Come together
The afternoon sun was a bit too warm for spring, almost summerlike, and this made Sundance wonder if Princess Celestia had fiddled with the thermostat. He was almost drowsy, perhaps from the sun, or possibly from the pain and his recovery. It was impossible to tell. Rustic had spread a blanket in the grass just for him and Sundance was sprawled on his belly, his eyes half-closed, and his thoughts were of napping.
Corduroy was with him still and Turmeric sat beside her. The smaller unicorn was gazing up at the much larger diamond dog with unfettered affection, perhaps even infatuation. He was downright starry-eyed at the moment, but Sundance was too out of it to notice. Rustic did though, and the mustachioed unicorn wore an amused smile.
“I think I’m in love,” Turmeric said to Corduroy.
Rustic made a ‘pfft’ sound while rolling his eyes.
“You can be in love and it doesn’t have to be sexual love.” Turmeric tore his gaze away from Corduroy to give the stink eye to Rustic. “More ponies should be in love with one another. Everything would be nicer.”
“I think not.” Rustic let go a snort and his eyes rolled around in a spectacular fashion. “We’re stupid, us ponies, and we’d get confused about our love and what it means and what to do about it. Everypony would be crazy jealous.”
“You can be in love with me,” Corduroy offered. “I don’t mind. Want to bring me gifts?”
“For you, anything.”
Sundance thought about chuckling, but was too lazy to do anything about it.
“I need plumbing.”
“Honey, I don’t swing that way. I can’t plunge your pipes.” This would have been funny if Turmeric wasn’t so sincerely apologetic with his words.
Corduroy chuckled, then, reaching out, she draped her arm over Turmeric’s withers. She sat there, her whole body shaking with soft laughter, and Sundance found that he too, was quite taken with how his nurse was, everything about her. She was a kind, perfect creature, and he felt good about himself for hiring her.
“I’m trying to construct hygienic bathing facilities.” She lowered her head to be a little closer to Turmeric’s ears. “So what I need is some kind of tank to hold water, with pipes and showerheads. We have all the hot water we would ever need. But this place sorely needs modern bathing facilities.”
“That’s something I can help you with.” Turmeric once again lost himself in Corduroy’s eyes, and it showed. He leaned up against her and then, in a bold move, he closed his eyes and rubbed his cheek against her side. “I’d bring you the moon, if you asked me.”
“Princess Luna might have something to say about that,” replied Corduroy while Turmeric rubbed up against her. “It doesn’t need to be fancy. Something from a salvage yard would work.”
“You’re wise and practical. The flames have been fanned, honey.”
Sundance couldn’t help himself; he felt just a teensy weensy bit jealous, and upon realising that he felt this way, he thought about what Rustic had just said. After some drowsily-slow thought, Sundance felt okay with sharing Corduroy. Or maybe he felt okay with sharing Turmeric. It was hard to tell where his jealousy had been directed. But he too, wanted to be loved by Turmeric, or maybe the pain was numbing his brain—as with his jealousy, it was impossible to tell.
“Can you help me too?” Sundance asked, his words muddled by his chin resting against the ground.
“Sure… what do you need?” With a turn of his head, Turmeric was now looking right at Sundance.
“I have an orchard that needs cleared. Dangerous brambles. Big thorns. Really big thorns. I don’t want my treasured earth ponies cut to shreds. Ribbons? I’ve eaten too much and I feel sleepy.” Somehow, Sundance yawned, even with his chin pressing against the ground.
“I can help with that.”
“Well, you don’t have to do that—”
“Sundance?”
“I don’t want you to feel obligated. You can tell me no and we’ll still be friends. My thoughts don’t make sense right now. Everything hurts. I lost my friend. I don’t want to lose another friend. So if you want to say no, that’s fine.”
Shaking his head from side to side, Rustic clucked his tongue. Sundance felt a curious awkwardness, because that tongue-clucking was directed at him, he just knew it, and he wondered if, perhaps, he had said to much. Thinking aloud had got him into trouble before. All of a sudden, he felt like crying, and he didn’t know why. His back hurt, but the pain he felt inside, in his heart, his back had nothing on that hidden, unseen pain.
“I hate asking for help. I think I have a bad case of pegasus pride. My mother warned me about this.” Miserable, aching, Sundance folded his forelegs over his face and did his best to hide himself from the world.
“Turmeric… I’m speaking to you as your employer.”
“Yeah?”
“I’m worried about my business partner,” Rustic said to his associate and companion. “But I also have to open the store in the morning. Inventory is coming in and you know how complicated that gets.”
“I do,” the spice-coloured unicorn replied.
Rustic drew in a deep breath, held it for a moment, and then let it out in a huff that ruffled his mustache. “Well, I’ll be. I have the same problem as Sundance. There is something I want you to do, and I know you’ll say yes, and that bothers me. You don’t say no much at all.”
“Just spit it out, you swallower.”
“Lewd.” Rustic’s mustache quivered. “Saucy.”
Turmeric waited.
“I need you to stay here tonight and look after Sundance. Having a unicorn around might be helpful. We can’t leave him this way. Listen to him, he’s a mess—”
“I’m right here,” Sundance said to his friends, his words muffled from beneath his forelegs. “Just because I can’t see you doesn’t mean I’m invisible. Or does it?”
A dismissive snort was all that Sundance got from Rustic, who then continued, “Can you do this, Turmeric? You’ll get to spend the night with Corduroy, too.”
“I don’t mind roughing it for a night. Or two.”
“You’ll be paid,” Rustic offered.
“Or three. Four is good.”
Again, Rustic snorted, and this was followed up with a wispy, lispy sigh. “So eager to say yes and take money. That worries me.”
“I’m a slut for friendship.” Turmeric’s eyes widened with self-surprise. “What would Princess Twilight Sparkle think?”
“That’s a good question,” said Corduroy, unseen by Sundance.
“Look, I’m aware that I don’t like saying no. For good or ill, I like doing what I’m told. But I’m really okay with doing this. You’re my friends and I don’t feel like I’m being taken advantage of. I know that you’ll reciprocate. But… I do… I do appreciate that you’re thinking of me. And I suppose that makes me want to do things for all of you even more. It’s funny how this works.”
Groaning, Sundance pulled his forelegs away from his face and his eyes were immediately mugged by the sun, who skewered them with golden spears of light. Almost crying just from the sudden light exposure, he moaned and then rolled over onto his side, his good side, the side where he didn’t have a gash that ran from the middle of his neck to halfway down his back.
He also laid on his wing wrong, but he couldn’t be bothered to move again.
Princess Celestia had said to make friends, and he had them. But he wasn’t sure what to do with them. Moving forward beyond this point was a total unknown. Cucumber was gone. Dead. Laid to rest in a grave near a tiny crystal tree that was apparently the miraculous magic of Princess Twilight Sparkle. Honestly, Sundance couldn’t even figure out how he had reached this point. He was indecisive and unassertive. Had he coasted to this point? His mind was going everywhere and as his thoughts grew heavy, he felt his drowsiness flee from him, chased away by the growing discomfort between his ears.
“Why are you helping Sundance?” Corduroy asked.
“I don’t follow,” replied Rustic. “You sound suspicious just now. Why?”
“I am more than his nurse.” Corduroy’s voice had a hardness to it now, and Sundance listened to her every word. “Not sure what my role is here just yet, but I am more than his nurse. Everything happens for a reason. This is my home… this barony is probably where I’ll spend my life, and if I am extraordinarily lucky, this is where I will make a name for myself. So… I want to know why you’re doing all of this. Is this just business?”
Turmeric pulled away from Corduroy, his ears now rested against the back of his head, and he looked at her with narrowed, curious eyes. There was a submissiveness to his appearance, but also a look of concern, of worry, and this gave him presence. Sundance could not help but think that something had changed with his friend.
“Sincerity,” said Rustic.
“Sincerity?” Corduroy repeated the word in guarded tones.
“Sincerity.” For a short time, Rustic’s lips pressed together, and his expression became thoughtful. “Canterlot has a lot of phonies. Fakes. Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of good ponies, but Canterlot has the reputation that it does for a reason. Let’s not fool around. There is a certain type of pony who does good to be a socialite. They want to be seen doing good, and they make a big deal of doing good. You see them at every party, every fundraiser, every charity ball.”
Rustic leaned forwards and one impeccably groomed eyebrow arched. “Tell me, Corduroy… with all of these do-gooders, did you find gainful employment? I heard you talking with Turmeric. For all of these progressive pilgrims exploring the frontiers of social equality, were you celebrated as a progressive cause and lifted up as a standard so that the rest of the world might follow Canterlot’s example?”
Corduroy’s silence spoke volumes.
“No?” Rustic snorted, a bitter, acerbic sound. “I didn’t think so. You want to know why I’m doing this? I savour sincerity. It’s like a fine wine. I’ve spent my life surrounded by fakes, phonies, social-climbers, social-vampires, and media-driven socialites. And then one day, I meet this doofus that has no idea what he’s doing, but he’s trying to do right. And in a city like Canterlot, that stood out to me. It stuck out like a ray of sunshine that somehow finds its way through the most bleak, most oppressive storm clouds.
“So here’s this clueless pegasus blindly stumbling about, trying to find his way. He doesn’t talk with buzzwords, or the entirely fake language of the Canterlot Socialite. There is no fad cause, no big to-do, he’s not trying to find sponsors to do some social stunt that will get him noticed. He’s just trying to find stuff his peasants need. Within twenty minutes of meeting him, I know that he’s just the sort of pony I need in my life so I don’t become bitter. Cynical. Jaded. I desperately need somepony… somebody to reaffirm my faith in simple goodness… altruism. Doing the right thing for the sake of doing the right thing, and not for personal gain or benefit. Because… if I don’t have this in my life… I am going to lose my mind.”
Sundance tried to relax all of the muscles that had gone tense without his awareness of them doing so. Rustic sounded like a completely different pony—a second pony that Sundance didn’t know. With everything said, Sundance didn’t know what to think, or feel for that matter. Rustic had just bared himself, exposed his very soul for all to view, but Sundance was the one left feeling naked—a weird state of being for a naturally nude creature.
“Does that satisfy your need to know?” Rustic asked.
In response, Corduroy nodded, but nothing was said.
“Rustic, I had no idea.” Turmeric rose from where he sat, took a few steps, and sat down beside the mustachioed unicorn. “I… Rustic… I…” Words failed him, and he fell silent.
Snorting, Rustic turned away and stared off at nothing in particular. After a moment, he said, “I feared I was becoming the very thing I hated. To live among the fakes the phonies, I had to become one. Good business. I had to pretend that I liked them… that I adored them. To be accepted by them I had to give them the token recognition that they believed they were entitled to. Sometimes, it felt as though I was losing myself and that my business persona is taking over. Or… I don’t know how to put it. I’m not sure if those are the right words. Something about them feels wrong, even as it feels right to say them.”
Rolling over onto his belly, Sundance lifted his head up off of the ground. One by one, he looked at his friends, studying them, trying to understand them. He thought of his attempts at being a writer, and his exploration of empathy. Sundance thought of a lot of things all at once, but he did not feel overwhelmed.
“We have a chance to do good,” he said to his companions. “Not to impress others, or gain a spot on a leaderboard, or for the sake of celebrity. We can do good for own sakes, with our focus only on each other. I feel like I should give some rousing speech, but I have no clue what to say.”
“Well said, as is.” Turmeric slipped a foreleg over Rustic’s withers and gave his companion a gentle shake of reassurance. “We’re a long ways from Canterlot out here. We can be ourselves… and do good for our own benefit. Not for the sake of urbane sophistication.”
“I wish Henny was here,” Rustic said as he leaned against Turmeric.
“Help me build my barony.” Sundance looked at his companions again, making eye-contact with each of them in turn. “It’s a fixer-upper. I need an inner-circle. There’s probably titles and such for the assistants I need, but I have no clue what those are. There is exactly one pony that I want to impress, and that’s really all I care about. Well, maybe more than one. But my point still stands. Help me.”
“I’m here, aren’t I?” Corduroy plucked a blade of grass and flicked it into the wind.
“Well, I’m technically looking for work. Right now, I have a job, but I am looking for a career.” Turmeric pulled Rustic closer, and squeezed him. “I wouldn’t mind a comfortable position beneath a baron. I could bear the weight of rule, I guess, if I had to.”
“That’s lewd,” Corduroy remarked.
“Oh, honey, I know.”
Turning his head, Rustic sighed as his gaze came to rest upon Turmeric. “I just need something I can believe in again…”
- There's a whole lot of lewd here.
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You say
lewd"
"
I say
lewd!"
"
As a serious note, I really, really love the way your wrote these 4, and specifically their interactions. This kind of chemistry is hard to write well.
9395878
Agreed, character interactions are my favorite part of these stories.
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y.yarn.co/c712e1f7-cf6f-4711-a8f1-6f831dfe7f93_screenshot.jpg
"We can't handle lewds of this magnitude!"
knew
Aw Sundance, you're really a good pegasus.
9395942
We haven't hit Chrysalis-repulsing levels of lewdness yet, so you've got room to grow.
Unless you're a shower, of course.
I am so pleased with these huge, soulful gays. Fills my heart right up. And Cord is a treat.
I check for updates to this story more than any other at the moment. Grabbed my attention and hasn't let go.
Do baronies have a position for Official Innuendoer? Because i think Tumeric is applying.
9395942
Magnilewds.
LEWD
There is a lot of great things that are said in this. I always love it when Celebrities use their Fame & Fortune to do good not just temporarily here and there, but more long term. Like how Chris Evans has his own children's hospital that he visits regularly in costume.
There is also something to be said about how the Evils of the world can break us down. That we need to associate ourselves with those who are able to lift us up. It's all too easy to see the world as a complete cesspool of darknesss...but praise to those who are able to shine a light in the darkness like Sundance has for Rustic.
One of the things I like about this story is how consistently there is Hope & Lightness brought into Weedverse. It's not just "PROBLEMS WE CAN"T SOLVE!" or "TERRIFYING ABOMINATIONS!". It's a story of Healing.
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His grandmother approves.
I am so sending you the dry cleaning bill for the soda I sprayed everywhere.
how delightfully lewd
Hey Kud, you can do it. I believe in you.
9405443
Spitters are quitters!
Gotta say, I've got a bad habit of binging your stories, Kudzu... Unfortunately, I was only able to make it through 53 chapters in the five hours I had before I passed out, but I'll get around to catching up when I slog through the rest of my day. For now though, I want to say that I really love the development you've had in this one, and I want to say it's fighting for one of my favorite stories from the Weedverse. I've got a lot to catch on with all of the Weedverse—
her Immortal GraceCelestia knows that I'm super far behind with Flicker, and I haven't even touched swans yet—but this one has got the worldbuilding that drug me into the Weedverse in the first place, but it's so condensed and sweet with the demesne you've set up for Sundance.And to contradict myself, I already have an opinion ready, and that is that Sundance and his ponies (but wait, there's more!) are by far my favorite characters you've ever written. Their lives may not be so bright now, but you've got the seeds of a sea of sunflowers planted in their souls and I love it all so much. I think someone earlier commented that you put in a lot of work to make your characters feel very real, and these are some of the most realistic faces I've enjoyed through your imagination.
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Thank you, so much.
9607618
No seriously, thank you for all your years of pushing words out for us. I know life hasn't been so hot for you lately, but that doesn't stop the fact that you've given... well for once I'll say you've given me dozens of experiences that will be hard to forget with time... and I try to preserve those experiences by sharing what you've written with others beyond the fandom in the poorest translation possible; I'll gab about your works with friends in that hushed voice to restrain myself from saying "and they were ponies!" I love translating your stories to oral, because they're some of the most 'story' stories to ever be storied, and I mean that in the most exact way possible.
Anyways, I think by the time I catch up with Sundance and where he stands now, reading about your little fiefdom will give me the motivation to work on mine; was trying to write about Twilight Velvet and her own little fiefdom a few years back, and so far hearing about Sundance's fief has really given me joy and rekindled my writing flame overnight.
Again, thank you, Kudzu. I wouldn't have the urge to build a lot of my worlds if it weren't for your inspiration.