Existences (Cancelled)by AthanixChaptersChapter 2: Right from the bookChapter 3: No clueChapter 1: Another dreamChapter 2: Right from the bookChapter 2: Right from the book "Would that be all sir?" I said trying hard to mask my irritation. I have been trying to take the order of this guy forever. He just couldn't make up his mind. Every time I told him I could just come back later he told me to stay because he had almost made up his mind. "Don't worry dood. I can handle this." Isaac whispered to me as he passed by. With one hand holding a tray of food he pulled out a small menu and pointed towards the bottom of the paper. "May I suggest the Rigatoni del Pastore? I think you would enjoy the spices and white wine we use in it." The man just nodded in approval and ordered the rigatoni. "What kind of drink would you like?" "Uhm... How about... No..." 'Ah crap...' "I'll just put you down for a water, okay?" I said as I wrote down the order and started walking towards the doors to the kitchen. As I walked through the doors and placed my notepad down Katherine walked up to me and laughed a bit to herself. "I saw that you were stuck there for ages so I sent Sticks over to help you out. What did the guy want?" She asked me. "He wants Rigatoni del Pastore." I said pointing to my nearly eligible handwriting. "Dam it Aaron. If you didn't tell me what that order was then I would of made this guy a pizza. Just look at that!" I could feel my face lit up as I looked down at my notepad. My penmanship was never the best, especially if I was rushing. To any untrained eye my notepad would look like I was one of the only people on earth who has remembered such an ancient writing style. "Whatever, just cook the dang Rigatoni Kathrine..." I grumbled. Kathrine just looked at me and smiled as she walked back into the kitchen to start on the meal. Just then Isaac came bursting through the doors. He had a bead of sweat rolling of his face as he spoke. The poor guy sounded like he was about to pass out. "Aaron..! Come quickly, your table just got some new costumers." "Don't tell me its that table..." "Same one dood!" Isaac said with a snicker. "Craaap... someone bu-" My sentence was cut short as I felt a tap on my shoulder. "Here you go Aaron, Rigatoni del Pastore! Now take it out there and make it quick before you do anything stupid." Kathrine said with a wink. I froze, I didn't know what to make of the gesture. Its been a while... Isaac just sighed as he pushed me out the kitchen doors. "Let's go Romeo!" I sighed to myself as I made my way over to the table. 'This is going to be a long day...' ~~~~~ "Wow Athanix, that took forever! But hey, your book is now out for all the ponies to enjoy." I looked over to my friend who was walking down with me through the streets of Canterlot. "Yeah. They might of accepted it right away, but actually publishing that book took forever..." I said. Truth be told I had pitched my idea to one of the major publishers in Canterlot and it only took them seconds to accept. I was actually quite flattered. I expected my pitch to be rejected just like a lot of my books I have pitched before... "I think I just got lucky Parsley." "Nonsense Athanix! That story was good." He said putting a hoof on my shoulder. "That's just it Parsley. It's just good. Even if they like it, what will other critics think? They will rip my story to shreds, I know I left some details. Maybe my story isn't structured right, the characters might be a little underdeveloped." I cringed at the thought. "How could I pitch this story to them! Oh God..." Parsley just gave me a quizzical look. "Who?" I snapped back as I realized who I was talking to. 'Oh yeah. I haven't told anyone yet...' "Nothing, I think I'm just a little burnt out. I spent all night looking over that work." I felt Parsley take his hoof off my shoulder as he punched me hard in my side. "Your thinking too hard again. Let's just go grab a bite to eat." He said as a smile creeped onto his face. "Race you." I frowned as I heard this. "Oh come on Parsley you know I-" "Coffee shop on the corner as usual?" "Parsley..." "You chicken?" He said giving me a competitive stare. Parsley was a normally a level headed pony, but his competitive side shoved that personality off the seat and took its place most of the time. I just facehooved, he would never let it go if I said no again. "Ugh, okay I'll race you. Countdown please?" "Three." He said, his eyes firmly locked onto the coffee shop just down the street. "Two." I said as I heard the soft shimmer of magic being conjured. I didn't even hear him say 'one' before there was a bright flash of light. In the blink of an eye Parsley was all the way over on the other side of the street, opening the front door to the cafe. "One!" He shouted before he walked into the shop. I just sighed as I stretched my wings as I flew over towards the coffee shop. I landed in front of the door and used my hoof to push it open and felt the warm air rush past me as I walked through the door. I was greeted by a rich deep voice coming from inside. "Hey Athanix! Close that door faster! It takes a lot of bits to heat this place up!" The clerk shouted from behind the counter. I just smiled as I closed the door behind me and walked towards the counter. "Hey Maple Leaf, same as usual." The earth pony just smiled as he pulled out a mug and poured some coffee into it. "Honestly Athanix, I don't know how you can drink decaf with all the work you do. I really think you would benefit from drinking some real coffee." Parsley came up holding the most absurd looking latte in the world. The thing looked like it had more whip and cocoa powder than it had actual coffee. "Nah Athanix doesn't have the stomach for the stuff. He couldn't drink it even if he wanted to." "Don't think I don't know what your doing Parsley..." I said with a bit of edge. He just laughed to himself as he handed Maple some bits for the coffee. "Don't worry bro. I have some bits." I looked at the bits set on the table. "Parsley, this is not even enough to pay for your own coffee! Let alone mine!" "I didn't say have enough bits to pay for both of us! I said I had some bits!" He said with a dangerous smile on his face. "Someone get me away from him before I kill this unicorn." I said glaring at Parsley. He just shrugged the gesture aside as if it was nothing. "You don't have the guts Athanix." He said as he glared back at me. "Hey Athanix." I turned to face Maple. He was holding a piping hot mug of freshly made coffee. "This ones on the house." He said with a equally mischievous on his face. Parleys dark green coat suddenly paled. "You wouldn't..." "At least no one will see you in your new camo." I said. ~~~~~ "Alright see you later Athanix! I need to get this coffee off of me. I also need to get ready for work tomorrow, those dishes aren't going to cook themselves." He said. I extended my wings and took to the sky. Stopping in mid air I turned to Parsley. "Alright Parsley, try not to get lost! We might not be able to find you again!" I said with a laugh. "I'm not the one who should be worried about getting lost Athanix! If I could grow a pair of wings right now I would come up there and knock some sense into you!" He said shaking his hoof menacingly at me. "As if Parsley! Okay then see you later!" I took off through the sky and towards my home. I always flew low near the ground because up in the sky my glasses could be blown off my face. Then Celestia help me I couldn't even read the watch on my wrist even if it was right in front of me. As I landed in my front yard and folded my wings against me, Rustic and Hope ran up to me and gave me a big hug. They hung on my neck as they tried to bring me down to the ground. "Hey there's my boy! Just got your book mailed!" I strained myself to look up. Eventually I looked up towards the front door to see my mother and father standing in the doorway. My dad was basically beaming with pride as he held the hardcover book as if it was his newborn foal. "Looks like your gonna be a writer like your old man! Told you that his cutie mark was for writing." My dad said as he shot my mom a egotistical look. "You know he is a fine artist too! His cutie mark mark can still mean that he is an artist. A pencil giving off an orange and blue mark as well as the normal black is a sign of his artistic talents! My dad just snorted as he begun his side of the argument. "Show's what you know about literature! His cutie mark obviously shows that his work is unique and has its own style! It is deep and beautiful! He get's it from me." My mom just laughed a bit to herself. "For his sake I hope he didn't get it from you." I cleared my throat to gain their attention again. "Mom, Dad. You guys are great at what you both do. If it makes you feel better I think that my cutie mark resembles both art forms. I don't think my writing is the best, it can defiantly use some work. Some characters are underdeveloped in my story. My artwork isn't to great either, my understanding of artistical elements can use some work. They just both nodded and ushered me into my home. My siblings have finally decided that breaking my neck would be bad for my future so they hopped onto my back. "Come on AJ!" Hope said. "You're no fun!" "Yeah Athanix! Let's see how fast you can fly!" My mom just came up on picked up my little sister up off my back with her teeth as my father did the same with my brother. "Now you know there is no flying in the house. You remember the last time you flew inside?" My mom said eyeballing them both. My younger siblings basically shrunk back into the floor as they usually did when my mother spoke to them harshly. My dad just blinked in surprise. Whenever he tried, Hope and Silver just giggled as if it were some kind of joke. "Wow honey, you need to teach me how to do that." "As if Athanix, the kids aren't afraid of you." She said as she turned to face me. "Except AJ, he gets the chills every time I tell him that you need him for something." "Oh is that so?" My dad said looking over at me with a smile on his face. I just facehooved. "Not when your like this dad. You're not fooling anyone." I said as I headed up the stairs to my room. But halfway up the stairs I realized what I just said. I looked back to see my dad just nodding in approval "I see that your tired! You are speaking like the humans my boy. Are you starving yourself or something?" My dad said to me. "Aren't you going to eat?" "I hung out with Parsley again and we ate. I'm not to hungry. Just a little tired that's all." My father was about to say something if my mother didn't jab her hoof into her sides. "No that is fine Athanix. If your feeling tired just go up and sleep." I just nodded as I head of to my room. With the laughter of my siblings and the bickering my parents coming from below I slowly closed the door to my room and crawled into bed. I lay face first in my pillow and let my wings stretch and spread out before slipping into a deep sleep... ~~~~~ The cool winter winds made there way down the path as Twilight walked through the streets of Ponyville. She was on her way to the Carousel Boutique with an important delivery for Rarity. She has been waiting for it for quite some time now. Coming up to the Boutique Twilight knocked lightly on the door. "Rarity? It's Twilight, are you home right now?" There was a slight commotion coming from inside the shop as unicorn finally answered the door. Her hair was a little frayed at the edges and a slightly tired look was on her face. "Twilight! This is really a bad time, I am very busy at the moment. What is that you need?" Rarity said. "Well I just wanted to-" "Come in Twilight! I need to get back to work soon. I don't want to work late again this time." Rarity said looking back into the boutique. "Well if you would let me finish..." Twilight just said flatly. "The books you wanted just came in I have them here in my saddlebag." Rarity's look just snapped back into its normal well kept self as she dived into Twilight's saddlebag almost toppling them both over. "Oh my! When did you get these?" She said pulling out the books with a hoof and then hugging them tightly. "They just came in this morning." Twilight said. "And you didn't come in sooner? Twilight dear, it is past noon already! Where are those glasses! I just set them down here only a moment ago!" Rarity said running back into her home turning everything upside down. She was looking under fabric and pulling out drawers looking for her glasses. "Twilight, would you be a dear and help me look for my glasses?" "Sure thing Rarity. I know exactly how to find your glasses." Twilight said taking care to step over toppled manikins. Rarity's eyes lit up as she ran over to Twilight. "You do! You have to tell me!" She said shaking Twilight's face with both her hoofs. Twilight just forced herself out of Rarity's grip as she stepped back and shook her head to re-orientate herself. "Well you can use a teleportation spell that I use with lost books. All you have to do is think about the book, or you glasses, visualize it, and use a teleportation spell to teleport it to you." Without hesitation Rarity's horn lit up with magic and a pair of red glasses appeared in front of her with a small flash of light and an audible pop. "Thank you Twilight! I don't know how I was going to read without these!" She said as she adjusted them on her face. "If you will excuse me though I need to finish read- I mean working!" Rarity said and she slowly pushed Twilight outside. "I'm terribly sorry but I am very busy right now!" "No need to worry Rarity I'm sure you-" The door was already closed. With a sigh and a laugh Twilight turned back down the streets of Ponyville back to her tree house. ~~~~~ "Oh my..." Rarity said closing the book with her magic. "Oh my... Oh my..." She looked looked at the closed book again, observing it carefully. This particular novel was the second book in a series that Rarity had recently discovered. She had been sitting downstairs since Twilight left just reading. The sun was about to set behind the horizon and beautiful reds and oranges lined every cloud in the sky. "I need to know what happens next..." She said to herself. "I didn't read all this time to just be left like this!" "Why would the author just leave me on such a cliffhanger! Surely there must be another book!" Although she wished it was true, she knew that the new addition had only been added today and the next book couldn't possibly out. She looked outside and again. "It's not that late. I'm sure he wouldn't mind some company." Rarity said as she started to conjure up magic. "Oh wait, I better tidy up first! Don't want to have guests over with such a messy home!" And with that she dispelled her magic and started to rearrange the mess in her home. "I will need some help doing this though..." Rarity said as she lifted her manikins up and set them into the corner of the room. She took a good look around as the boutique looked like it's normal self again. "I know just the pony to help me too!" She said as she walked out of the Carousel Boutique and started off towards the library. ~~~~~ "Dang Kathrine! If I knew we would be up so early just to go shopping then I would a brought my nikes!" Isaac said. "I don't know why we have to be up so early! Who in the right mind would have a department store open so early!?" Kathrine just sighed as she turned to Isaac. "We are up so early because we need to get Aaron his birthday gift! I want to surprise him! You still have the keys to his apartment Sticks?" "Yeah I do- Wait! I told you to stop calling me that dood!" "Ugh fine..." Kathrine said as she walked over to a striped hoodie. "Hows this Isaac?" Isaac just gave a satisfied smile as he walked over to examine the soft fabric that lined the inside of the sweater. "That's more like it Kathy." Kathrine just shot Isaac a dirty look. "I swear to God Isaac, if you call me that again and I will-" "No need Kathy, you won't hear it from me agAIIAAAAAHHH!! WHAT THE HELL?!" Isaac screamed out. "Girl you got some serious anger issues!" "It's a gift." She said. ~~~~~ I woke up to the sound of a noisy car alarm. Nothing I should be worried about anyway. I don't even own a car. Looking at the clock I say that it was about 4 a.m. 'Oops, I must of slept a little to early...' I though to myself. 'Note to self; Do not sleep early anymore. I tried to close my eyes and fall asleep, but I knew it was pointless. I have tried swapping back and forth when ever I pleased, but to no avail. I had to wait until I was really, really tired for me to switch over. As I stepped out of bed I heard the doorknob move. I froze as I wondered who might be outside. 'Couldn't be Kathrine, she doesn't even know where I live...' 'Couldn't be Isaac, he doesn't get up this early on Saturdays...' I grinned, Isaac was usually still up at this time, probably passed out at some party. The grin vanished from my face as I heard the deadbolt slowly slide open. I remembered one of my neighbors got robbed a couple nights ago. "Oh no you won't!" I said as I wildly kicked at the open door. My foot connected as the intruder his the ground writhing in pain. I Isaac almost blew my eardrums out with the volume he screamed at. "DANG IT AARON! WHAT THE HELL! THAT'S THE SECOND TIME!! IT'S NOT LIKE I WANTED TO START A FAMILY OR ANYTHING!" This was accompanied by Kathrine who laughed uncontrollably as she bent over to help Isaac up. "Oh my God! Told you! You gotta knock first geni-" She stopped mid sentence as I turned on the lights. She dropped a small box and when it hit the floor, out popped a black and white sweater. "Holy crap you guys! How did you know this is what I wanted for my birthday..!" I said as I looked at them. They just stood there, speechless. "Oh come on I know that you wanted this to be a surprise, but I still love it either way!" I said as I gave them both a big hug. "Hey, uh, dood?" "Yeah Isaac?" "Uh, don't know how to tell you this but-" "Isaac don't tell me that you stole this! We talked about this already!" "Aaron your glowing purple and white." Kathrine said. I opened my eyes and lone behold my arms were glowing a bright purple and white. I knew what was going on because I have seen it many times before. Before I could take my arms off my friends I felt myself being sucked out of my own body. I whizzed through a bright multicolor tunnel traveling at amazing speeds. "Aaron! What's going ooooooon...!" "AW YEAH! LETS GO FASTER!" The lights got brighter as I felt myself moving faster and faster. Suddenly though I just stopped as I fell face first onto a hard wooden floor. "Woo! Let's go aga-" Isaac stopped. It wasn't normal for Isaac to just stop in the middle of a sentence. Nothing surprises that guy. I looked up to see a unicorn sitting on her haunches taking in the scene while another purple unicorn was sleeping soundly in the corner of the room. Wait that must mean we are in... I looked over to my sides, only to find two ponies. To my right was a scrawny orange earth pony with a long light blue mane. His eyes the same color of orange to complement his coat. He was standing up on all fours and his mouth was agape. "Isaac...?" I said. I saw a small smile creep up onto his face and I swear I he looked like he was about to explode with pure joy. "Aaron. You are seeing this too right..? I am not dead... Right...?" "Of course your not dead Sticks." I looked over to my left to see a slender unicorn with a light green coat and a sleek black mane with a soft yellow highlight. She opened her eyes to reveal her dark green eyes. "But where are we?" I said. "Y-You..." Said a shaky voice. All of us turned to see a now trembling white unicorn. "Y-You're i-in P-P-Ponyville..." I heard an ear splitting squeal of glee coming from Isaac's direction. "Oh my Celestia! I knew it was true! My life is complete!" He burst out as he fainted. I looked over to my left. "I'm guessing that's you Kathrine?" "Yep you guessed right. Sticks looks like a total fanboy right now." She said with a small smirk on her face. "But what are you...?" The white unicorn said. I was puzzled at first, giving the unicorn a quizzical look. She just reached over and grabbed a hand mirror. I took it from her to examine myself. I saw a dark brown color and my trade mark pencil was etched into it. But it wasn't on my flanks or anything. I was just wearing my favorite sweater. I dropped the mirror causing it to shatter on the floor. "Oh my dear princesses, where have I landed myself this time..." ~~~~~ Author's Notes: Comments, suggestions and opinions are all welcome! I am waiting for some critique! I want to know what you guys think about this! It would mean a lot to me if you would just take your time to comment on the story! ~Athanix, Peace. Chapter 3: No clueChapter 3: I'm not even... I was still sitting there, my eyes were practically burning up with the amount of rubbing I had been doing. It was not that I was surprised to see this, in fact it was quite the opposite. "Hey Aaron, this is real you can stop trying to rub your eyes right out of your sockets." Slowly I took my hands off my eyes as I looked around the room. Everything was still there, the dresses the furniture, the ponies... "But this doesn't make any sense!" I screamed. I knew where I was, it made sense. But I'm not my pony self... I must of screamed loud enough to worry the neighbors because at this the purple unicorn sleeping on the couch jumped off the couch and onto the ground landing with a thud. I slapped my hand right over my mouth as I sat completely still. After shaking her head for a bit the mare took a good look around spotting Isaac and Kathrine before setting her gaze on me. I half expected a look of fear or disgust to streak across her face, but instead she slowly walked up to me standing just a couple feet from where I sat. She tilted her head to the side as if she needed to get a better angle to observer and asked me; "What are you?" I hesitated for a bit before I spoke. How was I going to explain this..? How was I going to tell them..? My mind was spinning with all the questions in my mind fighting to be heard. If I was lucky maybe I would have to say a thing and I could just move on. "Wait just a minute," Katherine said. "Before you start prying for information, mind telling us how we got here in the first place?" The unicorn was about to say something when Isaac bolted straight up to stand. "We could only be in Ponyville!" he said with a big smile. "And judging by the noise we made we should be expecting a pink mare in three... two... o-" Isaac was cut off as the front door swung open with such a force that I was surprised that it didn't fly off of its hinges. "Oh my gosh I knew I heard new voices coming from here!" Said the pink mare standing in front of us. I blinked once and she seemed to just appear in front of my face just inches away. I looked at Kathrine. She was just in as much shock as I was. For one thing Isaac had just managed to predict the future. On the other hand this particular mare seemed to posses the power of teleportation without the use of magic. "I predict a party in the near future," Isaac said. The pink mare went wide eyed. "Wow you can read minds too?! That's so cool!" Isaac just had a grin on his face that stretched ear to ear that perfectly matched the pink mare. Kathrine stood up on here hooves with a mean look on her face as she began to stare down every pony and person in the room. I could already tell that things are about to get real. "Can someone please just where we are and why am I a unicorn?" Isaac and the pink mare were already deep into an entirely different conversation completely ignoring Kathrine. I'm pretty sure I heard something about what color and shape of streamers complements the smells of vanilla icing. I turned my attention to the two unicorns that stood in front of us. It was quite obvious that the lavender one had a lot of questions, but with a sigh of defeat she spoke. "Right now you are in Equestria. To be more specific, you are in the Carousel Boutique in the small town of Ponyville." "Are you hearing this Aaron?" Kathrine said with a scowl on her face. "This sounds like something right from bedtime stories." "What ever do you mean by that dear?" the white unicorn said. "Well for one thing, you guys are all ponies with magical powered that live peacefully in a world of sunshine and happiness." Katherine looked over to me. "But what I don't understand is why we are all ponies too, and more importantly, why isn't Aaron here a pony like us?" "Hold on a second," The purple mare said. "What do you mean by 'Why are we all ponies'?" A look of slight confusion spread across her face. "Does that mean you weren't originally ponies?" "Well yeah, just a couple minutes ago we looked like that," Katherine said pointing a hoof at me. "Not quite as messy though." The mare didn't even seem like she was listening anymore she had turned to face the other unicorn in the room as she began to speak. "I knew this was a bad idea Rarity! I knew something bad was going to happen. I don't know why you couldn't just go and see the author for yourself." The white unicorn just stood there in shock for a bit before she retorted. "You wanted to meet him as much as I did Twilight, please, do not blame all of this on me." The purple mare just blushed the tiniest bit as she began to plan her next sentence. "Well look what we have now. Two new ponies and this odd creature." I frowned a bit. "Hey I'm still here you know." They just brushed off the comment as if it was nothing. "Well as long as these ponies and that thing are here in Ponyville they will need a place to sleep." "They can't sleep at the Boutique, I am simply to busy." "Rarity you're always busy with stuff! You should loosen up a bit and come to these ponies welcome party!" The pink mare said. "Well they can stay at the library until we can figure out what to do with them." The purple mare said. "Now that we have that figured out, allow me to introduce myself. My name is-" "Twilight Sparkle, Princess Celestia's star student." Isaac said with a big grin. Twilight looked at me with a mixture of shock and fear. "How did he..?" I just shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine." Twilight just shook the though from her mind as she continued. "These are my friends Rarity and Pinkie Pie. Rarity runs the boutique that you ponies are currently in and Pinkie Pie here works at the local bakery." Suddenly Pinkie appeared right in front of me and pushed her hoof up to my nose. "Your turn!" she said with a smile. "Well... My name is Aaron and these are my friends Kathrine and Sticks." Isaac gave me a dirty look as he stared at me. He opened his mouth to speak, but Kathrine cut him off. Good thing too, Isaac didn't look like he was about to say something quite appropriate for the situation. "Don't mind Sticks, he has quite the temper." She turned to face Isaac and puffed up his face with her hooves. "Don't you Sticks," She said with devious smile. Sticks just pushed her hooves away as he walked the two of them walked over to me. It was weird to see them as ponies. They now stood at half the height of their human personas. They barley resembled their old selves. All except for Isaac who was still as skinny as ever. Twilight just looked at us. "Well we better get to the library, it's getting dark outside. Good thing too, I don't want any of the ponies seeing you... Aaron was it? I just nodded in agreement. I was glad that no other ponies would see me. These three seemed to take it quite well, but with my knowledge of the small town and all the things that happened, I don't think the town took catastrophic events to well. As Twilight opened the door with her magic as we walked out into the cool summer breeze. "Don't forget to come to your welcome to Ponyville party tomorrow!" Pinkie said. "I'll be waiting!" We all turned to wave goodbye to the pink mare, each of us had a genuine smile on our faces. I don't know if it was the air or what but that mare just gave off that glow that just begged me to smile. I turned back to look at Ponyville. It was so peaceful at night, I had only visited the town once before, but that had been in the day time. I was overseeing the release of my book here in Ponyville. Now that I think of it, Rarity and Twilight looked a little familiar. "Were here," Twilight said opening the door the library with her magic. "Make yourselves at home and sorry for the mess. I didn't have the chance to clean up the place before I left." I looked around the tree house. As far as I could tell I could only see two books lying closed on the floor. Kathrine broke out into laughter. "HA! If you think this is bad then you should see Aaron's apartment! It looked like the entire room was attacked by a small tornado!" As Twilight closed the door and shelved the books she turned to look at us. "He lives in an apartment?" She obviously was intrigued. I chuckled under my breath. "Well working as a waiter won't exactly get me a home. The last thing I need to worry about is paying the bills for an entire home. Those bills on top of my school work would be way to much for me to handle." Twilight now had a quill and paper out in front of her, hovering in mid air with her magic. Quickly she wrote down a small note and turned to face us again. "Fascinating, You seem to come from a civilized society. You even have your own education system!" she blinked in surprise. "Not to mention you speak Equestrian." "I was thinking the same thing," Kathrine said. "I was wondering why all you ponies could speak English." "English?" "This is gonna be one looooong night dood..." ~~~~~ I was already explaining the history of our nation to Twilight. It was well past midnight and Sticks and Kathrine had already fallen asleep in sleeping bags that Twilight had given them. Twilight had a tall stack of paper sitting next to her as I told her about our nation. I was in the middle of telling her about the Articles of Confederation when she snapped her quill for the billionth time tonight. "Oh no... That was my last one..." I let out a deep sigh, thank God and the godesses. I was burnt out. "Well you better get some sleep Aaron. You'll need the energy for Pinkie party tomorrow." I smiled as she hovered a blanket and small pillow to me. "I hope you don't mind sleeping on the floor tonight. I don't exactly have any sleeping bags in your size..." I just smiled warmly. "It's no problem Twilight, you're already doing us a big favor just letting us stay here." With that she smiled back to me and wished me a good night as she blew out the candle on the table and made her way up to her bed. I placed the pillow on the ground and wrapped myself in the small blanket that she gave me. With the soft light emanating of the moon and the peaceful sounds of the night all around me, it didn't take too long until I slipped into a deep sleep... "Hey! Hey! Wake up sleepy head! AJ! Wake up!" Oh shi- ~~~~~ Authors Note: Sorry for the HUGE delay! I just had a serious case of the block recently, but I am proud to say that I am back to my old self again and I will be writing a lot more now! On a side note Sticks is a Closet Brony so that's why Aaron and Kathrine have no idea why he can predict these things. And Aaron is not my real name, I only self inserted my OC persona. Comments, suggestions, opinions and anything of that sort is all welcome! I am open to all of that and I take it all to heart! ~Athanix, Peace. Chapter 1: Another dreamChapter One: Another dream The bright sun that shone through the large window in my room illuminating the once dark space. It slowly crept up my soft bed and silky covers to awake me from my slumber, urging me to wake and begin the day. As it it rose higher into the sky it shone down into my room with more intensity trying desperately now to disturb my sleep, but to no avail. For my mind was else where. ~~~~~ "GOOOOOOD MORNING C-*Static*! AND WELCOME TO!-" Wham! Crack! The voice was abruptly cut off as I slammed my clenched hand against the old alarm clock. I heard the sound of brittle plastic cracking underneath my hands. I rolled over onto my side to take a good look at the cheap plastic clock. It had a slight crack on top of it which only seemed to widen with every blow it took from me every morning. "Ugh... What time is it..." I said with a less than enthusiastic voice. I didn't even bother opening my eyes. The clock just responded by turning the radio on once more. "We have some great tunes for you to listen to toda-" I slammed my fist onto the alarm clock again making sure to put in some extra force to silence the clock. Throughout the countless days I have woken up to the sound of the same DJ the little clock still remained functional even though any other clock may have been smashed into dust by my daily beating. That's why I stuck with this cheap thing. I have had it for a long time now and it hasn't done me wrong yet. "Besides wake me up half an hour early everyday..." I rolled out of my bed and onto the cold wood floor beneath me. Reluctantly I shuffled over to the bathroom door and began my morning rituals. I picked up a small plastic tooth brush and squeezed a pea sized amount of tooth paste from the aluminum tube onto my brush and methodically brushed my teeth. I rinsed my mouth after wards and stripped myself as I stepped into the shower. I pulled the hot water handle back all the way and waited for water to reach the shower head. But as usual the water didn't come even after a full minute. "Ah great..." I said to myself. Neighbors must be using all the hot water again. I swear if I have to wait another minute for the water to come I am going to shoot myself in the foot. As if my neighbors were spying on me steaming hot water came bursting out of the shower head all at once and onto my face giving me a minor burn. "HOLY...!" I jumped back to avoid the scolding hot water and carefully reached around it trying to pull the cold water handle back just a bit. But I couldn't reach it. As tall as I was the water was coming out of the shower head too fast and too far for me to reach it without sustaining some burn. "We are going to have to do this the hard way aren't we..." I said to myself. I quickly reached through the boiling water and grabbed the handle an pulled it back. I felt the burn of the water for a bit, but it eventually died down to a warm survivable temperature. I took a good long shower like did every morning. The water was just so peaceful and comforting. Here I could think about the day ahead of me and not worry about a thing until I stepped out. My life was not the best you see. I lived in a small one room apartment in the heart of the big city. In the morning I could always hear the sounds of everyday life going on outside. Here the city never slept, it was always busy, things were always happening. My job sucked... I hated it so much. Even though I had been working at one of the more famous places in the city and I had a bunch of friends over there the job was just dull. But I had to pay the bill somehow. Life as a waiter was not bad, in fact I met a bunch of interesting people in my time as a waiter. I also learned how to keep up a conversation and how speak to people without babbling or rambling. But it always sucked when you got those neighborhood teens who though they were a divine gift from heaven. My thoughts were stopped short as I heard a knocking coming from my front door. "Hey! finish up already! We all need to shower you know!" I just signed deeply and politely acknowledged the request by turning off the water in the shower. This must of satisfied the guy since I could hear him stomp down the hallway and slam his door shut. "Geez, what got his tidies up in a bunch?" The rest of my morning was uneventful. Same old same old. Put in contacts, get dressed, eat cereal, head out to work. Well actually school was the first thing on my list but I needed to stop by my place of work to tell the manager that I would be off again this month. As I stepped out onto the streets I let the cool breeze blow past me. I always enjoyed that feeling in the Windy City. Many of its residents complained about the cold but I for one actually enjoyed the breeze from the lake. With a plain old hoodie on with a backpack and pair of tattered jeans on I headed off down the street and towards my destination. I enjoyed learning. In fact I loved learning. With every question I solved, a whole bunch of new questions came to take its place. I would just keep on finding answers to discover new question. It was a big world out there and I had already learned so much in my education so naturally I had many questions that I wanted answers to. Most I knew I couldn't solve even with all the geniuses in the world crammed into my head, but I had already accepted the challenge so I couldn't turn back even if I wanted to. My work place was on the way to my school so I popped in to say hi to the boss before I headed off. I walked up to my place of work and walked in through the front door. There were students here already probably getting a quick bite to eat before heading of too. "Hey dood?! What to you so long? You're late!" I turned to face the familiar voice and spoke. "Hey Isaac, what's happening my man?" I said as I greeted my friend with a complicated series of handshakes and fist bumps. "Nothin' much dood, Francescas's doesn' get much costumers at this time." He said pointing to the two tables full at the moment. "Hey dood, Its a Monday. Sholdn' you be off to school dood?" Isaac said as he lifted a brow. "That's what I came here for Isaac. Where is the boss? I need to tell-" Suddenly the back door swung open letting the cool air roll into the restaurant. A young woman stepped out and walked towards us, her sleek jet black hair gracefully swaying as she made her way over to us. "Hey Aaron!" She said to me smiling. She looked over to Isaac and let out a sarcastic sigh. "Hey there Sticks." She said as she punched Isaac on the shoulder. It was barely even a punch to begin with but Isaac put his hand up to his shoulder and began to rub the spot where she had punched him. "Dood! You punch way to hard! I could feel that one hit my bones girl!" He said with a light laugh. I snickered a bit. "Isaac, that's because you are just skin and bones. Look at yourself!" He glared at me for a bit before speaking to me with a little venom in his words. "Hey dood! Lay off! I don't make much here, I ain't as healthy as you with all your veg'tables and whatever!" Isaac said flailing his arms around his head. "Now boys. Let's not get worked up about this okay? I just want to finish this shift and get back home where it nice an quiet." Both Isaac and I rolled our eyes and agreed that that was what we wanted to do. "Yeah I guess." Isaac said. "Although mister gudytewshooz over here would rather go to school than hang with us at Francesca's." I just looked over to my friend as she began to speak. "Aw come on Aaron! You doing another lecture? Why can't you stay with us longer?" I blinked in surprise. "How did you know?" "I attended yours last week remember?" She said, "Yeah! That was the week we got swamped with all the tourists dood! I like almost passed out runnin' around like I was high on somethin' fierce!" Isaac said again crossing his arms over his chest. "Oh yeah." I just said flatly. I vaguely remembered my last student lecture. It had been on advanced story structure, character development and world building. Dam thing took me an entire hour and I was shaking so violently up on stage that I might of caused the dias I was on to collapse on itself. In the crowd of writers that sat and listened I remembered seeing her eyes staring at me as she listened to every word I said. She was eyeing every movement I made, analyzing it carefully to pick out every piece of information she possibly could. I came back as Isaac snapped his thin fingers in front of my face. "Dood! Focus! You gonna be late to work again or somethin'?" I bit my lip. This would be the 7th time this month. The boss would kill me. More importantly... Katherine would- "Aww Aaron! You said that would be the last time if I went to listen to your lecture! Please stay here with me- erm, us?" Katherine said as she stuck out her lower lip and eyed me with her deep brown eyes. "Shiz dood! Katherine is going to doze right through that num skull of yours!" Isaac said pointing at Katherine's face. "You have no chance of resisting the stare dood!" "Please Aaron?" She said once more as she eyed me and stuck out her lip even more. For Christ's sake, she knew I couldn't take two seconds of that before caving in. I turned away from her gaze. I had some really important things to do today. "No! I mean, no... I have some important things I have to do today. Finals are in a few weeks and I need to really step up my game if I want graduate top of my class again." Seeing that her attacks to my heart were useless she quickly changed her expression to one of sadness and slowly waked away. Seeing this Isaac just walked up to me and put his hand on my shoulder. "Don't fall for it dood.She really digs you dood. You're so lucky." He said with a snicker. Just then I saw a small flash in the corner of my vision. The next moment a silver spoon came out and hit Isaac square in the back of the head. This caught him by surprise as he almost tripped over the chair in front of him. Isaac put his hand up to the back of his head and rubbed trying to ease the pain. He looked behind him and laughed weakly. I slowly peered over Isaac's shoulder to see Katherine standing there just smiling innocently at us. When she saw me she turned around and slipped through the kitchen doors. "Holy shiz dood. Looks like someone doesn't like me talking about her feelings..!- AHCK! What the hell Katherine!?" This time it was a fork. ~~~~~ I shakily stuck my keys into the deadbolt and feebly turned it. It was a little frigidity, but eventually the deadbolt slid open with a dull thud. This must of been the most exhausting days in my schooling so far. My mind was winding down as I had just given another couple of student lectures. I didn't know if it was an honor since my professors must have a lot of faith in me, or maybe they were lazy bums who didn't have to break a sweat by making me do almost all of the lectures. Most of my classmates hated me. I was the top of my class as usual. I think it might of been my attitude while teaching. This was like the 8th time this month and I wasn't as enthusiastic as I was before on my first lecture... I threw my heavy messenger bag in the corner of my room narrowly missing my room lamp. I wasn't even hungry at this point. I was just tired. I walked over to my bed and without even giving it a second thought I kicked off my shoes and plopped down into my bed. I pulled the covers over myself and slowly dozed of... ~~~~~ "Hey! Hey! Wake up sleepy head!" I slowly rolled over and faced the voice. I opened my eyes to the blinding light coming from my window. I blocked the sun out with my arm and looked at my new company. Opening my eyes I saw a small light brown pegasus smiling at me. "Yeah your awake! Mom needs you down stairs! We let you sleep all day because you looked a lot tired! But now that your awake you look all gooder again!" I patted the little colt on the top of the head and sat up on my soft bed. "Alright Rustic. I'll be down in a second." I said smiling at the colt. "And you know 'gooder' isn't a word Silver." With that Rustic Silver smiled at me and ran down the hallway and down the steps. Gradually I pulled myself up and out of my bed. I stepped out onto my carpet floor and stretched out my wings and looked out my window. The sun was already high in the skies over Canterlot. Ponies of all colors and sizes were already bustling around on the streets below. Slowly I made my way from my windows to my desk on the other side of the room and picked up my glasses with a hoof and placed them on my face. I looked at myself in the mirror. My other self. "These things are really nice." I said while adjusting my glasses. "To bad I can't afford them to be made of pure silver like these." With that I slowly walked out of my room and down the hallway. I looked around the main room of my house. Being in one of the more renowned families in Canterlot of house was naturally adorned with many expensive things. Many of which were broken be a certain filly and colt. "Speaking of which where are they?" I said to myself. I was uninterrupted by a squeaky voice coming from my door. "Hey there AJ!" Said a young filly. I turned around to see a little brown pegasus with a silver mane and pink highlights walk into my room and take a look around. "Hey there Hope, what are you doing up here?" I said. The filly just smiled at me and handed me a finely drawn picture of five pegasi flying over the castles of Canterlot. Even though my little sister may have been only eight she was an amazing artist. I bet she takes after my mother who was one of the main artisans of the two princesses. I had no doubt that her cutie mark would be art related. "Wow Hope! This looks really nice! I bet I know who each of these ponies are." I pointed a hoof to two of the larger pegasi in the picture. There were one on each side of a group of three smaller pegasi. "Those must be Mom and Dad." "Yep!" I pointed two the two smaller pegasi next to them. "That must be Rustic and you." "Yeah!" But when I looked at the pegasus in the middle he had his wings stretched out to amazing lengths. So much so that they were encompassing the entire family. "And that's-" "That's you AJ!" Hope said as she cut me off in the middle of my sentence. "Do you like it?" I laughed a bit at her enthusiasm and spoke to her. "Come on Hope. I told you to stop calling me that." "Well aren't you named after Daddy?" "Yes." "And isn't his name Athanix?" "Well yes, but-" "That makes you Athanix junior!" "Yeah Hope, but..-" "AJ is much easier to say then Atha-a-a-a.." The little brown pegasus was stumbling with her words again. I signed a bit and patted my little sister on the head. "Athanix. Ah-tha-niks." I said slowly making sure to sound out each syllable carefully. "AJ!" She said with a big smile on her face. They were just so stubborn sometimes. I do wonder how my parents put with this. I never got to do anything fun when it was just me. I pouted a bit, but remembering who I was speaking to I smiled again. Can't go ruining other people's days with my emotions now can I? Then I heard a soft feminine voice come from behind us just right down the hall. "Now Hope. It Athanix doesn't want you to call him that then you should respect that okay? He is your big brother and you will only ever have one big brother." My mother had just stepped out of her room. She must of been listening to our conversation waiting for the perfect time to jump in. "Now come along Hope. Lets go do some painting." My mother said as she guided my little sister down the steps with a wing. "Athanix!" She called up to me. "Your Dad needs you in his his office! He said he needed to talk to you about something! Make sure you knock first, he might be busy!" My heart sank. 'Oh dear Celestia. What does he want now...' I thought to myself. My mother looked back up our steps and spoke to me again. "You better get going AJ!" She said with a smile. I facehooved. I was about to say something to counter my mom but I stopped myself. I couldn't just burn my mom like that. She just looked at me and gave a satisfied nod. "Good boy. Let's keep it like that." She said with a mischievous smile. Oh gosh. Sometimes I hated it when my mom joked around with me, but she's my mom. I couldn't ask for anything more in the world. And besides, how cool is it that you got to joke around with your mom like that? Slowly I walked down the steps and down into the main room. The marble floor must of been waxed recently because the moment I stepped down on the glossy floor I slipped and fell back on my haunches. Believe me I tried standing back up again, but I slipped every time. I let out another deep sigh as I lifted myself up off the floor with my wings. I knew I would be pounded to a pulp by my parents if they saw me flying in the house. With all the fine, expensive, fragile things in the house one rouge gust of air would topple any pot, tilt paintings, or like last time, bring down the main chandelier. So I carefully made my way down the hallway and to my Dad's office. Normally I didn't even need to go in there. Most of the time we weren't allowed in there when my father was 'working'. He was a full time author and almost all of his week was spent in that office working on a new story or something. I didn't even want to know the reason he would need me. Then the thought struck me. 'Oh no. Am I in trouble or something? Had I done something wrong?! Do they know something that I don't?!? My heart skipped a beat. 'Do they know about my deepest darkest secret...?' I swallowed the remaining moisture in my mouth and approached the large tinted glass door. Slowly I put a hoof on the silver door knob. I had almost opened the doors but remembered what my mother had taught me. Always knock, especially when someone is busy. I pulled my hoof back and gently tapped on the glass door. "Can I come in?" Suddenly from behind the door it sounded like the office was being attacked by a small tornado. I could hear things flying around the place and wooden furniture being moved everywhere. Then it all stopped as I heard somepony step up to the door and open it. "Hey there AJ! Your just the pony I needed to talk to!" I laughed a bit to myself. "Not you too Dad! Silver is the only one not calling me that now!" I said taking a seat next to my dad's desk. My dad slowly walked over to his large swivel chair and sat back into it slowly spinning it so that it faced the back window that gave him an entire view of the city of Canterlot. "Well Athanix. Silver really looks up to you and respects you as a brother. You should be proud of yourself." My dad said. I guess that was true. Silver always liked to hang around with me in the house. And to be perfectly honest I loved his company. He was one of the souls in my life I could really call my brother. Just then my father spun around on his chair and pressed his hooves together in front of his face. "Do you want to know why I brought you to my office Athanix?" I didn't say a word. It was always like this when I was talking seriously to my dad. I didn't know about him but every time he tried to have a serious conversation with me, whether he was angry or not, he always seemed to be mad about the subject. Even if you knew he wasn't mad about anything he always just sounded like he was about to yell at you for some reason. My dad broke the silence. "Well do you?" "Uh..." "Well I'll tell you!" He said as he eyeballed me. He ducked down under his desk and grabbed a small stack of papers with his mouth. He set them on the table and spread them out on the desk. "Do you know what this is?" "Uh......" "Come on! Don't tell me you don't recognize your own handy work!" I looked down and read some of the pieces of paper. Lone behold these were some of the papers from one of my manuscripts. One of my longer well thought out ones too. "This stuff is pure gold Athanix! Your story structure is so advanced! Your characters are so three dimensional! And everything in your world building falls perfectly into place! It's amazing that you write like this even though you have never been taught any of it! You must of gotten a little bit from your old man." He said as he elbowed me. "Eheheh, yeah Dad..." Little did he know that I did go to school... "Come on son. You need discuss some of these things with me. Spend some quality time, you know!" I sighed a bit and accepted my dad's offer. It's not like I was going to say no. ~~~~~ "So that's why I did that so when he finally meets up with our secondary character-" I was cut off. "-everything is already set into motion! Genius my boy. I don't know where you come up with this stuff." I laughed feebly. "Eh, yeah Dad. I do get out a lot. Sometimes it just comes to me." It was true, I did like to fly around Equestria. Little did he know that is where I didn't get most of my inspiration for my stories. "It almost like you experienced all this for yourself! This human character you made is really interesting!" "Yeah yeah Dad. Glad you like it." I have been sitting in this chair for hours just talking to my dad about my story. He was so fascinated by the idea of these "humans" I have written about. I looked at the grandfather clock standing tall in the corner of the room. The minute had just passed over the twelve on the clock. That was soon followed by nine low rings from its brass bells. "Wow nine o'clock already? Well you should head of to bed now. You seem a little tired." "Thanks Dad." I smiled and gradually made my way to the door make sure to give extra care to shut the door quietly. As soon as the door was closed I made a break for my room on the second floor. I was so tired at this point. When I finally made it to my room I ducked under the silky covers and rested my head on a pillow. The shades of my window were drawn back and the only light in the room was coming from a small candle sitting on a small table beside my bed. I slowly I took of my silver rimmed glasses and set them on the table and with one huff I blew out the candle and fell asleep... ~~~~~ "GOOOOOOD MORNING CHICAGO! AND WELCOME TO!-" Wham! Crack! I slammed my little plastic clock again. I had barley shut my eyes when the DJ came on. Reluctantly I sat up on my small bed. My back ached a bit as I stretched. I sighed, "That figures... I don't get much sleep anyway..." ~~~~~ Author's Notes: This is going to be fun. I have a lot of plans for this! I know self inserts are frowned upon, but in my defense this was written *way** before I had any idea of that... :)* Comments, suggestions and opinions are welcome! As always I am open to critique, I take it all to heart! ~Athanix, Peace.
Chapter 2: Right from the bookChapter 2: Right from the book "Would that be all sir?" I said trying hard to mask my irritation. I have been trying to take the order of this guy forever. He just couldn't make up his mind. Every time I told him I could just come back later he told me to stay because he had almost made up his mind. "Don't worry dood. I can handle this." Isaac whispered to me as he passed by. With one hand holding a tray of food he pulled out a small menu and pointed towards the bottom of the paper. "May I suggest the Rigatoni del Pastore? I think you would enjoy the spices and white wine we use in it." The man just nodded in approval and ordered the rigatoni. "What kind of drink would you like?" "Uhm... How about... No..." 'Ah crap...' "I'll just put you down for a water, okay?" I said as I wrote down the order and started walking towards the doors to the kitchen. As I walked through the doors and placed my notepad down Katherine walked up to me and laughed a bit to herself. "I saw that you were stuck there for ages so I sent Sticks over to help you out. What did the guy want?" She asked me. "He wants Rigatoni del Pastore." I said pointing to my nearly eligible handwriting. "Dam it Aaron. If you didn't tell me what that order was then I would of made this guy a pizza. Just look at that!" I could feel my face lit up as I looked down at my notepad. My penmanship was never the best, especially if I was rushing. To any untrained eye my notepad would look like I was one of the only people on earth who has remembered such an ancient writing style. "Whatever, just cook the dang Rigatoni Kathrine..." I grumbled. Kathrine just looked at me and smiled as she walked back into the kitchen to start on the meal. Just then Isaac came bursting through the doors. He had a bead of sweat rolling of his face as he spoke. The poor guy sounded like he was about to pass out. "Aaron..! Come quickly, your table just got some new costumers." "Don't tell me its that table..." "Same one dood!" Isaac said with a snicker. "Craaap... someone bu-" My sentence was cut short as I felt a tap on my shoulder. "Here you go Aaron, Rigatoni del Pastore! Now take it out there and make it quick before you do anything stupid." Kathrine said with a wink. I froze, I didn't know what to make of the gesture. Its been a while... Isaac just sighed as he pushed me out the kitchen doors. "Let's go Romeo!" I sighed to myself as I made my way over to the table. 'This is going to be a long day...' ~~~~~ "Wow Athanix, that took forever! But hey, your book is now out for all the ponies to enjoy." I looked over to my friend who was walking down with me through the streets of Canterlot. "Yeah. They might of accepted it right away, but actually publishing that book took forever..." I said. Truth be told I had pitched my idea to one of the major publishers in Canterlot and it only took them seconds to accept. I was actually quite flattered. I expected my pitch to be rejected just like a lot of my books I have pitched before... "I think I just got lucky Parsley." "Nonsense Athanix! That story was good." He said putting a hoof on my shoulder. "That's just it Parsley. It's just good. Even if they like it, what will other critics think? They will rip my story to shreds, I know I left some details. Maybe my story isn't structured right, the characters might be a little underdeveloped." I cringed at the thought. "How could I pitch this story to them! Oh God..." Parsley just gave me a quizzical look. "Who?" I snapped back as I realized who I was talking to. 'Oh yeah. I haven't told anyone yet...' "Nothing, I think I'm just a little burnt out. I spent all night looking over that work." I felt Parsley take his hoof off my shoulder as he punched me hard in my side. "Your thinking too hard again. Let's just go grab a bite to eat." He said as a smile creeped onto his face. "Race you." I frowned as I heard this. "Oh come on Parsley you know I-" "Coffee shop on the corner as usual?" "Parsley..." "You chicken?" He said giving me a competitive stare. Parsley was a normally a level headed pony, but his competitive side shoved that personality off the seat and took its place most of the time. I just facehooved, he would never let it go if I said no again. "Ugh, okay I'll race you. Countdown please?" "Three." He said, his eyes firmly locked onto the coffee shop just down the street. "Two." I said as I heard the soft shimmer of magic being conjured. I didn't even hear him say 'one' before there was a bright flash of light. In the blink of an eye Parsley was all the way over on the other side of the street, opening the front door to the cafe. "One!" He shouted before he walked into the shop. I just sighed as I stretched my wings as I flew over towards the coffee shop. I landed in front of the door and used my hoof to push it open and felt the warm air rush past me as I walked through the door. I was greeted by a rich deep voice coming from inside. "Hey Athanix! Close that door faster! It takes a lot of bits to heat this place up!" The clerk shouted from behind the counter. I just smiled as I closed the door behind me and walked towards the counter. "Hey Maple Leaf, same as usual." The earth pony just smiled as he pulled out a mug and poured some coffee into it. "Honestly Athanix, I don't know how you can drink decaf with all the work you do. I really think you would benefit from drinking some real coffee." Parsley came up holding the most absurd looking latte in the world. The thing looked like it had more whip and cocoa powder than it had actual coffee. "Nah Athanix doesn't have the stomach for the stuff. He couldn't drink it even if he wanted to." "Don't think I don't know what your doing Parsley..." I said with a bit of edge. He just laughed to himself as he handed Maple some bits for the coffee. "Don't worry bro. I have some bits." I looked at the bits set on the table. "Parsley, this is not even enough to pay for your own coffee! Let alone mine!" "I didn't say have enough bits to pay for both of us! I said I had some bits!" He said with a dangerous smile on his face. "Someone get me away from him before I kill this unicorn." I said glaring at Parsley. He just shrugged the gesture aside as if it was nothing. "You don't have the guts Athanix." He said as he glared back at me. "Hey Athanix." I turned to face Maple. He was holding a piping hot mug of freshly made coffee. "This ones on the house." He said with a equally mischievous on his face. Parleys dark green coat suddenly paled. "You wouldn't..." "At least no one will see you in your new camo." I said. ~~~~~ "Alright see you later Athanix! I need to get this coffee off of me. I also need to get ready for work tomorrow, those dishes aren't going to cook themselves." He said. I extended my wings and took to the sky. Stopping in mid air I turned to Parsley. "Alright Parsley, try not to get lost! We might not be able to find you again!" I said with a laugh. "I'm not the one who should be worried about getting lost Athanix! If I could grow a pair of wings right now I would come up there and knock some sense into you!" He said shaking his hoof menacingly at me. "As if Parsley! Okay then see you later!" I took off through the sky and towards my home. I always flew low near the ground because up in the sky my glasses could be blown off my face. Then Celestia help me I couldn't even read the watch on my wrist even if it was right in front of me. As I landed in my front yard and folded my wings against me, Rustic and Hope ran up to me and gave me a big hug. They hung on my neck as they tried to bring me down to the ground. "Hey there's my boy! Just got your book mailed!" I strained myself to look up. Eventually I looked up towards the front door to see my mother and father standing in the doorway. My dad was basically beaming with pride as he held the hardcover book as if it was his newborn foal. "Looks like your gonna be a writer like your old man! Told you that his cutie mark was for writing." My dad said as he shot my mom a egotistical look. "You know he is a fine artist too! His cutie mark mark can still mean that he is an artist. A pencil giving off an orange and blue mark as well as the normal black is a sign of his artistic talents! My dad just snorted as he begun his side of the argument. "Show's what you know about literature! His cutie mark obviously shows that his work is unique and has its own style! It is deep and beautiful! He get's it from me." My mom just laughed a bit to herself. "For his sake I hope he didn't get it from you." I cleared my throat to gain their attention again. "Mom, Dad. You guys are great at what you both do. If it makes you feel better I think that my cutie mark resembles both art forms. I don't think my writing is the best, it can defiantly use some work. Some characters are underdeveloped in my story. My artwork isn't to great either, my understanding of artistical elements can use some work. They just both nodded and ushered me into my home. My siblings have finally decided that breaking my neck would be bad for my future so they hopped onto my back. "Come on AJ!" Hope said. "You're no fun!" "Yeah Athanix! Let's see how fast you can fly!" My mom just came up on picked up my little sister up off my back with her teeth as my father did the same with my brother. "Now you know there is no flying in the house. You remember the last time you flew inside?" My mom said eyeballing them both. My younger siblings basically shrunk back into the floor as they usually did when my mother spoke to them harshly. My dad just blinked in surprise. Whenever he tried, Hope and Silver just giggled as if it were some kind of joke. "Wow honey, you need to teach me how to do that." "As if Athanix, the kids aren't afraid of you." She said as she turned to face me. "Except AJ, he gets the chills every time I tell him that you need him for something." "Oh is that so?" My dad said looking over at me with a smile on his face. I just facehooved. "Not when your like this dad. You're not fooling anyone." I said as I headed up the stairs to my room. But halfway up the stairs I realized what I just said. I looked back to see my dad just nodding in approval "I see that your tired! You are speaking like the humans my boy. Are you starving yourself or something?" My dad said to me. "Aren't you going to eat?" "I hung out with Parsley again and we ate. I'm not to hungry. Just a little tired that's all." My father was about to say something if my mother didn't jab her hoof into her sides. "No that is fine Athanix. If your feeling tired just go up and sleep." I just nodded as I head of to my room. With the laughter of my siblings and the bickering my parents coming from below I slowly closed the door to my room and crawled into bed. I lay face first in my pillow and let my wings stretch and spread out before slipping into a deep sleep... ~~~~~ The cool winter winds made there way down the path as Twilight walked through the streets of Ponyville. She was on her way to the Carousel Boutique with an important delivery for Rarity. She has been waiting for it for quite some time now. Coming up to the Boutique Twilight knocked lightly on the door. "Rarity? It's Twilight, are you home right now?" There was a slight commotion coming from inside the shop as unicorn finally answered the door. Her hair was a little frayed at the edges and a slightly tired look was on her face. "Twilight! This is really a bad time, I am very busy at the moment. What is that you need?" Rarity said. "Well I just wanted to-" "Come in Twilight! I need to get back to work soon. I don't want to work late again this time." Rarity said looking back into the boutique. "Well if you would let me finish..." Twilight just said flatly. "The books you wanted just came in I have them here in my saddlebag." Rarity's look just snapped back into its normal well kept self as she dived into Twilight's saddlebag almost toppling them both over. "Oh my! When did you get these?" She said pulling out the books with a hoof and then hugging them tightly. "They just came in this morning." Twilight said. "And you didn't come in sooner? Twilight dear, it is past noon already! Where are those glasses! I just set them down here only a moment ago!" Rarity said running back into her home turning everything upside down. She was looking under fabric and pulling out drawers looking for her glasses. "Twilight, would you be a dear and help me look for my glasses?" "Sure thing Rarity. I know exactly how to find your glasses." Twilight said taking care to step over toppled manikins. Rarity's eyes lit up as she ran over to Twilight. "You do! You have to tell me!" She said shaking Twilight's face with both her hoofs. Twilight just forced herself out of Rarity's grip as she stepped back and shook her head to re-orientate herself. "Well you can use a teleportation spell that I use with lost books. All you have to do is think about the book, or you glasses, visualize it, and use a teleportation spell to teleport it to you." Without hesitation Rarity's horn lit up with magic and a pair of red glasses appeared in front of her with a small flash of light and an audible pop. "Thank you Twilight! I don't know how I was going to read without these!" She said as she adjusted them on her face. "If you will excuse me though I need to finish read- I mean working!" Rarity said and she slowly pushed Twilight outside. "I'm terribly sorry but I am very busy right now!" "No need to worry Rarity I'm sure you-" The door was already closed. With a sigh and a laugh Twilight turned back down the streets of Ponyville back to her tree house. ~~~~~ "Oh my..." Rarity said closing the book with her magic. "Oh my... Oh my..." She looked looked at the closed book again, observing it carefully. This particular novel was the second book in a series that Rarity had recently discovered. She had been sitting downstairs since Twilight left just reading. The sun was about to set behind the horizon and beautiful reds and oranges lined every cloud in the sky. "I need to know what happens next..." She said to herself. "I didn't read all this time to just be left like this!" "Why would the author just leave me on such a cliffhanger! Surely there must be another book!" Although she wished it was true, she knew that the new addition had only been added today and the next book couldn't possibly out. She looked outside and again. "It's not that late. I'm sure he wouldn't mind some company." Rarity said as she started to conjure up magic. "Oh wait, I better tidy up first! Don't want to have guests over with such a messy home!" And with that she dispelled her magic and started to rearrange the mess in her home. "I will need some help doing this though..." Rarity said as she lifted her manikins up and set them into the corner of the room. She took a good look around as the boutique looked like it's normal self again. "I know just the pony to help me too!" She said as she walked out of the Carousel Boutique and started off towards the library. ~~~~~ "Dang Kathrine! If I knew we would be up so early just to go shopping then I would a brought my nikes!" Isaac said. "I don't know why we have to be up so early! Who in the right mind would have a department store open so early!?" Kathrine just sighed as she turned to Isaac. "We are up so early because we need to get Aaron his birthday gift! I want to surprise him! You still have the keys to his apartment Sticks?" "Yeah I do- Wait! I told you to stop calling me that dood!" "Ugh fine..." Kathrine said as she walked over to a striped hoodie. "Hows this Isaac?" Isaac just gave a satisfied smile as he walked over to examine the soft fabric that lined the inside of the sweater. "That's more like it Kathy." Kathrine just shot Isaac a dirty look. "I swear to God Isaac, if you call me that again and I will-" "No need Kathy, you won't hear it from me agAIIAAAAAHHH!! WHAT THE HELL?!" Isaac screamed out. "Girl you got some serious anger issues!" "It's a gift." She said. ~~~~~ I woke up to the sound of a noisy car alarm. Nothing I should be worried about anyway. I don't even own a car. Looking at the clock I say that it was about 4 a.m. 'Oops, I must of slept a little to early...' I though to myself. 'Note to self; Do not sleep early anymore. I tried to close my eyes and fall asleep, but I knew it was pointless. I have tried swapping back and forth when ever I pleased, but to no avail. I had to wait until I was really, really tired for me to switch over. As I stepped out of bed I heard the doorknob move. I froze as I wondered who might be outside. 'Couldn't be Kathrine, she doesn't even know where I live...' 'Couldn't be Isaac, he doesn't get up this early on Saturdays...' I grinned, Isaac was usually still up at this time, probably passed out at some party. The grin vanished from my face as I heard the deadbolt slowly slide open. I remembered one of my neighbors got robbed a couple nights ago. "Oh no you won't!" I said as I wildly kicked at the open door. My foot connected as the intruder his the ground writhing in pain. I Isaac almost blew my eardrums out with the volume he screamed at. "DANG IT AARON! WHAT THE HELL! THAT'S THE SECOND TIME!! IT'S NOT LIKE I WANTED TO START A FAMILY OR ANYTHING!" This was accompanied by Kathrine who laughed uncontrollably as she bent over to help Isaac up. "Oh my God! Told you! You gotta knock first geni-" She stopped mid sentence as I turned on the lights. She dropped a small box and when it hit the floor, out popped a black and white sweater. "Holy crap you guys! How did you know this is what I wanted for my birthday..!" I said as I looked at them. They just stood there, speechless. "Oh come on I know that you wanted this to be a surprise, but I still love it either way!" I said as I gave them both a big hug. "Hey, uh, dood?" "Yeah Isaac?" "Uh, don't know how to tell you this but-" "Isaac don't tell me that you stole this! We talked about this already!" "Aaron your glowing purple and white." Kathrine said. I opened my eyes and lone behold my arms were glowing a bright purple and white. I knew what was going on because I have seen it many times before. Before I could take my arms off my friends I felt myself being sucked out of my own body. I whizzed through a bright multicolor tunnel traveling at amazing speeds. "Aaron! What's going ooooooon...!" "AW YEAH! LETS GO FASTER!" The lights got brighter as I felt myself moving faster and faster. Suddenly though I just stopped as I fell face first onto a hard wooden floor. "Woo! Let's go aga-" Isaac stopped. It wasn't normal for Isaac to just stop in the middle of a sentence. Nothing surprises that guy. I looked up to see a unicorn sitting on her haunches taking in the scene while another purple unicorn was sleeping soundly in the corner of the room. Wait that must mean we are in... I looked over to my sides, only to find two ponies. To my right was a scrawny orange earth pony with a long light blue mane. His eyes the same color of orange to complement his coat. He was standing up on all fours and his mouth was agape. "Isaac...?" I said. I saw a small smile creep up onto his face and I swear I he looked like he was about to explode with pure joy. "Aaron. You are seeing this too right..? I am not dead... Right...?" "Of course your not dead Sticks." I looked over to my left to see a slender unicorn with a light green coat and a sleek black mane with a soft yellow highlight. She opened her eyes to reveal her dark green eyes. "But where are we?" I said. "Y-You..." Said a shaky voice. All of us turned to see a now trembling white unicorn. "Y-You're i-in P-P-Ponyville..." I heard an ear splitting squeal of glee coming from Isaac's direction. "Oh my Celestia! I knew it was true! My life is complete!" He burst out as he fainted. I looked over to my left. "I'm guessing that's you Kathrine?" "Yep you guessed right. Sticks looks like a total fanboy right now." She said with a small smirk on her face. "But what are you...?" The white unicorn said. I was puzzled at first, giving the unicorn a quizzical look. She just reached over and grabbed a hand mirror. I took it from her to examine myself. I saw a dark brown color and my trade mark pencil was etched into it. But it wasn't on my flanks or anything. I was just wearing my favorite sweater. I dropped the mirror causing it to shatter on the floor. "Oh my dear princesses, where have I landed myself this time..." ~~~~~ Author's Notes: Comments, suggestions and opinions are all welcome! I am waiting for some critique! I want to know what you guys think about this! It would mean a lot to me if you would just take your time to comment on the story! ~Athanix, Peace.
Chapter 3: No clueChapter 3: I'm not even... I was still sitting there, my eyes were practically burning up with the amount of rubbing I had been doing. It was not that I was surprised to see this, in fact it was quite the opposite. "Hey Aaron, this is real you can stop trying to rub your eyes right out of your sockets." Slowly I took my hands off my eyes as I looked around the room. Everything was still there, the dresses the furniture, the ponies... "But this doesn't make any sense!" I screamed. I knew where I was, it made sense. But I'm not my pony self... I must of screamed loud enough to worry the neighbors because at this the purple unicorn sleeping on the couch jumped off the couch and onto the ground landing with a thud. I slapped my hand right over my mouth as I sat completely still. After shaking her head for a bit the mare took a good look around spotting Isaac and Kathrine before setting her gaze on me. I half expected a look of fear or disgust to streak across her face, but instead she slowly walked up to me standing just a couple feet from where I sat. She tilted her head to the side as if she needed to get a better angle to observer and asked me; "What are you?" I hesitated for a bit before I spoke. How was I going to explain this..? How was I going to tell them..? My mind was spinning with all the questions in my mind fighting to be heard. If I was lucky maybe I would have to say a thing and I could just move on. "Wait just a minute," Katherine said. "Before you start prying for information, mind telling us how we got here in the first place?" The unicorn was about to say something when Isaac bolted straight up to stand. "We could only be in Ponyville!" he said with a big smile. "And judging by the noise we made we should be expecting a pink mare in three... two... o-" Isaac was cut off as the front door swung open with such a force that I was surprised that it didn't fly off of its hinges. "Oh my gosh I knew I heard new voices coming from here!" Said the pink mare standing in front of us. I blinked once and she seemed to just appear in front of my face just inches away. I looked at Kathrine. She was just in as much shock as I was. For one thing Isaac had just managed to predict the future. On the other hand this particular mare seemed to posses the power of teleportation without the use of magic. "I predict a party in the near future," Isaac said. The pink mare went wide eyed. "Wow you can read minds too?! That's so cool!" Isaac just had a grin on his face that stretched ear to ear that perfectly matched the pink mare. Kathrine stood up on here hooves with a mean look on her face as she began to stare down every pony and person in the room. I could already tell that things are about to get real. "Can someone please just where we are and why am I a unicorn?" Isaac and the pink mare were already deep into an entirely different conversation completely ignoring Kathrine. I'm pretty sure I heard something about what color and shape of streamers complements the smells of vanilla icing. I turned my attention to the two unicorns that stood in front of us. It was quite obvious that the lavender one had a lot of questions, but with a sigh of defeat she spoke. "Right now you are in Equestria. To be more specific, you are in the Carousel Boutique in the small town of Ponyville." "Are you hearing this Aaron?" Kathrine said with a scowl on her face. "This sounds like something right from bedtime stories." "What ever do you mean by that dear?" the white unicorn said. "Well for one thing, you guys are all ponies with magical powered that live peacefully in a world of sunshine and happiness." Katherine looked over to me. "But what I don't understand is why we are all ponies too, and more importantly, why isn't Aaron here a pony like us?" "Hold on a second," The purple mare said. "What do you mean by 'Why are we all ponies'?" A look of slight confusion spread across her face. "Does that mean you weren't originally ponies?" "Well yeah, just a couple minutes ago we looked like that," Katherine said pointing a hoof at me. "Not quite as messy though." The mare didn't even seem like she was listening anymore she had turned to face the other unicorn in the room as she began to speak. "I knew this was a bad idea Rarity! I knew something bad was going to happen. I don't know why you couldn't just go and see the author for yourself." The white unicorn just stood there in shock for a bit before she retorted. "You wanted to meet him as much as I did Twilight, please, do not blame all of this on me." The purple mare just blushed the tiniest bit as she began to plan her next sentence. "Well look what we have now. Two new ponies and this odd creature." I frowned a bit. "Hey I'm still here you know." They just brushed off the comment as if it was nothing. "Well as long as these ponies and that thing are here in Ponyville they will need a place to sleep." "They can't sleep at the Boutique, I am simply to busy." "Rarity you're always busy with stuff! You should loosen up a bit and come to these ponies welcome party!" The pink mare said. "Well they can stay at the library until we can figure out what to do with them." The purple mare said. "Now that we have that figured out, allow me to introduce myself. My name is-" "Twilight Sparkle, Princess Celestia's star student." Isaac said with a big grin. Twilight looked at me with a mixture of shock and fear. "How did he..?" I just shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine." Twilight just shook the though from her mind as she continued. "These are my friends Rarity and Pinkie Pie. Rarity runs the boutique that you ponies are currently in and Pinkie Pie here works at the local bakery." Suddenly Pinkie appeared right in front of me and pushed her hoof up to my nose. "Your turn!" she said with a smile. "Well... My name is Aaron and these are my friends Kathrine and Sticks." Isaac gave me a dirty look as he stared at me. He opened his mouth to speak, but Kathrine cut him off. Good thing too, Isaac didn't look like he was about to say something quite appropriate for the situation. "Don't mind Sticks, he has quite the temper." She turned to face Isaac and puffed up his face with her hooves. "Don't you Sticks," She said with devious smile. Sticks just pushed her hooves away as he walked the two of them walked over to me. It was weird to see them as ponies. They now stood at half the height of their human personas. They barley resembled their old selves. All except for Isaac who was still as skinny as ever. Twilight just looked at us. "Well we better get to the library, it's getting dark outside. Good thing too, I don't want any of the ponies seeing you... Aaron was it? I just nodded in agreement. I was glad that no other ponies would see me. These three seemed to take it quite well, but with my knowledge of the small town and all the things that happened, I don't think the town took catastrophic events to well. As Twilight opened the door with her magic as we walked out into the cool summer breeze. "Don't forget to come to your welcome to Ponyville party tomorrow!" Pinkie said. "I'll be waiting!" We all turned to wave goodbye to the pink mare, each of us had a genuine smile on our faces. I don't know if it was the air or what but that mare just gave off that glow that just begged me to smile. I turned back to look at Ponyville. It was so peaceful at night, I had only visited the town once before, but that had been in the day time. I was overseeing the release of my book here in Ponyville. Now that I think of it, Rarity and Twilight looked a little familiar. "Were here," Twilight said opening the door the library with her magic. "Make yourselves at home and sorry for the mess. I didn't have the chance to clean up the place before I left." I looked around the tree house. As far as I could tell I could only see two books lying closed on the floor. Kathrine broke out into laughter. "HA! If you think this is bad then you should see Aaron's apartment! It looked like the entire room was attacked by a small tornado!" As Twilight closed the door and shelved the books she turned to look at us. "He lives in an apartment?" She obviously was intrigued. I chuckled under my breath. "Well working as a waiter won't exactly get me a home. The last thing I need to worry about is paying the bills for an entire home. Those bills on top of my school work would be way to much for me to handle." Twilight now had a quill and paper out in front of her, hovering in mid air with her magic. Quickly she wrote down a small note and turned to face us again. "Fascinating, You seem to come from a civilized society. You even have your own education system!" she blinked in surprise. "Not to mention you speak Equestrian." "I was thinking the same thing," Kathrine said. "I was wondering why all you ponies could speak English." "English?" "This is gonna be one looooong night dood..." ~~~~~ I was already explaining the history of our nation to Twilight. It was well past midnight and Sticks and Kathrine had already fallen asleep in sleeping bags that Twilight had given them. Twilight had a tall stack of paper sitting next to her as I told her about our nation. I was in the middle of telling her about the Articles of Confederation when she snapped her quill for the billionth time tonight. "Oh no... That was my last one..." I let out a deep sigh, thank God and the godesses. I was burnt out. "Well you better get some sleep Aaron. You'll need the energy for Pinkie party tomorrow." I smiled as she hovered a blanket and small pillow to me. "I hope you don't mind sleeping on the floor tonight. I don't exactly have any sleeping bags in your size..." I just smiled warmly. "It's no problem Twilight, you're already doing us a big favor just letting us stay here." With that she smiled back to me and wished me a good night as she blew out the candle on the table and made her way up to her bed. I placed the pillow on the ground and wrapped myself in the small blanket that she gave me. With the soft light emanating of the moon and the peaceful sounds of the night all around me, it didn't take too long until I slipped into a deep sleep... "Hey! Hey! Wake up sleepy head! AJ! Wake up!" Oh shi- ~~~~~ Authors Note: Sorry for the HUGE delay! I just had a serious case of the block recently, but I am proud to say that I am back to my old self again and I will be writing a lot more now! On a side note Sticks is a Closet Brony so that's why Aaron and Kathrine have no idea why he can predict these things. And Aaron is not my real name, I only self inserted my OC persona. Comments, suggestions, opinions and anything of that sort is all welcome! I am open to all of that and I take it all to heart! ~Athanix, Peace.
Chapter 1: Another dreamChapter One: Another dream The bright sun that shone through the large window in my room illuminating the once dark space. It slowly crept up my soft bed and silky covers to awake me from my slumber, urging me to wake and begin the day. As it it rose higher into the sky it shone down into my room with more intensity trying desperately now to disturb my sleep, but to no avail. For my mind was else where. ~~~~~ "GOOOOOOD MORNING C-*Static*! AND WELCOME TO!-" Wham! Crack! The voice was abruptly cut off as I slammed my clenched hand against the old alarm clock. I heard the sound of brittle plastic cracking underneath my hands. I rolled over onto my side to take a good look at the cheap plastic clock. It had a slight crack on top of it which only seemed to widen with every blow it took from me every morning. "Ugh... What time is it..." I said with a less than enthusiastic voice. I didn't even bother opening my eyes. The clock just responded by turning the radio on once more. "We have some great tunes for you to listen to toda-" I slammed my fist onto the alarm clock again making sure to put in some extra force to silence the clock. Throughout the countless days I have woken up to the sound of the same DJ the little clock still remained functional even though any other clock may have been smashed into dust by my daily beating. That's why I stuck with this cheap thing. I have had it for a long time now and it hasn't done me wrong yet. "Besides wake me up half an hour early everyday..." I rolled out of my bed and onto the cold wood floor beneath me. Reluctantly I shuffled over to the bathroom door and began my morning rituals. I picked up a small plastic tooth brush and squeezed a pea sized amount of tooth paste from the aluminum tube onto my brush and methodically brushed my teeth. I rinsed my mouth after wards and stripped myself as I stepped into the shower. I pulled the hot water handle back all the way and waited for water to reach the shower head. But as usual the water didn't come even after a full minute. "Ah great..." I said to myself. Neighbors must be using all the hot water again. I swear if I have to wait another minute for the water to come I am going to shoot myself in the foot. As if my neighbors were spying on me steaming hot water came bursting out of the shower head all at once and onto my face giving me a minor burn. "HOLY...!" I jumped back to avoid the scolding hot water and carefully reached around it trying to pull the cold water handle back just a bit. But I couldn't reach it. As tall as I was the water was coming out of the shower head too fast and too far for me to reach it without sustaining some burn. "We are going to have to do this the hard way aren't we..." I said to myself. I quickly reached through the boiling water and grabbed the handle an pulled it back. I felt the burn of the water for a bit, but it eventually died down to a warm survivable temperature. I took a good long shower like did every morning. The water was just so peaceful and comforting. Here I could think about the day ahead of me and not worry about a thing until I stepped out. My life was not the best you see. I lived in a small one room apartment in the heart of the big city. In the morning I could always hear the sounds of everyday life going on outside. Here the city never slept, it was always busy, things were always happening. My job sucked... I hated it so much. Even though I had been working at one of the more famous places in the city and I had a bunch of friends over there the job was just dull. But I had to pay the bill somehow. Life as a waiter was not bad, in fact I met a bunch of interesting people in my time as a waiter. I also learned how to keep up a conversation and how speak to people without babbling or rambling. But it always sucked when you got those neighborhood teens who though they were a divine gift from heaven. My thoughts were stopped short as I heard a knocking coming from my front door. "Hey! finish up already! We all need to shower you know!" I just signed deeply and politely acknowledged the request by turning off the water in the shower. This must of satisfied the guy since I could hear him stomp down the hallway and slam his door shut. "Geez, what got his tidies up in a bunch?" The rest of my morning was uneventful. Same old same old. Put in contacts, get dressed, eat cereal, head out to work. Well actually school was the first thing on my list but I needed to stop by my place of work to tell the manager that I would be off again this month. As I stepped out onto the streets I let the cool breeze blow past me. I always enjoyed that feeling in the Windy City. Many of its residents complained about the cold but I for one actually enjoyed the breeze from the lake. With a plain old hoodie on with a backpack and pair of tattered jeans on I headed off down the street and towards my destination. I enjoyed learning. In fact I loved learning. With every question I solved, a whole bunch of new questions came to take its place. I would just keep on finding answers to discover new question. It was a big world out there and I had already learned so much in my education so naturally I had many questions that I wanted answers to. Most I knew I couldn't solve even with all the geniuses in the world crammed into my head, but I had already accepted the challenge so I couldn't turn back even if I wanted to. My work place was on the way to my school so I popped in to say hi to the boss before I headed off. I walked up to my place of work and walked in through the front door. There were students here already probably getting a quick bite to eat before heading of too. "Hey dood?! What to you so long? You're late!" I turned to face the familiar voice and spoke. "Hey Isaac, what's happening my man?" I said as I greeted my friend with a complicated series of handshakes and fist bumps. "Nothin' much dood, Francescas's doesn' get much costumers at this time." He said pointing to the two tables full at the moment. "Hey dood, Its a Monday. Sholdn' you be off to school dood?" Isaac said as he lifted a brow. "That's what I came here for Isaac. Where is the boss? I need to tell-" Suddenly the back door swung open letting the cool air roll into the restaurant. A young woman stepped out and walked towards us, her sleek jet black hair gracefully swaying as she made her way over to us. "Hey Aaron!" She said to me smiling. She looked over to Isaac and let out a sarcastic sigh. "Hey there Sticks." She said as she punched Isaac on the shoulder. It was barely even a punch to begin with but Isaac put his hand up to his shoulder and began to rub the spot where she had punched him. "Dood! You punch way to hard! I could feel that one hit my bones girl!" He said with a light laugh. I snickered a bit. "Isaac, that's because you are just skin and bones. Look at yourself!" He glared at me for a bit before speaking to me with a little venom in his words. "Hey dood! Lay off! I don't make much here, I ain't as healthy as you with all your veg'tables and whatever!" Isaac said flailing his arms around his head. "Now boys. Let's not get worked up about this okay? I just want to finish this shift and get back home where it nice an quiet." Both Isaac and I rolled our eyes and agreed that that was what we wanted to do. "Yeah I guess." Isaac said. "Although mister gudytewshooz over here would rather go to school than hang with us at Francesca's." I just looked over to my friend as she began to speak. "Aw come on Aaron! You doing another lecture? Why can't you stay with us longer?" I blinked in surprise. "How did you know?" "I attended yours last week remember?" She said, "Yeah! That was the week we got swamped with all the tourists dood! I like almost passed out runnin' around like I was high on somethin' fierce!" Isaac said again crossing his arms over his chest. "Oh yeah." I just said flatly. I vaguely remembered my last student lecture. It had been on advanced story structure, character development and world building. Dam thing took me an entire hour and I was shaking so violently up on stage that I might of caused the dias I was on to collapse on itself. In the crowd of writers that sat and listened I remembered seeing her eyes staring at me as she listened to every word I said. She was eyeing every movement I made, analyzing it carefully to pick out every piece of information she possibly could. I came back as Isaac snapped his thin fingers in front of my face. "Dood! Focus! You gonna be late to work again or somethin'?" I bit my lip. This would be the 7th time this month. The boss would kill me. More importantly... Katherine would- "Aww Aaron! You said that would be the last time if I went to listen to your lecture! Please stay here with me- erm, us?" Katherine said as she stuck out her lower lip and eyed me with her deep brown eyes. "Shiz dood! Katherine is going to doze right through that num skull of yours!" Isaac said pointing at Katherine's face. "You have no chance of resisting the stare dood!" "Please Aaron?" She said once more as she eyed me and stuck out her lip even more. For Christ's sake, she knew I couldn't take two seconds of that before caving in. I turned away from her gaze. I had some really important things to do today. "No! I mean, no... I have some important things I have to do today. Finals are in a few weeks and I need to really step up my game if I want graduate top of my class again." Seeing that her attacks to my heart were useless she quickly changed her expression to one of sadness and slowly waked away. Seeing this Isaac just walked up to me and put his hand on my shoulder. "Don't fall for it dood.She really digs you dood. You're so lucky." He said with a snicker. Just then I saw a small flash in the corner of my vision. The next moment a silver spoon came out and hit Isaac square in the back of the head. This caught him by surprise as he almost tripped over the chair in front of him. Isaac put his hand up to the back of his head and rubbed trying to ease the pain. He looked behind him and laughed weakly. I slowly peered over Isaac's shoulder to see Katherine standing there just smiling innocently at us. When she saw me she turned around and slipped through the kitchen doors. "Holy shiz dood. Looks like someone doesn't like me talking about her feelings..!- AHCK! What the hell Katherine!?" This time it was a fork. ~~~~~ I shakily stuck my keys into the deadbolt and feebly turned it. It was a little frigidity, but eventually the deadbolt slid open with a dull thud. This must of been the most exhausting days in my schooling so far. My mind was winding down as I had just given another couple of student lectures. I didn't know if it was an honor since my professors must have a lot of faith in me, or maybe they were lazy bums who didn't have to break a sweat by making me do almost all of the lectures. Most of my classmates hated me. I was the top of my class as usual. I think it might of been my attitude while teaching. This was like the 8th time this month and I wasn't as enthusiastic as I was before on my first lecture... I threw my heavy messenger bag in the corner of my room narrowly missing my room lamp. I wasn't even hungry at this point. I was just tired. I walked over to my bed and without even giving it a second thought I kicked off my shoes and plopped down into my bed. I pulled the covers over myself and slowly dozed of... ~~~~~ "Hey! Hey! Wake up sleepy head!" I slowly rolled over and faced the voice. I opened my eyes to the blinding light coming from my window. I blocked the sun out with my arm and looked at my new company. Opening my eyes I saw a small light brown pegasus smiling at me. "Yeah your awake! Mom needs you down stairs! We let you sleep all day because you looked a lot tired! But now that your awake you look all gooder again!" I patted the little colt on the top of the head and sat up on my soft bed. "Alright Rustic. I'll be down in a second." I said smiling at the colt. "And you know 'gooder' isn't a word Silver." With that Rustic Silver smiled at me and ran down the hallway and down the steps. Gradually I pulled myself up and out of my bed. I stepped out onto my carpet floor and stretched out my wings and looked out my window. The sun was already high in the skies over Canterlot. Ponies of all colors and sizes were already bustling around on the streets below. Slowly I made my way from my windows to my desk on the other side of the room and picked up my glasses with a hoof and placed them on my face. I looked at myself in the mirror. My other self. "These things are really nice." I said while adjusting my glasses. "To bad I can't afford them to be made of pure silver like these." With that I slowly walked out of my room and down the hallway. I looked around the main room of my house. Being in one of the more renowned families in Canterlot of house was naturally adorned with many expensive things. Many of which were broken be a certain filly and colt. "Speaking of which where are they?" I said to myself. I was uninterrupted by a squeaky voice coming from my door. "Hey there AJ!" Said a young filly. I turned around to see a little brown pegasus with a silver mane and pink highlights walk into my room and take a look around. "Hey there Hope, what are you doing up here?" I said. The filly just smiled at me and handed me a finely drawn picture of five pegasi flying over the castles of Canterlot. Even though my little sister may have been only eight she was an amazing artist. I bet she takes after my mother who was one of the main artisans of the two princesses. I had no doubt that her cutie mark would be art related. "Wow Hope! This looks really nice! I bet I know who each of these ponies are." I pointed a hoof to two of the larger pegasi in the picture. There were one on each side of a group of three smaller pegasi. "Those must be Mom and Dad." "Yep!" I pointed two the two smaller pegasi next to them. "That must be Rustic and you." "Yeah!" But when I looked at the pegasus in the middle he had his wings stretched out to amazing lengths. So much so that they were encompassing the entire family. "And that's-" "That's you AJ!" Hope said as she cut me off in the middle of my sentence. "Do you like it?" I laughed a bit at her enthusiasm and spoke to her. "Come on Hope. I told you to stop calling me that." "Well aren't you named after Daddy?" "Yes." "And isn't his name Athanix?" "Well yes, but-" "That makes you Athanix junior!" "Yeah Hope, but..-" "AJ is much easier to say then Atha-a-a-a.." The little brown pegasus was stumbling with her words again. I signed a bit and patted my little sister on the head. "Athanix. Ah-tha-niks." I said slowly making sure to sound out each syllable carefully. "AJ!" She said with a big smile on her face. They were just so stubborn sometimes. I do wonder how my parents put with this. I never got to do anything fun when it was just me. I pouted a bit, but remembering who I was speaking to I smiled again. Can't go ruining other people's days with my emotions now can I? Then I heard a soft feminine voice come from behind us just right down the hall. "Now Hope. It Athanix doesn't want you to call him that then you should respect that okay? He is your big brother and you will only ever have one big brother." My mother had just stepped out of her room. She must of been listening to our conversation waiting for the perfect time to jump in. "Now come along Hope. Lets go do some painting." My mother said as she guided my little sister down the steps with a wing. "Athanix!" She called up to me. "Your Dad needs you in his his office! He said he needed to talk to you about something! Make sure you knock first, he might be busy!" My heart sank. 'Oh dear Celestia. What does he want now...' I thought to myself. My mother looked back up our steps and spoke to me again. "You better get going AJ!" She said with a smile. I facehooved. I was about to say something to counter my mom but I stopped myself. I couldn't just burn my mom like that. She just looked at me and gave a satisfied nod. "Good boy. Let's keep it like that." She said with a mischievous smile. Oh gosh. Sometimes I hated it when my mom joked around with me, but she's my mom. I couldn't ask for anything more in the world. And besides, how cool is it that you got to joke around with your mom like that? Slowly I walked down the steps and down into the main room. The marble floor must of been waxed recently because the moment I stepped down on the glossy floor I slipped and fell back on my haunches. Believe me I tried standing back up again, but I slipped every time. I let out another deep sigh as I lifted myself up off the floor with my wings. I knew I would be pounded to a pulp by my parents if they saw me flying in the house. With all the fine, expensive, fragile things in the house one rouge gust of air would topple any pot, tilt paintings, or like last time, bring down the main chandelier. So I carefully made my way down the hallway and to my Dad's office. Normally I didn't even need to go in there. Most of the time we weren't allowed in there when my father was 'working'. He was a full time author and almost all of his week was spent in that office working on a new story or something. I didn't even want to know the reason he would need me. Then the thought struck me. 'Oh no. Am I in trouble or something? Had I done something wrong?! Do they know something that I don't?!? My heart skipped a beat. 'Do they know about my deepest darkest secret...?' I swallowed the remaining moisture in my mouth and approached the large tinted glass door. Slowly I put a hoof on the silver door knob. I had almost opened the doors but remembered what my mother had taught me. Always knock, especially when someone is busy. I pulled my hoof back and gently tapped on the glass door. "Can I come in?" Suddenly from behind the door it sounded like the office was being attacked by a small tornado. I could hear things flying around the place and wooden furniture being moved everywhere. Then it all stopped as I heard somepony step up to the door and open it. "Hey there AJ! Your just the pony I needed to talk to!" I laughed a bit to myself. "Not you too Dad! Silver is the only one not calling me that now!" I said taking a seat next to my dad's desk. My dad slowly walked over to his large swivel chair and sat back into it slowly spinning it so that it faced the back window that gave him an entire view of the city of Canterlot. "Well Athanix. Silver really looks up to you and respects you as a brother. You should be proud of yourself." My dad said. I guess that was true. Silver always liked to hang around with me in the house. And to be perfectly honest I loved his company. He was one of the souls in my life I could really call my brother. Just then my father spun around on his chair and pressed his hooves together in front of his face. "Do you want to know why I brought you to my office Athanix?" I didn't say a word. It was always like this when I was talking seriously to my dad. I didn't know about him but every time he tried to have a serious conversation with me, whether he was angry or not, he always seemed to be mad about the subject. Even if you knew he wasn't mad about anything he always just sounded like he was about to yell at you for some reason. My dad broke the silence. "Well do you?" "Uh..." "Well I'll tell you!" He said as he eyeballed me. He ducked down under his desk and grabbed a small stack of papers with his mouth. He set them on the table and spread them out on the desk. "Do you know what this is?" "Uh......" "Come on! Don't tell me you don't recognize your own handy work!" I looked down and read some of the pieces of paper. Lone behold these were some of the papers from one of my manuscripts. One of my longer well thought out ones too. "This stuff is pure gold Athanix! Your story structure is so advanced! Your characters are so three dimensional! And everything in your world building falls perfectly into place! It's amazing that you write like this even though you have never been taught any of it! You must of gotten a little bit from your old man." He said as he elbowed me. "Eheheh, yeah Dad..." Little did he know that I did go to school... "Come on son. You need discuss some of these things with me. Spend some quality time, you know!" I sighed a bit and accepted my dad's offer. It's not like I was going to say no. ~~~~~ "So that's why I did that so when he finally meets up with our secondary character-" I was cut off. "-everything is already set into motion! Genius my boy. I don't know where you come up with this stuff." I laughed feebly. "Eh, yeah Dad. I do get out a lot. Sometimes it just comes to me." It was true, I did like to fly around Equestria. Little did he know that is where I didn't get most of my inspiration for my stories. "It almost like you experienced all this for yourself! This human character you made is really interesting!" "Yeah yeah Dad. Glad you like it." I have been sitting in this chair for hours just talking to my dad about my story. He was so fascinated by the idea of these "humans" I have written about. I looked at the grandfather clock standing tall in the corner of the room. The minute had just passed over the twelve on the clock. That was soon followed by nine low rings from its brass bells. "Wow nine o'clock already? Well you should head of to bed now. You seem a little tired." "Thanks Dad." I smiled and gradually made my way to the door make sure to give extra care to shut the door quietly. As soon as the door was closed I made a break for my room on the second floor. I was so tired at this point. When I finally made it to my room I ducked under the silky covers and rested my head on a pillow. The shades of my window were drawn back and the only light in the room was coming from a small candle sitting on a small table beside my bed. I slowly I took of my silver rimmed glasses and set them on the table and with one huff I blew out the candle and fell asleep... ~~~~~ "GOOOOOOD MORNING CHICAGO! AND WELCOME TO!-" Wham! Crack! I slammed my little plastic clock again. I had barley shut my eyes when the DJ came on. Reluctantly I sat up on my small bed. My back ached a bit as I stretched. I sighed, "That figures... I don't get much sleep anyway..." ~~~~~ Author's Notes: This is going to be fun. I have a lot of plans for this! I know self inserts are frowned upon, but in my defense this was written *way** before I had any idea of that... :)* Comments, suggestions and opinions are welcome! As always I am open to critique, I take it all to heart! ~Athanix, Peace.
