Rain attacked the city streets of Manehattan like knives falling against the chests of a bitter rival, mist and it's watery smell occupying the streets in clouds persistent not unlike those of hatred hanging heavy in the air. These rains had lasted for days now, though when somepony truly thought about it the rains had lasted forever, constantly falling in such a way that their floods were not allowed to mold or fester to staleness.
Even more disassociating was the thunder and lightning, it had not yet come this night but in such conditions its arrival was inevitable. Electric currents surged through the humidity, trumpeters of dismay signalling the soon arrival of conflict's king.
Waiting to be swept into the torrents of this deluge were two ponies, both previously unassociated yet finding themselves within the same bar.
"Hello! I don't believe we've met?" A blue earth pony mare introduced herself to a white unicorn stallion. The static signalers of apocalypse blared their horns now, the air had adjusted and the splitting of the skies was imminent.
"Hm?" He looked up from his drink, his round rimmed glasses reflecting her face as their eyes met, "Of course, sorry, I'm Pen, Paper Pen, and you are?"
"Lilac Limerick!" The mare replied cheerily, "With a name like 'Pen' I assume you write?" Of course she knew he wrote, his inkwell cutie mark gave that much away.
"Yup!" Pen proudly replied, "Why do you ask?"
"I just moved to the city and I figured it would be nice to meet somepony who shares my art." Lilac simply explained, a smile coming to her face, "You seemed the type."
"I guess a bar is a good place to find writers." Pen joked, she gave a laugh in turn. Both knew exactly what the other was doing.
"So, tell me a little about yourself!" Lilac requested, knowing well how much he as a writer would love to fill the air between them with self-praise and stories of his genius.
"Well, I'm a bit of a new face in the short story scene here in Manehattan, I've even had some of my works put into a local 'zine or two." Pen used slang to make himself look cooler, he'd never normally call a magazine a 'zine', it didn't have logical enough a pronunciation and he had always hated that, "I mostly do horror and more abstract things, y'know, real game changing stuff. I'm working on a novel too, but that's under wraps for the time being, wouldn't wanna spoil it."
"How interesting!" Lilac humored him. It disgusted her slightly how he'd called his own works 'real game changing stuff' but still, he was cute in that way nerds were, not nerds at large but those rare few rejects who were too cute to not have something wrong with them. That was what she was after, the mystery.
"And who might you be,-" Pen debated his words, he could call her by her name like a normal pony, or he could be more direct and dare refer to her as 'beautiful', the only issue now was that this pause had gone on long enough and he looked like he was hesitating. What would she think if he called her beautiful after hesitating? If he called her by her name would she think he'd already forgotten it? On that note, what was her name again? "-miss?" Pen finally blurted something out.
And Lilac had found what she was looking for, she had found what was wrong with him. It was minor, she supposed, he had seemed a tad shy at first and this cemented that theory. She could work with the shy awkward type, that was cute too in it's own way, nervous prey always tasted the best.
"I'm a poet!" She simply informed.
"Oh." He said in a bored tone, looking back to his drink. All interest he'd had bled from his expression.
"I'm sorry? What do you mean by that?" She asked, still at this point more confused than offended.
"I'm just not much for poetry, personally, I thought when you said you were a writer you meant like-" Pen struggled to find the words to express what he actually meant, "I don't know, an actual-writer writer I guess?" Pen immediately realized how what he had said sounded, though the damage had already been done before he could even clarify what he meant.
This was it, this was the rod and the catalyst that joined to attract thunder and lighting to their location. A large booming sound crossed the air as the sky cracked outside above them, a crack forming the gates of heavens from whence a deity of hate and warfare emerged.
"What the buck is that supposed to mean?!" Lilac shouted at Pen.
He was willing to admit that he was absolutely in the wrong, no question about it, but admitting that to somepony who just shouted at him? Absolutely provided he was sober, he was a pushover then, but a buzz was just starting to creep into his system and apologies were the last thing on his mind.
"I said you're not an actual writer, poetry is easy, poets aren't real writers!" Pen doubled, no, tripled down on his earlier comment, or at least what she had thought it to mean.
"So just because I don't go on for chapter-after-chapter about how 'mommy never loved me' or some wannabe yak-crap, I'm not a real writer?", Lilac attacked "I can fit into ten lines what takes you a whole novel!"
"And that you do! Oh, how I wish I could write two bucking paragraphs and be done," Pen retorted, rolling his eyes, "Your life must be so hard!"
"Hah, as if the likes of you could ever dream to have what poetry takes!" Lilac laughed rudely in his face.
"What, ten minutes and a thesaurus?" Pen parried, "With how easy it must be I'm surprised poets don't just churn out a new 'masterpiece' every minute, granted, if I had to look at that much garbage I'd be sick my stomach!"
"My art takes time and effort, sorry but I don't think you can count getting drunk in a dive like this as working on your trashy novel that'll never come out!" Lilac thrust her literary sword into Pen's metaphorical chest.
Finally the bartender grabbed Lilac by one of her front legs and began to movetowards the door.
"Alright lady, you gotta leave!" The bartender commanded, pushing her through the door and onto the streets of Manehattan, "Ya' can't go home but ya' sure as Celestia ain't stayin' here!" He wasn't afraid of a fight breaking out, buck, depending on how bad it was he might even get a detective in and they tended to drink whiskey like water, it was only the jab at his bar he took offense to. Really, he should have kicked Pen out too but that was like throwing a rich pony out of a jewellry story.
"You'll get what you deserve!" Lilac shouted into the bar as she left.
"Hey, you're the one who walked up to me, that was your mistake!" Pen replied.
A week had passed since the incident, though Pen had not forgotten about the altercation. He had, in his mind, replayed and improved the scene no less than a hundred times with each iteration adding its own better reaction and grander conclusion.
He was walking back to his apartment, or being carried back to his apartment rather, by Rock Note, his best friend. It was yet another night of research for Pen, he had been writing and somehow forgotten what it felt like to be drunk which, of course, was a crucial emotion to express in his writing. Naturally, the only solution for this was to go out and get smashed.
Fear set in as Pen got to his floor, immediately he could see something sticking out of his door. He let go of Note now and advanced towards his apartment, slowly he came to recognise the shape and a sobering dread began to set in. It was a dagger, and held in the door with it's blade was a piece of paper. Slowly and with caution Pen took it in his hooves to read.
'One pen, one flower
You run dry, ink discarded
Write your death poem.'
"Buck!" Pen loudly exclaimed, he threw the poem to the ground as if he'd just found out it was laced with a nerve agent, which considering how he'd offended that poet he didn't want to chance, "Note, buck, Note, I'm dead, it's that poet I told you about, I'm dead!"
"What the buck are ya' on about?" Note came to his friend, confusion on his face.
"This!" Pen showed him the poem. Note squinted his eyes and took a solid thirty seconds to read it, even having to say the words aloud as he read them. Reading was not Note's strong suit.
"So? I mean it's illegible, maybe they're asking you for advice?"
"This is a threatening haiku, Note, that's an act of war," Pen frantically panicked, grabbing his friend, "Note, dude, Note, I need your lighter!"
"What? Why do you need a lighter?" Note asked concerned.
"I need to burn this place down, nopony can know I ever lived here!"
"Pen, dude, calm down, there's better ways to react to this!" Note shook his friend, "Besides, this is a complex… starting a fire would kill a lot of ponies."
"Buck, you're right!" Pen revised his plan in his head, he grabbed the dagger from the door and held the hilt out to his friend, "Stab me in the leg and leave the knife on the counter, by the time the cops call it a tragic accident I'll already be in Saddle Arabia!"
"Pen, that's not what I meant-"
"You sure? I mean I think it's a pretty solid plan but I can totally think of another way to fake my death."
"No, I mean dealing with this like a normal pony and doing the same thing to her!" Note explained, "Now come on, let's go inside and plan how we're gonna buck this crazy poet's life up!"
"Okay, alright…" Pen finally started to calm down and smiled at his friend, "Yeah, that'll help, thanks man!"
The pair began to walk into Pen's place when suddenly screaming comparable to that of an enraged yakkish warrior erupted from behind Pen's couch, with it came Lilac charging at Pen holding a concrete bust of T. S. Ecretariet in her hooves. Pen dodged out of the way, just in time to cause the mare to send the stone idol into the wall instead, still again she reared, aiming back towards Pen. A thought crossed his mind, he was still holding the dagger.
"This ends tonight!" Pen yelled, holding the dagger in front of him and pointing it towards her.
"And that it does!" She replied, clutching the stone bust.
It had all come to this, the final showdown, they had gravely injured one another's ego and they knew their opposite to have to pay the price. They had made a silent ultimatum and were prepared to die for the honor of their arts.
Wait, prepared to die? Pen didn't want to die over this, this was stupid!
"This, uh, this is a bit much now that I think about it…" Lilac spoke as she lowered her weapon, having the same thought.
"Yeah, this escalated way too quickly, I have no idea how it got this bad." Pen dropped the dagger and shrugged.
"Seriously, complete over reaction, I apologize."
"Same, my bad, I should have never reacted the way I did," Pen apologized, "I meant to say I thought you were an author at first, I didn't mean to say you're not an actual writer, that's not at all what I meant and why I just went with it is… it's beyond me."
"Y'know what, I'm sorry about the stuff I said too, it was just in the moment and…" Lilac gave an exasperated sigh, "I wasn't thinking straight, I was angry."
"I mean I was drunk, I wasn't acting right either." Pen offered his defense, "So like, we're cool now?"
"Absolutely, complete misunderstanding, sorry for all the trouble," Lilac said, shaking her head and leaving but not shutting the door, "Hey if you're free sometime maybe could grab a-" She began to ask something before Pen slammed the door with his horn's magic.
