To My Uncle

Chapters

Five
Nine
Fifteen
Eighteen
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Eight

Five

Keen Arrow was nice and snug in her blankets, long white mane draped around her tiny alice-blue form. Princess Luna’s stars glimmered pleasantly in her window. Sitting at her side was lanky Uncle Fine. His figure was hard to make out in the shadows, blending as they did with his splotchy brown coat and black mane. He looked down on her with smiling rosewood red eyes as he quietly concluded, “And that is how Princess Luna used a water hose to scare off a bugbear, saving the prince and his kingdom.”

Keen giggled, the image of the mighty princess chasing a big, mean bugbear around in circles with a gardening tool still stuck in her head. “Did that really happen?”

Uncle Fine pressed a hoof over his heart in mock offense. “You doubt me? Little filly, your uncle is many things, including a liar, but he would never tell a lie.”

This only made her laugh some more. “That makes no sense! You’re being silly.”

“Why yes, yes I am,” he responded with a grin. “Now, I think it’s time for a little filly to go to sleep.”

Oh, that wasn’t a good idea. If Uncle Fine left, who would protect her from the monsters? She tensed, eyes darting to the vulnerable window, and tried to stop imagining the bug ponies. “I don’t want you to go.”

“I am aware, but—”

“Can I tell you a story?”

It had been spoken without any planning. She didn’t think it would work. Yet, to her surprise, Uncle Fine considered it. He smiled. “Do you have a story to tell?”

No. At least, no happy stories. She didn’t want to talk about the bad things, but those were all that came to mind. A heavy yawn reminded her that she had to come up with something before Uncle Fine made her go to bed. Nothing would come.

That wasn’t fair. Uncle Fine always had the neatest stories to tell. Surely she owed him just one of her own? But she couldn’t. Her mind was blank.

She looked up at her ‘uncle’ and said, “I don’t know how.”

He cocked his head. “How?”

“How to have a story,” she pressed. “I want to tell a story, but I have no stories. How do you get stories?”

“Oh, all sorts of ways.” He leaned close to her, set his hooves to the sides of his head, and then spread them out as if to demonstrate said head exploding. “My skull is just bursting with ideas! I get them from music, from other ponies’ stories, from just walking down the street. That’s why I have to tell you stories every few nights, if I don’t they’ll squish my brain to make room, squish squish.” He mimed pressing his head between his two hooves, crossed his eyes and stuck his tongue out comically, earning him another giggle.

Sitting up straight once more and looking very pleased with himself, he continued, “I get stories from Lightning, from work, from my friends. I even get stories from you.” He patted her head just above her horn.

Stifling another yawn and shifting to get more comfortable, Keen fought the heft of her eyelids to look up at him. “But I don’t know how to get stories from… everything. How do you do it?”

“Hmm,” he hummed, tapping the knife that always dangled from around his neck. Its swaying was mesmerizing, especially when Keen was having trouble focusing like this. Stupid sleep. “It’s hard to explain. The ideas, they just come. But it pays to have a strong imagination.”

A strong imagination. Did she have one of those? She hoped so. Could she make it stronger? Like a muscle? “Do you think that someday I could be as good at stories as you are someday?”

He petted her mane, the strokes slow and gentle. “Little miss, you can be and do whatever you want. It may take time, but if you really want it, it will happen.”

She blinked. The effort to keep her eyes open afterwards was extreme. “You promise?”

“Cross my heart and hope to fly,” he recited, going through the motions. “Stick a cupcake in my eye.” His ear flicked towards the closed door. “Gotta go. Sweet dreams, Keen.”

“Good night,” she mumbled. When she next forced her eyes to open, he was gone. Uncle Fine was very good at that. She never saw him enter the room either.

The bedroom door opened, revealing a weary-looking Lightning Dust. She took one step through the threshold and peered around at the empty room before catching Keen’s eye. “Hey, kid. Is Fine keeping you up again?”

Keen smiled up at her. “He told me a story.”

Lightning’s eyes widened a little. Maybe the sleepiness was making Keen see things, but she thought for a moment that Lightning might have looked guilty. The mare sighed and rubbed at her forehead. “That’s fine, I suppose. I’d appreciate it a lot more if he’d stop being so sneaky about it.”

“But Uncle Fine—” Another loud yawn interrupted. “Uncle Fine is always sneaky.”

“I know.” The pegasus let out one more sigh, then a yawn of her own for good measure. “Just… try to get some sleep, okay? Don’t want to be dead on your hooves when you go see Twilight tomorrow morning.”

“Okay. Good night, Lightning.”

“G’night, kid.”

The door closed, and Keen was all alone. She turned to the window, not bothering to fight the sleep anymore. She watched the stars twinkle and, fleetingly, thought of what her ‘uncle’ had told her.

“Some day,” she whispered just before sleep struck, “I’m gonna tell a story, and It’ll be the best story ever.”

And then the world was dark and, like so many things brought up just before slumber, the entire idea became naught but fragments to be half-remembered in the morning.

Author's Note

This chapter is set during the events of Lightning's Bolt but I have no idea when exactly. Certainly before the visit to Foal Mountain.

I get that anyone who hasn't read the No Heroes series has no idea why Lightning is shacked with a filly or who Verity Fine Crime is. So for your sakes and as non-spoilery as I can make it: Lightning and Keen went to the same orphanage, though not at the same time. Lightning took Keen in after said orphanage was burned down, and moved to Ponyville for work. The entire story of Lightning's Bolt is about Lightning and Keen learning how they fit together as mother and daughter.

Nine

Today had not been a very good one for Keen. Her dear adopted mother was off in Canterlot undergoing some sort of medical procedure on her wing. Keen wasn’t very fond of Canterlot – too many ponies – so she’d been left at home with a foalsitter. She was supposed to spend the day outside playing with her friends, but then the Everfree decided it would rather rain on her parade.

No, like, real rain. The kind that made the drops move sideways and sent nice pegasi like Miss Airheart in a tailspin. So now Keen was stuck indoors with a supply of things to do that had rapidly run out.

The good news was that her foalsitter was none other than Uncle Fine. He very rarely foalsat, but he was always one of the more welcome ponies to do so. Uncle Fine could keep her safe, he always had fun ideas, and he let her do certain things that Mom frowned upon, like hot chocolate in the morning or staying up late. And since she was now out of things to do in her room, she decided to seek him out. Maybe they could play a game together!

As long as it wasn’t hide and seek. She tried that with Uncle Fine once. He was very good at hiding. Too good. Which she should have seen coming. Hiding was his special talent, after all, and he made a point of never holding back.

The search was short. There were only three rooms in the house, not counting the hallway and bathroom at the end of it. Two of those were bedrooms. One was a combination dining, kitchen, and living room. That last one was where she found him, which only made sense as he needed a table.

Uncle Fine was engrossed in his work. Not his real work, that was scary stuff she preferred not to ask about. Seeing it once was more than enough. Instead, he had several sheaths of paper, his muzzle hovering over one as a quill in his dark red aura scribbled swiftly across the page. Most ponies might see the intense focus in his eyes and the thoughtful frown on his lips and think he was deeply engrossed in his writing. Most ponies didn’t know Uncle Fine.

Tucking a lock of her long hair behind an ear, Keen asked, “What are you writing today?” She climbed into the chair opposite him, which was still too tall for her little frame.

Without stopping or looking up, he politely replied, “A story about seaponies.”

Keen’s ears perked at this. She’d never read about seaponies before. But this was Uncle Fine, so she had to ask, “Is it a happy story?”

“Nope.” He glanced at her with an apologetic smile, brushing his fiery red mane aside. “Sorry, Little Miss.”

Perked ears lowered forward. Some of Uncle Fine’s stories were nice and friendly and meant for fillies her age. Many of them weren’t. “Do ponies die in this one?”

“No. This is one of those ‘life’ stories.”

Meaning good and bad things happened in equal measure. That didn’t sound too bad, but she wasn’t in the mood for ‘life’ stories. She’d rather try something pleasant. But she also knew well enough that Uncle Fine wasn’t going to stop writing now. He was clearly in a mood, and it was better to let him work his way out of it. So much for playing a game.

But Keen was hardly out of ideas. There were a couple extra inkpots on the table – one can never have too many spare inkpots, so sayeth both Uncle Fine and Miss Sparkle – and a couple extra quills too. “Can I write something?”

That finally got the quill to pause in its scribbling. Uncle Fine gave her a funny look, as if not sure he’d heard her correctly. “Do you want to write something?”

She nodded enthusiastically. “I want to try.” Anything that Uncle Fine liked so much had to be worth a go.

Her uncle smiled and gestured to the paper. “No way I’ll use all this in one day. Go right ahead.”

A moment of excitement ran through the filly as she used her magic to snatch up a couple sheets, a quill and an inkpot. As a five-year student and master essay writer under the hard tutelage of Miss Sparkle, she knew precisely how to dip the quill and apply exactly the right pressure. The paper was set so very neatly before her, ready to accept her words of… of…

The quill hovered over the blank sheet. Keen stared at nothing, silently willing there to be words. Alas, the words proved uncooperative. She glanced at Uncle Fine’s page. It had so many words. Sentences within paragraphs upon pages of words. Yet when she looked at her own page, there were no words. The quill waggled in the air, as if doing so would conjure words out of her head and onto the paper. No such luck.

Uncle Fine was watching her in that amused way adults get when a foal’s plan hits the hard boundaries of reality. Pouting, she finally asked, “What should I write?”

He shrugged, clearly enjoying her annoyance. “What do you want to write?”

She shrugged in turn, then gestured to his work. “I want to write a story like you. But I don’t have any ideas.”

Uncle Fine hummed to himself, considering this dilemma. He no longer appeared to be making light of her, though he hadn’t lost an ounce of cheer. After a moment, he used his magic to sweep his story aside and set a new paper before himself. “How about we create a prompt? I’ll give one part, you give the other, and we see what we each write after… say, fifteen minutes?”

So it was like a game? Keen rather liked that idea. “Okay!” With an idea of what to write, surely she’d be able to do something. Miss Sparkle gave her writing assignments all the time, and what were those if not prompts?

“Then let me start us off with a subject: a stallion on a boat.” Uncle Fine nodded confidently, then asked, “And what is our stallion doing?”

Ah, he wanted a verb. Keen glanced at his story and recalled what it was supposed to be about. Thinking herself oh-so very clever, she replied, “A stallion on a boat meets a seapony.”

Smile broadening, Uncle Fine dipped his quill in his inkpot. “I think I might have an edge on you there, but very well. Fifteen minutes. Ready?”

Keen scrunched her face, set quill over paper, and nodded.

“Go.”

And go Keen did.

For all of one sentence. She had a sailor pony. On a boat. Seeing a seapony. And what happened next? How does a pony react to meeting a seapony? Are they supposed to be surprised? Scared? Happy? Does she know the seapony? What about the seapony’s side of things? What did it do?

Keen had no answers. Worse, when she glanced at Uncle Fine’s page, he already had a whole paragraph written! And he wasn’t even writing at his usual speed.

It would look dumb if she only had one sentence after fifteen minutes, so Keen forced herself to write something else. There. The sailor pony waved. Just… waved.

Now what?

The struggle went on for fourteen more minutes, and when Uncle Fine called time she had a paragraph. One measly little paragraph. Five sentences, and three of those were just describing what the seapony looked like.

Meanwhile, Uncle Fine had more than a page's worth of words, all in his neat, small hornwriting.

He clearly saw her frustration. She was making no attempt to hide it, what with her puffed up cheeks and pout. He offered his reassuring smile and reached out with his hoof to take her page—

“No.” She pulled it out of hoof’s reach with her magic. “It’s not good.”

His smile didn’t fade one bit. “You’ll pardon me for saying so, Little Miss, but I hardly think you’re qualified to say so.”

“It’s mine,” she countered firmly. “And I say it’s bad. I only wrote one paragraph.”

He cocked his head and replied, “You say that as if it’s slow.”

“It is slow!”

“Is it?” Propping his chin on a hoof, Fine took her glower with ease. “Some ponies just write slowly. There was one author named Milky Crankston. He wrote a story called Cube. It was three-hundred-eighty-five pages long. Do you know how long it took him?”

Milky Crankston? Didn’t he write that story, Nightmaric Park? Yes, that was the one. She’d read a few of his works, but not Cube. Now really interested, she shook her head.

Uncle Fine’s smile broadened. “Twenty years.”

Keen could feel her eyeballs growing in her skull. “Twenty years?”

“Twenty years. Apparently he had trouble figuring out what to write.”

“Oh.” What more could she say? Twenty years was longer than she’d been alive. That was… She didn’t know what it was. Her eyes drifted back to Fine’s writing. There were so many words. “But you wrote so much.”

He nodded, patting the sheets as he did. “Everypony writes differently. Some are slow, some are fast. I’m just one of the fast ones.”

She scrunched her face up as she tried to imagine that. He must think fast too. It was the only explanation. “How do you know what to write?”

To this he shrugged and gained a sheepish look. “It just comes to me. I know my characters, and if I don’t know them I let them tell me who they are.”

Keen stared. First at him, then at his one-and-some-change pages, then at her measly one paragraph. “But…” Would this sound stupid? It sounded smart in her head, but a lot of stupid things sounded smart in her head until Mom or Uncle Fine or some other adult corrected her. Surely this would be one of those times. “But they’re just words. They aren’t ponies, or seaponies or… or people.”

“That’s what imagination is for.” At her ongoing scrunchy face, he sighed and toyed with his ever-present knife necklace. “It’s hard to explain. It sounds silly. But I don’t view the characters as just words on paper. They’re my friends.”

Keen cocked her head. “Even the bad guys?”

There came a peculiar smile on Uncle Fine’s face. Keen had only seen it two or three times. There was no other way to describe it but ‘creepy’. Not that it bothered Keen – her Uncle Fine could be a scary pony, but only towards anypony who wasn’t her. Uncle Fine would never hurt her.

“Especially the bad guys.”

He shook it off quickly, smile returning to normal. “I let them exist as themselves in my head and let them do the talking. I am merely putting their words down on paper.”

He was right, that did sound silly. She gestured to her lone, sad paragraph. “The sailor pony doesn’t speak to me.”

“That just means you’re a different kind of writer from me,” he reassured her. “If you keep trying, I think you’ll be a more technically minded one. Which means that while you might be slow, how you write the story will probably be excellent. Versus me.” He nodded once more to his one-and-a-half pages. “I write fast. That doesn’t mean what I write is good. I can already tell I’d need to rework things on at least two thirds of that, and one third can probably be thrown away entirely.”

And he would know what was good, wouldn’t he? After all, he had trophies. Many ponies and non-ponies too read and liked his stories. Which led to an entirely new problem, one that stirred fresh doubts in her mind. Taking her page and scanning the paragraph yet again, she pondered out loud, “How do I know if what I write is good?”

He shrugged. “You don’t.”

Her tail flicked at this odd answer. “What do you mean? Everypony likes your stories.” So he had to know what ‘good’ was, right?

“Not everypony,” he gently corrected her. “Many. Maybe most. Depends on the story. But never everypony.” When she could only stare in bewilderment, he tapped his knife again, making it sway. A crack of lightning briefly lit the room but failed to break their eye contact. “Writing is an art. Like painting. Everypony has their own opinion on what makes a painting good or bad, and many will disagree about it. Some will even fight over it.”

Keen frowned, eyes following the slow sway of his knife. Something was either good or it was bad, right? Uncle Fine’s writing was good, and hers was bad. She needed to learn the right way to write if she was going to be as good as him. Was this some sort of test? Mom liked to say that Uncle Fine was a compulsive liar. Which… was true, Keen had seen it herself, but she never thought he’d lied to her. At least, not about anything important. And this felt important. She didn’t want to believe he was lying now. Which left her with one conclusion: “I don’t understand.”

Uncle Fine hummed, the sound uncertain but patient. He was always patient. It came with a talent for hiding, or so she believed.

“Ah.” Raising his head high, Uncle Fine grinned. “I’ve got it! You remember To Kill a Phoenix, right?”

Yes. Yes, she absolutely did. The very mention brought a frown to her face. “By Harp Leaves. I only read three chapters. It was boring.” Uncle Fine knew this. She’d told him about it, and Uncle Fine didn’t forget things.

He nodded knowingly. “So you’d say the book was bad?”

“It was bad,” she declared with confidence.

Uncle Fine’s grin grew. “Did you know Harp Leaves won a Foalitzer for that book?”

The sheer absurdity of what had passed through her ears and into her brain brought Keen’s every physical function to a jarring halt. The actual meaning of the words jolted them back into activity. “A Foalitzer? L-like the ones you won?”

He only nodded, pride brimming in his expression.

“But. But…” All her efforts to sum up her feelings on this revelation could scarcely be put into words. She was forced to settle for the embarrassingly childish rebuttal of “But it’s so boring.”

“Hmm,” Uncle Fine hmm’d. “So you think it was bad. Does that mean the Coltlumbia University doesn’t know a good story from a bad story?”

“No!” Keen knew that couldn’t be true, because “The Adventures of Kit and Kaboose is good!”

“Why, thank you! Much appreciated.” Uncle Fine rubbed at his chest in an exaggeratedly self-aggrandizing manner. “So you didn’t like To Kill a Phoenix, but a lot of ponies liked it enough to think it deserved a grand award. What does that tell you?”

That was the question, wasn’t it? Keen wasn’t sure what it meant, or how to properly process it. She needed a moment. She stared out the kitchen window, through the droplets beaded on the glass, into the rainy autumn afternoon. She stared and she pondered, pondered, pondered.

There were many truths about Keen Arrow. She was a little pony, even for her age, and always had been. She was cute, and smart enough to know how to weaponize that against certain ponies with a weakness for cute things. But there was the rub: Keen was smart. Her mother, undeniably a jock despite the crippled wing holding her back, jokingly lamented Keen’s egg-headedness. The local librarian – Keen’s magic teacher – often praised her for things like that.

This wasn’t a book-smarts thing though, or magical theory, or even a matter of accuracy (which her cutie mark of an arrow poking through a book would have helped immensely with otherwise). No, this felt like something beyond hard facts. It dove into the realm of opinions, thought experiments, and theories. Keen wasn’t so good at those things. If there wasn’t a hard fact that proved the point, then she wasn’t sure what to do with herself.

But eventually, somehow, she began to form conclusions. She wasn’t at all confident in them, but that was okay. She had Uncle Fine with her, and she could ask Twilight about it later. She trusted both of them to help. She might even ask her mother, although asking Lightning Dust about anything other than flying, sports, or weather work was always a questionable proposition likely to lead to inconclusive or outright incorrect results. Still, she would try her best if Keen asked.

For now, she had Uncle Fine. Who, she now realized, had gone back to his regular writing work. That was enough to tell her she’d gone into thinking mode again. A glance at the clock told her little, but she guessed she’d probably just lost at least a half-hour. “Uncle Fine?”

He neither looked up nor stopped writing. “Little Miss.”

“If good writing is a matter of opinion and ponies don’t agree on what makes a story ‘good’, then I have to decide on my own what I like and don’t like.”

The quill paused. Uncle Fine met her gaze with a warm smile. “Very good.”

She nodded back, a smile of her own taking over her face. It was always a nice, warm, comfy feeling when Uncle Fine approved. “So I shouldn’t be asking ‘Am I good?’. I should be asking, ‘Am I happy?’.”

Sitting up straight once more, Uncle Fine set the quill in the inkpot and set his paper aside. “I find absolutely nothing to criticize in that.”

The way he said that made it sound like the discussion was concluded. It wasn’t. Keen had a whole new question. “But that means only I decide if I am getting better.” She cocked her head up at him, taking a moment to brush aside her long mane as it tried to dangle in her face. “How do I get better? I’m the one who decides what ‘better’ is, but I don’t know what ‘better’ is. I can’t figure that out.”

“The challenge every writer faces,” he acknowledged sagely. “Well, you’re already at stage one of the process, which is to read.”

Read? Keen did that all the time anyway. Her mother had even made a bookshelf for her so that she could start a collection, then another in the hall when that one had gotten full. The second one getting full was when Lightning established the rule of ‘no new books until you finish the ones you have, young lady’. “Why read?”

He gestured to his own story. “Every pony writes differently, and every pony likes different things in writing. So read a lot. See what other ponies do, see their techniques, learn which ones you like and don’t like. Then you can learn to use them for yourself.” Then, as if by rote and with a wry smile, he declared, “Immature writers imitate. Mature writers steal.”

Keen didn’t know what that quote meant – for she was sure he was quoting something – but she knew Uncle Fine well enough to know why he’d love it. She couldn’t help smirking in turn, accepting in her ignorance this once. Let Uncle Fine have his sneaky things. “I read lots already. What’s step two?”

“Criticism,” he declared. “Having other ponies read your stories and tell you what they think.”

The very idea made her feel cold. Let other ponies read her crummy words? She glanced at her tiny paragraph, still sitting where she’d left it. Uncle Fine hadn’t touched it, and that allowed her to relax… a little. “I don’t think I’m ready for that step.”

To that Uncle Fine chuckled and patted her head. “Someday you will be, Little Miss.

“If you ever decide you want to get better, someday you will be.”

Fifteen

The Everfree Forest put no fear in the heart of Keen Arrow. She’d been along this path enough times to know exactly what to expect. Having Zecora teach her how to identify dangerous plants and animals (the result of foalhood curiosity nearly getting the better of her one year) and Auntie Octavia (Princess Octavia to everypony else) showing her the finer points of self-defense (both physical and magical) made her prepared for just about anything the creepy old forest could throw at her. Thus did she arrive at the mansion deep in the woods with almost boring ease.

That was unfortunate, because right now she wanted something to zap.

Despite being ten years old now, the mansion still hadn’t managed to achieve that ‘spooky middle-of-nowhere’ vibe its owner was probably looking forward to. The entrance was a large, two-storey affair of hardwood floors and paneling and a pair of twin staircases leading to a balcony above. Just as she was readying to go up one of those staircases, a cloud of black smoke billowed into existence in the middle of the balcony. When it faded, there stood Uncle Fine.

“Ah, Little Miss.” He smoothed a black and red vest that required no smoothing and grinned. “Most unusual for you to show up unannounced, but not unwelcome.”

Uncle Fine had aged marvelously. His red mane, long freed from the black dye he’d stuck to in his youth, seemed bright in the dim lighting. Perhaps it wasn’t as brilliant as it used to be, but at least he wasn’t graying yet. There were a few extra laugh lines on his face, no doubt the result of countless hours spent with his marefriend, but his body was every bit as toned as it had ever been. He’d taken to wearing a dark red bowler hat, which Keen estimated would last only up until the moment Miss Rarity caught sight of it.

That didn’t stop him from taking a startled step back when Keen, now at the top of the stairs, magically jerked a few sheets of paper from her saddlebag and thrust them in his face. “I need your help,” she declared. “I’ve been puzzling over this thing all week and I just. Can’t. Do it.”

“Well, hello to you too.” Taking the paper in his own magical aura, he peered at it. After flipping a page or two, he said, “It’s a story. Incomplete, I note.”

“It’s trash,” she venomously corrected. “I’m supposed to be done with this by Monday for my Advanced Literary Class, I’ve got four days left and the only thing I can write is trash. I’m going to fail the assignment!”

To this Uncle Fine raised an eyebrow. “It’s hardly the end of the world.”

“I do not fail assignments,” she snarled. “Especially essays.”

“An essay and a short story are not even remotely the same thing.”

“I know that!” Heaving a sigh, Keen took the papers and stuffed them back in her saddlebag, not caring that it was getting crumpled in the process. “Fundamentally, I know that. But I’ve never finished a story. Not even a short one. I thought taking this class would help in that regard, but now that I’m here the work is just… not coming to me.”

“Ah.” Uncle Fine’s smile turned warm, and maybe even a touch amused. “The old problem. Why are you so devoted to writing something of your own?”

“Because I can. Or, at least, I think I can.” Leaning heavily on the banister, she let her chin rest atop the railing with a pout. “You do it. Miss Twilight does it. Tartarus, even Miss Dash does it.”

Uncle Fine shuddered and muttered with utmost dread, “Worst editing job I ever accepted.”

“But she still did it, and it was a bestseller.” No doubt thanks to his and Twilight’s contributions. “And look at me. I can write better than most adults, and yet I can’t finish anything. Isn’t that pathetic? It feels pathetic. I want to be able to say that I can.”

Uncle Fine offered no response. She wondered if he was too disgusted with her to offer one. She wouldn’t blame him. Sure, they weren’t blood related, but it had to be a disappointment that his ‘niece’ was such a failure in a thing which he excelled at and was passionate about. She could still fondly remember all those nights he’d sneak into her room to tell her stories. Her mother didn’t do bedtime stories much when she was little, and she wasn’t very good at it anyway. Which was at least part of his reason for doing it: if a filly was going to get a bedtime story, it should at least be a good one. That it annoyed Lightning was icing on the cake.

She’d read every single one of Verity Fine’s stories, some of them more than once. The Adventures of Kit n’ Caboose remained one of her all-time favorites. Then there were the lies. What were lies but stories told to be convincing? Uncle Fine used to have a saying: ‘Truth was for ponies who lacked creativity.’ If you wanted to get an interesting story, ask Uncle Fine what he did for a living. His answer was different every time, and it never involved actual writing or… Well. His real job was confidential. Not that she didn’t know, but it was fun to play at not knowing, and good practice for when somepony inevitably asked her.

Point was, Uncle Fine was an unquestioned storytelling master, able to come up with witty and entertaining tales with little or even no prompting. She’d grown up on those stories, she loved them. And once – just once – she wanted to be the one to tell him a story. A good one, with wit and charm and adventure and romance and all the things that made a story truly good. Yet she couldn’t even finish a stupid short story. Every time that fact presented itself to her, she felt unworthy of calling herself his ‘Little Miss’.

She finally dared to glance up at him. The regret was immediate. The old stallion, normally so strong and confident, appeared at a loss for what to say or do. Her uncle should never look like that, and she should never be the reason. She promptly stood up straight and adjusted her bags. “I’m sorry. You’ve probably got important work to do for Princess Luna and I’m here whining. I’ll head back now.”

The confidence shot back into him. Moving with a fluidity that defied his middle age, he circled around and blocked her path to the stairs. “You only just got here, and the road back to Ponyville isn’t exactly short. Stick around, maybe we can figure something out.”

She stepped back, unable to look him in the eyes. “I don’t want to intrude…”

“She says after storming into my house and pushing paper in my face.”

Her pout earned her only a well-meaning grin. He ushered her, gently but firmly, into the nearby hallway at the center of the balcony. They paused before a seemingly plain, undecorated wall. Fine’s horn shined bright, and Keen could faintly hear the sound of objects moving behind the wood panelling. Then, with a faint click, part of the wall slid away, revealing a hidden room. This was by no means a surprise, as Keen had visited Uncle Fine’s private study plenty of times in the past. She could probably open the door herself if she just put her mind to it, but had never tried out of respect.

The study was a small, windowless room. Uncle Fine liked small, dark spaces. She was definitely more into sunlight and windows herself. The walls on both sides of the room were covered in floor-to-ceiling bookcases that were crammed so tightly with novels it was a wonder how they had been squeezed into place at all, with the exception of a cabinet space that Keen knew held notes, rough drafts, and Uncle Fine’s Foallitzers.

The back of the room was taken up entirely by a desk that was very neatly sorted and arranged. Just as she looked at it, a sheet of paper ‘popped’ into existence and floated, gently and precisely, down onto a small stack of similar such sheets. She didn’t know what they contained or who was sending them to him, but she did know it had something to do with his super secret work for Princess Luna and, thus, not anything she should inquire about. That had been very hard to accept five years ago.

Now all her attention was on the large stack of papers on the right. As she neared, she examined the sheets and knew quickly that they were the draft of a new book. The sheer size of it tugged a miserable moan from her throat. “I don’t understand how you do it.”

Uncle Fine’s horn sparked, and the papers on the left – Keen hadn’t bothered to even glance at them – slid into a cubbyhole of the desk, where a small door slammed closed. The papers stopped coming after that. “Keen, has it ever occurred to you that maybe writing stories just isn’t your forte?”

Flipping lethargically through the pages, she snorted and muttered, “At this point I’m confident it’s not. That shouldn’t stop me from trying.”

Settling at her side, he read the page she was on over her shoulder. At least, she assumed he was doing that. “So you’ve come to believe this isn’t what you should be doing, but you plan on doing it anyway.”

She didn’t want to explain it to him. It felt too personal, especially when he was a big part of why it was happening. When she finally succeeded, it needed to be a surprise. Which was an odd way of looking at it, considering her coming to him for help. But it was what it was. “If Twilight and Rainbow can do it, so can I.”

He chuckled. “I’d hardly call Twilight’s dragging on over unnecessary details good, and the less said about Rainbow’s pulpy-tropey self-inserts, the better.”

“That’s hardly encouraging,” she grumbled, dropping the pages onto the desk with a bit more force than necessary. A beat as his words struck. “You know, I understand exactly what you mean. I see the flaws in Twilight’s writing, it gets to be so… droning. And Rainbow’s story is fun but not what one might call ‘stimulating’. I get that. I understand it. How can I understand it but not be able to write for myself?”

He hummed, as was his wont when thinking. After a few seconds of this he used his magic to pull down a whiteboard that had been hidden in the ceiling. There were all sorts of scribbles and imagery depicted on it, but he wiped it clean before she could get more than a glance. Probably for the better, all things considered.

“Five years ago, we had a talk,” he declared, pulling out a series of markers from his desk. He kept the red one and offered her the rest. She picked the blue, though she wasn’t certain where he was going with this. “We established that you’re a ‘perfectionist writer’. Or, to put it in terms Lightning Dust could grasp, you think too much.”

Keen snorted. “I’d say I’m obligated to defend my mother, but alas, the statement is accurate in all regards.”

He grinned and pointed the red marker at her, but otherwise said nothing to her counter. Turning to the whiteboard, he continued, “What we need to do is break you out of your determined need to think things through. I propose a game.”

Settling on his desk cushion, she began poking dots on the whiteboard with her marker. Or rather, she poked the exact same spot again and again, an easy act of precision and a means of settling her nerves. “What kind of game?”

Gesturing to the board, he announced, “I am going to write a sentence. You then have ten seconds to start writing your own, otherwise I’ll write another one. Every sentence you write earns you a point. If you stop writing a sentence, I’ll jump in and finish it and you will be awarded no points.”

“Ten seconds?” She shook her head, twirling a lock of mane in one hoof. “How am I supposed to think of anything in ten seconds?”

“You’ll learn,” he replied smugly. A familiar, wicked smile slipped across his features. “Or else.”

The poking against the whiteboard ceased. Keen knew her uncle’s sense of humor. He was usually kind when aiming it at her, but something told her the gloves were coming off this time. It wasn’t a pleasant concept. “Or else what?”

“You will score at least twenty-five points. If you do…” He tapped his chin with the cap of his marker, blatantly drawing out her anxiety. She bristled in preparation. “...I’ll resist the temptation to start leaving out hints.”

“Hints?” That sounded just like him. It also sounded dangerous, but she swiftly put on a confident air, sitting tall and taking on a regal posture of indifference. “Hints. You mean to tell ponies about some dirty secret. Jokes on you, old stallion; I’m cleaner than Miss Rarity’s mane.”

“Oh, no doubt. No doubt.” He nodded, seemingly in complete agreement. She wasn’t fooled for an instant, and his returning grin confirmed her suspicions. “You don’t have to be dirty to have secrets. Secrets you think dear old Uncle Fine, traveling sneakpony nonpareil, somehow hasn’t discovered.”

Narrowing her eyes at him, she muttered, “You’re bluffing.”

Tap tap tap went the marker cap against Fine’s chin. His gaze was like that of a sphinx toying with its latest meal. “That boy at school. The one who you made friends with all those years ago. Green Daze, I think his name was? Yes. I must say, dear niece, your taste in stallions is curious. Not exactly brimming with muscle and confidence, is he?”

He knew? No, that wasn’t possible. He couldn’t know! She hadn’t told anypony. Not a soul! “I d-don’t see what he has to do with this.”

The marker floated up to the whiteboard and started writing, but Keen’s eyes were locked on Uncle Fine’s wicked smile. “Then you won’t mind losing, will you? Tick tock, Little Miss.”

She scored seventy-eight points that day and got an A+ on her short story assignment. It ended up being about a mansion haunted by a sneaky trickster ghost who should kindly butt out of other ponies' romantic non-lives.

Eighteen

Not a single guard tried to stop her from marching through Canterlot Castle. The truth was that they all knew who she was and that she was no threat to anypony. Keen, snorting steam and flashing fiery glares at anypony who dared come close, preferred to believe it was because she was more dangerous than King Sombra right now. It was better than thinking about the little sting. Floating in her magical aura was a small stack of papers that threatened to turn to ash at any second, the pages covered in red marks.

After several minutes of near-silent expletives and not-silent-at-all hoofstomping, she arrived at a small, snow-covered garden. Slamming her rump down on an icy bench, she glared at the statue of Smart Cookie in the middle of the space and wondered if she couldn’t use her horn to melt it. Not a pony came out to see her, the small garden being entirely empty on this frozen, early winter’s day. With nothing better to do, she began reading through the papers, snarling and mumbling and occasionally cursing.

After what felt like an eternity, somepony walked through one of the nearby doors and approached. It was her dear Uncle Fine, for once making no attempt at a stealthy approach. He appeared quite somber. That was almost a disappointment.

“Hello, Little—”

“What in Tartarus is this?!” She waved the papers in hoof, already out of her seat.

He cast them a cursory glance. “Looks like the short story you asked me to critique.”

“Critique, yes.” Her horn sparked, and the dozen pages spread out over her head. She thrust a hoof at the closest one. “This is practically a rewrite! You had something negative to say about every other sentence.”

He frowned at her, disappointment plain on his face. There was that little sting again. “If you wanted a yes-mare, you could have just asked your mother.”

“I’m not going all the way to Ponyville to ask Mom to read a short story.”

“But you’re willing to interrupt my workday to complain about commentary that, might I add, you specifically requested.” He rubbed at his temple and heaved a long sigh. “Keen, I gave you permission to come here in case something important came up.”

“It’s important to me,” she countered with no less fire. It was a wonder the snow at her hooves hadn’t melted. “I wanted your help. This is the first thing I’ve written in three years and you reward that inspiration and drive with… with red!”

He tilted his head, annoyance and curiosity making for strange companions on his features. He seemed to be expecting something, but Keen couldn’t imagine what. She wished he would just get on with it!

With a snort of steam, he trotted to the bench she’d been using and sat, making sure to put his frustration on display with every motion. That done, he met her gaze. “All I’ve heard so far is ‘how dare you criticize me?’. Do you have something specific in mind or are you just upset that I made corrections at all?”

She scoffed and shook her head in ardent denial. “That’s not it at all! I do want critique.”

His piercing redwood gaze didn’t let up, and suddenly she didn’t feel so confident. “Then what’s the problem?”

“Everything!” She snatched one of the floating pages in her magic and read through the neat notes on the side. “Like here, when you said Saltpeter was inconsistent. He’s perfectly consistent!”

Uncle Fine raised an eyebrow even as he dusted some powdered snow off the space beside him with a stray hoof. “The stallion was too stupid to see all the clues that his marefriend is having an affair at the start of the story, but then he’s observant enough to solve the puzzle midway through in twenty seconds? Then he can’t see the solution staring him in the face in the climax and his marefriend, who up until this point didn’t even have a name, came in and saved the day.”

“He’s smart about some things and dumb about others!”

Brush-brush, more snow was cleared. “The two puzzles had nearly identical solutions.”

“Just because it was obvious to you doesn’t mean it’s obvious to him.” She snatched another page out of the air. “And here, narrative voice? What’s wrong with my narrative voice?”

“You mean aside from the fact that you switched to first person for no reason on page four?”

She threw up her hooves. “It’s a gimmick!”

Brush-brush, the pile under the bench was growing. “A ‘gimmick’ is something that the entire story depends on. You did it for one sentence out of twelve pages.”

She opened her mouth for another counter, but one didn’t come. Now that she considered it, yeah, it did come out of nowhere. She glared at the paragraph in question, at the sentence. A single line, set in parentheses. She liked the line. It was funny. She couldn’t just change it. “It belongs there.”

“Why?” She looked up to find him watching her, utterly confident and unwavering. “What does that one line do that’s so important for the whole story?”

“It…” She had an answer, but it felt like a stupid one. Fidgeting, holding on to the fire that suddenly wasn’t so hot anymore, she muttered, “It’s important for the moment.”

Perhaps he could see that she was losing steam. Oh, who was she kidding? Of course he could. He smiled and patted the now-dry bench. With a huff, she brought the pages back together as a single document and sat. “My flank’s already wet from sitting on this bench once.”

“It’s painful, isn’t it?”

That little sting wasn’t so little anymore. She tried shoving it down like all the other times. It didn’t want to go away, like a roach that stubbornly refused to go down the drain. “No,” she petulantly fired off. “It’s cold.”

Pretending not to hear, her uncle pressed on. “You thought you had it. Every word, perfection. The logic behind your sentences, unassailable. Then you give it to someone who you’ve come to think of as an expert, anticipating that they'll love it every bit as strongly as you do.”

She turned her head away, eyes burning. Forelegs crossed, she hunched her shoulders and scowled at nothing.

“I’m sorry.” Uncle Fine had the audacity to sound sincere about it. “Every writer goes through this eventually.”

She scooted a little further from him, shivering when her flank touched the cold metal side of the bench. “I bet you didn’t.”

He chuckled at her struggling attempts to hold onto anger. “My cutie mark is for hiding, not writing. When I first started out, I was bad with a capital B.”

Blinking, she finally dared to look at him. He offered her an amused smile that spoke of self consciousness. “I find it hard to believe that you ever were a bad writer.”

“Some would argue I still am.” He chuckled, brushing a hoof through his not-so-bright-anymore red mane. “There’s a circle of authors keeping tallies on bad reviews. It’s like a contest to see who can get the most. We dole out ‘consolation prizes’ at the end of every year. Miss Velvet’s expected to win this one.” Upon realizing she was staring, he sighed and shook his head. “None of this helps, does it?”

Back to glaring at Smart Cookie’s smiling, stoney face. “I’m not wrong.”

“Maybe you’re not,” he confessed. That only made her brace. He wouldn’t say that unless… “Maybe I’m just an old geezer, too set in his ways to recognize that the medium’s changed. Maybe you’ve discovered the ‘new age’ of writing.” He waved his hooves as if to put something on display. “But you know what I really think?”

She wasn’t sure she wanted to.

“I think you’ve never faced real criticism before.”

The sting became venomous, and she wasted no time channeling said venom to her tongue. “I have too!”

Unperturbed by her outburst, he calmly asked, “Have you shown it to anypony who has said anything other than ‘misspelled this one word, great story, can’t wait for more’?”

Blinking back the wetness in her eyes, she tried to think of an example refuting his insinuation. Friend after friend after friend, ponies who weren’t writers, ponies who weren’t storytellers. Green Daze, Dinky, Ani, she’d even managed to get Apple Bytes, which was something of a miracle. Plus her roommate at CSGU, a few others. Every last one of them said the same thing. Every. Last. One. “They… They said they liked it.”

“And they probably did,” Uncle Fine admitted. “But Little Miss, was a single one of them an actual writer? Or a critic? Maybe even an Equish teacher?”

She fumed, or at least tried to. Underneath the simmering anger, a voice screamed that she was right, that her writing was fine, and she had plenty of ponies to vouch for that. But even deeper down a second voice squeaked out, timid and trembling, that maybe she wasn’t as good as she thought she was.

She didn’t want it to be right. That couldn’t be permitted. With a huff, she stuffed the papers back into her saddlebag. “I finished a story.” Bitterness laced her words. “For the first time ever, I knew exactly what I wanted to say and how to do it. Every word was chosen with a specific intention.”

Her uncle shrugged. “Yes, well, I’m sure Queen Chrysalis had a perfect plan too when she initiated the invasion of Canterlot.”

“That’s a terrible comparison!”

“Is it?”

“It is, she failed!”

Fine stared at her, his manner curious. Eventually he gestured to her pack. “Then try to get that published in anything other than a school newspaper or magazine.”

There was that seed of doubt again. Keen had to fight to avoid biting her lip. “M-maybe I will.”

“But if you want my advice—” A beat. He leaned closer, the better to be at her eye level, and asked, “I am still allowed to offer advice, aren’t I?”

Sticking her muzzle up a little, she replied, “As long as it’s good advice.”

He nodded seriously. “Then here’s my suggestion: sleep on it. Give it a week. Then read through my notes again.”

As much as she wanted to be angry at his every word right now, Keen could only respond to that suggestion with open confusion. “What good will that do?”

He gestured both forehooves at her face. “All that steam currently taking up space in your head—” He made flapping motions with his hooves as he raised them high. “—will have been vented and ascended into the stratosphere. You’ll be able to think clearly when you read through it again.”

With yet another huff, she refocused on Smart Cookie’s stupid face. “You’ll still be telling me my writing stinks. I’ll probably just get mad again.”

“Maybe. But I know you, kid. You’re usually a very patient and gentle pony. This big outburst of yours is refreshing, but still only temporary.”

‘Refreshing’, he said. Maybe she could understand why. It was well known that she tended to bottle up her emotions. The bottle just hadn’t been big enough this time. Perhaps she should listen to him, at least on this point. Maybe when she looked at the story again in a week she’d be able to better articulate why his corrections were wrong.

Not taking her eyes from the statue, she sulked and pouted. “I’m still mad at you.”

“Which I understand perfectly.”

Keen shot him a ‘look’. “Would you stop with the ‘ever-patient, old wise stallion’ routine?”

He reared back his head in mock offense. “Are you daring to suggest that I am anything but patient, old, or wise?”

She tried for a disdainful sniff, but all the anger in the world couldn’t keep her from smiling a little. “You’re two out of three, which ain’t bad.”

“Right.” He nodded primly, only to blink. “Wait, which two?”

The smile was easier to hold when it was at his expense. She returned her eyes to the statue and said nothing.

“Fine, be that way.” He certainly didn’t sound offended. Part of her was disappointed by that. “As interesting as this conversation has been, you really did interrupt me in the middle of something important, and I need to get back to it.” He started to get up, but paused. After a moment’s consideration, he surprised her by wrapping a lone leg around her withers in a gentle hug.

“I really am proud of you, Keen. I know I might look like a villain to you at the moment, but I am on your side, and finally finishing something after all these years? That’s an accomplishment, no matter how much red I splatter across the pages. You keep it up and someday you won’t need to ask for my help anymore.”

Darn her for having spent so much of her developing years around Fluttershy! It was just too hard to stay angry at her uncle when he was showing genuine affection like this. So though the spiteful pony within hadn’t quite died, she returned the hug and muttered a reluctant, “Thanks.”

And he left. Trotting, just like he arrived. No smoke, or disappearing when her eyes happened to be elsewhere. Keen knew her uncle well enough to understand that he chose that manner of egress for a reason. She didn’t know what the reason was, but she knew it was for her sake. Somehow.

She waited two weeks to look at his notes again, rather than one. And while she still didn’t like it, that time she could at least admit to herself that maybe he had a good point or two. Just maybe.

Twenty-Four

Keen sat at her desk, forehooves pressed to her temples as she stared at the page before her. There were words at the top, leading to a pitiful half-sentence that resolutely refused to finish itself. The very sight of it disgusted her. She considered going back to re-read the last five or six pages, but immediately tossed that idea away. It hadn’t worked the last five times, it wouldn’t work now.

The trash can sat just within hoof’s reach on her right. She resolutely refused to look at it, no matter how tempting the idea might be. Just as much effort was made to not look at the clock tick-tick-ticking away on her nightstand. Now matter what it might say, she’d be unhappy about it. It was dark outside her window, that told her more than enough.

At last the frustration became too much. Shoving away from the desk, she dragged her hooves down the stairs of her small townhouse and into the kitchen. A lack of caution led her to glance at the wall clock over the sink, and she scowled at the lateness of the hour. At least she was off work tomorrow.

A can full of hot chocolate mix, a mug, some cinnamon and a hint of hot sauce. All she needed now was the milk. She squinted against the brilliant glow of the refrigerator’s light, having to peer at the carton to check the date. Still good for another two or three days. She’d be done with it well before then. The fridge closed—

“Evening, Little Miss.”

Keen jumped with a tiny yelp at the sight of her dear, heart attack-inducing Uncle Fine, who smiled smugly at her from where he’d been standing behind the fridge’s door. She dropped the carton of milk, but managed to catch it in her magic right before it could land.

No sooner had her shock come had it gone, replaced by a beaming smile. “Uncle Fine.” She gave him a hug, which he eagerly returned. “How is it you always know exactly when to show up?”

He rubbed his chest with a grin. “Come now, you know better than to expect me to tell the truth about such things.”

“True.” She turned to set the carton of milk down, magic already snatching up a second mug. “But you always have the funniest answers.”

He took a seat at her kitchen table, smile untouched. “Well, in that case: I’ve hired some private investigators to keep an eye on your every move.” At her skeptical look, he added, “They’re breezies. Live in your walls and attic, and are very fond of ginger cookies.”

Turning on the burner to heat the milk, she giggled at the implications. “So that’s why I lose a cookie every other night. And here I thought somepony with a notorious sweet tooth and sneaky powers of sneakery was sneaking into my house to sneak away a cookie or two every other night.”

He hummed in contemplation as she sat opposite him. “One would think an aware pony would, I dunno, stop making the cookies?”

“Ah, but then said pony couldn’t keep trying to catch the cookie thief in the act,” Keen reminded him pleasantly. “Where would the fun be in that?”

“Where indeed?” Without turning from her, Fine magicked a cookie from its hiding place behind the utensil holder, split it in half, and offered her one while he nibbled on the other. “In all fairness to the thief, they are pretty tasty.”

“Aren’t they, though?” Making a mental note to find a better cookie hiding place – again – Keen levitated the milk and ingredients to the table and began mixing up the hot chocolate. She knew exactly how Uncle Fine liked it, and indeed had come to be fond of his style herself. The couple drops of hot sauce gave it just the kick it needed.

With the completed mug of hot chocolate set before him, Fine lifted the mug in his hooves and took a long whiff. His lips turned up in that happy smile he always got when that particular beverage was involved, but didn’t drink just yet. “So, what’s got you up so late?”

The only appropriate response was a heavy sigh and slouched shoulders. She took in the velvety scent of her chocolate, but it was only a marginal help. “Trying to write that story. Again.”

“Ah, the eternal battle.” He nodded sagely. “How goes the conflict?”

Rather than answer, Keen risked a tentative sip of her hot chocolate, the better to think on her frustrations. It was almost too hot, which made it perfect for drinking.

Her uncle’s eyebrows rose. “That bad?”

She took a deeper sip, letting the hot liquid slosh across her taste buds for a few seconds. The sweet, chocolatey nectar eased things quite a bit, such was its soul-saving power. With a sigh somewhere between pleasure and weariness, she set the mug down. “I don’t know. Some days I can churn out a few hundred words, other days I swear the blank page is mocking me. Tonight is the latter.” Resting her cheek atop her fetlock, she stared listlessly into her chocolate. “Sometimes I just want to chuck the whole thing in the garbage and be done with it.”

“That would be a shame.” He took a sip from his own mug, yet his face remained solemn. “You’ve been working on that story for three years.”

“Three-and-a-half,” she grimly corrected. She kept staring into the brown liquid before her, hoping that maybe Luna would appear, tell her this was a dream, then magically grant her all the inspiration she could ever desire. “Why do I keep doing this to myself? What’s the point?”

Uncle Fine shrugged, eyes turning to the nearby window. She didn’t know why, it was completely dark out. There wasn’t even a moon to alleviate the shadows. “I couldn’t say. We each have our own reasons. Me, I do it because I love it, even when it hurts.” Sip. “It hurts some ponies more than others.”

Hurt. Was that what she was feeling right now? She wasn’t sure. Deep down, she knew that writing wasn’t her strength. Her cutie mark wasn’t a quill and some paper. Granted, neither was her uncle’s, so that wasn’t an appropriate comparison. Some ponies had it, some ponies didn’t.

But she couldn’t stop. “I want to finish it.”

He looked at her. “Why?” A question, yes, but it felt more like an instruction.

A slow breath. Keen pursed her lips, feeling like she should have had an answer at the ready. But the answer she had was not something she wanted to share, not yet. “I just want to.” The answer felt juvenile. She took a sip of her chocolate. Though she refused to lift her eyes, she could feel her uncle’s studious gaze.

Eventually, he said, “You know my offer still stands.”

She drank a little more, then shook her head and finally met his eyes. “No. Your critiques on my short stories are great, and I appreciate it, but this one stays with me.”

He frowned, but it was more out of concern than anything. “It won’t be as good if you don’t have somepony look over it. You know that.”

“And somepony will look over it,” she assured him. “I just don’t want it to be you. For once, I’d like to say I finished a writing project without you looking over my shoulder.” Her breath caught in her throat at a sudden thought. “Y-you haven’t tried to read it behind my back, have you?” They both knew he was capable of it. Despite all their joking earlier, Fine Crime was a professional sneak. If he wanted to find something out, not even the Princesses themselves could stop him.

He seemed to understand her worry, but still he only met her gaze solemnly. “You’re speaking to a consummate liar, and you know it. If I said no, would you believe me?”

“I would if you gave me a Pinkie Promise.”

“Oof.” He flinched back as if struck, though he was suddenly smiling. “Going for the big guns.”

“Uncle Fine…”

“I know, I know.” He sighed, but didn’t lose his smile as he went through the motions. “I Pinkie Promise that I have not and will not attempt to look at your big project before you are ready to present the finished copy to me, cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.” He lifted his mug to his lips, but before drinking offered a smug, “Happy?”

She was. Very happy, in fact. Part of it was watching her spooky and deadly uncle go through the silly motions. The other part was that, of all ponies with good reason to not break a Pinkie Promise, none had as good a reason as him. If most Ponyvillians thought the promise was unbreakable, Uncle Fine considered it divine law. She took a big bite out of her half-cookie, savoring the taste and texture.

But this still didn’t resolve her real problem. “Of course, I don’t know if I’ll ever finish it.”

“Come now, Little Miss,” Uncle Fine replied haughtily, holding his mug as one might a teacup. “Did you not note my confidence? I promise to read your story when you finished it, not if.”

“I don’t share that confidence,” she grumbled, eyes shifting to the clock. Wow, it was late. Not that she would say anything about it. She doubted she’d get any sleep, and who knew if Uncle Fine even understood the word?

“You should.” His tone shifted to something somber as he set his mug down. “Confidence is a pony’s greatest tool. A writer must have faith in themselves, in their abilities, in their stories. I find the greatest thing a writer can do is believe they are good at what they do.”

She turned a skeptical eye on him. “That’s a little arrogant, don’t you think?”

“Keen, Little Miss, you’re experiencing the struggle right now.” Crossing a foreleg over the table, he leaned on it to meet her gaze with utmost seriousness. “Sometimes writing is easy. Sometimes it’s a nightmare. A writer needs to be a little arrogant sometimes. It’s what pushes us through the hard times, because we know we can beat it. ‘I have too much work to do, too many stories to share, to let myself be stopped by a mere feeling.’”

She quirked an eyebrow at his declaration. “This from the same guy who just a few years ago told me to buck up and accept criticism.”

“Was I wrong?”

“What you are is self-contradicting.”

He raised his forehooves in a shrug. “So it’s a balance. Just like using repetition to make a point or alliteration for fun, you have to figure out when to go for it and when it’s a bit much. But I think in your case, right now?” He gestured to her. “A little self-confidence would work wonders.”

She waved what little bit of cookie she still had at him. “That’s all well and good for you to say, but you can’t change how somepony feels like flicking a switch. There isn't a spell to make somepony confident.”

“Well, there is,” he replied with averted eyes and tapping forehooves. “But it involves a cursed book that comes with a few spikes on it just in case it wasn’t obvious that the thing is corrupting. Probably not what you’re looking for. Besides, I understand a dragon ate it.”

Was that a joke? Sometimes it was hard to tell with her uncle. She sighed and rested her cheek in her hoof once more. “Probably wouldn’t work on me anyway.” Her uncle responded with only a concerned stare, apparently at a loss for what else to say.

They remained that way for a time, finishing their cookie and hot chocolate in companionable but heavy silence. Keen was fine with that. It let her wallow in her own inability, and that was exactly what she felt like doing. Yet no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t stop thinking of the story and what should happen next. There were twenty different directions she could take it and every single one had problems.

Uncle Fine had taught her what he could, but in the end they both knew – he had taught her, in fact – that every writer approached the task in their own way. What worked for him wouldn’t work for her, and vice versa. For all his experience and knowledge, in this he couldn’t help her at all.

Eventually, Uncle Fine set his mug down on the table and sighed. “You should visit your mother. She worries.” He stood, apparently ready to leave.

“Steal my cookies and go, is it?” she asked, half mocking.

His response was wholly serious. “Forgive me for wanting to check in on my favorite niece every now and then.”

That earned him a raised eyebrow. “There are other nieces?”

“Nope.” He grinned. “Doesn’t change the fact. As for the current problem… Well. I guess I’ve only one bit of advice to offer. Don’t think I’ve used this line before.” She perked her ears, curious and maybe even a little hopeful as he stepped backwards into the shadows. “Success depends entirely on you. If you want it badly enough, you’ll get it. So the question, Little Miss, is this:

“How badly do you want it?”

He was gone. There’d been no sound to indicate his passing, nothing she could see. Keen just knew, from years of having him around, that if she went to check the shadows she’d find nothing there. That was how he rolled.

“How badly I want it, huh?” Keen stared at her empty mug. How badly did she want this? Was it worth all the frustration and long, quiet nights staring at an empty page? When the job was finally finished, would she look back at everything and believe it was worth it? Or perhaps she would see it as nothing more than a waste of time. She could be sleeping. Or visiting her mother. Or her coltfriend. Or any of her regular friends, for that matter.

The empty mug merely stared back at her, providing no answers.

Keen’s lips set in a determined frown. Standing, she deposited both mugs in the kitchen sink and trotted back upstairs. She checked the clock. It wasn’t that late, not really.

She settled back at her writing desk, grasped the quill firmly in her magical aura, and got back to work.

Twenty-Eight

The podium was a sturdy basalt. Keen marveled at the smooth feel of it beneath her hooves. She took care to set the book down first, then the papers. She wanted to adjust her dress, but cast the thought aside as the jitters getting the better of her. When she looked up, she found every pony in the Rock Bottom Inn staring back at her.

Right. No pressure.

Uncle Fine sat at the table directly opposite her. He was all smiles, but for the first time that night it was intended purely for her benefit. She returned one now, just so he’d know it was appreciated.

She took a slow, heavy breath to ease her mind, cast her eyes over the first few words, and began her speech.

“Twenty-five years ago was a traumatic time in my life, a period of uncertainty and fear. One would think that stallions sneaking into a filly’s room on seemingly random nights would be part of the problem. But that's what Uncle Fine would do, against Mom’s better judgment.”

That with a grin at Lightning Dust, who did her part and shot a fake scowl Fine’s way. He took it with an amiable shrug.

“He told me stories. Some were from his children’s books. Some he got from other authors. Most were made up on the spot, flights of fancy designed for little more than to teleport a frightened, timid little filly away from all her troubles and worries for a little while.”

A pause. She hadn’t meant to pause. Her throat just didn’t want to cooperate at the moment. Another breath to clear her head.

“I treasured those stories. I couldn’t help but think of all the joy and fun they offered. If something like that can make a filly with terrible experiences like myself just be a filly for a while, they must be powerful things indeed. So when the thought came that I might tell the story, I was stunned by the very idea. I could tell a story too? Maybe, if I did, I could bring that kind of joy to another little pony. There was just one problem.

“I stink at telling stories.”

A round of chuckles passed through the room. Uncle Fine looked as though he wanted to object, but a pink hoof to his shoulder stilled his tongue. For that, Keen was glad. She couldn’t afford an interruption right now.

“But as much as writing isn’t my special talent, I still had a story to tell. I came back to it time and time again for my entire life. I regularly went to Uncle Fine for help, and in that way I learned so much about his art.

“I learned how different ponies find inspiration in different ways. I learned that having a different style isn’t a bad thing, just as much as I learned that it’s important to study what others have already done. I discovered the agony that comes with having somepony see your work for the first time and rip it to shreds, how such moments can be emotional, traumatic, and infuriating. But when you look back on them in a few years’ time, you realize that they hurt you because they cared, and wanted you to be the best writer you could possibly be.”

Oh, no. Her eyes were burning. She couldn’t cry, not now. If she started she’d never stop! Keen rubbed at her eyes, forced down a sniff, and made herself keep going. She didn’t dare look her uncle in the eyes.

“It’s an exquisite agony, creativity. More so for those of us who are self-critical and worry over every word. I watched my uncle write, witnessed how he can pour out words from his quill like water flowing from a tap. At times like that I’d feel so inadequate. I thought it meant I was bad at this. And I am, to be sure. So, so bad at it.”

No chuckles this time. The room was quiet. It might have been intimidating at any other time.

But Uncle Fine was there.

“But Uncle Fine was there. Always. When I doubted myself, he encouraged me. When I felt like quitting, he reminded me of why I kept struggling. On nights when I got tired of the blank page staring back at me, he’d cheer me up. I learned the craft and dragged every stubborn, deeply rooted word from my brain because I had a desperate need to prove something.”

Grabbing the book in her hooves, Keen lifted it up for all to see. Eyes shifted to the tome, ears perked. Uncle Fine sat up straight, his smile growing so wide as to rival his companion’s most pearly displays. It was a simple book of faux leather, colored green with the words To My Uncle emblazoned in front.

And there, in small type on the bottom of the cover, was the name of the author: Keen Arrow.

“I can do it. It took me twenty-three years, but I told my story. It might not be the best. It won’t sell out. It won’t make ponies weep, or laugh, or feel unparalleled joy. But it’s mine, as only I can tell it, because nopony else will. It was worth every. Single. Second. Because now I know. I can do this. And if I can do this, I can do anything.”

Rubbing her eyes to rid them of her tears, she turned her wavering smile to her beaming uncle. “You once asked me why I put myself through all of this.” Taking the book in her magic, she levitated it over to his waiting hooves. “You’ll just have to read it and find out. But for the sake of this speech… Thank you. For everything.”

Her dear uncle had tears in his eyes, the old sap. He held the book close, shivering and grinning. He tried to say something, but could only resort to a nod.

“And Pinkie Pie?”

The happy mare, in her white dress and beaming, teary smile, gave Keen her full attention.

“You’re a very lucky mare. You better take care of him.”

Touching her golden necklace, the newly minted bride declared, “That’s a Pinkie Promise!”

And so the speech ended and the wedding reception continued, Rainbow Dash taking the podium for her own speech. Keen went to sit next to her mother, who was adamantly denying that the tears on her cheeks were anything but ‘liquid pride’.

Keen didn’t know if she’d ever write another book. She didn’t know if the one she had was any good, although she maintained a certain optimism over that. What really mattered now was the experience, the awareness of what she had accomplished. She was a writer now. Officially, published work and all. She could only hope that she was also now a storyteller.

Yes, a storyteller. For as her uncle once told her, storytellers and writers were different things. Anyone could put words to a page. Anyone could tell you about a series of events, as they happened, chronologically. Facts, concepts, characters, rising action, climax, all the clinical things that any textbook could talk about, those things didn’t make a storyteller.

A writer told you what happened.

A storyteller made you experience it.

Maybe Keen had reached that vaunted level. Perhaps not. Only time and her readership would tell. But really, there was only one pony’s judgment she needed. As she met his warm, tear-filled eyes across the room, she knew she’d be happy with her work.

Whatever the result.

Author's Note

When Darkevony asked me to write a story about my thoughts and feelings regarding writing, I knew I didn't want to write a non-story of a self-insert pontificating (pony-tificating?) on the act of writing. I realized very quickly that I already had the perfect characters for the prompt, I just had to figure out how to do it.

Fine and Keen, at least for this story, each personify (ponify?) different aspects of my own writing experiences. I am in some ways like Fine Crime now, but there was a time when I was Keen. Their experiences aren't one-to-one with my own. For example, I have always had Fine's ability to just start putting down words. It's extremely rare that I sit down in front of a screen and stare in blank uncertainty of what to write. The words just come out. But like Fine, I've come to learn that the words coming out like that aren't necessarily the right words.

And that's a big part of this story: different writers approach it in different ways, and the act means something different for each of us.

At the same time, I wanted to portray some of the lessons I learned along the way. Keen's anger at suddenly facing real criticism is heavily influenced by my own first encounter with it. Fine's claim that writers need to be confident and perhaps even selfish does indeed reflect my own perspective. Keen's sudden desire to tell a story at a young age was my own, and her need to keep the contents a secret from Fine are also reflective of my instincts (I hate having someone read over my shoulder as I'm working).

Again, that's all this is: a mish-mash of my thoughts squished into the form of a story. Is it a good story? Eh, I feel I could have handled certain aspects better. But that's okay. It's a story, it's out, and I choose to be happy with that.