A pony site talking about a "long way home"? Jesus. Now I remember why I haven't clicked on "I'm Feeling Lucky" in sixteen months.
Well, I'm already here … might as well register a throwaway account. I know this is a bad idea, but maybe … maybe … this means it's time to explain why I vanished from the fandom after Las Pegasus Unicon.
Anonymously. You won't believe it anyway.
(Names changed, etc.)
It wasn't the beating I took on the "Unicon Bits" they made dealers accept. Sure, that's what my last post said, but it would have been easy to get reimbursed later from LasPegAssist. No — when the con fell apart, my big problem was getting home. 1,733 road miles to New Orleans.
Getting to Las Vegas was no problem — I caught a ride with my friend "Bill," who was moving to San Jose. I didn't think getting back would be an issue — I'd arranged with some NOLA bronies to jump in their van when they left Monday morning. When the con cratered, though, everyone's communications went haywire. "Ted" asked "Jim" if I still needed their ride, Jim thought Ted said I'd caught another ride, "David" heard from Jim I was okay, Ted assumed David had talked to me, and so they bailed midday Sunday while I was arguing with the hotel about the double-billing on my room.
Come Sunday night, my cell phone's dead, I can't find my fellow yats anywhere, and I'm wandering the empty halls of the Riviera convention center with no room, no cash, and no plan.
I'd turned to glance at something when I literally bumped into him. Sharp grey suit, mismatching horns, one leather glove and one latex claw-thing. The first thing I saw was the eyes — one ice-blue pupil, one wide red one. I remember thinking that was an awfully cool contact lens.
"I'm sorry," I said.
He looked me up and down, then lifted his hands and tugged at his lapel with an enigmatic smile. "Are you? I'm Discord."
I chuckled; it was just strange enough to be in character. "Nice cosplay," I said. "Too bad nobody else is around to see it."
He leaned in conspiratorially. "Nobody else needed to be. Listen, Sorry: Red 23." Then he straightened up, clapped his glove on my shoulder (which made me jump), and shook my hand vigorously with that weird claw. It was disgustingly clammy, and for a moment I thought I had gotten a latex sweat bath, until I looked down and realized that there was a wad of damp green paper in my palm.
He was already strolling away as I unfolded the wad into a grimy $20 bill. "Hey, wait," I said, looking back up, and he was gone.
What would you have done? $20 would have bought me dinner; $700 meant enough cash for a hotel room and a plane ticket home, and I wasn't technically out anything if I lost. So I checked my luggage at the concierge desk and walked into the casino.
Took me a bit to find the roulette tables (way in the back, past the slots and the video poker). I bought a $20 chip and watched. One of the tables hit 00, which seemed like as good a time as any to test my luck, so I leaned in and slid the chip straight into the middle of 23.
It lost. Black 11.
But there he was, standing right behind me as I turned to leave. "You listened to me!" he crowed. "Nobody ever does that. You're special, Sorry, I can tell. So let's do each other a little favor — what do you say?" He sipped the muddy drink he was holding and winked at me.
At that moment, I had the most incredible urge to pee I've ever had in my life. I stammered something I don't remember and literally sprinted for the bathroom. It felt like I was emptying my bladder for minutes.
Then I walked out … into a different casino.
Harrah's New Orleans.
My luggage was on my front porch when I walked home. It was Wednesday the 27th.
So, either some maniac drugged me for three days and drove me home, or else I owe a favor to the last being in the universe you want to owe a favor to. Either way, I'm too scared of pony to return.
Just, listen … if you meet him at a con, for God's sake don't apologize.
I loved that ending.
The good news is that some beings can only enter the world when invited. The bad news is that they have a very loose definition of the word "invitation"...
Wonderfully and efficiently creepy. You said a lot with a little here. Well done.
Well that's a good reason to leave.
*Grins* Very nice.
It could have been much, much worse.
Unless maybe it still is.
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Well, at the time it felt completely appropriate to the story itself. Over-the-top winnage and all. That said, congrats on your victory! Savor that beautiful (*snerk*) picture you've won!
You kinda give away the game here with how cleverly structured the first few paragraphs are. If, however, something similar to this did happen, then you've disguised it quite well, Sorry.
Oh horseapples--now I feel professional jealousy creeping up on me.
Why? 'Cause I just learned two new things from a 789-word story. (Specifically, the meanings of "NOLA" and "yat".) From a collection of throwaway stories, no less.
Senpai, how can I ever be as knowledgeable as you?
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Two ounces of chutzpah, three ounces of Scotch, google.com, and publishing new stories. You ought to do more of that last one, because nothing is a better antidote for professional jealousy than some new mutual admiration, and I've already read all of your horsewords!
(Seriously though, this came out of the Writeoff Association competitions — the same ones I've been plugging in my blog that have an $80 prize pool this month. The money thing isn't typical, but the contests are a marvelous excuse to write, and don't give you the luxury of time to start obsessing over edit cycles. It's been a great monthly kick in the ass for me.)
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mylittlefacewhen.com/media/f/rsz/mlfw10_small.jpg
I've wanted to try my hand at those, but my weekends aren't on the weekends. Still, since I hope to be changing jobs soon, I'll file this possibility for future reference.
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I can see where you've changed the description to reflect new updates, I can see these comments about the updates, I can even see that the comments are listed as being on the update chapters in the bar on the top, but I can't see the updates. Force-refreshing does nothing, nor does trying to navigate from within the chapters; I've yet to try URL hacking. Horizon, are you in a position to know anything about this? And everyone else, are any of you having the same problem?
Update: URL hacking failed.
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Wait, no:
mylittlefacewhen.com/media/f/rsz/mlfw2608_medium.jpg
That would be because I forgot to hit "Publish" on the two new chapters!
This will be fixed momentarily.
EDIT: That's really bizarre, though, that it's showing you comments on unpublished chapters. I don't think it used to do that before the latest site update.
Yeah, met Discord at Bronycon this year.
I kicked him in the balls and ran off.
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I think my narrator might make an exception for the "don't apologize" rule for that one.