began to panic. He rushed to the other books on the walls and opened them, one by one, in a wild frenzy. But they were all just blank pages.
“It’s impossible!” Silly Hop screamed in horror. “I’ve written a hundred and a thousand stories!” he shouted in anger and sadness. “I’ve written the story of the pony born out of the tears of his mother and who found a way to make her smile. I’ve written the story of the pony who saw a shooting star flying so close to the ground that she jumped and grabbed it to go and travel across the universe. I’ve written the story of the two headed pony who was unable to raise her child because both head were unable to agree or compromise on anything!”
Silly Hop stopped opening the books, having understood they were all the same empty shells. He let the one in his hooves slip and fall to the ground, unable to hold the illusion any longer. He screamed in pain, frightening Twilight, but coughing interrupted him. He struggled to catch his breath again and just let himself fall on the ground too, realizing he had lost everything he thought he possessed.
He began to violently cry, to try and handle the pain, but it almost didn't help his crushed dreams. He slowly crawled around the room like a deadly wounded creature, without any clear goal in mind, just moving out of his instinct of survival, in a very last and vain attempt to find hope anywhere, where there wasn't any left.
“I’written a hundred and a thousand stories! I swear I have!” he tried to say, but his voice was already nothing more than a half dead whisper in his throat. “I’ve written the tale of the creature that raised its own shadow. I know I’ve written it." He pleaded, trying to convince Twilight, or maybe just himself he had, as if it would make the words appear on the paper by magic. "Where are my stories?” he asked, too weak to accept the reality of the situation, or simply having accepted it and having become weak because of it.
Twilight came to him to help, but when she touched him with her hoof, she felt how cold he was and how much he was shivering. His head, on the other hand, was burning hot and his eyes had lost any trace of life. Twilight herself could feel how freezing the air in the room was.
She wanted to take him to the hospital immediately, but realized he was in too much of a bad shape to do the trip. She decided to go find a doctor and some more help to make sure he would be okay.
“Don’t worry.” she told him. “I’ve got no idea why your books are the way they are, but I promise I’ll help you. Just try to stay quiet until I come back. I’ll bring help, just wait for me.”
She had helped him go into his bed and had put the blanket over him, but he didn’t answer. She tried to comfort him again, but Silly Hop had stopped moving at all. The shivering was gone, his head had stopped searching for an answer. He was just standing totally still. Twilight touched his head one last time, but the heat was gone. It had become as cold as the air all around. Unable to accept her efforts may have been in vain, she ran away to go find help.
She came out of the house throwing away the saddlebags she had used to carry the books to gain some weight and rushed down the street to the hospital. Once there, she explained that there was a pony who urgently needed the help of a doctor and one came back with her as well as two nurse. They all ran through the streets of Canterlot under Twilight’s lead.
But when they arrived, they saw no house. The alicorn began to think she had lost herself again, but saw her saddlebags laying on the ground. That was obviously where she had left Silly Hop’s house, it was just so that the house happened to be missing. At its place was a park with some trees and a fountain.
Neither the doctor nor the nurses showed any anger for the disturbance, maybe because they didn’t dare show it to a princess, or because they were certain a princess would have had a very good reason. They left nonetheless, because there was no pony to save anymore.
Alone, Twilight stayed there, looking at the park, trying to figure out where the house was gone. A part of her was saying she should keep on looking to find the house: that it had to be somewhere else. But she knew that it was just pointless hope. Even without all the care she had had to make sure she would find her way back when seeking for help, her saddlebags were proof enough she was where she should be.
So another part of her told her maybe she shouldn’t be there. That maybe she should just accept there was nothing anymore to do. And of course, that was a thought she was just unable to accept. At least not right away.
So she just stayed there, waiting for something to happen.
The sun showed itself, lighting the place. Ponies began to wander around Twilight, trying not to bother the princess in her meditation, having no idea what she was doing there or why. But even with all the life around her and the new day in front of her, Twilight still couldn’t move away. So she waited a little longer, certain that something was bound to happen, that it just couldn’t end like that.
Soon, her stomach began growling, but she ignored the hunger.
Some ponies stopped to watch their princess meditate and she didn’t even notice them. Some other ponies decided to wait with the princess, not knowing what they were waiting for, not even knowing that she herself didn’t know what she was expecting to happen there. All together, they were silently staying there, without moving, letting their mind wander away as they had absolutely nothing else to do.
Some got bored, some other stayed, most of them found the experience almost enlightening. But for Twilight, it was becoming almost painful how much nothing was happening. She began to think of all what she could try to do in order to bring the universe to understand its responsibility there. She dreamed of facing the universe, that would conveniently take the form of a pony for the occasion, and battling it with all of her magical powers to force it to recognize it just couldn’t end that way.
The sun began to go low and all the ponies around Twilight had to leave to go back to their families and finish some very pressing chores or duties, so the alicorn found herself alone again without her waiting having given any result. She had just been wasting time, in the futile hope that it wouldn’t end that way.
The end
Twilight was beginning to consider staying on her spot and letting herself die there, mostly out of desperation than as a real plan, being still sane and knowing she would have to move very soon to take care of her own duties. But then, she saw something peculiar.
There was a pony in the park, near the fountain. It was a white unicorn, with a yellow mane and tail. But the most important part was the flower she was putting down on the edge of the fountain. Twilight knew that flower because it was the exact same as the one that she had seen in the middle of Silly Hop’s house.
In a second, Twilight found herself in front of the mare who she frightened a bit, apologized but frenetically asked what she was doing and where the flower came from.
“I’m sorry.” answered the white mare, afraid to have made something wrong, “It’s a family tradition. My mother taught it to me as her own mother has before and so on. We bring a daisy here every Sunday. I’ve been told it was originally a way for one of my ancestor to cope with the loss of her brother and we have been doing it ever since. I just never found a reason to stop myself.”
And seeing that Twilight was still looking at her very deeply, the mare added:
“It’s just a daisy, I didn’t think it would hurt anypony. But I can stop if you tell me to.”
Twilight didn’t know what to answer or even what to make out of what she had just learned, but she was certain she had understood something very important and maybe everything there was to understand. She just hadn’t understand it in a way that she was able to translate into words yet.
“No.” she told the mare. “Keep on bringing flowers. It’s a beautiful tradition.”
Twilight wanted to say something more, but found no way to, because she wasn’t certain what exactly she should say. That the flower was bringing light and warmth to the one it was supposed to? She wasn’t even able to believe it herself, so why bother the other mare with that?
Twilight began looking at the daisy with a smile as the white mare went away. She was under the feeling she had received the answers she wanted, even if she wasn’t certain it was explaining everything, or even if it wasn't really explaining anything, but she still wasn’t satisfied. This time though, she didn’t just want something to happen, she knew something was going to happen.
And it did.
Just as the sun had disappeared under the horizon, a white smoke seemed to come out of the flower, enveloped Twilight, went through her and formed, once again, the ponymorphic creature Twilight had followed before.
“Here you are again.” the alicorn said, facing the creature. “So tell me, why did you show me all this?” she asked, not certain she was really expecting any answer from the also mouthless creature.
And in fact, the creature just began to go away, but without running this time. It just walked and Twilight came to her side, so that they both walked together through the streets of Canterlot in the middle of the dark night.
The creature took Twilight back to the Canterlot royal library and right to the old book that was still laying on the ground, as nopony had had the time to find it inside the huge maze of shelves that was the royal library.
Then, the creature transformed into smoke once again and disappeared inside the book who just opened on the last page.
Twilight came near the book, looked at it and stayed there for a moment, not really sure what was going on.
“Now what?” she asked.
But both her eyes and her memory caught the detail she needed to know what was expected from her.
She smiled.
“So this is how it’s going to go…” she whispered.
She quietly went to find a quill and some ink, then came back to the book and, finally, did what Silly Hop had never had the possibility to do in its time.
She wrote the two final words of Silly Hop’s story, as any story, happy or sad, has to finish at some point.
Twilight, as there was nothing else anymore to do, just wrote.
THE END
Author's Note
Written out of a comment of "Pinkies imagination" somewhere on fimfiction. Sorry I couldn't do better that that out of it.
