Prologue: Enter, Pinned By A Unicorn
"Ah, what a fine day to be meditating on nothing in particular."
Masterweaver, Teller of Tales, Bard of Awesomeness--Weaver to his friends--nodded to himself as he meandered through his convoluted mindscape. Half crafted dreams and abandoned projects littered the fragmented and scattered chunks of a universe, housing a number of odd creatures, races, and individuals. Admittedly this was one of the less maintained regions of Weaver's domain--seventeen pairs of eyes and eighty three eyes not strictly paired together glowered at the black leather robe as he trotted by innocently, their owners grumbling about the poor conditions of what had once been a promising home. But most of the inhabitants whispered to each other gleefully--he was here! Himself! Not one of his proxies but him! Maybe he could take one of them and give them a new home!
Weaver glanced around and sighed. As much as the moon-sized ego he bore would try to deny it, he was only one intelligence. All these ideas were incredible, but he could never do them all justice. In the past some had stalked him out and demanded attention, while others he had focused on with the intent of improving their homes; but both of these, though successful, was becoming increasingly rare. Had he grown stagnant? Had the great clikity clack of his modern quill burned away at his creative spirit to the point where he could no longer endure seeing letter after letter mystically appear on a glowing screen?
This self reflection would probably have gone on for at least half an hour had he not suddenly been pinned to the ground by a purple blur. "YOOOOOOOOOU!"
"Grshmumglur?!"
Masterweaver's vision focused on his attacker, observing the spiraling horn peeking through the dark blue bangs and the quadrupedal stance. His thoughts first leapt to the prime character of a television show but... no, there were differences in the portrayal. The ears had shaded caverns, and their base was a small muscle that flared out instead of a long line. The muzzle was still a soft line, but instead of ending in a point it curved into a squarish protrusion. And the eyes, oh, the eyes did not have the soul-sparkle things of white over large colored irises and pool-of-black pupils. No, they were simply circles of white with beady black pair of dots peering down.
The maniacal expression and lack of wings were also pretty big tipoffs that this wasn't the canonical Twilight Sparkle.
"HOW DARE YOU! HOW DARE YOU EVEN JUST GET ME IN HERE AND THEN DO NOTHING!"
Masterweaver would have blinked if he had had eyes, or eyelids, or anything resembling a face. Instead, he merely arched his hood up. "...Oh, you're the Shipfic Twilight, aren't you?"
"Well at least SOMEBODY here recognizes me!" The unicorn flipped her mane, glowering at the surrounding denizens. "These plebeian street fools think I'm just another delusional shuckoff of the prime Twilight. None of them even listen to my amazing romantic advice!"
The black leather robe considered pointing out that she was, in fact, a shuckoff copy of the original Twilight Sparkle, but glanced down at the heavy purple hooves on his flat chest and decided against it. "That sounds irritating."
"Oh you have no idea! To have your talent constantly dismissed by uneducated and undefined entities just because 'I don't think of her like that' or 'he's my brother you pervert' or 'I'm already married thank you' it's just so.... URRRRAAAAGH!" She stamped a hoof. "I don't even get to have the satisfaction of writing my own normal fics because YOU! Won't play my game!"
"...Yeah, see, I don't actually have many people who would be willing to play the game around," Weaver explained apologetically. "So, hmm. That's what happened."
"Why would you even buy a game that you don't play?!"
"Lots of people do that!"
Twilight held up a hoof, paused, and sighed. "You've got a point..."
"Yes I do. Now get off."
"NO!" Twilight glared at him disdainfully. "I will NOT! Not let you go until you absolutely promise, completely one hundred percent, that you will use my cards before the month is out! I am SICK and TIRED of being locked up with these inane half-formed whatchamacallits of indeterminate genre! I want to show the world my wonderful and amazing skills! And YOU, unfortunately enough, are the only way to do that!"
"What do you want me to do, set out some cards and make some fics based off what I get?"
Twilight growled.... then paused. Her eyes narrowed, each ear flicking to its own metronome as she considered what Masterweaver had said. A slow, maniacal grin grew on her muzzle. "You know what? That doesn't sound half bad."
"...You can't be serious."
"Oh, can't I?" She leaned down to the empty hood. "You write stories based off my deck," she whispered gently, "and I might, maybe, decide against setting this whole area of your mind on fire."
"You wouldn't."
Twilight leaned back, her smile still wide and toothy. "Ahem. Shipfic Twilight here. Not Love and Tolerate, but Get Everyone To Kiss Or Else. Now, do we have a deal?"
Masterweaver sighed. "You know what? Fine. Fine, let's see how far down this rabbit hole goes."
The unicorn stepped of the leather robe and conjured up a typewriter. "I assume you have some sort of plan for how you're going to do this, aside from 'Draw a card and see what happens'."
"Yeah." The robe pushed himself off the ground. "I'll just put how I'm doing this in the author's note."
Twilight gave him a look. "I thought the moderators didn't like it when characters broke the fourth wall."
"This is the prologue, they won't mind." Masterweaver waved her off. "Now then, how shall I start...?"
