The Writer

by MelbTerminal

Rating: mature
Tags: Slice of Life
Length: 1572

Struggling to make a living, Krystal attempts to write a story that ends up bringing her to success.

Krystal has a hard time living in Marebourne. With increasing overdue taxes, unpaid bills and no job, she expects to be evicted out of her house anytime soon. With that in mind, she decides to spend the rest of her time in writing a story on a computer terminal.

Little does she know however, anytime she continues writing her story is when something wonderful happens to her, and soon leads her to a better life. The question being is will she ever finish her story? And what happens if she stops writing at all?

Published 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2012-10-17 15:00:01 UTC

Chapter 1: The start of...something...

[Disclaimer: This isn't the first MLP story I've ever written. I've just recently became a fan of MLP, and I kinda just want to see how my writing skills are for now. If you find any grammatical errors, just let me know in the comments]

[Blank screen]

I sat there on the chair wondering what the hay I was going to write. I stared at the blank white sheet that covered the entire screen on my terminal, shaking a little as I drummed my hooves on the keyboard with my mind still wondering what to write. A stream of incoherent text scrolled across the sheet. I pressed the spacebar to make Maresoft Word underline the whole thing in red. I was bored. Really bored. Did not want to do any sort of work...did not want to hand in the bills that sat beside the terminal on my desk. I took one look at it before shaking my head and returning back to the single line in front of me...

“Right, I’m going to do this,” I said to myself as I cleared the incomprehensible line and started off with something random. ‘Once upon a time, in the magical land of Equestria...’ Ok, that’s a good start. I smiled and nodded my head like a boss. I’m going to get somewhere with this now...

I shouldn’t have said that. Now I found myself hovering a hoof over the keyboard, trying to determine the next key to press. Argh, this wasn’t working at all. I’m only using writing to get me away from reality. Maybe I needed more inspiration. Maybe I needed to determine where I could start; who are the ponies that will be in my story, where are they going, what will happen to them...my train of thought derailed itself right there as I stared blankly at my hooves drumming itself against the keyboard once again.

Nup. I needed a break. Staring too long at a terminal screen really hurts my eyes. I got out of the chair and trotted into the kitchen for a drink. My horn flashed as I levitated out a glass in the cupboard and filled it with water from the tap. As I sipped my water slowly I observed the mass load of paperwork pinned up on the side of my fridge. Overdue taxes from the Ponyville Water Company, notices from the local Stallion Heights Library, missed birthday parties and invitations to...some event, I don’t remember what it was anymore. I dropped my eyes down to more white paperwork...and there, a piece of blue paper caught my attention.

I levitated it to my face to get a closer look. It was an old map of the Marelink Train Network timetable. I opened it out, revealing the neatly arranged tables of train times for each day. At the end of the booklet were two maps: One for the train network lines of Equestria, another was the stations in the city of Marebourne. I inspected the blue and yellow lines with black dots in them, each dot representing a station: Stallion Heights, Flankston, South Mare, Airmane, Griffinsburn, Fillys Crossing, Stalliontown Beach, Totternmare...

A light bulb brightened above my head. This map could be useful. I finished off my glass of water and quickly returned to the terminal.

“Right, it doesn’t have to start in the land of Equestria, all ponies know it does! Maybe...hmmm...” I circled my hoof on the map, trying to pick a station. I stopped at Foalvern. Nah...I’ll go again. I stopped at Hoofingdale. Now that sounds good to start with.

I cleared out whatever that was there on the screen and started typing. ‘Once upon a time, in the small town of Hoofingdale...there were three ponies travelling into the town by train...’

And before I knew it, I was off. I was typing madly with words that made sense, linking together to make coherent sentences that would be understandable to anypony. I was loving it. I was enjoying it. The words for my story flashed in my mind, telling me what to write next.  I was excited now to actually have something down in writing that made me wanted to keep writing ahead and never stopping until I got to the very end.

I got as far as 100 words before the noise of the doorbell disrupted me.

The very moment the sound echoed across the house, my mind went completely blank, the light bulb shutting off instantly. I hovered my hooves over the keyboard. I widened my eyes, stared at the screen in anger as I shook my hooves at the terminal screen and let my mind scream one word:

“FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCKKKKKKKK.......”

I smashed the keyboard once, making the terminal jump before I got out of the seat and trotted over to the doorbell. I was not happy. I was doing so fucking good! Who in the hay wanted to disturb me and this ungoddessly hour? My mind created threats as I unlocked and opened the door. They wanted to fucking disturb me now? I’m gonna rip out the keyboard and shove it down their throats until it came out the other end with their heart and their liver and every organ-

A light blue unicorn stood there. The mare didn’t need any introduction. I was expecting a door-to-door marketer, not Lyra. I stood there huffing and puffing as hard as I can to calm myself down as quickly as possible. Then I softly counted to ten since it wasn’t working quickly enough.

“Uh, you ok there Krystal?” Lyra asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Uh...sigh...er...yeah I’m fine, I’m fine.” I wasn’t fine. “You just...sigh...disturbed me at the wrong time.”

“Oh...I’m sorry...didn’t know you were actually doing something productive now.” Lyra replied, smiling sadistically. I was ok with Lyra pulling a shot like that; that was naturally her. If it was anypony else I’d be getting my threats into action and make them regret not coming to me at all.

*****

I glanced once at the terminal screen, knowing that I’d have to leave my writing ‘til later.

“So how are things in Ponyville? You really didn’t have to travel this far to see me.” I asked her, passing a bottle of carrot soda to her as I looked back at Lyra.

She downed half of her bottle before speaking to me. “Not much is happening in Ponyville. Everypony else I know is out of town and you just happened to be closest pony around. Though I was expecting that you’d be asleep on your bed with DerpyMuffin wrappers everywhere or something...”

I shook my head and smiled. “That would be definitely me I guess, but unfortunately you came at the wrong time to see me like that.”

“Ahhh, damn...I really wanted to see you like that.”

We sipped our drinks simultaneously in silence. It’s been ages since we’ve seen each other, but at the same time we didn’t have much in common. But to me, she was much closer than anypony else I know. That’s probably out of six ponies, maybe?

“You know Krystal, I’ve been thinking,” Lyra stated, finishing up her bottle, “You should come visit Ponyville.”

That stopped me drinking.

“Lyra, you know I can’t do that...I don’t have enough bits for any distance by train, let alone travelling from here to Ponyville. I’ve only got enough to pay for the electricity bill...I’m gonna definitely be stuck here until the council evicts me out of my home, and then I’ll die somewhere on the streets of Marebourne...”

Lyra frowned at me. “Don’t you go saying things like that. I'll pay for your ticket, don't worry about it."

I huffed."What good is there for me to visit Ponyville?" I asked.

"Well, you can get out of this hayhole for once...and make some new friends...you have to try something else Krystal, you can't just lie around here until the rest of your life."

"But..." Lyra stared at me. For some reason I didn't want to tell her I was writing a story. I glanced over to the terminal; I could swear it was calling me - telling me to return back to the chair and resume writing that awesome story...but i knew I'd end up staring at the screen for hours on end, trying to think of what to write...

It could however, be a good thing to get out of the house...and there in my mind the light bulb flicked back on.

"Allright fine, we'll go to Ponyville..."

Lyra clapped her hooves together. "He he, I knew you'd want to get out of here. Pack nothing, okay?"

It took me a few moments to realise what she just said. "Wait...pack nothing?"

Lyra was already standing at the front door. "Yeah. come on, we'll go now."

"I-I...but..." I looked over to the terminal, as if I wanted it to say something to Lyra and keep me here for a little bit longer.

"But what? If we go now, you won't be able to object or change your mind..."

I was still stuttering, trying to find an excuse that will keep me here for a bit longer. But I couldn't find anything at all.

"Sigh...allright, I'm coming, just wait..." I trotted over to my bedroom. Taking a black baseball cap with me and my saddlebags I walked alongside a smiling Lyra as I locked the door and left for the train station.