Distress

by Dragon Genesis

Rating: everyone
Tags: Original Character, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Slice of Life
Length: 1044

An author struggles with the fact of his declining popularity.

Bakmah is a moderate author, even for a dragon, a feared creature among the pony society. He had a loyal fan base and would smile whenever somepony would send fanmail or stop by for autographs. But lately, his career has been taking a downturn.

Stress has been eating away at the middle aged dragon author as he not only failed to come up with decent story ideas, but his fan base and popularity have been declining fast. Once he could get outstanding sales almost the second he had books on shelves, now only a few were bought every release.

What was he doing wrong?

Published 2014-02-14 02:30:11 UTC
Last updated 2014-02-14 02:30:11 UTC

Decline

Distress

Based off of actual struggles of authors alike

The flickering candle light danced across the blank parchement that sat on a mahogany desk. The owner of the desk sat hunched over in his chair as he stared at the blank paper, his head clasped in his hands as he tried to form a train of thought or some idea to write.

Bakmah was a grey and red dragon, just sizing above a stallion in height. While he wasn't the most common creature in Equestria, nor one for many fans of his kind, the middle aged drake still was a moderate author that had enough promising works to be proud of. His fan base was plentiful, though not huge as some authors. He still stacked shelves and cleaned them relatively fast every release.

But of course, how long does this fan last. He had one good book turned series. And now that it was over, the third book of the trilogy written, ponies only held on for the purpose of hoping for similar books and short stories. However, the drake couldn't deliever. He just couldn't.

He spent agonizing hours behind his desk each day, staring at the same blank page as if hoping words would magically appear on it or that a prize winning idea would pop in his head. But it never did. The most that has ever happened is he would sneeze and the paper would fall to the floor or would be burned by his purple fire.

For three weeks he sat like this, each day driving him closer to depression. His books didn't fly off the shelves anymore. They were nothing more than an after thought now. Something a pony would just think about last second and hesitate before even buying. He knew. He saw it happen a few times. And each time, he would sigh in defeat.

For years he wrote for the Equestrian populace. He wrote romance, action, sad, a gore or two. Each time he was able to hook a reader and keep them a long for the ride despite his grammar, never having been able to find an editor willing to work with a dragon. Ponies would praise his work, come to signings, and he would find heaping loads of fanmail in his mail slot in the mornings. Now, it was just bills and contract notices from his publisher.

The drake growled before grabbing the edge of the table and flinging it to the side, throwing its contents all over the room. He stood up, kicking away the chair, and stomped over to his bookshelf, staring at its vast assortment of knowledge and literature. He stared at its contents with a mixture of pain and anger before grabbing the shelf and throwing it to the side.

"What am I doing wrong?!" He shouted at the broken shelf, almost expecting it to answer. "What is it that I am not getting that is causing my sales to plummet!" He slid to the ground and bashed his head against the wall. Tears of frustration ran down his cheeks as he shut his eyes to try and calm himself. It was the he noticed the smell of smoke.

"Crap." he muttered as he opened his eyes. The red orbs widened as he saw the blazing fire that once was his stationary desk were he kept story notes and extra paper. The shelves around it as well as the wall and doorway were also caught in the blaze as smoke started to fill the room. While dragons couldn't die from fire, they could be suffocated by the lack of air and heavy presence of smoke.

Bakmah coughed as he tried to find a way out of his apartment safely. Seeing the door was still open, he started to walk towards it, careful of the creaking and cracking wood around him as the foundation started to wear away from the fire. He walked forward step by step towards the door, just before the floor gave out from under him and he fell to the ground, beams and burning wood falling on top of him and pinning him to the ground.

The drake attempted to regain the air that was knocked out from him, his lungs filling up with smoke, killing him faster. His vision started to blur as he tried to free himself, attempting to lift the heavy rafters off his back but failing. He fell to the ground with a thud and gasped for air, watching the darkness creep into his vision.

As if a cruel twist of fate, a book fell from the downstairs bookshelf onto the ground, flames creeping towards it. Despite his blurred vision, he was able to make out a elder mare holding on to a small filly. He smirked a bit as he stared at his most famous work before the darkness over took him, the words Solar Child burned in his skull.

Last night, the remains of famous draconian author was pulled out of his Canterlot home after the neighbors called a fire in the house, seeing the flames from the windows.

Doctors were able to find that the dragon suffocated from lack of air in the home while he was trapped under the rafters and other burning furniture. There were no other wounds on the body when it was found, a feat said to be from dragon's naturally hard scales.

Officials are still trying to determine the cause of the fire, but they are saying that it was most likely caused by a fallen candle in the study of the home, the most flammable room in the house.

There are no comments from Bakmah's publishers or his friends within Canterlot. Fans of the late author have gathered outside of his home and placed copies of his books signed photographs in memorial as books sales have skyrocketed.

Equestria Daily will have more details on this story as they devolp.

Author's Note

Well, besides this being of my own struggles as an author, the dying in a fire or a fire in my home are not even close to real, thankfully. This was a short one since it was only to get a point across, thus it's barely 1K wording,