derpestia red flag ryze & fall: re-heated revendetta: the spoiled broth [an absurdist fantasy]

by Blank!

"Waiting for Approval" or "Life out of Balance"

Twilight signed her weekly Friendship Report with a flourish. Your Most Faithful Student,

Twilight Sparkle

The real Covert Report, not that kihd’s stuff nonsense she always sent out while in public. Those were practically—sometimes literally— postcards. No, these reports were for posterity, and included a detailed contextualization of the lesson—again, the real lesson, which may or may not be what came out in the public letter. Sometimes, she also included suggestions for ways to test the lessons in a controlled environment, as well as any caveats or exceptions that her mind could summon. After all, despite our wishes, the plural of anecdote is not data, and truth resists simplicity. All in all, it was arduous work, and took her a good chunk of the rest of the week, along with helping with the cleanup and damage evaluation. Twilight may admit to being a bit neurotic, but no-one could say she wasn’t conscientious.

After eleventy drafts, and choosing between three alternate final versions, Twilight took a deep breath, and Spike shook his hands in tiredness. She only summoned Spike to transcribe the final final draft, because, while she didn’t want to tire him too much, he had the best calligraphy of the two.

“Ready, Spike”

They exchanged an ominous look.

“Let’s do this.”

Together, all of these reports were meant to constitute the basis for her final Book of Friendship, her Doctoral Thesis, a reference guide for all future generations, the basis of the new discipline of Fileology, the Crowning Moment of her Life as a Graduate, and her first step in the world of Academics. There was no room for error. Which meant, it wasn’t just up to Twilight and Celestia. It had to be submitted to the real test —*gasp*— Peer Review!

Spike and Twilight both drew a deep breath, and the Number One Assistant, the Loyal Aide, her True Companion, blew the fire that would send the letter on its way.

Doom.

The relief of inevitability, of the release of responsibility, no matter how temporary.

Soon—and they never knew when, besides “not right now” and “within the week”, and that was torture, that was a nightmare”—soon they would know whether it passed or not. Probably not. And then they’d have to go through the work again.

This graph (on page 14) using a logarithmic scale is objectionable, as per Tough Tub’s On The Visual Display of Quantitative Information...

There is an alternate hypothesis that may better explain the data; what if...

This and that word need to be defined in the glossary…

There seems to be a gap in this demonstration. What’s the rationale, ‘then a miracle occurs’?

Well, they were in Equestira, unlike what happened in other countries’ research circles, kind words and positive feedback were to be expected as well:

Section 2.3.a) was very enlightening, that was amazing

The potentials of these results for overall equine happiness are incalculable!

Keep this up, Miss Twilight, and I don’t doubt you’ll be a Doctor soon.

Ah, words of praise from the Peers of the Crown—the real ones, not those (Ig)Noble Prats out there in the public eye—they were the third best thing after the approval of the Princess —she may be very nice, and polite and caring and wonderful and amazing and beautiful and perfect, sigh, but real praise from her was, as it turns out, surprisingly rare— and that of her friends… and they could definitely make her day.

Now, though, now was time to wait.

To wait and fret.

“Spike, feeling burpy yet?”

“No.”

… That was good. It meant nothing was excessively wrong with the document at a first glance. Then again, maybe not. It had once taken them five hours to send it back, only to tell her they felt the Abstract was too vague and she should rewrite it before they could proceed. “Post-Production” was truly an exercise in frustration.

“What about now?”

“No. Twilight, we’ve talked about this, I’m worried enough about a fireball coming out of my throat unbidden in the middle of doing something delicate, I don’t need to deal with your anxiety on top of that!”
Gulp. “You’re right, Spike. I’ll… I’ll just have to wait.”

“You gotta stop worrying, Twilight. Relax. Just… let it happen.”

“You’re right, Spike. I guess… I’ll just have to wait.”

“Oh, my, this is worse than I thought! You’re repeating yourself!”

“Oh my! You’re right, Sp—” She went quiet at Spike’s withering glare.

But kept fidgeting.

So it went on.

ಠ_ಠ

“But—”

ಠ_______________ಠ

“I’m going to the observatory to meditate. Wake me up if—” ಠ_ಠ “... if something comes up.”

---

Twilight sat cross-legged, her mug of warm brew in her hands, and contemplated the evening in Ponyville. The sun was getting closer to the horizon, after illuminating quite an exhausting day.

After all that work, Twilight needed to take her mind off of things. The way to do that, she had found, wasn’t to distract herself with books, or to meet up with her friends—that only replaced one kind of buzzing with another, and she needed her mind to stop buzzing altogether. Instead, she distracted herself by the deliberate and neutral witnessing of the world around her and within her; by focusing her senses entirely on what was happening, then and there, rather than projecting it into whys and hows and whens and what-ifs. It was like cloudwatching, a detached yet absorbing activity.

So then, she thought as she finished her warm broth, time to begin. Like Zecora taught her:

It is by will alone I set my mind to rest,
With the breath comes the world
Listen, to what breaks the silence
Smell, every fragrant nuance,
Feel, the touch and the warmth and the beat
With the breath leaves the dream
My voice is quiet,
My soul is open,
It is by will alone I set my mind to rest.

A cart’s wheels on the frozen street.
A dog barking.
The smell of fresh grass under the snow.
A foal crying.
A foal laughing.
An owl hooting.
A smell of apple pie.
Her heartbeat.
The wooden floor she sat on.
Her breath.
A door opens.
A salutation.
The door closes.
A gust of fresh air.
A lump of snow, falling.
A whiff of chlorine.
Steps on gravel.
Her hooves on each other.
Her mug growing cold.
She opened her eyes.
The skies were on fire,
purple and red and orange and blue
The first stars were there,
Her heartbeat slowed
A cat mewed
A window opened, close by.
There was Rigel
And Sirius
And Betelgeuse
And Aldebaran
Such wonderful names they had, the Stars
Cold and blazing and far away.
The sting of the winter air through her nostrils,
and, with it, the smell of rice with curry,
from what she knew to be Spike’s recipe,
and with it, the gentle taste of saliva,
the push of her tongue against her palate,
the gulp of gluttony.

Silence.

She took a deep breath.

That had been enough. Twilight stood up, took up her mug, gathered herself, and returned to the the warmth of her home, following the gentle caress of the fragrance of her little chef’s skillful course, closing an open window along the way. Upon entering the kitchen, she did not ask, knew not, did not need to, she just glanced at him, and he glanced back, and that was it. She would have to wait some more, but she found that she didn’t mind. No, that wasn’t it; they exchanged a warm smile.

“The table is ready.”

“Instead of calling for me and interrupting my meditation, you opened a window to summon me through the redolence of royal-grade cooking? Subtle.”

“I hung out with the palace staff, back in the day. Herding nobles and princesses requires a gentle touch. Same goes for scientists. You all focus on those big important thoughts of yours, and we’ll make sure that you go through the motions of keeping yourselves alive and comfortable. Ideally, you’ll never even know we were there.”

“... Spike, you know you’re not my servant.”

“I’m your assistant. That’s just even more responsibility.”

Twilight chuckled. The drake had a point.

“Ah, would it console you to know that you’ll have assistants of your own, eventually? I mean, you won’t be my assistant forever. For one thing, you’ll surely outlive me!”

A shadow quickly passed over his semblance, then he chortled.

“... Come on, let’s dig in while it’s still warm.”

Author's Note:

I wrote this chapter while waiting for the Fimfic staff to approve my story for publication. And that, my friends, is how you turn your sorrow into story. Storrow? Anyway, leave no crisis unexploited, that's my advice for ya.

Comments

[staryoshi06]

I don't believe you are serious.

[sunnypack]

Did this fic just asplode through moderation not even caring about the eyes it burned along the way?

[Blank!]

5380698 Oh, but I am sooooooo very serious. Look at my face: ಠ_ಠ This is the face of utter seriosity. How could you question my serialousness?

5380935 Sometimes art requires sacrifices! Especially those of other people!

[thechicken95]

So...trollfic anyone?

[Blank!]

5381121 I'd like to think of it as more of a post-modern meta-literary experiment.

[bobbananaville]

Based on the comments, I can only assume that you edited the story after it ws published to make it coherent, because this makes sense. And I love it.