Inkwell

Name: Shadow Boxer (formerly Spinebreaker) Sex: Male Age: Stallion Species: Unicorn Pelt Color: Navy Blue (#000080) Mane/Tail/Markings Color & Style: Sky blue (#87CEEB). His mane and tail are both cut short and uncombed. A simple style that leaves little room for others to grab onto. Eye Color: Silver (#C0C0C0) Cutie Mark: A metal tower shield. Physique: Built like a tank. A few little scars show up here and there. Origin: Beakbreak City Roleplay Type: Mane RP Occupation: Drifter (formerly hired muscle) Motivation: Boxer’s main hope is to protect innocent ponies from harm, and though Arrow is hardly innocent, he’s at the top of Boxer’s list. The two of them are inseparable, and despite Arrow’s risky behavior, Boxer knows they need each other. He would prefer that they try to get out of the criminal life, but he’s not holding his breath. Likes: Straight Arrow, potatoes, peanuts, card games Dislikes: crowds, bullies, being touched, canteloupe Character Summary: Right from the start of his life, Boxer had it rough. He grew up an orphan in Beakbreak City, a town infamous for having an uncontrollable criminal element. Whatever intimidation points his beefy stature gave him were cancelled out by his shy and awkward demeanor. He was bullied for being “slow” and exploited by his tormentors until another pony named Cheap Shot taught him how to fight and stick up for himself. Shot gave him a name to give foes pause - Spinebreaker - and the two of them were inseparable from then on. Shortly after they became friends, Spinebreaker foiled a beating perpetrated by a whole gang of griffons, barely defeating them under the weight of all the beatings he took. Once his bruises cleared up, he noticed that an odd sigil of a shield appeared on both of his flanks. Once Shot explained what it was, Spinebreaker started taking odd jobs as a bodyguard and hired muscle. Oftentimes he ended up casing hideouts of organized crime for Shot to rob later. For an unusually long time, it was a good method, and they lived about as comfortably as they could in the Beakbreak slums. But it couldn’t last forever. One day Cheap Shot hit the home of the biggest crime boss in the city, where Spinebreaker worked. Despite Shot’s best efforts, he fell into a trap, and would have died had Spinebreaker not thrown away his job and rescued him. For days afterward the pair fled from an extensive stallionhunt, eventually leaving the city for the first time in their lives. It was an eye-opening experience for Spinebreaker, who came within a hair’s breadth of losing his best friend forever. He coerced Cheap Shot to embrace the opportunity they’d been given, and seek out a safer, more legal way of life. The two of them adopted new names and headed south, into the unknown. Boxer was born with a mental disorder that gives him difficulty picking up on social and behavioral cues from other people. Sometimes he’s reluctant to approach people at all, though he’s learned to adopt the air of a stern bodyguard in order to hide his nervous weakness. Whenever he gets into a conversation, he occasionally latches onto the topic of card games. He also compulsively shuffles his own personal deck of cards from time to time; for someone with no fingers, he’s gotten rather good at it. He also has a rather more pronounced sense of justice than Straight Arrow. While Arrow's raison d'etre is stealing from the rich and powerful, Boxer makes a habit of standing up for the weak and powerless, protecting them from bullies. His cutie mark symbolizes his talent at protecting others.

Inkwell couldn't help but smile. He'd made the right choice about paying for Rarity, purely by guessing! Really, though, he ought to have known. Not all mares were like his sister. Some of them would naturally be pleased by chivalry, Figuring them out was pretty tricky, wasn't it? He fished out another few coins to cover Rarity's order. Rarity's last minute additions meant another bit added to the price, but he didn't mind. He'd gotten a nice, big sum for his last illumination, and he wasn't exactly the most frugal penny-pincher around. After squaring things away with the cashier, he followed Rarity's lead and levitated his meal over to the table she picked out. "This is a great place," he said, looking around with that smile still on his face. He felt his glasses start to slip, but he caught and readjusted them before he looked back at Rarity. "I'm actually kind of new to small towns like this. I didn't really know what to expect. So far it's been a pleasant experience, I have to say." He took a sip of his latte and let it sit in his mouth for a while. When he first started travelling, he hated the taste of coffee. He still couldn't take it black like his sister. But he got used to it. It was the drink of artists, after all, or so he'd been told.

I think I may have explained this wrong. Deep down, Arrow doesn't want to reform. He doesn't see anything really wrong with what he was doing, other than that he got sloppy and reached too far this one time. It's his friend Boxer who wants to go straight. Arrow's just keeping a lid on his thieving ways for Boxer's sake. As for the cutie mark origin, I'm gonna add that in right now.

Name: Straight Arrow (formerly Cheap Shot) Sex: Male Age: Stallion Species: Pegasus PeltColor: Maroon (#800000) Mane/Tail/MarkingsColor&Style: Orange (#FF8C00). His mane and tail are both scraggly and unkempt despite occasional attempts to comb them. EyeColor: Gold (#D4AF37) CutieMark: An arrow piercing a bag of gold coins. Physique: Thin and wiry. You can see some of his bones under his skin without really trying. Origin: Beakbreak City RoleplayType: Mane RP Occupation: Drifter (formerly a thief) Motivation: Arrow loves nothing better than silently sneaking by watchful ponies and stealing their things. Any form of deceit and hoodwinking, for profit as well as for fun, is his life’s work. While he knows the consequences that come from indulging in this hobby of his too much, and he’s agreed to rein it in for Boxer’s sake, he's having a hard time thinking of a pursuit that would satisfy him as much. Perhaps he could find another, more legal means of thrill-seeking. Likes: Shadow Boxer, thievery, coffee, alcohol, word puzzles Dislikes: formal wear, busybodies, avocado, slow dancing CharacterSummary: The earliest memories Straight Arrow has are of learning how to survive and look out for himself in Beakbreak City. He never knew his parents; presumably they died when he was young. With the name they gave him unremembered, he named himself Cheap Shot, a tough name for a tough city. The neighborhood he grew up with was dominated by griffons, so he befriended the other pony orphan he knew, Spinebreaker. Spinebreaker came in handy during those occasions where Shot was forced into an open confrontation, one he couldn’t sneak past or run away from, as he preferred to do. He lived a reasonable life in the city as he grew up, earning his money by stealing. It all began when he got revenge on one of the movers and shakers of the city for publicly humiliating Spinebreaker. Not only did he get the fool's priceless celadon urn, he got himself a cutie mark as a bonus. The thrill of sneaking past the security measures of the wealthy and robbing them blind soon gave him a dangerous hobby. With each haul came more money than he knew what to do with, and the satisfaction of having gotten the better of someone else. Soon he started taking a daredevil’s attitude to the whole thing, and he kept going after more challenging and dangerous targets. But then he got sloppy, and got caught robbing someone he shouldn’t have, someone nasty and powerful. He barely made it out of Beakbreak alive, and realized that he and Spinebreaker could never go back there. They gave themselves new names and went out into the world, trying to find a new life. He knows that he likely won’t be able to exercise his talents outside big cities like Beakbreak, but for the sake of his best friend, now called Shadow Boxer, he’s willing to give it a shot. Living most of his life in a city run by criminals hasn’t done much for his outlook on life. Arrow has a cynical, devil-may-care attitude that’s endeared him to people in the past, but has also nearly killed him more than once. He’s fairly affable with other people, at least in the short term, and enjoys the simple things in life, like drinking and cracking rude jokes. Not many have gotten all that close to him in the past, and now that he’s a fugitive, that number is limited to Boxer. Once they do manage to break through and bond with him, though, he’ll go to the wire for them... assuming he isn’t the cause of the problem himself.

WHAT?! Rose balked as Magi postured and lit her horn. What was this idiot doing? Did she not hear Babbles's threat to have them removed from the city? Was she insane? Did she want the law to come down on her? Just as Rose thought, Babbles called her on her lie, casually dismissing it like it was a speck of dust on her mirror. Rose couldn't keep her eye from twitching in fear as she got a backhanded compliment from her tormentor. But when Babbles magically cleaned her coat, making it perfect and flawless again, Rose felt her expression transform from panic to rage. This entitled, stuck-up, spoiled nag was not going to push either of them around anymore! Her muscles tensed, and she could see the scene in her eyes. Her body turning around faster than the eye could see it. Her legs kicking out and delivering a powerful buck to Her Highness's jaw. The humbled mare hiding her face and weeping, then running away and leaving them alone.... The police knocking down Rose's door and arresting her for assault. The jury finding her guilty. The judge being bribed by her tormentor to give her five years in prison. Every publishing house in Equestria treating her like the plague. Rose took a deep, slow breath, with her eyes shut and her ears folded back. She had to calm down. She wasn't going to risk her life's ambition and every leap she'd taken toward it in her life for the sake of putting it to one entitled socialite. "...nine...ten," she whispered under her breath. "Thank you so much for your patience, ma'am," she replied, carefully controlling her voice. "The two of us will be taking leave now, if you don't mind. We have so much more practice to do!" She turned and whispered to Magi. "Follow. Me." Hopefully the fiery mare would take her advice and not burn down an orphanage while her back was turned. Rose could only hope.

Rose followed Scale's lead, dabbing at her mouth with the napkin to catch any errant crumbs on her face. "Well, whatever you want to do. I live at Trellis Vale Apartments. You can visit or leave the money there if you want." She felt her ears burn when Scale complimented her on her book again. It was published! Ponies would buy it! How long had she waited for this day? Her knees started shaking as she got to her hooves and sighed. "I'm not really sure what's next," she says. "I'll keep writing and kick ideas around, but yeah, this is a pretty comfortable advance I got. There's no real rush." As she left, she looked back at Scale and waved. "Till next time!" Then she walked back onto the street, losing herself in the crowd. What a wonderful day.

Rarity's mention of unpleasant subjects made Inkwell wonder what sketches of his she'd be better off not seeing. Nothing really came to mind; most of his drawings were drawn straight from life. The minor derivations could only really be spotted by ponies who'd seen the original subject themselves. They almost always took place in expansive landscapes with many smaller subjects, which he painted doing the most interesting or aesthetically pleasing thing he'd seen them do, even if it hadn't all happened at the same time. Visually dense images like that were by far the most entertaining works for him to make. In short, Inkwell's work was highly based in realism, but sometimes he tried to make things more fantastical or stylistic. Recently he'd been doing it more often thanks to seeing his friend Cat Napper's art, which often looked like the world filtered through the lenses of dreams, if not dreams themselves. But before then, he usually worked with his sister, indulging her requests to see her nightmarish imagination come to life. He had an entire sketchbook full of the prototypes to the finished paintings he sent Rose, and not only were they creepy and unsettling, but he didn't think they were all that good. He had a lot to learn about that sort of stuff, and Rarity wasn't interested anyway, so it was a good thing that wasn't the sketchbook she brought back to him. "Sounds great!" he said, when Rarity offered to take him to the cafe. "I worked up a bit of a thirst looking for you." He still felt a little nervous hanging out with such a sophisticated mare, but then, he sort of always did, no matter how often he pulled it off before. Really, he had nothing to worry about. She liked him, liked his work. As they walked into the cafe, he managed to act calm and natural, looking over the menu. "Hmm... I think I'd like a vanilla latte... and a strawberry tart," he said, catching a glimpse of that small, hoof-sized pastry behind the glass display. "I assume we'll each pay for our own items?" he asked Rarity, taking out some coins to pay for the latte and tart. "Actually, I think I can cover both of us. It's the least I can do... if it's alright with you."

"Well, okay then, I suppose we'd better get going," Inkwell said, turning away from Ashton and his griffon friends. Then he suddenly turned back and walked back up to Ashton. "I just remembered! My sister Rose lives in Canterlot. She's got sort of a pinkish-red coat, dark red hair, green eyes, she's a unicorn. She knows the city pretty well, so if you happen to bump into her somewhere, I think she'd be happy to help you get settled in. Just tell her I let you know about her, alright?" After Ashton answered, Inkwell nodded and turned back around. "Phew, what a day. Come on, Cat, let's go home." The two of them left for their apartment, satisfied with the good work they'd done.

I'm not sure exactly what the time period will be, but starting less than an hour from now I'll be on a trip to Pennsylvania. My grandfather is in hospice and I need to be with my mother to comfort her. I don't know how often I'll be able to get online, but there will be long periods when I'll be in the car and unable to get on the computer at all. So I'll be slower to reply to threads than I usually am. That is all.

It would be hard for Rose to describe the state she finished the race in, when all was said and done. She didn't concentrate on the other details, not really. She didn't pay much mind to the other racers, other than to avoid bumping into them when they got in her way. All she wanted to do was to cross the finish line. That was it. A few details managed to stay in her memory anyway. There was the constant ache of her joints and muscles as her hooves slammed into the ground in a rapid pattern. Her pulse crowded out the other sounds in her ears, driven by a heart that practically bounced off her ribs. Strands of hair hung down into her eyes, and only her blinking kept them from blurring her vision. She caught a glimpse of Inkwell running alongside her, a worried look on his face. He'd only come to see the last leg of the race up close, as it turned out. So that was why he didn't look so sweaty. Once or twice, when she could see the finish line ahead of her, plain as day, she stumbled, falling on her knees as one of her leg muscles cramped up. Her only thought in response was of irritation, though she remembered that it was only then that her high temperature became apparent. It only took a few seconds to get to her hooves again, but that was enough time for a couple of ponies to pass her for good. She wouldn't be taking the gold this time, she knew, but as long as she could just... finish! Finally, moments after she heard the indistinct shouting of another competitor, Rose saw the checkered line in the ground pass under her feet, and all of her obsessive drive to gallop forward melted away. She took a few more steps out of habit, feeling as though she floated in the air between each one. Her serenity lasted but a millisecond before she felt her side hit the ground. The world turned over; cheering spectators became topsy-turvy and the sky spun around the edge of her vision. She felt her head lift up as her legs stopped her rolling around, then slump against the ground again. Before she knew it, her eyes snapped shut. "Rose!" Inkwell rushed back over the finish line to the prone form of his sister. He felt the heat radiating off of her body, and he could see a few scrapes here and there through a matted, sweat-stained coat. One of her hind legs twitched every few seconds, just enough for him to notice. He felt her shoulders and looked at her head, frantically checking her for injuries or sprains or bruises. His untrained eyes could see nothing wrong, so he just looked at Rose's face again. "Rose, are you okay? Rose? Rose, come on! Say something!" He pressed his ear to her mouth. *snrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr* The sound of snoring made Inkwell balk at first. Then he started to laugh. "Oh, Rose," he said, "you had me worried for nothing! Come on, let's get you out of here..." He grunted and lifted her body atop his, balancing her lengthwise on his back. Good heavens, did she ever stink! Both of them would probably require a nice bath after the festivities had ended. Come to think of it, he hadn't shown her the local spa yet. He bet she'd just love that...

Inkwell had once again concentrated entirely on drawing, filling page after page with such interesting things to see and watch. He was on his twelfth page and he still hadn't run out of ideas yet! Of course, it wasn't just the sights he'd spotted in Misty's portal that inspired him. The back-and-forth dialogue between all of the spectators on the bleachers had given him ideas, too. So it went until Misty's magic started acting up again, making the portal go dangerously out of focus. Self-preservation kicked in at that point, making him back up a few rows on the bleachers before resuming his art. Thankfully all of the other ponies in his way were polite enough to move. And then the portal vanished entirely. Misty suddenly congratulated herself on controlling her magic, and Inky would have joined in if it hadn't robbed him of a privilege that, admittedly, he should have known wouldn't stay with him long. "Yeah," he told her as he got to his hooves, "I'm real proud of you, but now I have to get a closer look at the race. Nice meeting you all and see... you... later!" He grunted these last words as he jumped off the bleachers and ran along the side of the racecourse, hoping to run into the racers coming the other way. Rose barely listened to Mojo, instead concentrating on the syrup gluing him to the ground. It was all her fault, and she didn't know what to do about it. But apparently some other ponies did. All around her other competitors had gotten stuck in the sap, and they weren't paralyzed with gear or guilt or self-pity. Heck, one of them even offered her some of the stuff on a stick! Her first impulse had been to spit it out and ask this crazy colt what he was thinking by gluing her mouth shut, too, but then she noticed just how sweet it tasted. Mmm! This was even better than the leaves she'd had! "Mmmf, fanks!" she muttered, swallowing the sap and spitting the twig out. Then some more of ponies came down and flew in from out of nowhere, apparently to back up Mojo and help him out! Cheaters, they were all cheaters! She initially recoiled when two of them approached her, one with a spray bottle full of who knew what, but then she shook her head and tried to clear it. The miasma in her head was wrong, she told herself. These ponies were friends, and they were here to help her. Her eyes clamped shut and she stood still until the spray hit her full in the face. In a matter of seconds, the blue spots faded away, and her mind became refreshingly clear. She looked down at her hoof and frowned. Her horn glowed, and with a dull crack she pulled it free, along with a few inches of the ground. When she set it back down again the dirt on it quickly crumbled away, mixing with the sap and making it useless. "Thanks for that," she said to the kind soul who cured her. "But please, don't any of you tell anypony else how stupid I was acting, alright?" She looked at Mojo and concentrated, making her horn glow even brighter. A small series of cracks echoed through the air until Mojo came completely free, albeit with a lot of dirt still stuck to him. Her eyes caught a pegasus struggling as well, the sap on his hoof stretched as far as he could manage it. One last flash severed it clean through, freeing at least one appendage. At that point Rose began to feel a bit muddled in the head, practically on the verge of sleep. But she shook her head again and stomped her hooves on the ground, willing herself to stay awake and alert for the last part of the race. She ignored the sudden stitches and pains that wracked her body in the process. "Ngh! Come on, everypony! Let's end this!" she cried, starting off at the hardest gallop she could manage. In her mind, she played bombastic, dramatic music befitting the end of an epic struggle. This was the climax, the big finish, and she vowed to make it all worth it.

Rose ran fast, as fast as she could, in order to get away from everything. Her heart beat like the wings of a hummingbird, her eyes opened so wide she feared her eyeballs would pop out, and her mouth was drier than the rocks she'd just left behind. It was a nightmarish ordeal that she'd found herself enduring, and she couldn't believe she'd survived it. It all began when she ran along the rocky path and heard the sound of collapsing rocks. The sound was enough to make her shriek and cover her head with her forelegs. It was a miracle that she hadn't stayed there and gotten flattened. As soon as the first pebble hit her, she looked up and saw the much bigger rocks heading for her. That was enough for her to bolt out of there as fast as she could, barely avoiding the other ponies on the path. She could have easily collided with them and sent them over the ledge to their doom, and it just filled her with even more dread. As she looked around frantically for more rocks coming her way, she saw that a griffon, the same one she saw earlier, was responsible for them tumbling down. It couldn't be real. She couldn't be seeing one of the competitors losing their mind and trying to hurt the others, was she? How many ponies had she already wounded - or worse - by the time Rose had spotted her? It wasn't something she enjoyed thinking about at all, so naturally she couldn't stop. Even passing back into the safer area of the forest didn't assuage her fears. The other ponies were no longer competitors; they were potential threats. Any time they could turn on her, trample her, cripple her. The only solution was to run too fast for them to catch her. They wouldn't get the best of her today! Not today! But her plan hit a snag. She kept darting her eyes this way and that for anything that could rush out and get her that she didn't see who was in her way until it was too late. A brown earth pony galloped next to a blue-green unicorn, leaning in to hear her whisper something. Were they conspiring against- CRASH! She hit them like a bowling ball, rolling off the road and into the dead leaves by a tree on the ground. Her whole body ached, from the exercise and from the collision. A wave of shame washed over her. What was she thinking, suspecting everypony of plotting against her? All those two had done was get hurt by her. Stupid, stupid, stupid! "Oh nonononono," she muttered, rushing over to them. "Are you hurt? Are you alright? Oh please be alright! Please!" That's when she noticed that one of her hooves was stuck to the ground by an odd orange-brown fluid. "Get it off!" She struggled to get her hoof free, only making it feel like she was wrenching it around. "Get if off get if off get it off get it off get if off get it off!" She had yet to notice a new feature added to her face. A trail of tiny blue polka dots stained her red fur, forming tear trails from her eyes to her chin. She wouldn't know what this meant, but somepony else might...

Rose chuckled and took another swig of apple juice, looking over at Cat. "Oh, you're doing fine!" she says. "You know what? Here's some apple juice," he says, letting Cat drink the rest of the bottle. Rose thought she could endure the rest of the race without refreshments. Well, she was pretty confident. Besides, there were a lot of leaves that she could eat falling behind the head of the pack! She kept her mouth open and let one land in her mouth, chewing it up. Man, these things were like eating popcorn! After a few more leaves, she sputtered a bit when a weird-tasting flower petal flew into her throat. She gasped and choked, swallowing it reflexively, until she felt her throat was clear. "Whoo, that was unpleasant!" she commented, rushing up to Cat again. "Sheesh, what was I thinking, holding my mouth open like that? Won't be making that mistake again!" Indeed she didn't, but as she kept running, more and more doubts started to plague her mind. What if Cat did indeed collapse, maybe from heat stroke? What if Rose couldn't keep up after all? She looked back and began to realize just how dangerous a lot of the things that had already happened here were. Giant spiders, snakes, an ornery griffon? How was this race not better enforced? It was ridiculous! Soon the trees thinned out and yielded to rockier terrain, which produced a strange reaction in Rose. Instead of admiring the jagged crags and all of the shadows they cast, she thought of herself taking the wrong step and tumbling down a mountain slope to a painful death. The image of her battered and bleeding body at the bottom made her heart leap to her throat and shiver. Suddenly it felt like it was already winter. But then another daunting obstacle lay before her. One again the ponies started to crowd around the path, and she couldn't see past them to find out why. Oh, why was this happening? Why her? She'd never break through the crowd at this rate! She finally overheard some of the discussion and felt her eyes widen. Two paths? What happened if she picked the wrong one? She'd get lost in the woods, never to be seen again? It took Beach Breaker's decision on which path it was to get her to move. He seemed authoritative and confident enough. Rose could only wish she had that confidence! As Breaker galloped away, Rose caught up with him and panted in an effort to catch her breath and talk to him. "T-thank you," she said in a soft, timid voice. "I don't know what I'd do without you..." Oh no, where was Cat? They'd gotten separated! Rose looked back and almost turned around to find her again. But she realized it wouldn't matter which way she went, it wouldn't increase her chances of a reunion. All she could do was head for the finish line.

Up until they reached Whitetail Wood, Rose kept pace with Cat, keeping her company and running at about eighty percent speed, by her estimates. She thought if she really pushed herself, she could leave Cat in the dust and go straight to the head of the pack, if only because she had longer legs than Cat. Yes, she was absolutely sure about that. "Heheh, Canterlot's great! There was a little get-together of aspiring writers two weeks ago. That was a real blast! And I mph!" Her speech was interrupted by a falling leaf flying into her mouth. All of the leaves were falling at once, and Rose couldn't help but crane her head around and look at the storm of leaves filling the air behind her. As she watched, she started chewing the leaf, and eventually swallowed it. "Mmm, not bad. Could use a little salt, though." She chuckled and stuck out her tongue for another leaf, catching it like a little foal would a snowflake. After eating that one and chasing it down with another swig of apple juice, she remembered Cat's other question. "Oh, you know Inky," she said with a roll of her eyes. "Always looking for a way out of exercise. He said he'd rather draw the race from the sidelines. I guess he can't draw anything while racing, but he's got a good memory for visual details, and I can't imagine that he'd see that much from those bleachers at the starting line." But Inkwell did see quite a lot, thanks to Misty's serendipitous scrying portal. He saw a wonderful view of the falling leaves, which he wasted no time in capturing on paper, as well as the snakes and giant spider laying near the path. He idly hoped that nopony would run afoul of them as he filled in rough outlines of the path and the multitude of falling leaves. "I'm sorry to hear about all that," he told Misty. "Something like that can be really hard to overcome or live with, but it's possible. I'm sure there's somepony who could help you with that." He held his pencil to his mouth, thinking back on the ponies he saw, and began filling them in. "Used to be I was shy and scared of everything, scared of how much I would fail. But one day I just decided to try drawing anyway, and I ended up happier with myself than ever before." Back at the race, Rose nodded at Ashton as he arrived next to Cat, who apparently knew him. "It's absolutely beautiful. Absolutely. Inky's gonna be so bummed that he missed out on all this, you kn-" The sound of a thud distracted her, making her turn and look at the seafoam unicorn who ran right into a tree. She winced in sympathy and looked back at Cat and Ashton. "Poor filly, hope she didn't hurt herself too-" “HAHAHAHA! WOOO HOOO! YEAH! THIS IS BEAUTIFUL! I LOVE IT OUT HERE! I’M NEVER GOING BACK INTO MY SHOP AGA-” Another pony ran headlong into a tree, and this time Rose couldn't help but crack a smile. "Sheesh, you'd think some ponies would know to watch where they're going!" she said, shaking her head. "Then again, I keep turning my head away from the road so much it's a wonder the same hasn't happened to me!" She looked ahead and kept running for a few seconds, waiting to hear the sound of another tree collision. After time passed without one, Rose almost spoke again before the interruption of distant shrieking. "AAUUUUUUUUUGH! SNAAAAAAAKES!" Rose broke out into a laugh at that point, to the extent that she ended up slowing her pace down to seventy percent. "Ahahahahaheheheh! I'm sorry, it's just... you ever thought you'd see things like this happen here? This is supposed to be a simple marathon, and yet it seems there's always something complicating things, doesn't it?" As if on cue, a gangly black-and-white unicorn screamed about a giant spider and stumbled onto the racetrack. She collided with another unicorn and tumbled right into Rose's path. With barely a second's thought, Rose leapt into the air, soaring over Estrella, and hit the ground running again. "Get up!" she yelled in the short amount of time before Estrella faded from view. She kind of wanted to see the giant spider for herself, but she knew how Cat felt about spiders and she still had a race to run. Would have been a cool sight, though. She panted and chugged the last of one bottle of juice, leaving one full and one empty. While there was technically no need to levitate the empty one, the thought of littering never crossed Rose's mind. Her mother had been very strict in that regard. "Halfway there," she said to Cat and Ashton. "Think we can make it?"

Rose grinned widely upon hearing Applejack offer to let her buy the drinks on credit. "Oh, thank Luna! You're a lifesaver, AJ!" With as much haste as she could, she scribbled her name, then after a minute's deliberation, she scribbled down "4 bits", levitating two bottles. "I'll have the money for you after the race, plus enough for one of your awesome pies!" She felt the brief urge to give Applejack a hug, but she knew it would be a huge faux pas. Plus she didn't want to get any of Applejack's sweat on her. She had enough of her own. She took a swig of one bottle, licked her lips, and pointed herself back to the road. "Good luck, y'all!" she said to the growing crowd around Applejack's impromptu stand, then set off at a canter, ready to resume the race.

After maintaining a full gallop for ten minutes, Rose slowed down to keep pace with the rest of the crowd. She knew that one of the biggest and most obvious mistakes a marathon runner could make was to tire herself out too fast, so it was about time to start pacing herself. Most of the other runners seemed to have the same idea, and some of them even started conversations with one another. Rose herself had gotten involved in a sing-along another unicorn started, and even though she stopped singing after three songs, she still found a few of those songs stuck in her head. She wondered if that unicorn made them up herself. Then the ponies rounded the corner and caught a glimpse of Sweet Apple Acres, a sight that stopped Rose in her tracks. Succulent apples dotted the trees for miles around like rubies, and if they were half as delicious as the apples in that pie she bought at the Grand Galloping Gala, Rose didn't think she'd be able to stop eating them! At least, not until she ran out of money to buy them with. She blinked and shook her head, trying to focus her attention away from her daydreaming and back to the race. Not that the other ponies were all that driven to press on at the moment. Some of them had even stopped to rest. Pinkie Pie was sitting under a tree... talking to herself. Rose stopped to watch for a few seconds, not really knowing how to react, before Pinkie started rambling on about her purpose and "what she had to do." She might have to ask Pinkie about that later, though from what she'd heard Ponyvillians say before, she probably wouldn't get a satisfying answer. She guessed it would be up to her imagination to fill in the blanks. What struck Rose as even weirder than that, though, was Applejack sitting behind a crate with bottles of apple juice piled atop it. "Get yer refreshin' apple juice right here! Mighty fresh and mighty sweet!" she called out. Rose couldn't believe her ears. What was she thinking? Wasn't she in the race, too? But now that Rose thought about it, she wouldn't mind something to rehydrate her for later in the race. She approached the crate right after a young gray stallion with a carrot mark on his flank, who skipped up to Applejack and tripped on his face. From the way he talked and looked at her, Rose could tell the poor guy was smitten by her, and Rose couldn't help but giggle at the cute little display he put on. Ah, she remembered when she was that inexperienced in the ways of love. Hopefully he would have more luck than she did. "Sheesh, are you just this confident that you'll win, AJ?" Rose asked Applejack. "Oh well, as long as you're offering..." Her hooves reached for her neck, but found nothing around it. Nothing adorned her body at all except for the two racing numbers on her flanks. "Oh, shoot, I left my coinpurse at Inky's place!" she muttered. Why couldn't Applejack have told them that she was selling drinks before the race began? Rose couldn't help but kick the ground in frustration.

After hours of trekking down a scenic mountain road, Rose Madder finally arrived at Ponyville. She sighed and sat on the ground, taking a good look at the town from up close. Then she leaned back and fell down onto the ground, feeling the sweat on her back mingle with the dirt and grass, but for the moment, she didn't care. She'd made it down the mountain in one piece without straining her muscles or making her too sore to compete in the Running of the Leaves! Her ego felt like it was flying as high as that awesome cloud house floating high above the town. What was that? She'd love to meet the pegasus who lived there! Because she was feeling lazy, she kept laying there, just enjoying the fresh air and the distant sounds of birds chirping. But it didn't even take five minutes for another pony to disturb her.

"You sure you don't wanna join me?" Rose asked, limbering up her legs and stretching out her haunches. Thankfully she and Inkwell stood at the edge of the pack, giving her plenty of space to stretch and giving him an easy escape from the ensuing stampede. Inkwell took a nervous step back and shrugged, using his magic to push his glasses back up his muzzle. "Sorry, but I'm not really a very physical pony, you know. Besides, I'd much rather draw the race from the outside." He looks around at the other competitors, craning his neck around to get a better look. All of the prospective marathoners formed a pleasant spectrum of colors, and if he wasn't mistaken, he spotted a diamond dog and a griffon! "Ooh, do you see them?" he asked, pointing a hoof. "I didn't know there were non-ponies competing!" He tilted his head and peered at the griffon. "I think I've seen her before, actually." "Cool, maybe you'll get another chance to talk to her after the race!" Rose replied. She stretched down, putting her head between her forelegs and pushing out her flanks. Her orchid-and-scroll cutie marks were covered with the number 19, affixed to her with spirit gum. She smiled and took a look around at the other competitors. Some looked nervous, others looked as confident as her, and a few more looked somewhat apathetic. "So, how do my odds look, Inky?" He looked down at the ground and tried to think about that question. "Well, I dunno, Rose, a lot of these ponies look like they're in great shape." "And I'm not?" "Nonononono, you are," Inkwell said, holding his front hooves up and shaking his head. "But there's a difference between thirty minutes of cardio a day and seriously training for a marathon. I mean, take a look at Applejack there!" He pointed at the Stetson-wearing farm filly, who looked like the most serious competitor. Rose nodded and let her gaze linger on AJ as well. "Yeah, she's pretty ripped, alright," Rose said. "But I hear she's had pretty bad luck when it comes to this race. Didn't she come in last place last year?" "Well, it was a tie, but yeah. I don't think it'll happen again, though. You might have to settle for losing to her, Rose." "Eh, whatever," she replied, starting her stretching cycle over again. "As long as I break into the top ten, it'll make the trip worth it." "Hey!" "Oh hush, Inky, you know I'm kidding." "On your marks!" Rose snapped to attention when the announcer made herself known. She snorted and scraped her hooves into the ground, preparing to take off like a rocket. Inkwell took this as his cue to back off and join the spectators. "Get set!" "Good luck, Rose!" he called from the stands, waving energetically. In response, she gave him a brief wink. She barely heard the bubbly, over-excited voice of the eccentric pink pony she'd met upon her arrival calling out to her freckled friend. How would she do in this race, Rose won- "Go!!!!!!!" Rose took off at a gallop, swerving around the ponies in front of her. She was just about to reach the front of the pack when she felt the thud of hooves pushing down on her back, slamming her into the ground. "Rose!" Inkwell cried out in worry, only for Rose to get right back up. She started running again almost immediately, eyes darting around for the culprit who pushed her down. Over the mass of racers stampeding down the track, she couldn't miss Pinkie Pie bouncing around her fellow racers happily and without a care in the world. "Ngh... dammit, Pinkie," she muttered under her breath, still feeling the soreness of Pinkie's hooves on her back. Whatever, it wasn't her fault. All Rose knew was that she was near the rear of the pack now, and she'd have to work hard to catch up with them sooner or later. Inkwell watched her retreat into the distance. He loudly exhaled after she left, and decided to look around the bleachers. That's when he saw a small group of ponies crowded around a magical window, watching the race from afar. "Oh wow, a scrying portal!" he said, making his way up to them to get a closer look.

Suddenly, Rose couldn't quite believe what she was seeing. The mares she watched started to act a bit more like cartoons and less like real ponies. Her friend with the fiery mane started acting like a cornered beast. No, that wasn't it, she was like a dragon jealously guarding her hoard. It surprised Rose that Magi wasn't breathing fire or even smoke! And the shrill ranting of the orange mare with the barely-singed coat got progressively less funny and more disturbing as her voice increased in pitch and started to crack. Rose found her attention being drawn to the mare's furious eyes and her reddening face and the mouth that gaped wide open multiple times during the course of her tirade. The visuals were bad enough, Rose thought, but then she started to process what Babbles told Magi. She knew ponies, ponies who could ruin Magi's life, or even Rose's by association. The thought of it made Rose start to shake. She didn't know what Magi did for a living, but being deported would devastate her. She loved Canterlot, and couldn't imagine moving or living anywhere else. Babbles stomped on the ground and finished shouting. Rose suddenly felt very cold, and turned to look at Magi. It made her realize that as bad as leaving Canterlot would be, she could always start over. She was published now, and maybe there were some great cultural cities that could nurture her talents just as well as Canterlot, maybe even better! Manehattan sprung to mind, as did Fillydelphia. Anyplace but Trottingham, really. Magi, on the other hoof, had no such safety netss far as Rose could tell. If she was out, it would be the end of her. So in a split second, Rose swallowed her pride and made her move. "I am so, so sorry," she told Babbles, getting to her four and lowering herself into a submissive posture. "It was my fault. I kept asking to see her new trick and she kept telling me it wasn't safe, but I just wouldn't listen! I should have known better, really." She looked up into Babbles's eyes, hoping to find some understanding. "I'd be happy to pay for another treatment if you want." Part of her revolted against the idea of kowtowing to this egotistical troll even this much, let alone reimbursing her, while another knew that her story would collapse if Babbles thought to press her on it by, say, asking Rose what Magi's name was. But mostly she just hoped Babbles would just go away and leave them alone.

As the other two mares softened their stances and did their part to reassure Gracie, Inkwell sighed and smiled, feeling the stress in him dissipate as though a snake released its constricting grip on his chest. He noticed a few more patches of mud on Agua's forelegs and carefully wiped them off. The process relaxed him further, so he hoped Aqua didn't mind the attention he gave her. Really, what had he gotten so worked up over? Things patched themselves up so quickly that he started to feel silly for reacting so strongly in two different ways. Sure, he tried to tell himself that he wouldn't shout at ponies who endangered his art anymore, but Granola wasn't a little filly, so he thought it would be okay, he guessed. Gah, this wondering and flip-flopping was getting him nowhere! If Rose were here, she'd cuff him upside the head and tell him to get over himself, and so that's what he tried to do. Hearing about the papers dissolving only shook his resolve for a second. He gave Granola a big smile when she thanked him, and couldn't resist the urge to hug her for a second. "No problem," he said. Then everypony decided that it would be best for them to show Aqua back to the lake instead of giving her the tour of the town. "Huh," he said, thinking the idea over. "Now that you mention it, I could really go for a swim." Just thinking about it made the air seem muggy and humid, even though he thought the day started pretty seasonable when he left his home. "Yeah, let's do it!" He got excited and almost galloped off in the direction of the lake, before remembering that he should probably stick with Aqua so he didn't seem selfish. So he kept trotting by her side, matching the hippocamp's impaired pace.

Rose had scooped a forkful of cheesecake into her mouth when Scale mentioned his favorite dessert from his home. She chuckled with her mouth full at the odd choice in food. "Fried pickles?" she asked after swallowing. "Now there's something I'd like to try at least once! I've gotten hooked on weirder foods, like..." After an awkward silence, she realized she couldn't think of any weird foods she like that weren't also fried or pickled. Brain farts like that were always annoying. "I'll remember it later." Despite her best efforts to nurse her cheesecake, she still couldn't spread it out over enough bites for her liking, and soon her plate was clean. She leaned back in her seat and sighed, looking down the tip of her nose at Scale. "That was great, wasn't it?" she asks, smiling. "Like I said, I'll cover it. No need to thank me." She moved her eyes to look for the waiter with the check, the rest of her body still slumped back and relaxed.

As Inkwell listened to Dark's grandiose reprimand of Czar, he found himself fighting to hold back a big, silly grin on his face. It was a speech right out of a comic book and he couldn't take it the least bit seriously. When Dark finished, Inky lost it and burst into laughter. It would have been uproarious and exhilarating if Inky didn't stop every few seconds to wince at the cramps in his chest acting up again. "Oh! Oh! Ow! Ahahahahahaheheheh. Oh, I'm sorry, Dark, I'm sohohorry!" He stopped to wipe tears from his face and take deep breaths, thankful that Dark was too engrossed in his workbench to snap at him. Czar himself seemed resigned to his mistake, and seemed to be on his way out. "Heheh. I'm sure there's, there's no need for us to tell the paper. Honest mistake, I think." He smirked and chuckled weakly again. It was certainly a really funny mistake! He was thankful such hilarity occurred, because it distraced him and gave him time to think about Cat's question. Of course he loved her. Why else would he be so desperate to find her when she got lost? But then she nuzzled Dark... Oh, it looked like she was getting impatient. Time to talk to her. "Well, I had a bit of a hard time sorting out my thoughts," he said, slowly and deliberately. Each sentence ended with a pause, during which Inkwell thought about how best to say what he needed to. "There is one thing I know for sure. When I heard that you were missing, I got scared, more scared than I can ever remember being before. Maybe that's not true, maybe I'm just remembering wrong, but if it is, then I think you're more than just a friend to me, too. So... if I'm really the one you want, I think I'm just as eager to give it a shot as you are." He had to struggle to keep his voice audible and look into Cat's eyes, and he had to resist the urge to get up and embrace her. After all, they weren't alone, and Inky didn't feel right about other ponies watching.

Inkwell nodded when Rarity compared his drawings to her dressmaking. "Yeah, that's kind of why I wanted to meet you in the first place," Inkwell said, still looking a little bashful from all of this praise. "You're an artist, too, and I always like meeting other artists. Heh. I probably told you that already." He tilted his head when Rarity brought up her own experiences with the poison joke. Was it a common experience for ponies to get exposed to that strange plant? "Yeah... it wasn't fun for me, either," he said. The uncomfortable memory made him frown and glance at the ground for a moment. Then Rarity asked him what it did to him, and after a moment of silence, he shrugged. "I guess I can show you. I actually ended up sketching the results somewhere. I think it's in this book somewhere, hold on." Inkwell levitated the sketchbook and began flipping through it until he came upon a drawing of himself in colored pencil. "There it is." He turned the sketchbook around with that drawing open to face Rarity, so she could see a distinctly uncomfortable and nervous-looking Inkwell. In the drawing, he bit his lip and raised a hoof above the ground, looking unsure of where to put it. The most distinctive part of the drawing were Inkwell's eyes. The skin around his eyes and behind his glasses was dotted with vivid blue spots, an occasional signature of the poison joke, and his eyes themselves were completely blank. The irises and pupils were completely gone. "I've been told that the poison joke takes away your best asset," Inkwell said, "and my eyes are vital in my line of work. I'm glad nopony laughed at me stumbling around town that day. They just told me where to find the spa, and Lotus and Aloe gave me a special bath. Heh. That drawing's going by other ponies' accounts of how I looked, so the spots might be a little off. Call it artistic license." He gave off a bit of a nervous chuckle, doing his best to make light of a bad memory.

Not all of Rose's impulses paid off. Starting a conversation with complete strangers was just as likely to get her a weird look and an awkward brush-off as it was to start an actual dialogue, especially in situations where ponies didn't normally expect to talk. A city street was a prime example; despite the presence of benches on the sidewalks, few treated it as anything more than a line between Point A and Point B. Almost everypony on the street was eager to be somewhere else. But the cheerful black mare didn't seem to be just anypony. Rose chuckled and blushed when Magi complimented her own hair. Something about this filly's behavior seemed positively child-like, though Rose couldn't put a hoof on it. "Thanks," she said. "I just changed my mane this morning. I wasn't sure if it was an improvement or not." She found herself staring at the thick tome on her lap, but made herself look at Magi again. "What brings you here?" she asked her. "Just wanted to enjoy the da-" The sound of another mare shrieking made Rose flinch. She immediately turned her head and noticed another mare panicking on the sidewalk. It was as though this third mare was struck with a sudden mania, her muscles spasms causing her to drop her bag and scatter her papers as she shook an imagined hazard off her body. Just as soon as it began, the mood passed, and Rose got a good look at what caused it. She could barely see it at first, until the mare shouted which part of her body was afflicted. Rose squinted and peered and finally noticed a speck of gray on the other mare's body. Was that seriously it? All of those histrionics over a speck like that? It still marveled Rose that the mare was still flustered at such a little matter until she realized what had probably caused it. She glanced at Magi a bit nervously, noting that she didn't appear to have connected the dots, then back at the other mare, who was glaring in their direction. It made Rose blink and lower her ears, but nothing more. Social awkwardness was nothing new to her. "Is something the matter?" Rose asked the mare as she gathered her papers.