Inkwell

"Why would they be mad at you?" Inkwell asked from around a hedge. He turned around the corner and came face to face with Fluttershy, a recent acquaintance from Ponyville. He looked over her outfit, noticing a strong flower motif in it, and smiled. "Oh my, that's a stunning outfit! Is that one of Rarity's designs?" he asked her. "She made my outfit, too!" He looked back over his outfit, a tuxedo vest with glossy threads. The outer coat was vertically striped with half-inch bands of black and white, stretching from hem to collar. The same striped motif carried over to a beret he wore on his head, except there it took the shape of concentric circles radiating from the center of it. Inkwell looked pleased as punch to be wearing such a unique, eye-catching outfit, especially since he managed to make friends with Rarity in order to get it. Sure, he paid money for the suit, but it was at enough of a discount for it to feel like a gift.

Fluttershy's words gave Inkwell pause for thought. Like him, she couldn't decide on which option to take. They both appealed to him quite a bit. He also managed to crack a smile when Fluttershy acted embarrassed at raising her voice. She raised a good point about Sweetie Belle getting inspiration from his work. He wouldn't mind showing little foals how his drawing process worked. "Well... maybe I could do both!" he said, getting an idea. "I'd surprise them with one painting, then offer to show Sweetie Belle how my art works. I think we'll see how it goes from there."

Rose shrugged and nodded. "Suit yourself," she said, "but my mind's kind of made up on the cheesecake now. I think I'll order that, if you don't mind." Once again, Hollandaise walked over to the table and waited for the two of them to decide. "I'll have the strawberry cheesecake with dark chocolate shavings on it," Rose told him, "and my friend's still deciding on appetizers, so if you wouldn't mind waiting on him a bit..." Hollandaise looked a bit annoyed, but nodded and waited for Scale's response.

Already Inkwell began to notice the essential difference between his artistic preferences and Cat Napper's. He essentially managed to paint on autopilot, dividing his attention between talking, looking at his references in real life, and actual drawing. He drew Ashton concentrating on mending his broken balloon, masterfully depicting the unicorn's facial expressions and body language. But when he glanced over at Cat's work, he had to admit he was impressed. She manage to conjure from her mind a fantastical landscape with wondrous creatures, almost as if she was seeing into an ethereal plane, an impression reinforced by her blocking out everything besides the painting. The temptation to wave a hoof in front of her face and see if she noticed was almost overwhelming. But Ashton snapped him out of it by talking about more exciting stories that he could tell Inkwell, as well as a lightning-shooting parasol and his plans for the balloon. "That's really neat of you to offer!" he says, excited to take a ride in a hot air balloon. "Cat and I would really love to ride on your balloon and not have to go through the forest again! Isn't that right, Cat?"

Up until then, Inkwell was enjoying a normal, beautiful day. He looked over the scene at the town square, once again delighting in the vast crowd of ponies gathered here, talking and enjoying the day along with him. Additionally, he took it as a bit of a challenge, a call to capture the scene on canvas, which he did. A crowd of more than three dozen ponies appeared in his nearly-finished landscape, looking every bit as lively and peppy as they did in real life, if he did say so himself. And then a mystery pony came rolling into town. Quite literally. He blinked and stared at the newcomer, noticing that it didn't appear to be a pony at all. It was a bizarre amalgam of pony and dolphin, a combination that Inkwell had sort of imagined, but never actually seen evidence of in real life. It almost didn't seem plausible, but then he took a closer look at her skin. It was actually softer and had a finer coat than most ponies'. He decided right then that he had to draw her. He could finish that painting from memory later. "What in Equestria is that?" a brown filly asked him, but soon a green pegasus arrived and cleared things up, introducing the creature as a hippocamp named Aqua Drop. Inky was one of the few ponies who gave Aqua a round of applause. Actually, he was pretty much the only one. "What?" he asked the ponies who stared at him. "That was an impressive tumble!" He packed up his easel and painting as quickly as he can, once he was sure the painting was dry enough to transport, and got out his sketchbook, trotting alongside Aqua, who clearly reveled in the attention and displayed a peppy attitude. "Hey, I'm Inkwell!" he said, clearly excited to meet a new species. "Welcome to the town! I think you're going to love it here!" He turned his eyes back and forth to his sketchbook as he sketched the basics of her anatomy.

As it happened, Inkwell set off to see Rarity on precisely the same day, with almost exactly the same intentions. While his role in the incident was quickly forgotten by Rarity, it weighed on his mind ever since it happened. He didn't allow himself to forget it, but at least he didn't let it get him down. After his visit with Fluttershy, in fact, it made him determined to present Rarity and Sweetie Belle with a token of apology. Now he carried that token, a beautiful and rather heartwarming painting of Sweetie Belle helping Rarity with a dress, in his saddlebag. He started to get serious deja vu as he approached the door to her shop. Once again, he felt himself get a sudden case of the jitters as he approached the door. This time he had a bit more reason to be nervous, seeing as how he'd botched his first impression. But hey, he told himself. He had a gift for them, and if they still snubbed him after that... he didn't want to think about it. He knocked on the door, loudly and clearly. It took him five minutes to realize that nopony was home. Those blushing cheeks and furrowed brow of his must have made him look quite the sight as he wandered into the town square. It figured that he would miss Rarity when he was finally ready to see her again. He was about to ask a pony with a blue and pink mane if she'd seen her when he caught a glimpse of an elegantly curled indigo tail. "Miss Rarity?" he called out, trotting after her. "Miss Rarity! May I have a word?"

Rose looked at the menu at the entry Scale pointed at. Sure enough, there was a picture of the chocolate layer cake. It looked pretty good, though she didn't know why he thought the chocolate wouldn't be that sweet. She looked around the dessert menu to refresh her memory with entries. Each of them had a small picture next to them, and some of them did indeed make her drool. One in particular had a bit of an arresting affect on her. "Actually," she told Scale, "I think I'm gonna order the strawberry cheesecake. I haven't had the cheesecake here in ages. I think I can get dark chocolate shavings on it, too."

Edited to add in Inkwell's residence.

Alrighty, I'll just edit my app to include Inky's residence then.

Awesome! Two brony birthdays in one day! Congratulations!

Inkwell smiled and sat back to back with Cat, making a drawing of the clearing centering on Ashton and his busted balloon. Occasionally he turned and peeked over at Cat's shoulder at her artwork. It still impressed him that she was able to so deftly maneuver her pencil and paint with her hooves. He wouldn't be able to do that if he was paid to! It must have taken her years of practice to be able to do that. He watched Ashton work, then pause to recount his story. It was a little bit more boring than Inky had expected when he asked, but he supposed he couldn't say he was surprised. His imagination got away from him, giving him a mental image of Ashton going on an epic adventure to reach Ponyville - no wait, he was going to Fillydelphia - by balloon. Plus, he was rather curious as to where Ashton's traveling companions ended up. "So you don't have a concrete meeting place for sure?" he asked Ashton while sketching the folds and shades on the deflated balloon. "That might make it a bit tricky. When my family and I first toured the New Year's Fair when I was young, we got lost and kept missing each other. We had to establish a meeting place if we ever got separated every time we went there after that. But I guess you never thought you'd need one of those, huh?"

Inkwell and Jamba met each other when they were young, before she got jaded about her life. She made the effort to reach out to the shy young foal and they managed to bond a bit before she moved away from Trottingham. Now, of course, both ponies have changed quite a bit, but they still like each other for the most part.

Rose rolled her eyes. "Yeah, I never could indulge in myself too much. I mean, when I was a foal, I always got tummyaches whenever I ate too much sugar. Now I prefer my desserts to have a bit of a different taste to them. Like dark chocolate. I love dark chocolate." She didn't seem too conscious of the ponies who still looked at her curiously after she laughed too loudly, but there weren't that many of them. Most of them were satisfied that she returned to a normal tone of voice. She peeked at the dessert section of the menu for a few minutes and rubbed her hoof to her chin. "Hmmmmm. Can't decide. What do you think, Scale?"

Fluttershy explained away the bad feelings Inkwell thought Rarity had towards her, and also gave her little sister a name: Sweetie Belle. As he watched her talk, the artistic part of his brain went into autopilot and started breaking down her body into simple shapes and lines. He especially took note of her eyes, which had a different shape than those of most of the other fillies he'd met in Ponyville. He'd have to try and draw her as soon as they finished talking about Rarity. "Thats sounds like a great idea!" he told her. A simple scene of Sweetie Belle helping Rarity with her work and not ruining anything! "I'll get to work on it right away. Wait. No, there is one more thing I need to ask you. Do you think it would work better if it were a surprise or if I had their input on it while I made it?"

Inkwell gave Ashton a polite nod. "You're quite welcome," he replied. "Now then, back to what we came for." He concentrated on unpacking his saddlebags, levitating an easel and a few blank canvases, as well as a sketchbook and pen. A quick glance at Cat raised doubt that she'd be joining him in his endeavors. "Assuming my partner can stay awake long enough to start painting!" He rolled his eyes and started to sketch Ashton and his balloon as he imagined them flying up in the air. "So Ash, if you don't mind me asking," he said after a few minutes of sketching, "how exactly did your journey go, and why'd you start traveling in the first place? It sounds like you had an exciting trip!"

Inkwell giggled a little, pausing to push his glasses back onto his face after letting them nearly slip right off his nose. "Mmm, thanks, Tio. You're the awesome." He grinned and kept on sipping the last of his lemon drink until he ran out. "Jes' water for me, ma'am. Hope you got some back there, I'm parched." The bartender got him a glass of water, which he proceeded to drink like a fish. As she poured him another, he listened to the pegasus's question about what sort of art he did. "I draw the pretty pictures," he answered. "I used to to to do a lot of illiminutions for books and magazzzines. Buthen I tried my hoof and paintin' and iss not as hard as I thought! Gotta use-a right brushes 'n colors 'n everythinnnnnnn." He giggled at the mention of trashy romance novels. "Nooooooooo. My sister's the writer. She dun' do that stuff thought. She does the scary stuff, stuff that makes yer heart beat fast and ya break into a sweat when she told 'em to me years ago." He drank some more water and took a deep breath to try and clear his head. "She's got a book out, you know. I just got a letter from her."

"No, that didn't happen," Inkwell said, shaking his head. "Wait, no, it did happen, but it wasn't my fault. Well, Rarity's sister and her little pegasus friend made a bit of a mess coming in, she was dripping with mud and Rarity was starting to freak out so they started getting a mop but they spilled the water all over. I was handling it pretty well until it got on my sketchbooks, which is when I yelled at them to get out. I thought that would give me time to fix everything the right way and leave me and Rarity to talk uninterrupted, but it just made her sister cry, and then she kicked me out." He suddenly stopped and stared into space for a second, then groaned and rubbed his forehead with a hoof. "Oh dear. I just realized that I left my sketchbook at the boutique. I hope it's not in any worse condition than it was when I dropped it. "You're right, I'm sure that if I apologize she'll be willing to give me another chance. But..." He seemed to struggle for words. "I made that poor filly cry, and I want to make it up to them. I think I'll paint them a picture. Do you think they'd like that?"

Inkwell was taken aback with how much Candy Cotton enjoyed hearing the news of his potential tutelage! "Yay! Candy Cotton will learn how to draw!," she gushed. "I will draw plushies! Plushies for everyone. Yaaaaay!" "You can draw anything you want, honey, if you put in the effort to learning!" he replied. He'd really enjoy teaching her, if he could get her to listen. To Carrot, he said, "Yeah, of course I'll join you guys!" He gladly trotted after the impromptu traveling party, adding more lines to his sketch as he walked.

Inkwell looked at the open doorway, then at Fluttershy, then at the doorway again before realizing the implicit invitation to come inside. He wiped his hooves on the mat and settled in, taking a seat on the floor. The furniture there looked nice and simple, or at least the furnishings that were strictly for ponies did. There were all sorts of little climbing paths and such for little animals adorning the walls. Interestingly enough, it looked like one of the endtables had been glued back together after a bad break. "This is our first meeting," Inkwell admitted. "My name is Inkwell, and I can only assume you're Fluttershy. I've heard you're great friends with Rarity." He fidgeted just thinking of her. "And, well, I'd like to be friends with her, too. But I think I blew my chance at it yesterday." What to say next? "Not that you're not worth making friends with either, it's just that she's an artist and I'm an artist and I thought we'd have a lot in common..."

Thank Celestia Rose Madder's mouth was empty when Scale made his little joke. She actually felt herself blushing a bit before she let loose a riotous guffaw that got the rest of the patio's attention. Other conversations ground to a halt as the ponies outside waited for her to quiet down. As soon as she felt the glares of her fellow patrons, she shifted to a nervous chuckle that quickly died away. "Heh. Sorry about that. You're really cracking me up today, you know that? Anyway, while I do run in social circles where that sort of banter is commonplace, yeah, that is gonna be something you don't mention in public. If only to spare my poor lungs." She went back to eating the remains of her sandwich. "I don't suppose you'd be interested in dessert?"

Once again Rose Madder managed to get her dining companion flustered with the merest hint of physical arousal! If she didn't know better, she'd think she was starting to enjoy tormenting the poor colt! He'd have to be introduced to intimacy for his own good, even if Rose wouldn't be the one to do it in the end. "Of course not. I couldn't stop myself even if there was." The comment about regretting the ranch dressing on her sandwich, on the other hand, got a weird digression on beauty standards and weight gain from him. She made a face when he brought it up, too, bad memories reemerging from the depths of her subconscious. "Actually, if you must know, it's because the tastes don't go well together," she told him. "I could single-handedly demolish an ice cream parlor and I'd never get another inch around my waist." She looked down and poked her toned belly. "My whole family's like that, except maybe my father. Good thing too; my eating habits aren't the best." Her face had to look a little discouraging at this point. "I just remembered that my third coltfriend left me for a filly with bigger haunches. Weirdo."

Inkwell looked up when Diomedes started to comfort him. He wiped his eyes and smiled at Dio. The big pegasus had barely said half a dozen sentences to Inkwell, and yet he was so nice and reassuring! If Inkwell were any drunker, he'd give his new best friend a great big hug. "Thanks guy," he said, holding a little too long on the "th" sound. "That meanssss a lot to me." Another wipe of his no doubt reddened eyes with his fetlocks, and he found himself able to sit up at the bar again. Just in time, too. Dio had ordered a weird-sounding clear drink for him, and after the unpalatable taste of that whiskey stuff, he was hesitant to try the new one. But after a little sip of it, he had to admit it wasn't that bad. He loved lemon-based foods, and this was clearly based off lemons. It wasn't quite like lemonade, but it was close enough. He nursed it and smiled to himself, turning back to Dio. "Heh. Just enjoy m'self, yeah. I will, Theo! But I'm not much of a drinkerrrrrrrrr, so I'm a little w-worried about that headachy thing you get." He shook his head and tried to look around at the spinning bar. "How do we get rid of that? Can't go into tomorrow with a fresh mind other...way."

Inkwell smiled and nodded to Ashton, levitating the rope into his mouth. He deliberated on whether he wanted to pull it physically or magically, but ultimately he ended up trusting his legs more. He pulled in unison with Ashton, quickly synchronizing his efforts in order to make strong enough tugs on the entangled fabric. The process was rough going, and a few times the sound of cracking branches and twisting wood made Inkwell wince, but they started making real progress, and got the balloon much lower to the ground. That was when Inkwell noticed a broken branch threatening to rip a hole in the balloon if they continued pulling it. He spat out his part of the rope. "Hey Cat, see if you can't move that branch away for now!" he said, pointing at it. "Careful not to tear through the balloon!"

All things considered, Inkwell's first night drinking didn't go as bad as he thought it might. He didn't do anything embarrassing while drunk, at least not beyond crying, and thanks to his friend Dio's advice, he didn't have to deal with a huge hangover or anything like that. He woke up the next morning in his own apartment, alone, feeling no worse than average and considerably less weepy. That said, the problem of Rarity still dwelt on his mind. As far as he knew, she still hated him for making her sister cry, the exact opposite of his desired result. He needed to make a formal apology to her and try to get another chance to connect with her. But how? He only got a fleeting impression of her from that one time in her shop, and that wasn't as revealing as he would have liked. Plus he wanted to give her a gift to sweeten the deal, but he didn't know what she'd like. That's why he decided to ask a friend of hers. From what he'd heard around town, a pegasus named Fluttershy seemed the best bet; the two of them made weekly spa visits, and Rarity frequently trusted Fluttershy to groom her cat. As Inkwell found out on his way there, Fluttershy lived in a quiet, pastoral cottage just beyond Ponyville's western outskirts. It looked like a nice place to live, with tasteful decorations and a great pastoral ambiance to it. There seemed to be an awful lot of wild animals around there, too. They frolicked around in the open, a few of them stopping to look at him as he approached the front door. He stopped, took a breath, and knocked, waiting patiently for an answer.

"Oh, definitely," Rose says. "I've been looking for a consistently satisfying eating experience all the time I've been in Canterlot, and this is definitely in the top five. I'm surprised how much this place relaxes me. Of course, the help's pretty easy on the eyes, too." She gave herself a little chuckle. "And I doubt you'd really know Inky that well. From what I've heard, he only just got to Ponyville. Like, a week or so ago. He's beige with a long black mane and round glasses. Maybe you caught a glance of him as you left the place. I dunno." She opened her sandwich and spread a dollop of ranch on the inside, then closed it back up and took a bite. "Mmmf. Maybe I shouldn't have done that. Oh well."