Author's Notes:

Wow, that only took... nearly two months.

A... lot has happened since then. And I do mean a lot. Personal stuff. Really personal stuff. And to be frank, I've been focusing less on fanfiction and more on my first draft of my novel (which is coming along rather nicely, knock on wood it doesn't suddenly seize up and die). In terms of frequent updates... expect realistically little.

But anyway, late as it is, here's Chapter Ten.

Ink awoke in a daze. She’d been dreaming—she was sure of it—but the moment her eyes fluttered, the dream was lost to time. She blinked, feeling sluggish and confused.

She glanced to the side of her bed, where she saw her alarm clock. It was twenty minutes before she had set it to go off. She’d woken early, too early. She considered going back to bed, but after a minute of deliberation, decided that staying up would be far easier than trying to convince herself to stay asleep.

She untangled herself from under her bedsheets and came off the bed in a dazed rush. It was still dark, and she could see the shine of the moon spilling itself across her windowsill. She stopped and listened. There were a few birds chirping, but those were stray ones. They would be leaving for the south in no time; mornings would be quiet from then on.

It was silent in the house. Her mom wasn’t up yet. She glanced at her calendar and saw it was Monday, December the 15^th. Just a little more than a week before Christmas. Her mind wandered. Had she gotten all the gifts she needed? Was there a party she needed to prepare for? The thoughts came and went without much answer, and she decided that was okay for now.

She yawned, went to the bathroom, washed up, came back, and dressed. She could go eat breakfast; there was a light draft going through the house, so some warm toast and butter sounded good. For some reason, though, her eyes fell onto her notebook and laptop on her desk. Her lips twisted, not into an unpleasant frown, but not quite a smile either. She checked the clock. Ten minutes left before her alarm was supposed to go off. She walked over to them, sat down, and opened them both up.

Some time ago, she’d read somewhere that if you wanted to get anywhere with what you were writing, it had to be the first thing you did each day. She’d not gotten into that habit due to school, but here she was, up and early, staring at her tools, her words. Her notebook contained all the notes she’d taken so far, and her laptop had that one, sweet, definitive line, the line that she felt was the perfect way to start.

All of a sudden, she began to remember; or maybe it was like she was dreaming while she was awake. There were memories, fragments and shards of them, none of which made sense, all of which were mashed together like some strange art piece. She felt her mind go blank, then felt nothing at all, not even the feeling of her fingers dancing across her keyboard and the movement of her lips as she read to herself the words that were forming. Was she remembering, or dreaming, or both? The words came and they came freely. There was a word, then more words, then a sentence, then more sentences, then a paragraph, then another paragraph, then another, and another, and then there was a page, a page and a half, two pages—

Her alarm went off. Her fingers jerked and seized at random. They pressed a certain combination of buttons—her addled brain couldn’t keep up—and, in one fell swoop, the document closed before she’d hit save. She heard beeping and saw her deskstop wallpaper. The beeping faded into a roaring sound.

Ink’s scream woke up the entire neighborhood. Only her mother’s was louder.

Bar a crappy morning spent stewing in self-pity (and cursing herself, her computer, her life, and, well, her computer again), Ink managed to get to school without dramatic incident. She was, for a moment, thankful to see the doors, but then her mind returned to the now blank page that insisted on existing on her laptop, and her mind soured.

She went through her first class with a hazy mind, spending the time doing the work without much care and chewing on the cap of her pen. She barely registered Gaige’s voice over the voices screaming in her head. Mr. Turner’s lesson was even more lackluster; all she managed to get out of it was something about “vectors being very important.” By the time that class had ended, she’d sustained several bruises from Gaige wailing on her with her tiny fists—ones that a sane person would have checked out—yet still she was lost in the fog of her thoughts.

It was much the same with every other morning class, save for the bruises. There was a moment, in her second block class, when she had the freedom to jot down her thoughts on a piece of paper, but that freedom was ultimately useless. She’d written those pages when she was in a certain, entrancing haze. Anything she wrote now felt wrong and misconstrued. She tried to write what she remembered, but that still felt false and forced. Simply put, her mind and her heart weren’t connected; she could not transcribe the words that flowed through her without form onto something so physically dependent.

Later on she would realize that saying it was “simply put” was hardly a true statement.

Lunch came, then, and Gaige was not there to pester her. She’d decided on bothering (or being bothered? It was sometimes hard to tell) Flash Sentry for a little while. Ink didn’t mind. It would be nice to get some time alone, even if she was in a crowded room.

She scanned the room, anyway, for any sign of Artifex. She spotted him and his shock of white hair at their usual spot (could she even call it “theirs,” if she had been there for only a little while?), and walked over to him. “Hey, Artifex,” she called. She didn’t receive a reply; not that she expected one. She sat down on the side opposite of him.

It was then she realized two things: 1) there was an amber-skinned girl next to Artifex, and 2) she was visibly trying hard not to laugh.

Ink recognized her as Sunset Shimmer. She furrowed her brow, lips coming into each other. “Sunset? What’s so funny?”

“He-ha! You, Ink!” Sunset replied through a hand-covered mouth. “Take another look at Artifex!”

She did so, noticing at first that he wasn’t wearing his usual yellow jacket. In place of it was a white-and-black one, slightly thicker. Ink’s gaze traveled to the boy’s face where—unless it was a trick of the light—eyes of teal stared back at her in a confused—and somewhat amused—manner.

Ink blinked. This wasn’t Artifex. This was someone else.

She looked between the boy and Sunset, noting their close proximity to one another. The conclusion hit her like a slap, and her face burned and she buried it in her hands.

“Oh my God,” she groaned. “Soul! Soul Writer! Not Artifex.”

Soul Writer laughed. “Wow! Do he and I really like that similar?”

“You do have similar hair styles and color,” Sunset said, also laughing. “I wouldn’t blame Ink for confusing the two of you, especially since you and she hadn’t met until now.”

“Wait,” Ink said, peeking past her fingers and peering at the other girl. “You know me?”

Sunset nodded. “Yep. Artifex told us about you and your writing problem, as well as what you’ve been trying to do. Going around talking to Canterlot High’s couples? It’s not orthodox, but hey, whatever works.”

Good. That would save her time in the explanation department. Ink’s hands came down and she said, “So that means you’re here to help?”

Sunset’s smile was dazzling. “Of course! We’re always willing to help out a friend of a friend!”

Ink smiled back. “That sounds like something Pinkie would say.”

“She has been rubbing off on me as of late.” Somehow, that tickled Ink’s sense of humor, and she laughed. She recalled the stories of Sunset, how she’d been absolutely cruel; but here and now, she was a completely different person. Friendship had done wonders to her. It was a no-brainer why she was now one of, if not the most popular, girl in all of Canterlot High.

Sunset brought her hands together in a clap, still grinning that confident grin. “So! How should we do this? You ask questions, we give answers, and then you write those answers down?”

Ink nodded and reached into her backpack for her notebook. “It’s kinda formulaic,” she admitted with a slight blush. “Mostly it’s just me asking about what you think love is and all that.”

“Artifex gave you that idea, huh?” Sunset said, and something in her voice suggested she was implying something else.

Ink didn’t know what. “Actually, it was Big Mac,” she said. This caused Soul, who had been downing a soda, to do a spit-take (luckily in a direction away from them).

“Big Mac? My cousin? Him?”

Ink nodded. “Yeah, I guess it’s kinda unbelievable. But, hey, it’s working! I got a lot done this morning!” She grinned when she said this; then the grin faded. “Then the laptop deleted everything…”

The other two students winced, apologetic. “Ouch,” Soul said. “This is why they say you should have a USB stick with you at all times.”

Ink rolled her eyes. “Yeah, well, I sort of did what every other student did and ignored that. Bit too late, I guess.” She cleared her throat. “Anyway… not much I can do about that other than rewrite everything. So it’d be better for me to not think about it. At least for now.”

The others nodded. “Okay.” Sunset placed her hands on the table, palms down. “What first?”

Ink flipped to her questions. The cafeteria grew a little more settled and quieter—or perhaps she was just concentrating a little better, now that she was in her (relative) element. “You guys have been together for how long?” she began.

“Two years,” Soul said. “I was the new kid and Sunny was kind enough to show me around.”

“Really? You’d just moved in?”

“Mmhmm! It was nerve-wracking.” He paused, then rubbed the back of his head. “Guess that’s why I easily became friends with Artifex. He was new, then, too. I sort of understood where he was coming from.”

Again, there was that underlying tone that he knew more than he let on, but that careful smile and crinkled eyes made it hard for her to want to know more. He seemed earnest enough.

“But you guys didn’t start dating immediately?” Ink then asked. She was chewing on the end of her pen, mostly out of habit.

“Oh, no,” Sunset said. “Honestly, it would have been a little weird. I mean, it was a little bit after the Fall Formal, and while the school and everyone had pretty much forgiven me, it was just weird to get back into the dating scene. Especially since I had been dating Flash—speaking of whom, he seems happy with Gaige, so that’s good.”

“I dunno, Sunset,” Soul said. “I think there were some sparks on the first day. Remember Rainbow kicking the ball and me saving you from it?”

Sunset giggled. “Okay. I’ll give you that. But we weren’t really dating until sometime later.”

Ink asked them if they’d be willing to share how they actually did get together, to which they eagerly jumped on board. By the time they’d finished, Ink had two pages worth of notes about crushes, jewelry, and how not to let Pinkie help you with getting a girlfriend. Standard stuff, Ink thought, but still amusing all the same.

“Sounds like you guys had it all planned out from the start,” she commented.

To this, Sunset laughed. “Planned? Hardly. Soul and I sort of winged it for the most part.”

“Really? How’d that go?”

“Rather smoothly,” Sunset said. “We were being each other, with each other. That’s what being in a relationship really is all about, you know. Accepting one another. It’s the case with romance, and it’s the case with friendship.”

Ink made a small note about that. “I see. But what if you two didn’t get along?”

They looked at each other, eyes a bit wide. It was a moment before either said anything.

“Honestly,” began Soul, “I’m not sure. From the get-go we got along pretty well. It’s hard to imagine us being anything less than friends.”

Sunset nodded. “They say that your partner is going to be the best worst friend you could ever hope for. So when you’re in a relationship, you’d better be prepared to butt heads from time to time.”

“Yeah, like over how someone here doesn’t think Star Wars is an absolute masterpiece.”

“I just said that it’s okay for a sci-fi film—”

They had some playful banter while Ink continued writing, but her thoughts were as loud as they and the cafeteria were. She was writing without thinking. In her head she saw an image of a faceless man and a faceless girl, in the snow, on a cold, winter night, hands locked together. A scene was forming, slowly—the pieces; they were settling together; but they weren’t concise, and they were loose at the edges, so they fell apart easily. But she kept trying to put them together, like a first-grader trying to do a 100-piece puzzle…

“Ink?”

Another interruption. The image was gone; but she wasn’t mad, for when it left she forgot it had ever came. She glanced up from her writing. “Hmm?”

Sunset had spoken. She seemed a tad bit concerned. “Just wondering if what we’ve said has been any help.”

Ink couldn’t resist saying, “Well, the Star Wars thing isn’t really relevant—”

“Isn’t really relevant?!”

“—but, yeah, I think this helps.” She waved her hands in front of her, at the filled notebook. “It looks messy, doesn’t it?”

“Oh, yeah,” Sunset said, nodding. “Messy certainly describes it.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll make sense of it. It’s not too bad.” She paused, then stared into Sunset’s eyes. “You’ve all been really helpful. Honestly. You don’t need to worry about that.”

She offered a smile, which Sunset—and eventually Soul—returned. “And that’s about it,” Ink said. She closed her notebook, pushed it back into her backpack.

“You sure?” Sunset asked.

Ink shrugged. “Well, for now, anyway. Maybe there’ll be more questions; no, there probably will be. But right now, I’m hungry.” She grabbed her lunch. “And I don’t want to be a starving artist just yet!”