Twilight opened her eyes a little and winced as a bolt of pain shot through her brain just behind them. “Ponyville... ...shit.” she croaked, rolling over and on top of a curled up Spike, who let out a protesting groan. She tumbled out of bed and slipped into her dressing gown, slipping out of bed and tumbling into her dressing gown. She tried to put the kettle on but it malfunctioned loudly.
She was too hungover to find a proper pan, so she heated a wok-ful of water and tipped it gently into her coffee percolator. After preparing two cups of coffee strong enough to kill a guy, she sat down on her leather armchair with the drink and her signature pipe, reading through her latest writing as she waited for the baby dragon to appear. Appear he did; to be on the verge of death. Alcohol didn't mix well with him, Twilight noted [accidentally on the manuscript in front of her, so she had to scribble it out]. Spike slumped on the opposite chair and let out a long, feeble “Aaaauuurrghhh”. Twilight looked up from her draft manuscript [The Hobbit, or There and Back Again- by Jeyerrar Tolkein [working title]] and took pity on her little guy, magicking a Crazy Straw into the hot beverage so he could ingest it without having to move. Half of it was gone within five seconds; three quarters in ten; seven eighths in fifteen... Twilight watched as the coffee tended towards the limit of being completely imbibed. In that moment calculus would have arrived in Equestria had half the beer-supply of Ponyville not passed through the purple pony the night before.
Twilight put down the papers and her pipe, smiling warmly at Spike, “How you feelin', little dragon-dude?”.
“Much better after that. Thank you.” inferred Twilight from the marginally less catatonic look on Spike's face.
“I feel like death.” supplied the baby dragon, with effort, “Every time, I think I'm gonna wake up back in the jungle,” he non-sequitured, Apocalyptically Now, continuing the theme.
After about an hour, and one Toast-Marathon, the two of them were feeling more or less back to their usual selves. There was a tremendous knock at the door; Twilight looked through the peep-hole to see five diverse-looking ponies fish-eyed into an almost perfect sphere of things she could do not to be dealing with right now. She sighed, making sure it was loud enough for the intruders to hear the subtle 'you're making my life a misery' tones before opening the door.
Pinkie Pie bounced in first. She was wearing knuckle-dusters and a maniacally stupid grin. The others filed in behind her.
“My gosh, Twilight, I hope you don't feel as bad as Spike looks!” said Rarity, who had covered her own hangover in a 2.5 metre deep coating of make-up.
“Nah, don't worry about me!” Twilight replied to the misshapen block of rouge-ing which counted for the white pony's face today. Rainbow Dash spoke up, “So, are we ever actually getting to this 'Castle of Everytree' thing or what?”
“Of course we are,” assured Twilight, “I'd never be able to hold power over an entire Queendom without some kind of cursed artefacts. I completely could do with the Elements of Frends. Who's with me!”
The gathered ponies cheered in hubristic synergy. Well, Twilight did. The others didn't know what to think of Twilight as queen of Equestria and somehow knew it would be more trouble than having Celestia as the head honcho. Twilight still had a despotic beam across her face. Not an actual beam- just a smile, really. However; a few of her new friends would have put a beam across her face, in that moment, to knock off the current one. Luckily, there was not even so much as a girder in sight. The gathered synergy cheered in hubristic ponies and colourless green ideas slept furiously without even so much as a despotic honcho across the sight trouble beam. A few cursed duster coating made-up my own 2.something metre [meter?] castle of kind misshapen dressing groan with misery pipe warmly passed through leather-eyed magicking tones.
Erm... give me a minute... no... hold on, I seem to have dropped the story... wait for it... yeah, this ain't right... this looks like a mixture of nonsense and that one thing Chomsky said...
Erm... I absolutely can't get this in order. I think this should- no. no. nonono. No this isn't good. I think this is probably irreparable. It could sort itself out soon, though...
Err...
You wanna just power through? You can feel free to look at someone else's story while I sort this one out. Yeah, do that! This one's not very good anyway! Have you read 'Anthropology' yet? My gosh, that guy must be like a professional writer or something.
… …
…
Have you ever considered that the useless jumble of corrupted text was, perhaps, in some way more of a story than the actual one I'm trying to save? You know?.. Meaning from nothing and nothing in meaning? Are you still even reading? I can never tell, you know. I'd be looking at that Lyra one I just mentioned. Not to get too meta or anything, but the view-counter is counter-intuitive [get it!] and I don't really know if it's really just me- writing into the void... Too many 'really's? I bet JasonTheHuman never really repeated himself really half as much as I do; actually.
… …
…
..
.
Well, if you're still here, the only way forward is forwards. I think we can break through if we just push hard enough. If we don't make it, tell your mother I love you.
Quidditch and over, “It's gonna horn, you contire justed from at I know from the keel her. ike staircase have out, Applejack runk. After Luna' or so pointo contire some to the magic, shouse nearby fill-ish All of them carry oned it. The wilight by eards ent, Appling into had left the dark out plejack running whilence of two snapped ascertaircase near, “Is what and to the sound of drugs and-safety-defying infrash Alicorn, you're religious radioactive off. To the the some kind shot alrights of the villagers because none of the half of them came to have been able to have cried had she been, like some taking shelter in the edge, pulling over the spirits of her horn glowed violently as a roll of red cloth. Making through Ponyville to the edge green forest of Everytree...
Hey hey, what did I tell you! We're getting there! In fact... yes! Wa-hey! It's making sense!... We appear to have skipped an uneventful walk through Ponyville and it looks like they're just about at the Everytree forest. We haven't missed anything important [or worse, anything funny] and it seems to be back on track! Anyway, I'll just sit back down and let y'all get back to reading...
The Forest was expansive. “The forest is expensive” commented Applejack, still recovering from her first Codeine of the day. “I think you mean 'expansive'?” corrected herself as the other ponies looked at her worriedly. “Applejack, are you alright? You're... scaring us a bit...” said Applejack, verbalising the fears of her friends as they watched on, unable to do anything about this. “Dahling, I do wish you'd stop taking all those pills, I mean, it seriously can't be good for your health!” said Rarity [well, her voice- as played by Applejack]. Rarity wished AJ would stop mimicking her. Applejack wished she could stop doing Rarity's voice, but it was addictive; she had a low tolerance for addictive things.
Fluttershy gave Applejack a big hug, whispering in her ear, “I... I'm worried about you.”
“Aww shucks, Fluttershy, I'm sorry. I'm just not feeling myself today... I'm gonna stop with the drugs already- I know that stuff's just no good.”
“Th... thank you,” said Fluttershy, one manly tear rolling down her cheek. They all looked towards the massive wall of trees ahead. It was dark, scary and presumably full of monsters. There was a wide path leading into the forest from Ponyville. It continued from the path they'd just taken through the village, the path on which nothing of note had happened since leaving Twilight's tree-house. This foresticular pavement looked to be completely straight but went over the horizon, obscuring the view of any potential destination-castle along it.
“Well, let's get on it!” said Twilight, motivationally. They got on it!
“The woods are lovely, dark and deep,” intoned Rainbow Dash with Pinkie Pie singing over the line, “The only other sound's the sweep of easy wind and downy flake.”
“But I have promises to keep”, Rarity continued [Twilight taking up “The woods are lovely...”]. Fluttershy finished, “and miles to go before I sleep.” [Applejack providing “But I have promises...”]. They all joined in simultaneously for the final line: “And miles to go before I sleep!”
The ponies laughed their way down the dark forest path as they finished their rendition of Robert Frost's 'Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening' mangled into a singing-round.
“Haha,” laughed Twilight, onomatopoeiacally, “You're right, Fluttershy, it doesn't work at all!”
At that moment, the woods on one side of them dropped off into a steep cliffside as the other side elevated to form a large wall of rock. Twilight, by now, had just come to accept the nonsensical geography of Ponyville-in-the-Wider-Scheme and took it upon herself to laugh wildly, triggering the next plot-point.
The point came in the form of a deep rumble. The ponies stopped what they were doing [walking, namely] and stared upwards at the ominous cliff with its boulders crashing down fast towards the protagonistic ponies. “D'you think that could pose a problem?” asked Rarity.
“Well, I don't see why it wouldn't,” answered Applejack, “We should probably scramble a little. Ya know... put in an effort?” The assorted ponies shrugged to each other and each made their half-hearted leaps-out-of-the-way, putting in a few 'Aagh's and 'watch out!'s. It all went rather well until Twilight took it a bit too far, inserting herself over the edge of the cliff, hanging on by her front hooves. She shouted, “Look, guys, I almost went off!”
“Twilight!” Applejack shouted, annoyed by the purple pony's enthusiasm mixed with her Codeine-comedown, “You get back up here this instant or I swear to Frends herself I'm coming over with the Apple-Family-Mallet and playing Whack-a-Mole with your fingers!”
Twilight shrugged precariously, “Well, at least she's honest!” she admitted to the oncoming boulder oncoming towards her. At that, she expertly dodged the solid geological menace and pulled herself back onto the path with a flourish. Applejack punched her in the tail, “You could have died!”
Twilight welled up a little at Applejack's concern for her health and safety, dodging boulders left, right and centre. “AJ... I didn't know you cared so much,” tears were filling her eyes.
“Twilight, this is not the time!” responded Applejack, “Now, run!!” In a neat and orderly line, and as fast as they could manage, they efficiently fucked off. Soon, they were back in a normal-looking part of the woods; trees to the left of her, jokers to the right, Twilight felt the adventure was getting back on track.
“Well, I'm glad that's over!” sighed Rarity, walking on her hind legs so she could rearrange her hair with with her front ones and a vanity-mirror. The make-up had been violently, but mildly, knocked off by a falling rock; it was a close call and a good thing the white pony hadn't seen it, otherwise it could have posed a mental health problem later on down the line. She continued, “at least it's not a nautical adventure, or else my hair might never have made it.”
Due to the laws of Dramatic Ironing, it turned out she had spoken too soon: All of a suddenly, a huge Manta Ray jumped out from behind a nearby tree. It was huge! It had the head of a lion, the tail of a scorpion and the wings of a dragon; all dangling from a gaudy gold necklace around its Manta-Ray-neck. Every pony gasped, gasping at the Manta Ray. Rainbow Dash jumped on top of it, grabbing at its pectoral fins and attempting to rip them clean off. The triangular fins stretched comically for at least fifty metres as Rainbow flew off with the ends in her teeth. She let go and watched them snap back into place, doing nothing. Applejack performed a flying kick but her stomach lurched like she'd expected one more step at the top of the staircase while walking upstairs in the dark as she fell straight through the thing. It had been awfully clipped. Twilight provided, “You didn't even do the Bruce Lee noises! Go on! Once more, with feeling.”
“STOP!!” screamed Fluttershy, causing the assorted horses and the sea-creature to stop. They all waited on a reason for the outburst. Fluttershy was miles away.
“Err, Fluttershy?” prompted the Manta Ray, forgetting which names he was and wasn't supposed to know by this point.
“What?” said Fluttershy, distractedly, “Oh, yeah. I meant to say: 'please stop fighting, I think I know what's going on here', but Rarity was doing this thing with her teeth and it threw me right off.” She cleared her throat and walked straight up the the Manta Ray, “I think I know why you're so angry and disillusioned. I've felt it myself and I see it in you now. You are Otherkin.”
“W... what?” confused the Ray.
“Otherkin, silly!” Giggled Fluttershy as Twilight rolled her eyes, “You were born in the body of the wrong animal; I can tell because you have that Spirit-Necklace. You want to be a... Scor... Lio... err, Dragon... You want to be a Scorpliodrag!”
“Manticore,” whispered Rainbow Dash, who had decided recently that her dream was to be an adventuring Cryptozoologist [it's going well so far, if I do say so myself!].
“You want to be a Manticore!” continued Fluttershy, “But you were born in the body of an alien.” Twilight continued to roll her eyes, achieving a max angular velocity of 4-Pi Radians/Second. “I think you should Google 'Otherkin' and take a look. You'll find the answers you're looking for! There are many out there who are exactly like you. Take me for example; I am a majestic wolf, tragically born in the body of a pastel-coloured pony. I've come to terms with this and now live every day like the wolf I really am!”
The Manta Ray broke down and lost all his shit in front of the six ponies. Twilight climbed into the nearest tree, unable to deal. When the Manta Ray had finished glomping the yellow 'wolf', he left, shouting his thanks and looking for the nearest Wi-Fi connection. He just needed to be shown an element of kindness. [Ha!]
Twilight got down from the tree and they continued on their way, each wondering what 'to Google' meant but each suspecting it was some dirty sex-trick that their yellow friend had invented one rainy night.