Epilogue
Twilight slowly exhaled, feeling a pleasant tingle in her chest as a thin cloud of red smoke streamed into the infinite cerulean ocean of the sky. The grass was cool against her back and the sun warm on her belly, and a gentle breeze caressed her, carrying the scent of apples uphill from the distant orchards. Pinkie giggled from her left, and a muscular purple claw reached over from her right to pluck the joint from her horngrip.
"Gotta say, this tastes awfully bitter," Spike's mellow, deep voice said, and she saw his barrel-sized chest inflate out of the corner of her eye as he sucked in a robust lungful. He was looking damn good at one-and-a-half times her size.
"Well, you know," Twilight said, taking the joint back. "Preservatives. Extremely unhealthy, but really, all that does is cancel out some of the smoke."
"It is a weensy bit disrespectful," Pinkie said, "but on the other hoof, it does let you extend the party as long as you want." She reached for the joint.
A thought filtered through the increasing muddle of Twilight's contented thoughts, and she pulled the joint back. "Hooooold on. Speaking of unhealthy. You're a pony."
Pinkie giggled, loud and long, and when Twilight glanced back away from her face, the joint was missing. She looked back at Pinkie and the joint was in her mouth, embers flaring bright red at the tip.
"Silly filly," Pinkie said when she finally exhaled, shadow-images of eldritch forms cavorting in the smoke rising from her mouth. "You know better than that."
Twilight caught Pinkie's gaze for a moment, and there were worlds behind her eyes, in a void dark and vast and cold and empty. Twilight blinked, and the moment was gone, and the sun was warm and the sky was bright.
"… I … um … guess I do?" Twilight said. "I mean. Right. There was that one time with Pinkie Sense, um. I wrote a friendship letter and everything." The moment lingered awkwardly, so she made a dramatic sweeping gesture with a hoof, watching smoke curl around her pastern, lowering her voice to whisper dramatically. "The world is full of things beyond understanding," she pronounced, and felt a little better.
"That's so deep," Spike murmured. Twilight giggled and relaxed. His voice was so deep. That was so perfect.
She passed him the joint. He sucked in another big lungful, marred by a cough that spewed a thin red cloud out. "It reminds me of a thing I read in the funeral book on the kitchen table. What was it? Something something let the world be as it is?" He waved his claw vaguely in the air, the joint trailing a line of smoke, and Twilight plucked the joint away with her magic.
"But we must be humble and allow the world to come to us as it is," Pinkie quoted, voice distant.
"Yeah —"
Pinkie continued on as if Spike hadn't spoken. "It is in convincing ourselves we know the shape of each thing that we lose sight of the shape of everything."
Spike was silent for a moment.
"Oh," he said. "I didn't think … uh. That might have been it, I guess? Twilight, was that what the book said?"
Twilight took another long drag and exhaled, trying to blow a smoke ring like Celestia's. It came out as a messy solid cloud, and she stuck her tongue out at the smoke. "You tell me. I've been too busy with this ash thing to finish my preliminary review of the new arrivals."
Pinkie giggled. "Really, Twilight, not reading? Seriously?"
"I know, right?" Twilight said, and that sent her into a wheezing fit of laughter at the funniest thing in the whole damn world. "You know, Chrysalis, I'm not even mad," she lectured herself in between gasps. "I've got enough for four."
Pinkie collapsed into gales of helpless laughter with her. Spike stayed silent.
"… You're not?" Spike said as Twilight caught her breath. "You do?"
Twilight opened and closed her mouth, and finally decided she felt too damn good to spoil the moment. Ah, buck it, she thought, and offered him the joint.
Spike stared at it, then at her. "Ah, buck it," he said in a suddenly husky feminine voice, and a blast of green fire wreathed his form. The changeling queen crooked a leg-hole around the joint, drew it to her mouth, and took a long drag. "It's this or leave. Any minute now, he's going to start looking for you."
"Actually, that looks like Spike coming up the hill," Pinkie said.
Twilight giggled. "The universe is so much on your wavelength right now," she whispered to Chrysalis.
The two of them hoofbumped and stared at the sky together. And all was right with the world.
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Glorious, smoky insanity. And I'm always up for an eldritch Pinkie. A shame I couldn't join in in this Writeoff, but I'm very glad you shared this with us. Thank you for it.
Also, how high did those fire elementals get, anyway?
I'm not sure if I should say this is terrible or amazing...
I think I choose both.
I'm so upset with you for writing this.
I'm really glad you waited until today to post this.
Edit: I forgot how much I loved the Chrysalis gag. Hot damn.
I can't wait for this story to blaze the feature box.
8108851
I landed in the cheap seats where you need a pair of binoculars to even see the finalists.
They got a lot higher than my ranking in the Writeoff with this, that's for sure.
(Granted, I did warn everyone. And it did turn out better than I thought it would when I wrote that! Though I'm not surprised that it's already downvote-magneting here.)
8108901
I pretty much had to, once I realized that 4/20 was only a few weeks away!
8108855
Wise man.
8108876
... the epilogue, or the story in general? And why?
(I half-want to assume your statement is a joke based on your previous reaction in the Writeoff thread, but the Internet flattens out tone, and I can't 100% be sure.)
8108921
I was about to be all modest and say I stole it from somewhere, but ... a quick Google search isn't finding anywhere else that uses the phrase, except for a wiki I haven't heard of for a forum I haven't read.
Huh. So I guess I did coin a phrase. Glad you appreciate it!
8108925
Frankly, I thought I'd have more competition from other pot stories celebrating the holiday. But the front page is kind of a ghost town right now. It's been an hour since posting and this is still at the top of the New Stories column.
Smoking the dead. That is some hardcore late capitalism right there
8108937 I'm upset with you for doing it because now I can't unsee the image of Spike with a blunt in his mouth.
8108943
Everyone's too high to write.
Happy 4/20, horizon.
This looks like it will be your worst-rated story ever! Even I don't have one this bad.
I don't even think the Flash Sentry one reached 2:1 (but if not, it was pretty damn close).
Any ideas why? (I still need to read this.)
WHY IS THIS NOT 4,200 WORDS?
YOU HAD ONE JOB!
i like what you've done with the place.
I don't get the downvotes.
8108985 This is true. I started Phoenix Dust II : Migration Season today, but celebration cost me my ability to focus.
8108976
Soylent Green is people, maaaaaan!
engrish.com//wp-content/uploads/2008/08/nosmorking1.jpg
I came here expecting many shenanigans- and I was not disappointed. 420/420 would blaze again
8108985 So now people have created a holiday celebrating their ability to get stoned off their asses...
Ok, "Independence Day" aliens? You can invade now. I'll help. There's nothing left here worth saving.
This was good. I like it. Well done.
derpicdn.net/img/2012/10/18/126301/large.png
That explains so much.
And all was right with the world...
You don't haaavvvee ta wet sssoo lonng... jus... grahbbb the assssstreyy......
duuuude. yes.
s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/1a/d8/eb/1ad8ebfa2bcfac97d73bb0fb6b0f80b7.jpg
Well, here's two guys who'd love this version of Equestria:
Excuse the language if you're not into that...
8109163
You have recovered substantially.
Also, your featured groups are... amusing.
I liked this better on FIMFiction than I did in the writeoff, and I'm not sure why. Did you edit it significantly in any way, or was it just a mood thing?
Glowing reviews.
I loudly protest, my review was way longer than that and this summary is a terrible parody of the 2.000 words I've wrote (Now I just need to find the 1.946 missing words
).
Better than the first time, you've somehow managed to maintain the joke funny, avoiding the redundancy I reproached the fic with.
Good job
img4.hostingpics.net/pics/712229Upvote.png
*clap* *clap* *clap*
8116197
Oh, was that praise?
Maybe instead of writing 4/20 stories, you should spend some more time out searching—and see if you can rescue yourself from the Alicorn Princess of Meta.
8108976
This is my favorite comment on anything in at least the past month.
8116197
I've spent way too much time since fathoming how Blueblood is a gifted and eccentric creative. That doesn't excuse his also being unfit for polite company, but it does make him more worth thinking about...
8116233 the proletariat has nothing to lose but their dank kush
I really really REALLY wanna see more of this. XD
8116318
8116233
Because vaguely relevant:
i1278.photobucket.com/albums/y513/bradelbound/What%20class%20are%20you%20struggling%20with%20and%20why_zpscmnn4pwq.jpg
i1278.photobucket.com/albums/y513/bradelbound/17190763_1802641756723447_5226016062373174050_n_zps9xs0k8r7.png
i1278.photobucket.com/albums/y513/bradelbound/15440376_1750002605320696_7167563805274867332_o_zpstcaejfgh.jpg
Meh. Not enough of Spike getting high. Not enough of real Spike getting high.
Heh. I would have given this merely a thumbs-up, but the epilogue made this story worthy of a star.
8108982
Man, I didn't even make that, it was all Derpibooru.
8109163 8113879
I think a lot of the umbrage came from people who saw it on the front page. (It started out at 2:1, then was 3:1 not long after you read it, and ended up in the 4-5 to 1 range where it's likely to stay.) The frontpage-reading crowd tends to be a lot more knee-jerk than the usual reading crowd — I think there's like half a dozen people at any given time who scan the front page and just driveby-redthumb any topics, such as clop or drugs, that offend their moral sensibilities.
(Historically I've never seen any clop story make it off the front page with less than 6-8 downvotes. And this accumulated two downvotes within five minutes of its posting, long before anyone would have been able to read through it. Heck, Social Lubricant got a downvote before any text was posted — I linked it in a semi-obscure blog comment to show someone the art and story description, and it attracted a drive-by.)
8109240
I tried, but then someone at my gentleman's club bet me that I couldn't write around the daze in 80 words, and I had to leave space for that.
I'll be correcting that as soon as I dash home to retrieve Passepartout and some luggage.
8109966
See 8121262.
8113953
I don't think I edited it significantly in the sense of ripping out or rewriting large chunks, but there certainly was a lot of polishing that took place. The original Writeoff version had some bewildering transitions and janky punchlines — e.g. Celestia talking about the tea when Twilight said "But the science" — and I was surprised how much of a difference just smoothing out the writing made.
Notably, I redid Twilight's internal monologue in the first section to set up the overprotective parenting joke better; I slashed some dialogue in the princess confrontation to strengthen Twilight's lecture; and fiddled with the dialogue in the epilogue so the Chrysalis brick joke properly lands now (8108901's earlier approval notwithstanding). If 8114500's comment is any indication, I improved the overall flow too, which is good because that was the main goal!
8121269
See to it that you do!
In the meantime, I will maintain my warmth and wrath with the...23...upvotes my comment has generated.
8121348
Sounds to me like you've got 397 upvotes of your own to collect.
8121278
Aha! Fair enough. It certainly made a difference, then.
I reviewed this story as part of Read It Later Reviews #79.
My review can be found here.
8350434
yeah, something screwy happened and thought i was on the last chapter when i first wrote that, but have read the second one, and it seems you gave pinkie some nightmare fuel or something :B
8350491
Nightmare fuel? Hardly. You can't spell "Cthulhu fhtagn" without "fun"!
Seriously though, I see her not as a Great Old One, but as a My Little Pony version of a Great Old One: in this universe, even incomprehensible cosmic horrors are just there to chillax, enjoy themselves, and smoke some controlled substances with their friends. (So basically, this.)