Murderer

by The Seer

Rating: teen
Tags: Twilight Sparkle, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Drama, Horror
Length: 2257

What does someone like Twilight Sparkle do when they need an editor for their writing? They turn to magic instead.

What does someone like Twilight Sparkle do when they need an editor for their writing?

Simple, they turn to magic instead.

A metafictional horror

Runner up in the Dreams contest for the Quills and Sofas Speedwriting Group.
This was originally written in an hour. This version has received some slight refinement. A big thanks to all who preread in the contest.
CW: Description of a suicide, depiction of a murder

Published 2020-03-29 19:30:01 UTC
Last updated 2020-03-29 19:30:01 UTC

Why are you writing this? Why are you reading this?

Author's Note

it's not my fault.

Why are you writing this? Why are you reading this?

“No Way Home?” Rarity read again after a second protracted silence. Twilight kept her eyes level, and tried to cover the way she was chewing her lip. Rarity put the manuscript down and flicked through the pages a bit more, as if doing that at this point would actually help.

“It’s… hmm. So it’s called-”

“It’s terrible!” Twilight moaned, slamming her head down on the table.

“Twilight! It’s not… I mean with a bit of editing…”

“Rarity, I know good books, okay? I’ve read a minimum of three a week since I was ten. Actually, you know what, a better way to phrase it would be that I know bad books, and this is one of them.”

“Well, if you love reading so much Twilight, why do you need to write?” Rarity began gently, effortlessly brushing off the horrified gawk Twilight gave her. “No hear me out. I know this didn’t pan out the way you wanted it to darling, but does it need to? You tried, that’s the important thing!”

“But… I’ve wanted to tell this story since I was young Rarity. Everyone has a good story in them! You know how you express yourself through dresses? Imagine there was a dress you wanted to make more than anything but you just couldn’t. That’s how I feel with this. The story’s good! I know that, but my writing…”

“Hmm,” Rarity gave a grunt of agreement, staring down at the manuscript concernedly.

Her writing indeed. Twilight had rushed the first few chapters out in a flurry of mad inspiration. Then, when she returned a couple of days later, she’d found a half-baked mess of poorly realised dialogue, purple prose and every literary cliche imaginable.

“Why is this so hard?” Twilight muttered into the table cloth.

“Well, maybe this is a bit obvious darling but, have you thought of getting an editor?”

“And why can’t you just do what everyone else does Twilight?” Spike called out flippantly.

“Because!” Twilight snapped in response. She had initially given him some spiel about how she wanted to go down this avenue to keep the speed up. How she couldn’t deal with the long waits of writing a first draft and then sending it off, followed by the editor reading it and making their notes. Then there was the sending back to consider.

Spike hadn’t believed it for one second, and he was right. The truth was, Twilight found the idea of someone else, a literary professional no less, reading a first draft of her awful writing too utterly embarrassing to countenance.

She needed another route, and that route had come in the form of a passage from one of her spellbooks. The charm promised to edit your writing as you went along, even propose notes and changes to the plot! All it needed was a short synopsis, which Twilight was writing out as they spoke.

“Twi’, just don’t get too hung up on this, yeah?” Spike said, making her jump with how suddenly he’d come up behind her, “I mean, as long as you enjoy the piece, that’s all that matters, right?”

“Sure Spike,” she replied with a smile, which immediately became a sardonic eyeroll the moment he turned around.

“Hmph, I’m sure that’s what all the best authors think,” she muttered darkly.

Finally, with her summary done, Twilight took one look over her first draft and cringed. Before casting the charm, she applied an exponentiating factor to strengthen it significantly. Something like this was going to need a powerful editor indeed.

“Wow Twilight!” Rarity exclaimed, “That was some editor you found!”

“Do you like it?” Twilight trilled, and found herself flushed with glee when Rarity nodded.

“It’s… uhm… quite a bit darker than I expected,” Rarity offered, making Twilight cock an eyebrow.

“How do you mean?”

“Well, the first draft seemed like a fairly standard drama but now? A murder to start the whole thing off?”

“Well, the editor has been really helpful. The original idea was… well, have you ever read The Odyssey?”

“Heard of but never had the pleasure,” Rarity replied after a sip of tea.

“So, it’s about how this pony on a journey home, and it takes him years, right? But it’s got these themes of how you can never go home, not really. Because just by taking the journey, you’re different now to how you were then.” Twilight began, feeling more confident talking about established literature over her fledgling attempt, “I wanted to explore that. And my editor suggested that starting it off with our main character murdering someone and going on the run adds a drama that just going off on a long journey wouldn’t have had.”

“Well, I’m no expert anyway. Keep it up, I suppose! I can’t wait to read more! Just make sure you’re not putting your character through too much,” Rarity giggled.

But Twilight just kept thinking.

Twilight looked over the pages, and as she came to the end of the most recent chapter, she checked back on her summary page. It looked like it was dying, like the spell was sucking the life out of the ink and parchment.

Maybe it was? Maybe this was what sustained the spell? The strangest thing was, though the story was being tweaked and changed, she didn’t really care that much now. Not when what she had was so much better.

Maybe it didn’t feed off the parchment, maybe it fed off her ideas. And with each correction, each note, her original idea became a bit weaker.

Sunbleach stared at the newspaper, numbly taking in the story. In his mind he could see her, his wife. He could hear the faint whistle of the wind as she fell from the bridge into frigid waters below. He wondered why she’d done it. Did she disbelieve his promise that he’d be back home one day?

Maybe she jumped because she believed him too much.

He thought of his brother in the adjoining room. The one pony who’d stuck by him, his only constant. Sunbleach wondered what he’d say if he knew the truth. About all the ponies he’d killed, all the hurt he’d caused. He only knew one thing though, if anything happened to his brother, he’d be joining his wife in her new home. The only home he had left.

Twilight shuddered reading the chapter’s cliffhanger again.

This was nothing like what she’d planned. It was better, so much better. More than that, though, it was beautiful. It was a story co-written by magic, a melding of art and science and mind, all working in conjunction to be something greater than their sum.

Twilight had since gone back to study the original spell more. While it could propose notes, it wouldn’t have been able to do anything like this. It must have been her exponentiating factor. She’d made it so much stronger.

What more could it do? How much better could they get?

Twilight took a new page out and wrote out a new summary, taking into account all the changes that the spell had made. At the top, she wrote the one sole constant, ‘No Way Home’.

Twilight cast the spell again, this time applying another exponentiating factor on top. At once her quill stood and began writing frantically. Twilight wondered for a second whether it was even using her now, but she could feel it at the edges of her mind. She could see what it wrote, all prose turned to imagery, wicked and dark and aching in her head.

And it was like nothing she’d experienced before, everything was so vivid. These didn’t seem like characters anymore, they were alive, the pages were alive. The magic was so sophisticated, it knew exactly where to take the story.

It knew exactly how a real pony would react, how they would navigate their world. It steered them into madness and pain only when the prose called for it. It ramped up the drama, sharpened the highs and drew out the crushing lows. She almost felt sorry for her main character, but it was so hard to.

Because this was a masterpiece.

And as the quill kept writing, and the story continued, Twilight purred.

Twilight was alone in her study. It was dark now.

Then she got up from her desk, and it was strange. Because she hadn’t wanted to.

Neither had she wanted to turn and walk to the stairs, but she did it anyway. She did it regardless of how much she wanted to go back to her chair. She couldn’t move of her own volition, something was doing it for her. She couldn’t scream.

Oh, but she could panic.

She could hyperventilate and let her eyes flick around, whatever was controlling her hadn’t won that from her quite yet.

She eventually found herself in her room. Her bed wasn’t vacant. There was a pony there she didn’t recognise. In the low light of the moon, she couldn’t make out much about them. But they snored gently, and against her will Twilight crept right up to the sleeping pony.

Then, as she continued to panic and try to fight, Twilight took a pillow and pressed it over their face. Only then did tears start to pool in her eyes. But they didn’t blur her vision, she still saw everything.

Her victim woke quickly and started to fight, but Twilight pushed down with her magic and it was strong. She didn’t stop pushing either, right until their thrashing started to gently stop. She couldn’t stop after they’d gone still.

Finally, her eyes rolled into the back of her head, and Twilight found herself transported again. This time she looked down and saw she was standing over a small version of herself. The whole of her bedroom was in miniature, and she recognised with horror what her lit horn was doing.

It was her, she was forcing the smaller version of herself to smother than defenseless pony. To push as hard as she could, to choke the breath from them.

And the funny thing was even now, one level above, she couldn’t stop herself from doing what she was doing either.

“Hey!” Spike yelled, and in an instant Twilight was awake in a mesh of sweat-soaked sheets. She looked around desperately, before the intoxicating feeling of such visceral relief began to wash over her.

It’s okay, you didn’t kill anyone, it was just a dream, just a nightmare.

“Twilight you need to be careful with your spells!” Spike growled, “Whatever set-up you have downstairs just caught fire!”

“What?” Twilight asked, incredulous. She rose immediately and rushed downstairs, only hearing half of whatever sarcastic comment Spike made. When she got to her desk, the quill was indeed a charred ruin of its former glory. The paper was thankfully untouched by the blaze, however she could see that the writing had gotten increasingly harsh and jagged.

“Must have burned itself out,” Twilight mused, convinced that the spell had simply gotten so complex that the framework could no longer cope. She shrugged and picked up the story, eager to read how sophisticated the writing had become before the spell collapsed.

Sunbleach removed the pillow and looked at his brother’s lifeless body. He’d pushed so hard, his brother had thrashed so much. But he’d had to do it! He was going to go to the police. He couldn’t let that happen. Sunbleach needed to go home… he n e e d e d

t o

g O

h o M.. e

“I couldn’t stop myself, you know I couldn’t. Does it give you pleasure, to see this all happen to me? To give me back some control after I do these things?” Sunbleach said to you, “He was the only thing I had left. Why did you make me do this? Was it entertainment? Is that all I am to you? Is that all my life means? Cheap drama and misery for you to gawk at? An empty shell to project your little ideas onto? I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. I hate yo-

Twilight stared at the pages in horror, dropping them to her desk with shaky hooves. She knew it was just a story but… it was just a story? Wasn’t it? Surely the magic couldn’t have…

But the characters.

They’d felt so real.

She stumbled away from the desk, unable to look at the manuscript anymore. The memory of her dream crystalised. She got to the bathroom and suddenly vomited in the toilet. And then, when she was done, she pulled herself up with shaking hooves and stared deeply into the mirror, thinking endlessly of the pain and misery in those words. Thinking of ramping the strength of her spell further and further. Thinking of her hooves pushing a pillow into a pony’s face.

And, as this story reaches its end, it seemed like Twilight’s gaze in the mirror switched from a despaired mix of guilt and self-hatred. It didn’t even seem to be directed at her reflection anymore. Instead, it moved its focus, to something outside of herself entirely.