A Inky Encounter

Quill sighed, it was too late for this. He decided to go back to bed before he would deal with the mysterious and quite disturbing letter. He set the letter back on the table and made his way to his bedroom. It was quite the mess, with papers and books all about in piles, his bookshelves filled to the brim with all sorts of tomes and scrolls on the magic history of Equestria... His life's work... He pushed his door shut with a hoof and made his way to his bed; he moved the papers off of it. Just as Quill was stepping into bed, his ear twitched... he could've sworn he just heard the floorboards outside his room creak, he quietly made his way back to the door. He swung the door open and... there was nothing there. Ugh... he was just being paranoid again. He closed the door once more and back to bed he went, not noticing the pair of eyes watching him from the woods...

⬨.‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿.⬨

Morning came and Quill was harshly greeted by the sunlight pouring into his room. He sat up with a groan, he had completely forgotten the letter. Getting up from his bed to only to slip on a few pieces of parchment, grunting as he landed on the hard wood plank floor, the sharp pain shooting through his frail body. The piece of parchment that he slipped on floating down and landing on his snout. He let out an annoyed huff, blowing the paper out of his face. He stood up, this time he carefully made his way to the door. When he reached out with his hoof to push it open he realized that it was already open... strange, he could've sworn he had shut it that night. Whatever, he was more tired than he thought. He stepped out of his room, his hoofsteps echoing through the cabin; the pictures on the walls of the narrow hall were old and caked with dust. Many were faded to the point you could barely make out what they were of. The house was quiet, many would say the silence was peaceful, but not to Quill. He remembered when the small cabin was full of laughter and the sound of life. He stopped walking and looked at one of the pictures, it was so caked with dust that you couldn't even make out that the frame even had a photo. Quill lifted his hoof and brought it to the picture, brushing away the dust, he couldn't clearly remember the last time he actually dusted... maybe later, after work. Just a little bit more, the dust came off in clumps as they gently fell. The picture was soon revealed, it was of Quill when he was colt, and another colt, when Quill realized what picture was he froze, quickly removing his hoof from the picture he stepped back; Quill didn't realize that he still had any pictures of... Him. He turned, his pace much faster now. He had to go to work, when he made it to the living room he threw on his scarf and saddlebags.

Quill turned to the front door, but something made him freeze... The fireplace, there was a fire lit, but that couldn't be possible, he didn't light a fire, and he definitely wouldn't before leaving for work. He made his way over to the fireplace and looked into the fire, the smell was disgusting, how did he not notice it before? It was so putrid that he felt like he was about to throw up- wait, what was that in the flames? Quill covered his mouth with his scarf as he looked into the flames- "OH SWEET FUCKING CELESTIA!" He practically screamed as he realized why the fire smelled so fucking bad. There was a fucking foals body in his goddamn fireplace! He ran to the kitchen, grabbed a cup, quickly filled it with water and rushed back to the fireplace. But when he got back to the fireplace the fire was out, although the charred and mangled corpse of the foal was still there. The fuck was going on?! Quill started to back away; his breathing was heavy, coming out in pants. His head was spinning, how- why- who put the poor foal in his fireplace?! Oh Celestia... the smell for charred fur and rotting and burnt flesh. Quill dropped the glass and moved to pick up the foal, he couldn't let anypony know! They would think he had killed the foal. He put the foal on his back with ease and moved to his back door, pushing it gently open with a creak. He set the foal on the grass and grabbed his nearby shovel, he wanted to respect the young one.

He lifted the shovel and struck the frozen earth beneath him, the shovel shook him as if it had struck metal. He growled and pushed the shovel into the dirt more, it was slow but he was making progress. Clump after clump was moved and dumped into a pile. Quill had to do this, nopony could know!! NOPONY.

After a long and tiring hour he finally finished the grave, it was a bit shallow but it would do for a foal. Oh, but he couldn't just bury the foal like this, the least he could do was wrap the poor thing in a sheet. Quill turned, and he made his way back inside; he knew where the extra bedding was so it wasn't hard to get it. He went over to the closest in the main hall and he opened the dual doors. The floorboards creaked as he stood on his hind legs and reached for the soft linen cloth that was folded neatly on one of the higher shelves. He grabbed it and pulled off of the shelf where it sat. He threw it onto his back and he walked over to the grave he had dug up for the foal. He took the sheet off of his back and unfolded it. Then he draped it over the hole, he turned to the body and dragged it over to the hole and gently set the foal in. Quill grabbed the corners of the linen and wrapped it around the body. Then he grabbed the shovel and began the final step.

⬨.‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿.⬨

Quill shook his head, dammit it was hard to rid his mind of the foal, he was at work! He couldn't be thinking about the dead foal... Then the bell of the library rang, he looked at the door... oh, it was her again. The little filly that came every week to see if the next book in her fantasy novel was in yet. "Hi Mr Inkwell! Is it here yet?" The filly was at least straightforward, Quill could respect that. "I'll have a look." He said with a soft smile, he always looked in the bay to see if was there yet, and it never was but he just wanted to keep her hopes up. He turned and walked over to the docking bay, he fumbled with the keys for a moment but he found the right key and unlocked the door. He pushed the door open and... There was a single crate... Strange, he walked slower as he approached the crate. Quill lifted the lid, "The Witch Chronicles: Book Six" that was it. but something was off, every copy was covered in an ink-like substance, was this some sort of fucking joke?! He sighed, another thing to ruin his day. He made his way back to the front desk and he said to the filly "Not here, I'm sorry." he hated lying but he didn't want her to know that some jackass decided it would be funny to ruin an entire shipment of books. "Oh, ok..." The filly said as she hung her head in disappointment, "I'll come back next week." The filly softly smiled before turning to leave. Quill sighed as he heard the bell and the door close. It was going to be a long day...