Breaching The Walls of Creativity
Breaching The Walls of Creativity
By Wanderer D
o.0.o
It was midday afternoon when Scootaloo realized she was being drawn.
There was nothing special that caused the incident, either: One moment she was living her orphaned, abandoned life in Ponyville... and the next, she was lines on what seemed to be eternal white.
From time to time, a little white arrow would come over and poke her, pulling a line a little bit, and making her look more like… her.
It was weird.
She felt perfect until the arrow corrected something and then she felt perfect again. It was even more perfect when the arrow turned into a bucket and color filled the empty space between lines.
She observed in rapt attention how it chose slightly different colors to create contrast and give her depth, or color her mane or her eyes. It had been really strange. The first time she had seen the bucket approaching her eyes, she had slammed them shut, but the arrow had returned and opened her eyes long enough for the bucket to fill her irises with color.
And then she felt perfect.
Her world was blank all through this too; no beginning and no end. Inhabited only by the floating flat boxes with lines and symbols and colors in them.
She watched as the arrow left her and went up to one of the boxes that had several lines on it.
And just as suddenly, Ponyville slid into view behind her, other ponies appeared in sudden flashes as the arrow moved up and down the box, all ponies stood in different positions, some simply standing, others in the middle of a conversation, frozen as if waiting for an order to start talking.
Other fillies and colts were also static in mid-run, or asking a vendor for ice-cream. Even the balloons were floating away from where they had been released, and yet not… simply staying in place without moving.
The arrow came back and changed little details, added a shadow underneath her, fixed Applejack’s hat—which somehow was floating on the same level as where it should go, but not on her head—and with a blur of suddenness, the world around her became alive and she was standing once more in a live, moving and talking, Ponyville.
“Hey Scootaloo!” Apple Bloom called, trotting up to her. “How are you doin’?”
Scootaloo blinked and pondered the question for a moment, while the little arrow floated up to Apple Bloom’s snout, became some sort of bubble and then smoothed the lines until they were nicer.
“Right,” Scootaloo said and passed out.
o.0.o
Chickens danced in silence while jumping over the moon made of chocolate. Scootaloo laughed and clucked merrily, drenching herself in cherries and vanilla ice-cream.
o.0.o
“Ugh…” Scootaloo groaned, turning in bed until she forced her eyes open to meet the worried glances of Sweetie Belle, Apple Bloom and Rarity. “W-where am I?”
“In my bed,” Sweetie Belle explained. “Apple Bloom ran in here carrying you in her back saying you suddenly passed out! Are you okay?”
Scootaloo nodded. “Y-yeah, I just… had the weirdest dream.” She paused when her eyes focused and she saw the little arrow placing Opalescence on the floor. After a moment, the cat meowed.
“What did you dream?” Apple Bloom asked, completely oblivious to the little arrow that came down and placed her bow on her mane.
How did I forget about the bow? Scootaloo asked herself.
“I dreamt about… uh… an arrow.”
The arrow raised Rarity’s eyebrow. “An arrow? Why would you dream about an arrow?”
Scootaloo stared at her silently for a moment. “I don’t know. I said it was weird.”
“I don’t get it,” Sweetie Belle muttered as the arrow tapped her hoof against her chin. “What is so weird about an arrow?”
“It um, changes things. Fixes…” she watched the arrow coil Rarity’s tail. “Details.”
“My! But that sounds like a useful arrow!” Rarity smiled with the arrow’s help.
“I guess…” Scootaloo conceded, given that the arrow was currently placing the curtains inside the Carousel Boutique in place. “It’s still weird when you realize that no matter what you do, you don’t have control of things, because the arrow controls them.”
Heads turned to face each other. Then the arrow finished the intended action by moving the eyes to match the head’s positions.
Scootaloo stared. “I think… I think I have to go. Now.”
Scootaloo jumped off the bed and galloped out, noticing that the arrow stopped and started following her.
She slammed the door open and ran out into Ponyville, followed by the arrow that all other ponies seemed oblivious about. She looked around for a place to hide, and then she remembered the way to the Everfree Forest.
Surely amongst the trees there would be enough places to hide.
Bending her head down, she pushed faster and faster, until everything was a blur around her and just as she was about to reach the Everfree, she was out in the white again.
“I-I don’t get it!” She gasped, looking back to the town of Ponyville, which ended abruptly into the white, but nopony noticed, and those who walked out of Ponyville simply vanished as if they never were. “What’s happening?”
The universe around her shook and rumbled and the ‘floor’ underneath her cracked, making her scramble back for safety as something huge pushed out from under her. Scootaloo cowered as she was slowly overshadowed by something massive and almost beyond comprehension.
It turned it’s massive, feathered girth around and glared down at her, opening its beak and making a single, terrifying sound: “PA-CLUCK!”
The gargantuan chicken took a step forth, making the whole world around shudder under its weight.
“Y-you can’t be real!” Scootaloo accused the giant chicken. “You’re just a legend to scare little fillies!”
One monumental eye focused on her and Scootaloo felt immediately insignificant.
“CLUCK!”
“But I don’t want to go back to the coop!”
“PA-CLUCK! CLUCK!”
“You’re not my mother!”
“CLUCK! CLUCK! PUCK!”
Scootaloo’s eyes narrowed. “I won’t go to my room.”
“CLUCK!?”
“There’s no rooms here to go to! It’s white space!”
“What is going on here?” A familiar voice echoed through the emptiness.
Scootaloo turned around to face Princess Luna, who was descending down from somewhere and looking around in confusion, first at the chicken, then at the emptiness around them.
A little white arrow came over to fix her mane, but the princess shooed it away. “Scootaloo?”
“Princess! Are you real?”
Luna enveloped the little arrow in her magic and threw it at the chicken. “Yes, apparently so. Your dreams are potent, young one, if you were able to breach the Walls of Creativity and find yourself in this universe.”
“What is this place?” Scootaloo asked, stepping on the arrow when it tried to do something to her hoof. It struggled to get free and several, desperate clicking sounds were heard all around them.
“It’s the window through which we can be seen by others in other worlds,” Luna explained, looking around. “They see glimpses of us, and little snippets of our adventures, think them their own imaginings, and here, they bend reality by trying to replicate us… with the aid of those little things.” She pointed at the still-struggling arrow.
“PACKLUCK!”
Luna gazed at the gargantuan chicken for a moment. “Although I dare say your imagination has taken a lot of liberties here. No doubt they are very confused as to why this is happening and where you, the chicken and I came from.”
A new little box appeared, holding a warning sign of some sort.
“I believe that is our signal to go home,” Luna said leaning over to touch Scootaloo in the shoulder. “Hold on tight, young chick—ahem, Scootaloo.”
o.0.o
“...and that’s how I finally got back home,” Scootaloo finished, putting down her report.
“I… see…” Cheerilee cleared her throat. “W-well, that was a very interesting story, Scootaloo, but I asked you to write a true story and—”
“But it’s totally true!” Scootaloo whined. “Look! I even brought evidence!” She reached into her saddle bag and pulled out a flat little arrow. “It came with me when Princess Luna dragged me back here.”
“Hey, that’s just a piece of paper cut like an arrow!” Diamond Tiara complained. “You should at least try to make it look real!”
Scootaloo shrugged and let go of the arrow. It shot through the air straight at Diamond Tiara and took her mouth away, putting it to rest on the desk before picking up Diamond Tiara and dumping her into a trashbin.
“No, her mouth, not her!” Scootaloo scolded the arrow, which somehow managed to look sad before it floated morosely into Scootaloo’s saddle-bags.
Cheerilee closed her mouth and rubbed her forehead. “Okay Scootaloo, go sit. Thank you for your show and tell.”
Scootaloo cantered to her seat amongst polite clapping and high-hoofed Apple Bloom as the latter made her way to the front of the class.
“Hi!” Apple Bloom said. “For my show an’ tell, Ah’ve brought the whip of Mr. Belmont, who Ah met in the Everfree Forest just the other day!”
Cheerilee groaned when Apple Bloom started talking about simian, undead monsters. Why couldn’t she ever have a normal show and tell anymore?
Disguised as the blackboard, Discord had to fight the urge to sneeze.
o.0.o The End o.0.o
Author's Note
Sometimes I don’t feel like writing much in any of my settings, so I go and throw in little, nonsensical things out to get my writing fluids warmed up. This was one such thing. I just wanted to breach those walls of creativity so I could write more. Hope you found it amusing!
I regret nothing.
