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The Shadow Alphabet
The note was on the pillow beside Twilight Sparkle’s head when she woke.
She sat up and stretched before picking it up. A message from Spike, no doubt, or one of her friends. She yawned and considered slumping beneath the covers for another ten minutes, but finally curiosity won out and she unfolded it with her magic.
Her reward was a single line of gibberish. She blinked and rotated the paper, but that solved nothing – from every angle the characters on the page remained incomprehensible. They were like no language she had ever seen.
She peered at the page, turned it over, inspected it for any other mark, even sniffed and tasted it, but it was only paper and the strange symbols were the only writing on it. She chuffed in quiet annoyance and carried it downstairs.
“So it was just, like, next to you when you woke up?” Spike said. He had his frilled apron on, and held a pan over the stove as he made them pancakes.
“Mhm.” Twilight took a tiny sip of her coffee and closed her eyes to savor it. She liked to pretend her brain in the morning was a dry sponge, and coffee the life-giving fluid that swelled it with thought.
“That’s creepy,” he said. “What’s it say?”
“I’m not sure. It’s some odd language, or a code, perhaps.”
The note was laid out on the table. Her investigative spells had revealed no author, no history, no touch other than her own. It was as if her dreams had given birth to it. The twenty-two glyphs written in a single line tugged at her mind, teasing at her memory like fragments of a song half-heard in the marketplace. She stared at them again.
“So what’s it mean?”
Twilight blinked. There were pancakes steaming on her plate. She hadn’t even noticed Spike finish cooking breakfast.
“Nothing, probably. It’s just a prank.”
All the same, she kept the note. It was too intriguing to discard with the morning’s trash.
That evening, Twilight sat with a book, but she did not read it.
It wasn’t the book’s fault – it was never a book’s fault – but she couldn’t seem to muster the interest to plow through more than a few sentences. Never had the history of the Griffin Republic seemed so dull. After reading the same page for the fourth time, and remembering not a word, she sighed and pushed it away.
The note weighed too heavily on her mind. She floated it closer. Its twenty-two characters seized her eyes, and she read them, over and over.
In time, the sky outside her window grew gray and light. Her candles, unneeded, burnt themselves down. Still she read.
They were letters, she decided. Part of a cypher.
Each of the twenty-two symbols corresponded with a letter in the Equish language. She had no idea what they sounded like so in her mind she mapped the sound of each familiar, native letter to one of the strange glyphs. A simple, straight-forward substitution. As an experiment, she picked up her quill and wrote the word Quill with the new letters. It seemed surprisingly natural. Almost legible.
“Quill,” she whispered. But her tongue formed the word not with the shapes of Equish letters, but rather this new script. The sounds twisted in her mouth, dripping from her lips like drool. They sounded the same and wrong and weird and perfect to her. She said them again, louder: “Quill.”
As she spoke, the quill she used to write seemed to shift. It bent, drinking in the light around it. Her mind bent with it, seeing it anew. Quill changed, and her understanding of quill changed, and she changed as well.
She smiled.
She spent the day naming every item in her room with the new alphabet. Each item became greater, darker, more perfect in the telling. Shadows welled up from the cracks in the floor, smothering everything, until only one item remained untouched. She froze, seized by a sudden realization, briefly afraid of it like a foal of the dark.
But fear was for foals. She was a princess, now. She could only ever be greater. She inhaled and viewed the old world for the last time.
“Twilight Sparkle,” she said.
In time, the being that had been Twilight Sparkle, but now was something so much more, left her room to its darkness. She had to find her friends.
They needed perfect names as well.
She sat up and stretched before picking it up. A message from Spike, no doubt, or one of her friends. She yawned and considered slumping beneath the covers for another ten minutes, but finally curiosity won out and she unfolded it with her magic.
Her reward was a single line of gibberish. She blinked and rotated the paper, but that solved nothing – from every angle the characters on the page remained incomprehensible. They were like no language she had ever seen.
She peered at the page, turned it over, inspected it for any other mark, even sniffed and tasted it, but it was only paper and the strange symbols were the only writing on it. She chuffed in quiet annoyance and carried it downstairs.
“So it was just, like, next to you when you woke up?” Spike said. He had his frilled apron on, and held a pan over the stove as he made them pancakes.
“Mhm.” Twilight took a tiny sip of her coffee and closed her eyes to savor it. She liked to pretend her brain in the morning was a dry sponge, and coffee the life-giving fluid that swelled it with thought.
“That’s creepy,” he said. “What’s it say?”
“I’m not sure. It’s some odd language, or a code, perhaps.”
The note was laid out on the table. Her investigative spells had revealed no author, no history, no touch other than her own. It was as if her dreams had given birth to it. The twenty-two glyphs written in a single line tugged at her mind, teasing at her memory like fragments of a song half-heard in the marketplace. She stared at them again.
“So what’s it mean?”
Twilight blinked. There were pancakes steaming on her plate. She hadn’t even noticed Spike finish cooking breakfast.
“Nothing, probably. It’s just a prank.”
All the same, she kept the note. It was too intriguing to discard with the morning’s trash.
That evening, Twilight sat with a book, but she did not read it.
It wasn’t the book’s fault – it was never a book’s fault – but she couldn’t seem to muster the interest to plow through more than a few sentences. Never had the history of the Griffin Republic seemed so dull. After reading the same page for the fourth time, and remembering not a word, she sighed and pushed it away.
The note weighed too heavily on her mind. She floated it closer. Its twenty-two characters seized her eyes, and she read them, over and over.
In time, the sky outside her window grew gray and light. Her candles, unneeded, burnt themselves down. Still she read.
They were letters, she decided. Part of a cypher.
Each of the twenty-two symbols corresponded with a letter in the Equish language. She had no idea what they sounded like so in her mind she mapped the sound of each familiar, native letter to one of the strange glyphs. A simple, straight-forward substitution. As an experiment, she picked up her quill and wrote the word Quill with the new letters. It seemed surprisingly natural. Almost legible.
“Quill,” she whispered. But her tongue formed the word not with the shapes of Equish letters, but rather this new script. The sounds twisted in her mouth, dripping from her lips like drool. They sounded the same and wrong and weird and perfect to her. She said them again, louder: “Quill.”
As she spoke, the quill she used to write seemed to shift. It bent, drinking in the light around it. Her mind bent with it, seeing it anew. Quill changed, and her understanding of quill changed, and she changed as well.
She smiled.
She spent the day naming every item in her room with the new alphabet. Each item became greater, darker, more perfect in the telling. Shadows welled up from the cracks in the floor, smothering everything, until only one item remained untouched. She froze, seized by a sudden realization, briefly afraid of it like a foal of the dark.
But fear was for foals. She was a princess, now. She could only ever be greater. She inhaled and viewed the old world for the last time.
“Twilight Sparkle,” she said.
In time, the being that had been Twilight Sparkle, but now was something so much more, left her room to its darkness. She had to find her friends.
They needed perfect names as well.
Did Quill write this?
But seriously, really great prose. Professional. But aside from the prose, what else is here? I don’t find the story all that engaging, aside from some cute characterization on Twi’s part. I guess you could call it a horror story, but it’s not scary or disturbing. It’s just... there. And the horror element comes on too quickly.
Honestly, I’m not sure how I would change this story, because I don’t know what you’re going for. It’s well-written, but not emotionally engaging at all.
But seriously, really great prose. Professional. But aside from the prose, what else is here? I don’t find the story all that engaging, aside from some cute characterization on Twi’s part. I guess you could call it a horror story, but it’s not scary or disturbing. It’s just... there. And the horror element comes on too quickly.
Honestly, I’m not sure how I would change this story, because I don’t know what you’re going for. It’s well-written, but not emotionally engaging at all.
I agree that this is pretty solid, and I like what it's going for. However, it's just a little creepy, but not horrifying yet.
This is the kind of story that isn't built on an arc, but a mystery. And the problem here is that everything is kinda already shown. What we see is what we get, and we see Twilight being corrupted. It ends with the cliffhanger, that something bad's about to happen, but that'll just be a repeat of what we already saw. It needs to fit into an earlier idea, something we the audience assumed we understood, but now must reassess with new information. The horror isn't in what we see happening, but by guiding us to put 2 + 2 together and imagine the conclusion. (Basically, the cheap rubber monster suit is scarier when hidden in the shadows than when shown in clear lighting)
there's some potential mysteries here, like who sent the note? or what ultimately happens to these renamed objects, or what if Twilight renames an abstract concept.... I dunno. That's up to the author to figure out. I hope this helps a little.
This is the kind of story that isn't built on an arc, but a mystery. And the problem here is that everything is kinda already shown. What we see is what we get, and we see Twilight being corrupted. It ends with the cliffhanger, that something bad's about to happen, but that'll just be a repeat of what we already saw. It needs to fit into an earlier idea, something we the audience assumed we understood, but now must reassess with new information. The horror isn't in what we see happening, but by guiding us to put 2 + 2 together and imagine the conclusion. (Basically, the cheap rubber monster suit is scarier when hidden in the shadows than when shown in clear lighting)
there's some potential mysteries here, like who sent the note? or what ultimately happens to these renamed objects, or what if Twilight renames an abstract concept.... I dunno. That's up to the author to figure out. I hope this helps a little.
My interpretation of the story was initially that the paper depicts (part of) the human Latin alphabet, and by naming objects in this new alphabet, Twilight transforms them from colorful cartoons into real objects - realistic shadows and all. Hence also why Twilight is now "so much more". She real now. I wonder if I'm close to the truth, because I love the idea.
I liked this story. Great writing, and good pacing.
I liked this story. Great writing, and good pacing.
Now this was interesting. But I found it neither creepy nor horrifying, which I assume was the goal. Since we're only seeing things from Twilight's perspective, we're not really 'getting' the problem in all its dark glory. I imagine having someone like Spike watching the changes and trying to stop it might have made this a more fascinating read.
Still, this will be high in my rating. It has all the elements of the Weird that I adore, it just needs proper expansion to get the atmosphere right.
Still, this will be high in my rating. It has all the elements of the Weird that I adore, it just needs proper expansion to get the atmosphere right.
I will echo the general sentiment that the horror/dread seems to be lacking from this. I get a sort of Lovecraftian vibe (the things we should not know, etc), but there's no real reason or even cruel unreason to how it ends up afflicting Twilight. It... happens, which sort of leaves me going "Okay?"
Prose is solid and little character touches are good, but I do think something actually needs to be done to build to what I believe is supposed to be a terrible and horrifying thing.
Prose is solid and little character touches are good, but I do think something actually needs to be done to build to what I believe is supposed to be a terrible and horrifying thing.
I too didn't feel horror or dread as I was reading this story, and yet I appreciated it as it showed an admirable dedication to preserving a strictly limited PoV. Instead, we get the version of The Fall as seen from the inside, experiencing it without feeling anything wrong with the process. This leads, IMHO, to a great moment of Fridge Horror once the story is finished and we have time to reconsider it. If I had to make a suggestion, I would work a bit on the second to last section, adding some hints of wrongness to the new quill.
The writing itself is rock solid, and the conclusion is apt for this kind of story, so thumbs up.
Thank you for the submission.
The writing itself is rock solid, and the conclusion is apt for this kind of story, so thumbs up.
Thank you for the submission.
