Balancing books with her magic, Twilight carefully places them on the edge of her desk, squaring them up to fit perfectly within reach of her hands while still being out of her way. "Now, Spike, put the inkwell at the front, in the middle." Spike sets the inkwell down, plopping the quill into the ocher liquid. "Good. Now.... Let's arrange the paper..." Her tongue sticking out of her mouth the tiniest bit, she takes a stack of parchment and positions it to the left of the quill, at the edge of the desk, and places one piece right in the middle. Stepping back to look at their work, she makes a small unhappy sound.
Spike sighs dramatically. "This is the third time we've arranged this desk, Twilight! Does it really matter where everything is?"
Throwing her hands up in consternation, Twilight huffs angrily. "It has to be perfect so that I don't have to spend time rearranging things while trying to complete my report on this season's expected weather change! How am I supposed to work efficiently when I keep bumping my elbows on books or, Celestia forbid, knocking over the inkwell!"
Spike is about to open his mouth with a smart rebuttal when there's a soft knock on the door downstairs, barely loud enough to hear from the study. Shaking his head, Spike stomps down the stairs to answer it, leaving Twilight to her desk debacle. Opening the door, he steps back to let Fluttershy in. "Welcome to the library castle, home to the most OCD Princess in all of Equestria."
Fluttershy laughs a little at that, offering Spike a basket of fresh carrot cake muffins. "These are for you and Twilight, since it's so early and all."
Spike licks his lips, eyes wide at the prospect of breakfast. "Awesome! Twilight moved breakfast back to nine o' clock to get some work done so she doesn't forget what she read last night before bed."
"Oh, she's always working. Never takes time to think about herself." Fluttershy starts up the stairs, Spike close behind with half a muffin already in his mouth. "I guess she's in the study, then."
"Mmmfff-- yesh." Spike spews little crumbs of carrot cake trying to speak.
Reaching the study, Fluttershy gives Spike a small smile. "Why don't you go eat breakfast? I'm gonna talk to Twilight for a bit."
Nodding eagerly, Spike swallows done the mouthful of muffin. "Ok!" He scampers off to the kitchen.
Fluttershy finds Twilight still worrying over her desk, the parchment sheets now having switched places with the books. "Hi, Twilight."
Without looking up, Twilight flashes a smile. "Hey, Fluttershy. What's up?" She moves the bottom book to the top of the stack, stares at it for a moment, then moves it back to the bottom. "Sorry, I'm a little busy right now. Big report for Princess Celestia."
"That's ok. I just wanted to see if you wanted to relax a little today, maybe? You did just get back from Cloudsdale last night. You must be tired." Taking her backpack off, she sets it down, rummaging through it. "I was hoping you'd try something with me."
Her curiosity piqued enough to pull her away from the desk, Twilight cocks her ears at Fluttershy. "I don't know if I can take too much time away from my report since it's due next month and I still haven't researched the ratio of weather patterns to workers required, but... Yeah, sure! What did you have in mind?"
Fluttershy pulls a glass jar out of her bag, filled with some kind of dried plant. "I use this to help with my anxiety and nervousness, plus it helps me feel better after a lot of work tending to the animals. I figured that you might want to try it since you've been so busy being a Princess lately." Twilight blushes a bit at the reminder. "Here, smell it." She opens the jar and hands it to Twilight.
Nearly sticking her nose into the jar, Twilight sniffs at it and recoils a bit. "Woah! That's weird." She sniffs it again, wrinkling her nose. "It smells... Earthy? Sweet? What is it?"
"It's called cannabis. I get it from a pony who grows it on the edge of the Griffin Empire." She takes the jar back, pinching up some of the dried bud and putting it into a metal grinder. "But you can also call it weed, because it grows like one."
Twilight watches, fascinated, as Fluttershy turns the grinder in her hands for a minute before opening it up to reveal the finely ground plant matter. "What do you do with it?"
Reaching into her bag again, Fluttershy pulls out a cob pipe. "You know how Cranky sometimes has a pipe like this that he blows smoke out of? Well, he's smoking tobacco, but it works the same way."
"Oh..." Twilight scratches behind one of her ears nervously. "I don't want to smoke anything, I mean, all the books say that it hurts your lungs and stuff."
"There's nothing to worry about, Twilight. I know your books don't say anything about cannabis, but smoking it doesn't produce the same smoke as tobacco, and it's actually not nearly as bad." She starts packing the pipe with the ground weed, nimble fingers working quickly to fill the bowl. "But, if you don't want to try it, then I won't make you. I use it to relax so I can stop stressing over things for a bit and go back to work when I feel better, and I thought you might want to do that too."
"I mean," Twilight sighs, "I would love to try something that helps you, I just... I don't know if it's good for me."
Fluttershy nods, producing a box of matches from her bag. "I understand, it's ok. But, can I smoke a bit? Maybe on the balcony?"
"Yeah, sure. I'll go out with you." The balcony of the study leads out into warm sunlight, the view facing out to the mountains in the distance. "How did you find out about this stuff?"
Once they're outside, Fluttershy strikes a match and lights the bowl, taking a long drag and holding before blowing out a thin stream of translucent smoke. "Tree Hugger brought some back for me when she went to the Griffin Empire a few years back. I've been using it ever since whenever I feel like I need to relax."
The smoke wafts over to Twilight, and she sniffs the air. "It doesn't smell as bad as Cranky's tobacco, I guess."
Puffing on the bowl again, Fluttershy blows another plume before holding the pipe out to Twilight. "You're welcome to try it?"
Staring down at the pipe, Twilight can feel her resolve melting. Fluttershy wouldn't do anything to hurt me... So why am I so scared? Maybe just once... "...Ok. Now," she takes the pipe in her hands awkwardly, "How do I do this?"
Guiding her fingers on the pipe, Fluttershy moves Twilight's thumb to the carb and wraps the other fingers around the bowl. "It's really simple. I'll light it fresh for you, and you'll breathe in through the pipe with your thumb on the hole." She strikes a match and holds it to the green once Twilight puts the stem to her mouth. "Breathe for just a few seconds... Now, move your thumb off the hole and breathe the smoke in."
As soon as the smoke hits her throat, Twilight gasps and coughs, spluttering, and hands the pipe back to Fluttershy. Once she catches her breath, she wheezes a bit before talking. "Wow-- that stung a lot!" Her voice is choked and her eyes watery. "I thought you said it would relax me?"
"Oh," Fluttershy shakes her head, "Of course it won't relax you immediately. I guess I should've mentioned that it would sting a bit, but it will be worth it in just a minute."
True to her word, after a few minutes of watching Fluttershy hit the pipe again, Twilight begins to feel... Strange. "My head feels lighter, like it's floating? Is that normal?"
"Oh, yes," she smiles softly, "that's completely normal. Do you want to try again?"
Looking apprehensively at the bowl, Twilight bites her lip. "I don't know, what if it hurts again?"
"It's just something you have to get used to, but... There's something we can do if you don't want to hit it again."
Twilight nods slowly.
"Ok. Now, open your mouth." Twilight does so, and Fluttershy hits the pipe, speaking around the smoke. "I'm going to blow the smoke into your mouth; inhale it when I do." She leans forward, blowing a slow stream into Twilight's mouth until her breath is gone.
Twilight inhales, the smoke not stinging nearly as much as it did, and exhales in a few short coughs. "That *cough* wasn't as bad."
Beaming at her friend, Fluttershy takes another match out of the box. "If you want to do that a few more times, you could feel the effects of it better. Then, if it doesn't sting as much, you can try to hit the pipe again."
"I do actually like how it feels... Like there's less weight in my head. It feels cloudy, I think?"
"It should feel that way. Your thoughts will slow down, causing you to relax a little bit because there's less going on to worry about. It lets you forget for a while everything that's bothering you." Fluttershy's smile grows wider as she explains the effect grows on her. "That's why it helps my anxiety so much. On days when there are so many things I'm scared of, it lets me take time to feel better and collect myself. Maybe for you, it can help you slow down and stop putting so much pressure on yourself for things."
Blushing at Fluttershy's insistence that she works too hard, Twilight sighs. "Yeah, but I don't really have that time to relax."
"You have to make time, Twilight, or else you never get to relax, and that's when you end up over-stressed and panicking. Even if you don't have much time, you can smoke and then go back to what you're doing refreshed and ready to start again." She takes a draw on the pipe, motioning to Twilight to open up, and blows it into her mouth. "To me, it's just as therapeutic as going to the spa with Rarity."
A few more shotguns later, and Twilight's world has changed. She's leaned back into the chair, arms limp at her side and eyes turned up to the clear morning sky dazedly. "Wow, Fluttershy this is really neat. What did you say this was called again?"
Fluttershy giggles. "It's called weed."
Twilight blinks slowly. "Weed... I like it."
Author's Note
To be continued...
