Dripping Ink

Chapters

Words On Paper
Sea Of Ink
Binding
Endings

Words On Paper

Short Sight wans't used to emotions. Not of this magnitute. He'd felt grateful when somepony blessed him after a sneeze, and happy when he bought a new sweet. He'd felt sad when his team lost at their games, and dissapointed when he had been refused a job at the local paper.

But these emotions, these were something else entirely. He felt his spirit and brain and heart doing a dance, or riding a rollercoaster, or having a cage fight. He wasn't sure which. He felt love, and triumph, and glory, and agony, and emotions there are no words for, none of which were directed at anypony in particular. He just felt them.

This was all becouse of a pony. A single pony. A mare to be particular. Every week, her amazing, wonderful stories were featured in the Lusitanoxxville Daily, his towns' newspaper. Each week, the subject would vary, drifting from a romance, to a survival, to, his favorite, a coming-of-age story. When sunday came around, he would charge out the door of his apartment, grab the paper, rip it open, and turn to page six, which was her house

. It was the domain of her, where she would swim around in the ink, coming up for air at the end of sentances. Where she would sleep in between paragraphs. Where she would sing every word, almost always pronouncing it correctly. Her words were not hers. They were her herself. And she had no name exept "Anonymous".

This was when he decided to write her a letter. He had the correct supplies, though he rarely used them. He was sitting at his cramped desk in the corner, words and emotions surging through his brain, but none were put down. He just sat there, ink dripping.

Short Sight was noticed about half the time, and for good reason. You could see right through him, in a litteral sense. No doctor could figure it out. His entire body was semi-transparent. You could shine a light right through him. He wasn't invisible, nothing like that, just clear. Like murky water. While he himself was an earth pony, his father was a unicorn, dark a night, and his mother was a pegasus, light as the sky. Several years prior, they had simply moved away, without so much as a goodbye, escaping from their unusual son. By then, he was learning to be semi-self-sufficiant. His cutie mark was hard to make out, but he suspected it was a book, or maybe a quill. He was on his way to becoming a stallion, but he considered himself one already, cringing at the word "colt".

It was at least twenty minutes before had written his first word, which happened to be "Creator", followed by a comment. He wasn't sure how he had come up with it, but she now had a name, and that was enough. "I have read all of your stories" he continued, "and all of them are my favorite. Please write more. I need the words. They are my blood, the air I breathe. Though, more than that, they are becomming me. And I need to be something". He finished it off with "Regards, Suomynona." another spur-of-the-moment thing. He had suprised himself with what he wrote, and liked it, before throwing it into what he thought was the trashbin. In reality, it was the outgoing mail bin. And she got it.

Sea Of Ink

Sometimes I take a boat way out to the sea of ink.

The rolling, washing waves make me have to stop and think.

Sometimes I wish I could reach out and gaze into your eyes.

Into consideration: more emotions, I dispise?

Like a surge of power, my mind is now complete.

Is there just a single scrap of knowlodge left in this place to eat?

Sometimes I feel as if I am the only single light.

You can't read the words, it is now dark, it is now night.

And now I want the words to go away so I can sleep.

I think I am invisible.

You are not me.

Binding

When she got it she smiled, in an aloof kind of way. Then she giggled. She immidiatly started writing a response, as this was like no other letter she had recieved. At least, that was how he imagined it had gone down when he recieved her response. There was no "Dear".

"Thank you Suomynona for your most encouraging words. They have inspired me to write a new story, which will be featured soon. It is becaouse of ponies like you that I write. I have deducted you have a very poetic soul. I would enjoy it very much if you would write back, and possibly even be my penpal.

Me,

Anonymous".

Reading it, he felt like he might implode. He was jittering, though the cause of that might have been the Red Pony he was in the middle of drinking. A story? Just for Him? It felt like a miracle. Like nothing that would have happened before her stories came along. Apperantly, his words were encouraging. Apperantly, they were inspiring. Apperantly, he caused her to write. Apperantly, he had a poetic soul. Apperantly, she enjoyed his writing. Apperantly, he would be her penpal. He couldn't contain his exitment, and started running around in circles. It was during this that two words occured to him; "Happy ending".

He was never fond of happy endings, or even endings. In Anonymous's stories, there were rarely, if ever, endings. She liked to leave the reader wondering what would occur next. This never bothered him, as the stories themselves were enough to appease his required dosage of ideas. Although... Sometimes he wanted to know how she thought it would end. Her version of the perfect stopping point. Stories should never end. Unfortuatly, they have to. It was just a matter of when.

He waited until Sunday, checking his wall clock. He passed the time by reading through her old stories. They were never as good the second time around, but managed to suffice. He realized new things about the stories that he hadn't figured out before. Was Green Tree the murderer? No, it must have been her twin! Things like that. After about seven hours of reading, he began to become dizzy, and by his ninth, he was on the floor, passed out, drooling. When he woke up again, it was Sunday.

He tripped over his hooves multiple times before reacing the front of his building, where he grabbed the paper and sprinted back inside. When he ripped it open and turned to page six, he was socked by what he found. His own words. Not all of them, but some. Mixed with hers. Intertwined. He then realized what he had done. On the pack of the paper he had sent her was a draft for one of his story/poems. And she had added herself to it.

Endings

They were not his words. They were not her words. They were their words. Their thoughts and emotions put on paper. If she had felt him in his words, that was okey. He had felt her.

The poem was signed "Suomynona", but was not his poem. It was their poem. If it did not make sense to anyone else, so be it. It was something they shared, and treasured, and admired. It was the rope that kept them attached. Following the poem was a note. "Anonymous will no longer be writing for this paper. We will now accept submissions from any writer who wished to be featured and to have their words heard. He did not mind.

The next Sunday, he recieved a note. There was no signature, but he knew who it was from. The letter contained the draft of a story. It appeared as if hours of work were poured into it. There was crossing-out, and underlining. Some letters were small, some were bold. Under every line, there was space.Space to write additions, to edit this already great story, make it more. Add himself. Included was a container of golden ink. So he wrote.

He danced across the page, setting fire to it. Not a destructive fire, but a warming fire, a fire of creation that could only be made with two forces combined. He had yearned to write his own stories, but they were always missing something, and he now realized hers had been too. Together, their words would form together, become greater. The sum of its parts.

And they wrote. They never talked, not one formal greeting, no "how-do-you-do"s. But they communicated in the stories they sent. Some were complete, some were drafts. They were of every genre, all ideas written down and immediatly sent. There was no censorship, just the flowing of ideas annd thoughts.

He knew he would never meet her face to face, but that didn't matter. He knew her better than any sort of verbal conversation would allow. He was part of her, and she was part of him. They wrote for a long time, until he could no longer move his mouth to write words on the page. He hired an assistant to writes things for him. Although they never sent stories out, they had both attracted much attention, as the ponies that shared a mind. He would stare out the window, watching ponies go by, gaining idea upon idea. And they lived.

The Beginning