Author's Note

Bet you didn't expect to see a new story from me after all these years, huh?

To cut a long story short, I fell out of pony stuff and ended up with the worst writers block I've ever experienced. I've written other things in that time, dipping my toes in to original horror and other genres, but I can't say I'm proud of much of that. It wasn't fun, my perspective on writing shifted from "I'm writing this because I enjoy this, I write what I think is fun" over to "I'm writing this because I feel like I have to to be a serious author, I write what I think is good even if I don't like it".

So, I got super high one night and decided the only way to get over my writers block was to re-discover what I enjoyed about writing. My MLP fics were the last time I felt actually proud of what I made. Pen & Note, OCs I thought up when I was literally 15 or so, they're my muses and they're who I want to write right now.

Enjoy the first couple of chapters, there will be more to come!

1

Paper Pen and Rock Note layed strewn across the floor of an apartment, half conscious but stirring from the psychedelic haze that had trapped their minds in a dark wood of colors and sensation, feelings and words of immense power. Pen's head was fuzzy from his jaw up into the tip of his horn, gray eyes glazed like donuts staring square into the ceiling.

"Totally freeing, right?" Note was finally able to speak, stumbling to shaky hooves. His wings were stiff as boards and extended in an odd pattern. Despite his state, he seemed in a good mood. "Telling ya', if- I mean- once you come down, you won't have writer's block anymore! And there's no hangover!"

"But… what if we're not real?!" The once comatose unicorn suddenly shot up, raving manically, "I saw things, dude, I saw like the thread of everything, I saw all that's animating us and it all glitched it's like- it's like we're a cartoon or something!"

"Nah, that's dumb as fuck." Note brushed the ramblings off. He made his way over to the kitchen, basking the dark room in the dim light of the refrigerator as he searched for something, "Hey, Canvas, Babe- we're out of cider, do you need anything from the store?" He called out to his marefriend, "And I'm like, still really high right now so- y'want pizza? I want pizza-"

A sudden flurry of noise came from the other room, a mess of hooves scattering across the floor in surprise. A face emerged from the darkness, and it wasn't his marefriend. A tall and strong stallion, a horse really, charged into the pegasus, tossing him clear across the room. He yelled in a language Note didn't recognize, and in a sobering moment he realized something he hadn't before; this wasn't his apartment.

"Shit-!" Note cussed. He tried to fly but his wings were still stiff. In a flash he acted, bolting for the door and grabbing his friend along the way, practically grabbing Pen like a limp, very high ragdoll in their retreat. The hallway was unfamiliar, completely alien in decoration to anything he'd seeing anywhere in Manehattan, where the buck were they?! He didn't have time to ponder the question, the horse was still chasing them and yelling, a short kind of sword in his hooves. A window at the end of the hall. Note focused on it, ultra-dilated eyes narrowing in on their target before he leaped, crashing through the glass and plummeting. Note was a bit of a gambler, at least before he picked up that arson charge in Las Pegasus, so he liked the odds that they had been on the first floor. Now, looking far, far down upon a sandy road they were about to crash and splatter into, he realized he shouldn't have. He outstretched his wings, even if they wouldn't flap maybe he could glide to safety-

CRASH! They collided with a wagon, smashing through the side of the vehicle to an audience of very surprised guards.