Chapter 12

When We Were Foals

Roller made his way down the basement stairs, making sure to pull a string that turned on the ceiling lights as he did so. The room under his shop was cool and quiet as always with a few cobwebs hiding in the corners. The floor was dusty and on the far wall there was an old wooden chest that was covered in chipped, red paint.

The author approached the chest slowly and as he opened it a small smile formed on his features. He reached inside and pulled out what looked like a disc made of dark wood that someone had painted a gold horseshoe on. He closed the chest and placed the object on top, taking a few moments to simply stare at it before flipping it over. On the other side was a set of cloth straps that were nailed into the wood. Roller slipped one leg into the strap and chuckled, "Hey, it still fits."

Twilight stood at the top of the stairs and watched as the author proceeded to kick his bare front leg forward before ducking behind the shield. He did this a few times in different directions, occasionally taking large steps or even jumping to different parts of the room before continuing. He looked as though he was fighting some invisible group of foes. She could only watch for so long before giggling at his behavior.

Roller heard the giggles and immediately stopped. "Who's there?" he asked, peering up at the stairs from behind his shield. Twilight calmed herself before descending and giving the author an amused, but inquisitive look. He sighed, "Oh, it's just you. I, um, don't suppose you saw that. Did you?"

Twilight tried, but failed to keep from laughing, "Sorry, Roller. I saw the whole thing. What are you doing down here? Dancing with a cutting board?"

He nervously laughed as he slipped the disc off his foreleg, "Y-yeah. I know that it's k-kinda silly. It's just something I used to do when I couldn't sleep. Nothing, um, creepy," he blushed, "You develop some strange habits when you live alone for too long."

Twilight shook her head and examined the shield. It looked familiar, but she couldn't name from where. The more she thought about it, the more she became sure she hadn't actually seen or read about a shield like this before. She asked, "What is this from anyway?"

The author looked at Twilight and then at the shield. The small smile he had before returned and he told her, "A friend made it for me a long time ago. It was, uh, from his favorite campaign setting in the game. We made more stuff like this sometimes. Most of it's in the chest."

Twilight walked past Roller and asked, "Do you mind if I take a look?" as she placed a hoof on the lid of the chest. The author didn't answer, but his guest had already opened the box by the time he decided it was alright anyway. There were three more shields inside the chest, each with a different symbol painted in, and what looked like folded blankets at first glance. When Twilight pulled one of the pieces of cloth out, she saw that it was actually a small, blue cape with a picture of a white horseshoe stitched onto the back.

"Oh. I forgot those were in there," Roller tried to explain, "That's, uh, you see, um..." he blushed and fumbled his words before sighing and laughing a little, "I had some really stupid ideas about maturity as a foal. My friends and I dressed up in those capes and tried to get our cutie marks by doing pretty much anything we could think of. I know, it sounds really stupid now."

Twilight laughed, "Well, we were all foals once. Hey, how did you get your mark anyway?" She tiled her head, "The others think it looks kind of strange."

The author sat down and gazed off into space. He smiled slightly before looking back to his cape and shield. "That's kind of a long story," he told her, "and I should be getting back to bed anyway," he put the cape and shield back in the box, "or at the very least, I should get to my writing desk. I think I have an idea."

Twilight's features lit up and she was about to ask a series of questions, but Roller had a hoof over her mouth first. He told her, "I've seen that look in many a young pony's face before. You are about to ask way too many questions about my work. Questions, mind you, that I really don't want to stay up answering all night."

He started back up the stairs and Twilight blushed, "Yeah, right. Sorry." As Roller left the room, Twilight took one last look in the box. Under the shields and capes, she saw a stack of papers that were stapled together on one side. On the first page, she could make out a title, "There and Back Again; A Horse's Holiday," as well as the title of the authors, "by the Cutie Mark Quartet"

She put the papers down and closed the lid of the trunk. As she walked up the stairs, she saw a silhouette standing at the end the dark hallway before her. It was Roller, looking at something on the wall before shaking his head and going up the stair to the second floor. Twilight sent to where he was standing before and looked where he was looking.

It was the same poster that Twilight had seen the first time she had spoken with Roller. The three heroes, Robin Hoof, Horsecules and Beopony standing together, looking like classical heroes. She turned and walked back to the guestroom where the other five were sleeping peacefully despite the storm raging outside. As she crawled into bed and drifted off to sleep, the purple unicorn couldn't seem to get the image of that poster out of her mind.

The bright rays of the sun pierced through Roller's dusty window and caught the side of his face. He turned his head to the side and squinted the affected eye, cursing the bright daylight. He had not spent the night in his bed, but instead at his writing desk and before him were the fruits of his labor.

The desktop was covered in crumpled up pieces of paper and a fresh blank sheet sat in the middle. The author had been staring at that piece of paper for a long time, twirling a pen in his mouth as he tried to think. His eyelids felt heavy and his head wanted to drop to the desk, but he resisted the urge to sleep and kept trying to think.

Suddenly, there he could hear hoofsteps downstairs. The author put down his pen and yawned before leaving his room. "Good morning, whoever that is," he called down the stairs before stumbling down them in a sleepy stupor. As he reached the bottom, he saw Applejack coming out of the hallway to the guestroom.

"Mornin'," she greeted him. The farmer didn't seem tired in the slightest, she even seemed to have a spring in her step. Roller looked at her enviously. He had never been a morning pony himself.

The author asked, "Did you sleep well? Do you need coffee?" to which Applejack thanked him for the offer, but shook her head. He walked into his kitchen bleary-eyed and told her, "Well, I do. If you change your mind..."

The kitchen was already occupied and somewhat of a mess. The counter had a few spots of what looked like a thick batter on it and Pinkie Pie stood in front of his stove wearing a chef's toque an watching over a pan. "Good Morning!" she cheered, "I woke up, like, an hour ago and thought that maybe everypony else might want breakfast when they wake up so I started making pancakes, but the batter kind of got everywhere so I tried to clean it up, but then I figured that I had already started making pancakes and I might as well finish before trying to do something else and..."

Pinkie Pie kept talking, but her voice quickly became just so much background noise to Roller. The author turned to his other guest and asked, "Do you like pancakes? Because if she's been up for an hour then there's going to be a lot of pancakes."

"I reckon' I can sit for a spell and have breakfast," Applejack answered in a flat tone, "You feelin' alright? You look like somepony hit you with a tractor."

The author rubbed his eyes and explained, "I didn't really sleep last night. I thought I had an idea for a story so I stayed up and tried to write something."

Pikie's face lit up, "Ooh! What kind of story? Is it a fantasy story? I love fantasy!"

Roller shook his head and dragged his hooves into the kitchen. Trying his best to ignore the pink pony and the pancakes she was piling onto one of his plates, he prepared his coffee machine a turned it on. He took in the smell of rich, brown liquid as it slowly filled the pitcher at the base of the machine.

As the two ponies left the kitchen, Roller with a mug of his favorite drink and Pinkie with a large plate of pancakes, they saw the others were all already awake and sitting around the table from last night. "Good morning," greeted Twilight, "did you guys sleep well?"

Pinkie Pie nodded, but Roller shook his head. "I'd rather not relive it," he told her as he took a sip of coffee. The others all took some breakfast and chatted amongst themselves.

"Fluttershy, do you think you can come with me to the boutique after breakfast?" asked Rarity, "I need you to try something on before I put it on display."

Fluttershy shuddered and remembered having to stand very still while her friend came very close to stick her with needles. "Uh, I think I'm going to be busy today," her voice was trembling, "I mean, the storm might have spooked some of the animals back home."

Rarity turned to Twilight, "I see. Then how about you, Twilight? Can you lend a helping hoof? Everything has to be ready by tomorrow afternoon when A Capella shows up."

"A Capella?" Roller was clearly surprised. The others stopped eating and turned their attention to the writer. His eyes were wide and he looked more awake than before as he told them, "I went to school with that guy."

Rarity laughed, "Surely, you must be joking. A Capella is a rising star in musical theater. He graduated from the Canterlot Art Institute. When would you have ever met him?"

"When we were foals," he informed the unicorn, "We went to grade school together and used hang out all the time," He paused for a second and asked "He's really coming to town?"

A/N: Gah! Short chapter! No role-playing! Can't... breath... room... spinning... need... feedback.

A/N2: Okay, in all seriousness I've been feeling sick lately (I think I have a cold) and that's making me too tired to write at a good pace. The chapters you've been reading so far have all been prepared for at least a week or two before being posted, but I'm all out pre-prepared chapters now. Don't worry, this little writer is trying to correct the problem and write more chapters in advance, but there may be some problems with updating regularly later. You guys will be the first to know if the update schedule changes, but be sure to keep your fingers crossed. Here's hoping I get better soon. See you next week.